I think you will all find it worth reading. It's long, but well done.

Torture, Secrecy and the Bush Administration

Scott Horton

Remarks delivered at New York University School of Law's Conference on Government and Secrecy, April 12, 2006.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/04/torture-secrecy-and-bush-administration.html

and the free market.

As long as the government does not act to inhibit speech in any way, I'm happy to let "market forces" or Adam Smith's "invisible hand" (or Ms. Walsh's red pencil for those who would call her names here) regulate the free market of speech and ideas. You would think more conservatives would agree with this. I guess this is where we separate the real liberals and conservatives from the rest of the authoritarians and idiotarians on either side. Imus has the right to say whatever he wants, free from governmental inhibition, infringement and/or limitations. It may cost him his job but he should be free to say it if he wants to.

I'm not a lawyer, I just play one on the intertubes, but my guess would be you could ask Scooter Libby and he might say something like... Obstruction of Justice since said e-mails have become of interest to Congress. It is illegal to lie to Congress or withold or destroy requested evidence from them.

Or are you too busy serfing?

Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.

Friedrich Hayek, 1981 interview in El Mercurio

You understand that Bush is a "liberal" or "neo-liberal" in Hayek's global political context. Jim is correct. These people are definitely not interested in anyone to the "left" of Bush (centrist in the context of American politics) having unchecked executive powers. If Richard Viguerie is involved, I'm not interested, either. Are you a troll?

Richard Viguerie and Aaron Russo are hardly people I would want to associate with.

Some of you are incredibly politically naive.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Viguerie

Russo supports that racist Ron Paul for president.

Not all anti-war positions are equal. I'm not anti-war. I'm opposed to the Iraqi debacle because it endangers us more than it protects us and does nothing but strengthen the real threats we face in the region.

Shooter242...Hate speech

Like it or not, characterizing this blog as a hate site isn't far fetched. I have seen not a single instance of anything less than derision for the Bush administration. Certainly there is no praise anywhere.

In addition the verbiage used here is inflammatory. You folks ared just so used to using and seeing it that it has become passe. Perhaps for a moment you folks should consider that you aren't perfect, and that life isn't completely one-sided.

...The heated debates we had at Unclaimed Territory when some of our friends north of the border, (I love Canada and Canadians, btw. I would love to live in Vancouver, B.C.), tried to convince Glenn, an ardent supporter of the first amendment, that their hate speech laws were superior to our "no holds barred" policy here down in the lower 48. This is a perfect example of why Glenn, as usual, was right.

Shooter, you are a boob.

I love Canadians and Vancouver, B.C. and most of the Pacific Northwest.

I would freeze to death in Toronto in the winter time and probably wouldn't survive trying to homestead up near the arctic circle, as much as I might like to try, even though the ice pack and permafrost is melting and the polar bears are drowning. Shooter is still a boob.

Regarding your anecdote about tradional gender roles...

Did you happen to read the first and second comments on that RedState thread Glenn linked to? A woman named Theresa comments first. The response: "Boy, are you dumb..."

"Do us all a favor, take off your shoes and chain yourself in the kitchen."

I was opposed to Tipper Gore and the PMRC back then and I will be opposed to any group that tries to infinge upon the right of free speech today. No one is stopping Imus from getting a platform for his "speech" some place else. Some private corporations that have a license to broadcast on the public airwaves made a business decision. Government had nothing to do with it. The free market did. True liberals and true conservatives can just turn it off, not buy it, send letters to corporations that broadcast it or advertise on it and let the market forces that conservatives are so fond of do their work.

The reason people don’t like what Imus said was because the women on the Rutgers basketball team aren’t engaged in public discourse. They’re not public figures, they don’t have a forum, they aren’t trying to influence public policy.

They play basketball — quite well, apparently — and did nothing to bring on an attack on their looks or character. It’s not the words Imus used: It would be just as bad if he had simply said the Rutgers women were ugly and loose.

Those happen to be Ann Coulter's words.

http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi

That's about the only thing I agree with that she says, except for the fact that the words Imus used were racist and sexist, and they do matter because racism and sexism are real. But that's life in a free society. If you don't like it, elect another authoritarian idiots like Bush or any other like minded candidates who fancy they would make a great leader of the free world.

IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

Ambrose Bierce