english.aljazeera.net is now boasting a very nice American flag graphic and the message "This broadcast was brought to you by: Freedom Cyber Force Militia
GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS!!"
Lovely. let freedom ring by hacking any news outlet that doesn't toe the Pentagon party line. Go America.
It's hard to pretend that Al Jazeera is unbiased, but it's also hard to pretend that there has ever been unbiased news coverage. Thanks to the web, we can easily create "compsite" news coverage for ourselves, by taking in various biases, which works like shining a flashlight on something from various angles: eventually, you'll have seen most of it. or at least it allows me to satiate my desire to think I'm getting a somewhat accurate picture of what's happening.
Reason online had this great article about the role of al jazeera in this conflict the other day. worth a read.
you're making an intersting point about the direction our criminal justice system has gone in (concern with enforcing subjective moral codes), but this notion doesn't really "resolve" the subjective nature of law enforcement at all. The problem isn't that law is a subjective code based on things like Kant's universalizable imperitive (do unto others as...) and Christian ethics, the issue is that it isn't so simple to just "get the bad guys" before they do harm. You first have to determine what's bad (what does harm to society), and what's a valid tactic to use to "get" the bad guy.
For example, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments today about a Texas anti-sodomy law. Some would say that if you suck your boyfriend's dick in your bedroom, there's no victim, and under your theory, it's thus none of the government's business (which I would agree with completely). But others would say that it's immoral for you to suck your boyfriend's dick, and it will lead to the utter breakdown of our entire society, and thus we're all victims, and thus under your theory the law is involved.
Since law is necesarily subjective (it's totally cool in some places to kill your wife for cheating, or to rape your girlfriend, or to sell your daughter-- there's almost nothing everyone can agree on when it comes to right and wrong), we can't just say "this guy is bad, get him by any means possible." Since we have courts to figure out if what was done was really bad or illegal, we can't just have cops taking it to the limit trying to catch people. even if we knew they were guilty, we need to defer to the courts to make that call, and thus we restrict what police can do and use as evidence. that's the nature of democratic justice.
someone just needs to remind the Justice Department of that.
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after all, the Bush administration is known for such brilliant ironic humor, like when they appointed a lawyer for a lead paint manufacturer to be secretary of the interior or when they picked a dude with close ties to Philip Morris and no particular health knowledge to be Health Secretary.
GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS!!"
Lovely. let freedom ring by hacking any news outlet that doesn't toe the Pentagon party line. Go America.
It's hard to pretend that Al Jazeera is unbiased, but it's also hard to pretend that there has ever been unbiased news coverage. Thanks to the web, we can easily create "compsite" news coverage for ourselves, by taking in various biases, which works like shining a flashlight on something from various angles: eventually, you'll have seen most of it. or at least it allows me to satiate my desire to think I'm getting a somewhat accurate picture of what's happening.
Reason online had this great article about the role of al jazeera in this conflict the other day. worth a read.
For example, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments today about a Texas anti-sodomy law. Some would say that if you suck your boyfriend's dick in your bedroom, there's no victim, and under your theory, it's thus none of the government's business (which I would agree with completely). But others would say that it's immoral for you to suck your boyfriend's dick, and it will lead to the utter breakdown of our entire society, and thus we're all victims, and thus under your theory the law is involved.
Since law is necesarily subjective (it's totally cool in some places to kill your wife for cheating, or to rape your girlfriend, or to sell your daughter-- there's almost nothing everyone can agree on when it comes to right and wrong), we can't just say "this guy is bad, get him by any means possible." Since we have courts to figure out if what was done was really bad or illegal, we can't just have cops taking it to the limit trying to catch people. even if we knew they were guilty, we need to defer to the courts to make that call, and thus we restrict what police can do and use as evidence. that's the nature of democratic justice.
someone just needs to remind the Justice Department of that.