I don't think the title was ironic. The case IS a victory for the government--the only way it wouldn't a victory is if you consider the government to be the people. The people are not the government, because the U.S. isn't really a democracy. We vote for people very few years who then get to do whatever the hell they want, the only penalty being we could, in theory, put them out of office. But with two companies counting the vast majority of the votes in the Presidential election, and the companies are controlled by individuals (who are related) loyal to one party, and there is no paper trail for votes, there is little reason to think that anyone from another party will be elected anytime soon. Even that is just a backup safeguard, because the system itself is rigged to the 2 big parties can for the most part keep other candidates out of the picture.
McVeigh used a truck, so you might just want to stay at home and hide under the bed. Not to mention all the vehicle-carried suicide bombs being used in liberated Iraq. Not to mention that the petroleum you're using to drive around directly funds the Saudis and other people who only pretend to like us because we pay them, and then they turn around and directly fund terrorists. I'm not blaming you, but I do love to muddy the water and get everyone depressed.
The first two words ("Your Rights") misled people into thinking that rights did in fact exist. The section is being disbanded for lack of applicability. A new segment, entitled, "Ways in which liberals want to help the terrorists" is being contemplated, but the details haven't been worked out yet.
On a positive note, "online" remains usable, and we hope to see it worked into the new version.
I think the examples you gave were closer to hyperbole than actual conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are a bit more complex and shadowy, with an actual, you know, theory, like "Clinton killed Vince Foster because Vince was about to expose x, y, and z about his something or other in Arkansas, and then he hid the body, planted the gun, and...." You get the idea. Yes, people are antsy over due process and the rule of law, mainly because the President of the United States and Attorney General have explicitly repudiated any legal limits to anything they want to do that's connected to the War on Terror. When I get an apology for Ann Coulter's existence and influence, then I'll apologize for the rank, foaming-at-the-mouth paranoia inherent in my insistence that the accused is innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.
By the time your conditions are met, it would be too late. If I knew a guy who used the word "nigger," and talked a lot about "state's rights" and "people not knowing their place," I'd publicly shame him and make every effort to call him out. What I wouldn't do is blow him off just because I haven't seen him lynch anyone. I know what the code words are, what the core ideas are for that worldview, and they aren't that hard to spot. Similarly, we know what the core structures of totalitarianism are: imprisonment without trial, torture, secret prisons, and so on. Just as I know someone's a racist even if they haven't lynched anyone, I know the roots of totalitarianism, even if we don't live in the society you describe in your post.
I'm not saying that we should man the barricades and break out the ammo, only that we have a responsibility to not let it get to that point before we say, "hey dammit, this is wrong." This is where the battle is, for the most part--with words. Ideas and principles matter. What we are willing to tolerate changes to accomodate what we've already tolerated, because we largely can't admit that we looked the other way. If we tolerate it on the small scale, what moral argument do we make to oppose the exact same practices on the large scale?
We have to recognize wrong and raise bloody hell about it, if only via a few posts on a lame blog or in a conversation over the water cooler at work. I'm not an activist, but when I speak up, here or in real life, it may give confidence to someone else who has been quietly thinking "you know, this doesn't look right." If I'm silent, that one quiet little voice caves into the raucous majority and eventually they don't have any doubts that it's okay for Padilla or anyone else to rot away in jail without the "privelege" of a trial. A voice of dissent, one who brings up the ideals we all ostensibly believe in, is more important than you think. If I followed your lead, I'd wait until no voice was possible. What do you want me to do, wait until I'm being herded into a black van with a hood over my face to cry out "golly, this is wrong?"
Soooooo I shouldn't note concerning developments until we have a full-fledged police state? I shouldn't say "if we're not careful, we'll end up with a police state" until we do, in fact, have a police state?
And you feel this proves the Fourth Amendment is going down the toilet? That we all should shiver in our beds because the Feds might arrest us at any moment, for no reason at all?
Well, no. I said neither, and implied neither. What I said is, in fact, correct, and you can be arrested and held without charge as long as the government wants to hold you. If they want you to be tortured, they can have you secreted away to a prison where there is no oversight, and no accountability if you're beaten to death. I know you'd like to rephrase this as "oh my god they're killing all the babies, everywhere, without exception!" so I seem like a lunatic, instead of addressing what I'm actually saying. Your problem is that what I'm actually saying has already come to pass. You're arguing not with a lunatic describing hypothetical doomesday scenarios, but a concerned person who is worried about individual occurrences that can easily become a trend if we don't oppose them on principle.
You see, I care about the principle, and if you care about the principle, you don't wait for x or x+500 cases, because it's wrong the very first time you see it. If that first time is met with swift correction, and the person is freed (or charged, so due process is honored), the people responsible fired or demoted, and a public committment made to due process, then no, you don't take to the streets decrying a headlong slide into tyranny. But when the President and Attorney General firmly stand by their decision, and repudiate any possible oversight over or check on this authority, then, well, yes, you moron, I'm going to be concerned.
At what point would you consider it a legitimate concern? 10 people? 100? 10,000? The U.S. is a nation of 300 million people, and we already imprison more than anyone else on the planet, so you're going to have to give me numbers. If you've read my other posts at all, you must notice that what I'm concerned about is the slow normalization of imprisonment without trial. Every one that goes unchallenged makes it closer to normal, makes it more acceptable, and raises the bar of what we have to see before we can raise questions without being called alarmist by people like you. Torture is already normalized in the public consciousness, so when I say it's wrong, I find that I have to justify what I'm saying. The problem is that what people are willing to accept will change to fit what they've already accepted. And my friend, I'm not accepting any of it.
So the cynicism and paranoia on Slashdot are due not to government holding people without trial, or torturing and beating them to death in secret prisons, or fabricating a rationale for a war that has killed tens of thousands, or ubiquitous surveillance without any oversight, but because of my alarmism concerning all of the above documented and well-known events? O God, what have I done?
No, this isn't Padilla. I, too, noticed right away that this was a different biped. But in a nation where you can be held without trial, and the government has explicitly and adamantly repudiated any checks or oversight on their authority to hold you without trial for as long as they see fit, then all arrests are tainted. If trials are optional, then all trials slowly become show-trials. You either have due process and a presumption of innocence or you do not. That every suspect isn't tortured and secreted away to a hellhole where they can be "interrogated" away from the anti-American organizations like the Red Cross doesn't exactly warm the cockles of my heart. Flowers bloomed even under the Khmer Rouge, jack. But do you believe in the principles that keep us free, or don't you? If you do, then you have be be concerned. If not, well, so it goes.
There isn't a magic number of "disappearances" or "renditions" or deaths by torture that have to be added up before the police-state litmus-paper turns ugly colors. What would you say does differentiate a police state from a bastion of liberty? Can you have imprisonment without trial, torture, and secret prisons and still be call someone an extremist or alarmist for talking about imprisonment without trial, torture, and secret prisons? At what point does talking about documented, known reality stop being alarmist? I didn't say that every case was a Padilla case, but I do say that the Padilla case, and a growing number of similar cases, will eat away whatever integrity and credibility our system has. They taint the rest, because lurking over every investigation, every interrogation, every question asked, will be a smirk and a quiet "we don't HAVE to do this, so you want to be helpful." Yes, dammit, it matters.
I call them detainees, not suspects. Some are no doubt suspected of crimes, but many in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib were caught up in sweeps, or are held because they are thought to have information. Holding someone because you want to interrogate them for information isn't the same thing as holding them because you think they themselves have done or will do something bad. "Interrogation" does not address guilt or innocence, and in fact any of us can be interrogated, regardless of our guilt or innocence. Some of these people have been the victim of a Kafkaesque "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" imprisonment. They knew a guy who knew a guy who was at this place this other person might have passed through, and ergo they might know something, so we'll hold them for a while. Since there is very little oversight, very little accountability for abuse, coupled with high accountability for failing to get information, in short order we have waterboarding and people being beaten to death. Calling them "suspects" makes us feel better about not caring, because we're at least halfway implying that they might have done something, but in reality being held for interrogation doesn't even assert guilt, much less provide evidence for it.
Well, they can't arrest him without a warrant. So clearly they've got charges ready to file, and a judge has already been convinced he might be guilty of them
Now THAT was funny. No, they don't need a warrant, or probable cause, nor does an arrest, or being in jail for any length of time imply guilt of anything. He (and you, or I, or anyone) can be arrested and held in detention as long as the federal government wants to, without any charges. They won't come out and say "we don't need to charge him, and we'll keep him as long as we want," but they consistently deny any overt checks on their power to do so. This is a slam-dunk, already-passed, fait accompli type of thing. The precedent has already been set with Padilla and a few others, and once the feds discovered that there is no formidable public outrage, it's only a matter of slowly, ever so slowly, increasing the frequency with which it is done. If you arrest 10,000 people tomorrow without charge the public would never stand for it, but if you get them used to it gradually, they'll not only support it but heap scorn and contempt on anyone who would criticize something so critical to our "safety." By gradually acclimatizing the population to detention without charge, they slowly make it normal and acceptable, and eventually the practice can expand beyond supposedly one-off "emergency" cases like Padilla or the terrorist of the week.
The same goes for torture. Today, if you object to torture, you have to justify your position, because Gitmo and Abu Ghraib have inoculated everyone against the idea that torture is by definition wrong. Police states don't happen overnight, and as they develop into fruition, "normal people" won't recognize the status quo as a police state--it'll just be normal, a "nothing to see here" common-sense extension of what we see every day.
How long has Joseph Padilla been in jail? Have they had enough time yet? My credulity is a bit strained these days, I admit. But the current government has repeatedly claimed the authority to detain anyone, for any length of time, without having to meet any evidentiary or due process standard. If they come out with some dire claims about this arrest, you might think, "well, then there's something to this, after all," but until they present evidence, we have to assume that he's innocent. That skepticism has to be automatic and unconditional to be effective.
Yes, I'm advocating a bit of hostility towards government actions, because the preservation of freedom requires just that. Otherwise, we start trusting government, giving them the benefit of the doubt, a bit of time, a bit more time, and eventually you do reach a state where the government can detain anyone for an indefinite length of time without needing the formality of charging them. I'm not demanding that they explain anything to me, only that I'm going to assume that he's innocent until evidence is presented at trial, and he's convicted of a crime. The mentality that considers that unreasonable is what I was criticizing. You have to give someone the benefit of the doubt, and I give mine to the accused, every time. By definition the only alternative is to give the government the benefit of the doubt.
We shouldn't judge too quickly, because the government deserves the benefit of the doubt. To presume that he's innocent would just be knee-jerk tinfoil-hat paranoia.
We're so screwed. People like you have effectively killed the skepticism of government actions on which freedom relies. Thanks. We really appreciate all you've done.
It would have to be Barry Bonds. Everyone else gets to plead "classified information" and "national security," which leaves him and Martha Stewart as the only possible criminals in the country, and Martha has already done her time. Plus he's, well, black.
I may be a market of one, but I'd like a way to print custom editions of public-domain works. I have before me a Nelson pocket bible, a very small and thin 1,000-page book that will lay open on my knee while I'm scribbling in a Moleskine journal propped on my other knee. It's the perfect size for traveling, for carrying in a backpack, etc. What I want is a way to get ANY public-domain work printed in just this type of small, durable binding, on India/bible paper, for a reasonable price. It annoys me to no end that there is no India-paper edition of Shakespeare in print. Why the heck not? I also want similar editions of Blake and Milton. If I could get any public-domain work printed in the same dimensions, on the same paper, I'd be one ecstatic customer, and someone would get a lot of my money.
I think there is a market for custom-designed editions of classic, public-domain works. I have reasonably-sized India-paper editions of Blake and Shakespeare, but they're long out of print, relatively expensive, and I can't easily replace them if they get damaged, so I'm hesitant to use them as casually as I would if I could just order another copy for $40 or so.
I don't think people are anticipating writing the equivalent of "War and Peace" and changing the literary world. But I can think of two uses of DIY off the top of my head. I want a small volume of the complete works of Shakespeare. I can buy a 60-year old copy printed on India paper, but I would love to be able to contract for a new one (with durable binding, printed on India paper) using public-domain texts. The same is true of many of my favorite writers, all of whom have works availabe in the public domain. I'd love to be able to design an edition of Ulysses or the works of Poe and get it printed, like I want it, at a reasonable price.
Also, I once had a girl's poetry bound for her in a nice book. Was it great poetry? No, she was no Blake. But it was a nice gesture, and it communicated what I wanted to communicate. I wasn't saying "you're a great poet whose work will survive through the ages," but "what you had to say was important to ME."
This isn't about breaking into the literary world and becoming famous. Sometimes there is a market of precisely one. But if I'm that one, I'd still like a way to buy the book I want for a price I can afford.
Don't worry. If any president pulled something like that without a damn good reason like alien invasion or China declaring war on US, then we'd find that president and his vice president dead at the hands of the either the secret service or the military. Our military would not put up with a dictator
Your optimism may be running away from you a bit here. Historically, militaries have been firmly on the side of autocracy. I'm a bit foggy on my Roman history, but I think their Praetorian guard accelerated their decline from a democracy to being led by an emperor. A large standing military has long been thought to be a danger to freedom. Individual members of the military may be conscientious, but the leadership, and the culture at large, is authoritarian, and prefers the efficiency and predictability of strong leadership over the chaos of democracy. This is ostensibly just because of the mission they have to accomplish, but the mindset is a seductive one. There is at least one general I know of (Boykin, possibly, but I'm not sure) who's a Christian Reconstructionist.
There are a lot of Evangelicals at the higher levels of the military, which tells me that there are probably a few Christian Reconstructionists/Dominionists, and they have ideals that are very antithetical to freedom and democracy. No, I'm not saying that there is a plot afoot to take over the government. But if there was a large terrorist attack right before or during the election, with some prominent people killed, and Vice-President Cheney had to step in and become President, and the election was "put on hold" to the "tragic circumstances" I don't think the military or civil service would put a bullet in his head. Again, I'm not saying that there's a plot afoot, though you can Google "Operation Northwoods" if you consider it an ridiculous, bizarro idea. But I do think that, if the right confluence of events came to pass, the election could be suspended, and with the right PR blitz it could be effectively sold to enough of the American public to make it viable.
No, the vast majority of elected Democrats are in favor of withdrawing, the only disagreement is to when that withdrawl should occur.
Okay, by your logic, the Republicans also favor withdrawing, the only difference being when. When should we withdraw, if not now? 10 years? 25? When Iraq is a peaceful, western-style democracy? The government of Iraq NOW uses torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, etc, and is corrupt up to its eyeballs, and in addition is seen as a puppet of the US by the Shiites. If our main goal is human rights, at what point do we re-liberate Iraq from the government they have now? When do we "liberate" all the other autocratic regimes we support? As I've said before, I'm sorry the west installed, financed, and supported Saddam, and I'm sorry we bombed the crap out of their country after we decided his government was no longer in our strategic interests, but at some point we have to realize it's none of our business.
The only other opinion that I would respect on this issue is one saying flat-out that we must retain control of, if not ownership over, the oil in that region, thus we must, by definition, retain a pro-US government in Iraq. It would follow from that that we cannot allow a Shiite-led, anti-US democracy or autocracy to take hold, and so we have to stay however long it takes to keep that region US-dependent and loyal, even if that means literally forever. That would indicate a permanent US military presence. Now, I disagree with that conclusion, but at least I would respect that conclusion. It's an intellectually honest position to have. Otherwise we just have a lot of hand-waving.
What we're doing now is called "chasing the pot" in poker. It's stupid and expensive, even if it feels right in your gut. This is going to be disgusting any way it plays out, because our hands are dirty up to the elbows already. If President Bush decides tomorrow to pull out immediately, as in right f--ing now, then suddenly pulling out will no longer be "cutting and running," but "the right thing to do." Whatever we do, whatever we accomplish, will be sold as "success" on Fox news and the administration, and people will buy it. The President can say ten minutes from now that it's not our responsibility to decide Iraq's destiny, that we wish them well and godspeed, and that we're pulling American troops home so we can throw them a parade, and Limbaugh, Coulter, et al will crow about his magesterial and sagacious insight. Would Democrats insist that we stay "until the job is done?" What exactly is "the job?" What is the objective? Saying "when the job is done" is nebulous because you've never specified the job. I know what Bush means--he means never, or at least not before Armageddon and the Rapture (in whatever order that's supposed to happen in). What do Democrats mean?
So you're saying I could be "part of the solution" by voting straight Democrat? Wow, you've made an insightful, cogent argument. Only not. Did you miss the part where I said I was frightened by Ruby Ridge and Waco? Has it escaped your notice that most of the Democratic party opposes withdrawal from Iraq? You're acting as if the Democrats have been staunch defenders of American liberty throughout the Bush presidency, when in actuality they shafted us right along with him. Your party, if in fact it ever stood for anything, is dead. Your candidates are cowards. Yes, my choice is between your cowards and the Christian Dominionists, but that doesn't make your candidates any less repulsive. I liked Kerry (on occasion) during the election, but ultimately he still supported the Iraq war. But he "would have done it differently." Wow. I'm floored.
Where does the Democratic position on Iraq leave me? Even assuming I believe the laughable assertion that we're there to "liberate" Iraq, I don't actually believe that it's the job of the US government to save the world. I'm real sorry that the UK installed Saddam, and I regret that the US and the rest of the west tolerated, funded, and supported him for decades, and I'm embarassed that we were so shocked an appalled over his gassing of the Kurds that we doubled his financial assistance after he did it, but I still don't think it's our job to ensure that every Iraqi child gets a pony. But neither major American party is coming out and saying "this is none of our damned business." They're all hedging and sliding around, but none of these jerks is really coming out and saying that we have no business at all over there, nor did we ever have any business over there. So to vote for your party, and be part of this "solution" you offer to me, would be to support the very policies that I find so objectionable.
What I want to know is this--exactly how is "more of the same, only different" really being "part of the solution?" How will that fix my wagon? Answer that, and I'll respect you. Otherwise, you're a hack, and you're no better than the O'Reilly crowd that Dailkos ridicules so justly.
The Corporation is a legal entity designed to insulate the owners and managers from responsibility, while allowing them to reap benefits. So yes, I support legislation restoring a degree of responsibility. I loved the documentary The Corporation, and I actually enjoy quite a few Lefty-type documentaries. I particularly liked The Merchants of Cool (if I remember the title correctly). I am a libertarian not in that I think unfettered capitalism is all that great, only that I think it sucks less than everything else. Plus, I don't think that what passes for capitalism really is anything like a "free market," so to support large government-subsidized corporations, with their government-protected markets and government-sanctioned immunity from responsibility, it really isn't "free market capitalism" you're defending.
But I admit I always get a little cautious when it comes to solutions. I distrust any top-down solution, however seemingly well-designed. I think the only way to really get away from the worst abuses of capitalism is for us to stop buying all this crap, and to ethically stop putting the profit motive first. But I'm no ascetic myself, nor do I expect anyone else to be, so I can't be very optimistic about the outcome there. It isn't very insightful to observe that the world would be better if people were better, but I think that's the only improvement we can really hope for. The world is this way because we are this way. I don't think we can come up with any solution to "implement," from the left or the right, that will cure the problems that we ourselves have gone to such great lengths to create.
Corporations exist because we want them to--we want the ability to go into business, make a buck, but not be bothered by actual responsibility for the debts and problems our decisions incur. Well, gasp, that isn't very f-ing healthy. Extrapolate that to the large scale, and you have Enron and Haliburton. So to me, this isn't just a left-vs-right type of thing. The enemy is us, because no one is immune to self-interest and greed. I have no idea how that could be changed.
If any entity can declare itself immune from investigation or oversight, then they are effectively declaring themselves immune from the law. Ergo, the probability that the acts in question were "illegal" are inversely proportional to the odds that President Bush authorized them. Okay, so I'm being facetious, but the fact is that the acts can't be considered "illegal," ever if he can block investigation, and thus any chance of impeachment. I'd like to see someone, anyone, explain this in any way where it means something other than "the law doesn't apply to President Bush."
What sickens me is not so much that a politician would do this (who wouldn't want to have veto power over any investigations into their own conduct?) but that so-called "conservative" pundits will side with him. The side that ostensibly sides with limited, toothless government will enthusiastically support a President's authority to place himself beyond the reach of the law, just because that President is from their own party. It wouldn't be so grating, but I'm a conservative, one who believes in limited government, the fallibility of man, etc. I actually have the political principles that they claim to have (at least when a Democrat was in the White House) and so, in calling myself a conservative, I'm placing myself in the same wacko, Orwellian club that they've infected. But what else do I call myself, politically? I was reading James Bovard when Clinton was in office. I was concerned about runaway government. I was frightened by Ruby Ridge and Waco. I even agreed with a few David Horowitz articles.
But at the time the Republicans were right about where I was (though I couldn't have cared less about Clinton's sex life). After 9/11, they all went effectively crazy and I was left feeling like a schmuck because I actually thought they believed in small government and freedom, as I do. I'm effectively left without a party, because the Democrats are no better. I could vote Libertarian, but I really doubt the efficacy of that. It's a bit surreal to vote, to care about politics, in a nation where no one really cares about freedom. There is no political principle at work in either main party, and there isn't really a fiscally conservative/Amnesty International/ACLU/Torturewatch/anti-death-penalty etc party for me to vote for even as a weak compromise. There is just nothing. No, I don't believe it's a conspiracy. I'm just part of a ridiculously small minority of people who are abhorred by what's going on, and would be regardless of what party was running the show this week.
I'm beginning to understand how the abolitionists felt at the very beginning, when they were the only ones saying "slavery is wrong." When I tell people "torture is wrong," and I have to argue the point, that leaves a very surreal, bizarre, and uneasy feeling in the back of my mind for the rest of the day. No one cares. I don't really see any way we can prevent a headlong slide into totalitarianism. If Bush outright suspended the next election, I'm convinced that at least 40% of Americans would support him. His base, the evangelicals (especially the Christian Reconstructionists) would definitely support him, because that's what they're after anyway. But I just don't think Americans at large think or care about any of this. It's not a very encouraging outlook to have on things.
Evolution works on what exists already, and makes incremental, accumulated modifications as driven by selection by the environment. That a particular wing implementation may be an evolutionary dead-end has little bearing on the individuals who are given an ever-so-slight advantage over their peers. If a variation gives an advantage now, it gets passed on now even if, down the road, a different wing configuration would have been a better "design." Even using the word "design" implies, wrongly, that an objective was being reached for by evolutionary processes, but in fact there is no objective, only the bare fact that a variation rendered some individuals more likely to survive and reproduce than the others in their population, and the changes accumulated because they continued to be selected for, resulting in increasingly divergent change. There are many evolutionary dead-ends that would be better if any sentient, capable entity "designed" them. These very dead-ends indicate a lack of design, because they show a consistent lack of look-ahead planning for long-term advantage.
Granted, your post wasn't ostenibly about ID. But the language and thinking by which ID creeps into the debate was there, and I wanted to clarify the point. I'm not attributing any agenda or anything like that.
There is a danger in listing "not getting blown up" as a right. Rights are conventionally considered to be restraints on government powers, not mandates for government power. A freedom of the press means that the government has a limitation on its legitimate authority in banning you from printing a book--it does not mean that the government's job is to provide you with a printing press. Freedom of religion means that government cannot infringe on your religion, not that government must fund and build your church. By listing "not getting blown up" as one of these rights, you'd be saying that government has a restriction on their legal authority to blow you up, but has no legal responsibility to prevent someone else from blowing you up. The Bill of Rights is a list of limitations on government power that the forefathers saw necessary for the preservation of freedom. It is not a list of free candy that someone must provide to you, but a list of things the government cannot do to you. Freedom indeed is not free--it requires limits to government power, which in turn may cost you and I a bit of perceived safety.
But here you are thinking social people (which are not "like you") have issues and have something wrong with them because they do not like being alone
Actually no, you've oversimplified my point considerably. I didn't say that sociable people had something wrong with them, but people who are unable to be alone had something wrong with them. Clearly an inability to sit alone with one's thoughts implies a certain incapacity, no? Just as a need for solitude, taken to the point of agoraphobia or other mania, is pathological, the need to be with others can be taken to a pathological level if you're so codependent that you can't be alone for a few minutes. I prefer to be alone--that doesn't mean I decay into catatonia if I must be around others for the evening. But yes, many of those with an inability to understand why one would want to be alone are indeed shallow, as evidenced by the fact that they can't even contemplate the idea of being alone for an evening. They lack inner resources, the ability to sit quietly with one's thoughts. They're the ones who can't entertain themselves, who won't shut up, who always need affirmation and approval, and always need some type of distraction so they don't have to fall back on what's in their own head. Not all sociable people are like that, nor did I say they were.
The only ones I find objectionable are the ones who fit my description. That you feel a need to oversimplify my post so you have an excuse to be offended indicates that you're a little sensitive on the issue. But oddly, though you try to be even-handed, you only objected to my criticism of them, not to their criticism of me. Methinks you doth protest too much.
You're quantifying this based on what data set? A few weirdos do not a theory make. Ted Kaczynski is a loner, but Charles Manson is not--we learn from this that people are people, and that madness spans the gamut of sociability. Most "crazy" loners are wanna-be popular people who just can't find anyone to like them. Serial killers, for example, usually kill out of resentment of not being liked, not out of a profound indifference to the existence of their victims. They want to be popular, or powerful, or desirable, all qualities that require the admiration and presence of the people who become their victims. Most depressives want to be liked, but can't manage because of quirkiness or whatever. These are not sincere, authentic loners, just a few more failed social butterflies. If they'd stay at home and read William Blake instead (or Emerson, perhaps) they'd be perfectly happy and everyone would be better off. It's not my fault that some shallow people get depressed because no one likes them.
You're only taking into account the loners who are unhappy to be loners, which means that your conclusion is both guaranteed and meaningless. Also, you shouldn't oversimplify and posit that I'm advocating no social interaction. I'm interacting with you, aren't I?
Not everyone is sociable, or wants to be. It isn't a matter of being "cool," but just one of needing solitude, or perhaps of finding it preferable to the alternative. I doubt that one can really understand people by assuming they're all alike. My point is that, to you, reclusivity may seem like prison, but to me, gregariousness seems shallow. How much inane chitchat do you really need in your life? Are you incapable of sitting quietly with your own thoughts? Many people are, it seems. But instead of realizing that they lack the inner resources of solitary people, they leap to the conclusion that everyone who isn't exactly like them is maladjusted and unhealthy. How comforting it must be to pity everyone who isn't like you. There is nothing wrong with solitude, but there is something wrong with being unable to be alone. If you couldn't fathom going a week without speaking to anyone, that just means you're shallow. Given a choice between an evening if vapid small-talk and an evening at home reading William Blake, I'll take the book. One of these actually makes me feel and think, while the other is just a penalty I have to occasionally pay so people like you won't start spreading the rumor that I'm mentally deranged so similar crap.
Yes, there are mentally unwell people who happen to be loners. That doesn't mean they typify the class.
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I don't think the title was ironic. The case IS a victory for the government--the only way it wouldn't a victory is if you consider the government to be the people. The people are not the government, because the U.S. isn't really a democracy. We vote for people very few years who then get to do whatever the hell they want, the only penalty being we could, in theory, put them out of office. But with two companies counting the vast majority of the votes in the Presidential election, and the companies are controlled by individuals (who are related) loyal to one party, and there is no paper trail for votes, there is little reason to think that anyone from another party will be elected anytime soon. Even that is just a backup safeguard, because the system itself is rigged to the 2 big parties can for the most part keep other candidates out of the picture.
McVeigh used a truck, so you might just want to stay at home and hide under the bed. Not to mention all the vehicle-carried suicide bombs being used in liberated Iraq. Not to mention that the petroleum you're using to drive around directly funds the Saudis and other people who only pretend to like us because we pay them, and then they turn around and directly fund terrorists. I'm not blaming you, but I do love to muddy the water and get everyone depressed.
The first two words ("Your Rights") misled people into thinking that rights did in fact exist. The section is being disbanded for lack of applicability. A new segment, entitled, "Ways in which liberals want to help the terrorists" is being contemplated, but the details haven't been worked out yet.
On a positive note, "online" remains usable, and we hope to see it worked into the new version.
I think the examples you gave were closer to hyperbole than actual conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are a bit more complex and shadowy, with an actual, you know, theory, like "Clinton killed Vince Foster because Vince was about to expose x, y, and z about his something or other in Arkansas, and then he hid the body, planted the gun, and...." You get the idea. Yes, people are antsy over due process and the rule of law, mainly because the President of the United States and Attorney General have explicitly repudiated any legal limits to anything they want to do that's connected to the War on Terror. When I get an apology for Ann Coulter's existence and influence, then I'll apologize for the rank, foaming-at-the-mouth paranoia inherent in my insistence that the accused is innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.
I'm not saying that we should man the barricades and break out the ammo, only that we have a responsibility to not let it get to that point before we say, "hey dammit, this is wrong." This is where the battle is, for the most part--with words. Ideas and principles matter. What we are willing to tolerate changes to accomodate what we've already tolerated, because we largely can't admit that we looked the other way. If we tolerate it on the small scale, what moral argument do we make to oppose the exact same practices on the large scale?
We have to recognize wrong and raise bloody hell about it, if only via a few posts on a lame blog or in a conversation over the water cooler at work. I'm not an activist, but when I speak up, here or in real life, it may give confidence to someone else who has been quietly thinking "you know, this doesn't look right." If I'm silent, that one quiet little voice caves into the raucous majority and eventually they don't have any doubts that it's okay for Padilla or anyone else to rot away in jail without the "privelege" of a trial. A voice of dissent, one who brings up the ideals we all ostensibly believe in, is more important than you think. If I followed your lead, I'd wait until no voice was possible. What do you want me to do, wait until I'm being herded into a black van with a hood over my face to cry out "golly, this is wrong?"
You see, I care about the principle, and if you care about the principle, you don't wait for x or x+500 cases, because it's wrong the very first time you see it. If that first time is met with swift correction, and the person is freed (or charged, so due process is honored), the people responsible fired or demoted, and a public committment made to due process, then no, you don't take to the streets decrying a headlong slide into tyranny. But when the President and Attorney General firmly stand by their decision, and repudiate any possible oversight over or check on this authority, then, well, yes, you moron, I'm going to be concerned.
At what point would you consider it a legitimate concern? 10 people? 100? 10,000? The U.S. is a nation of 300 million people, and we already imprison more than anyone else on the planet, so you're going to have to give me numbers. If you've read my other posts at all, you must notice that what I'm concerned about is the slow normalization of imprisonment without trial. Every one that goes unchallenged makes it closer to normal, makes it more acceptable, and raises the bar of what we have to see before we can raise questions without being called alarmist by people like you. Torture is already normalized in the public consciousness, so when I say it's wrong, I find that I have to justify what I'm saying. The problem is that what people are willing to accept will change to fit what they've already accepted. And my friend, I'm not accepting any of it.
So the cynicism and paranoia on Slashdot are due not to government holding people without trial, or torturing and beating them to death in secret prisons, or fabricating a rationale for a war that has killed tens of thousands, or ubiquitous surveillance without any oversight, but because of my alarmism concerning all of the above documented and well-known events? O God, what have I done?
There isn't a magic number of "disappearances" or "renditions" or deaths by torture that have to be added up before the police-state litmus-paper turns ugly colors. What would you say does differentiate a police state from a bastion of liberty? Can you have imprisonment without trial, torture, and secret prisons and still be call someone an extremist or alarmist for talking about imprisonment without trial, torture, and secret prisons? At what point does talking about documented, known reality stop being alarmist? I didn't say that every case was a Padilla case, but I do say that the Padilla case, and a growing number of similar cases, will eat away whatever integrity and credibility our system has. They taint the rest, because lurking over every investigation, every interrogation, every question asked, will be a smirk and a quiet "we don't HAVE to do this, so you want to be helpful." Yes, dammit, it matters.
I call them detainees, not suspects. Some are no doubt suspected of crimes, but many in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib were caught up in sweeps, or are held because they are thought to have information. Holding someone because you want to interrogate them for information isn't the same thing as holding them because you think they themselves have done or will do something bad. "Interrogation" does not address guilt or innocence, and in fact any of us can be interrogated, regardless of our guilt or innocence. Some of these people have been the victim of a Kafkaesque "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" imprisonment. They knew a guy who knew a guy who was at this place this other person might have passed through, and ergo they might know something, so we'll hold them for a while. Since there is very little oversight, very little accountability for abuse, coupled with high accountability for failing to get information, in short order we have waterboarding and people being beaten to death. Calling them "suspects" makes us feel better about not caring, because we're at least halfway implying that they might have done something, but in reality being held for interrogation doesn't even assert guilt, much less provide evidence for it.
The same goes for torture. Today, if you object to torture, you have to justify your position, because Gitmo and Abu Ghraib have inoculated everyone against the idea that torture is by definition wrong. Police states don't happen overnight, and as they develop into fruition, "normal people" won't recognize the status quo as a police state--it'll just be normal, a "nothing to see here" common-sense extension of what we see every day.
Yes, I'm advocating a bit of hostility towards government actions, because the preservation of freedom requires just that. Otherwise, we start trusting government, giving them the benefit of the doubt, a bit of time, a bit more time, and eventually you do reach a state where the government can detain anyone for an indefinite length of time without needing the formality of charging them. I'm not demanding that they explain anything to me, only that I'm going to assume that he's innocent until evidence is presented at trial, and he's convicted of a crime. The mentality that considers that unreasonable is what I was criticizing. You have to give someone the benefit of the doubt, and I give mine to the accused, every time. By definition the only alternative is to give the government the benefit of the doubt.
We're so screwed. People like you have effectively killed the skepticism of government actions on which freedom relies. Thanks. We really appreciate all you've done.
It would have to be Barry Bonds. Everyone else gets to plead "classified information" and "national security," which leaves him and Martha Stewart as the only possible criminals in the country, and Martha has already done her time. Plus he's, well, black.
I think there is a market for custom-designed editions of classic, public-domain works. I have reasonably-sized India-paper editions of Blake and Shakespeare, but they're long out of print, relatively expensive, and I can't easily replace them if they get damaged, so I'm hesitant to use them as casually as I would if I could just order another copy for $40 or so.
Also, I once had a girl's poetry bound for her in a nice book. Was it great poetry? No, she was no Blake. But it was a nice gesture, and it communicated what I wanted to communicate. I wasn't saying "you're a great poet whose work will survive through the ages," but "what you had to say was important to ME."
This isn't about breaking into the literary world and becoming famous. Sometimes there is a market of precisely one. But if I'm that one, I'd still like a way to buy the book I want for a price I can afford.
There are a lot of Evangelicals at the higher levels of the military, which tells me that there are probably a few Christian Reconstructionists/Dominionists, and they have ideals that are very antithetical to freedom and democracy. No, I'm not saying that there is a plot afoot to take over the government. But if there was a large terrorist attack right before or during the election, with some prominent people killed, and Vice-President Cheney had to step in and become President, and the election was "put on hold" to the "tragic circumstances" I don't think the military or civil service would put a bullet in his head. Again, I'm not saying that there's a plot afoot, though you can Google "Operation Northwoods" if you consider it an ridiculous, bizarro idea. But I do think that, if the right confluence of events came to pass, the election could be suspended, and with the right PR blitz it could be effectively sold to enough of the American public to make it viable.
The only other opinion that I would respect on this issue is one saying flat-out that we must retain control of, if not ownership over, the oil in that region, thus we must, by definition, retain a pro-US government in Iraq. It would follow from that that we cannot allow a Shiite-led, anti-US democracy or autocracy to take hold, and so we have to stay however long it takes to keep that region US-dependent and loyal, even if that means literally forever. That would indicate a permanent US military presence. Now, I disagree with that conclusion, but at least I would respect that conclusion. It's an intellectually honest position to have. Otherwise we just have a lot of hand-waving.
What we're doing now is called "chasing the pot" in poker. It's stupid and expensive, even if it feels right in your gut. This is going to be disgusting any way it plays out, because our hands are dirty up to the elbows already. If President Bush decides tomorrow to pull out immediately, as in right f--ing now, then suddenly pulling out will no longer be "cutting and running," but "the right thing to do." Whatever we do, whatever we accomplish, will be sold as "success" on Fox news and the administration, and people will buy it. The President can say ten minutes from now that it's not our responsibility to decide Iraq's destiny, that we wish them well and godspeed, and that we're pulling American troops home so we can throw them a parade, and Limbaugh, Coulter, et al will crow about his magesterial and sagacious insight. Would Democrats insist that we stay "until the job is done?" What exactly is "the job?" What is the objective? Saying "when the job is done" is nebulous because you've never specified the job. I know what Bush means--he means never, or at least not before Armageddon and the Rapture (in whatever order that's supposed to happen in). What do Democrats mean?
Where does the Democratic position on Iraq leave me? Even assuming I believe the laughable assertion that we're there to "liberate" Iraq, I don't actually believe that it's the job of the US government to save the world. I'm real sorry that the UK installed Saddam, and I regret that the US and the rest of the west tolerated, funded, and supported him for decades, and I'm embarassed that we were so shocked an appalled over his gassing of the Kurds that we doubled his financial assistance after he did it, but I still don't think it's our job to ensure that every Iraqi child gets a pony. But neither major American party is coming out and saying "this is none of our damned business." They're all hedging and sliding around, but none of these jerks is really coming out and saying that we have no business at all over there, nor did we ever have any business over there. So to vote for your party, and be part of this "solution" you offer to me, would be to support the very policies that I find so objectionable.
What I want to know is this--exactly how is "more of the same, only different" really being "part of the solution?" How will that fix my wagon? Answer that, and I'll respect you. Otherwise, you're a hack, and you're no better than the O'Reilly crowd that Dailkos ridicules so justly.
But I admit I always get a little cautious when it comes to solutions. I distrust any top-down solution, however seemingly well-designed. I think the only way to really get away from the worst abuses of capitalism is for us to stop buying all this crap, and to ethically stop putting the profit motive first. But I'm no ascetic myself, nor do I expect anyone else to be, so I can't be very optimistic about the outcome there. It isn't very insightful to observe that the world would be better if people were better, but I think that's the only improvement we can really hope for. The world is this way because we are this way. I don't think we can come up with any solution to "implement," from the left or the right, that will cure the problems that we ourselves have gone to such great lengths to create.
Corporations exist because we want them to--we want the ability to go into business, make a buck, but not be bothered by actual responsibility for the debts and problems our decisions incur. Well, gasp, that isn't very f-ing healthy. Extrapolate that to the large scale, and you have Enron and Haliburton. So to me, this isn't just a left-vs-right type of thing. The enemy is us, because no one is immune to self-interest and greed. I have no idea how that could be changed.
What sickens me is not so much that a politician would do this (who wouldn't want to have veto power over any investigations into their own conduct?) but that so-called "conservative" pundits will side with him. The side that ostensibly sides with limited, toothless government will enthusiastically support a President's authority to place himself beyond the reach of the law, just because that President is from their own party. It wouldn't be so grating, but I'm a conservative, one who believes in limited government, the fallibility of man, etc. I actually have the political principles that they claim to have (at least when a Democrat was in the White House) and so, in calling myself a conservative, I'm placing myself in the same wacko, Orwellian club that they've infected. But what else do I call myself, politically? I was reading James Bovard when Clinton was in office. I was concerned about runaway government. I was frightened by Ruby Ridge and Waco. I even agreed with a few David Horowitz articles.
But at the time the Republicans were right about where I was (though I couldn't have cared less about Clinton's sex life). After 9/11, they all went effectively crazy and I was left feeling like a schmuck because I actually thought they believed in small government and freedom, as I do. I'm effectively left without a party, because the Democrats are no better. I could vote Libertarian, but I really doubt the efficacy of that. It's a bit surreal to vote, to care about politics, in a nation where no one really cares about freedom. There is no political principle at work in either main party, and there isn't really a fiscally conservative/Amnesty International/ACLU/Torturewatch/anti-death-penalty etc party for me to vote for even as a weak compromise. There is just nothing. No, I don't believe it's a conspiracy. I'm just part of a ridiculously small minority of people who are abhorred by what's going on, and would be regardless of what party was running the show this week.
I'm beginning to understand how the abolitionists felt at the very beginning, when they were the only ones saying "slavery is wrong." When I tell people "torture is wrong," and I have to argue the point, that leaves a very surreal, bizarre, and uneasy feeling in the back of my mind for the rest of the day. No one cares. I don't really see any way we can prevent a headlong slide into totalitarianism. If Bush outright suspended the next election, I'm convinced that at least 40% of Americans would support him. His base, the evangelicals (especially the Christian Reconstructionists) would definitely support him, because that's what they're after anyway. But I just don't think Americans at large think or care about any of this. It's not a very encouraging outlook to have on things.
Granted, your post wasn't ostenibly about ID. But the language and thinking by which ID creeps into the debate was there, and I wanted to clarify the point. I'm not attributing any agenda or anything like that.
There is a danger in listing "not getting blown up" as a right. Rights are conventionally considered to be restraints on government powers, not mandates for government power. A freedom of the press means that the government has a limitation on its legitimate authority in banning you from printing a book--it does not mean that the government's job is to provide you with a printing press. Freedom of religion means that government cannot infringe on your religion, not that government must fund and build your church. By listing "not getting blown up" as one of these rights, you'd be saying that government has a restriction on their legal authority to blow you up, but has no legal responsibility to prevent someone else from blowing you up. The Bill of Rights is a list of limitations on government power that the forefathers saw necessary for the preservation of freedom. It is not a list of free candy that someone must provide to you, but a list of things the government cannot do to you. Freedom indeed is not free--it requires limits to government power, which in turn may cost you and I a bit of perceived safety.
The only ones I find objectionable are the ones who fit my description. That you feel a need to oversimplify my post so you have an excuse to be offended indicates that you're a little sensitive on the issue. But oddly, though you try to be even-handed, you only objected to my criticism of them, not to their criticism of me. Methinks you doth protest too much.
You're only taking into account the loners who are unhappy to be loners, which means that your conclusion is both guaranteed and meaningless. Also, you shouldn't oversimplify and posit that I'm advocating no social interaction. I'm interacting with you, aren't I?
Yes, there are mentally unwell people who happen to be loners. That doesn't mean they typify the class.