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Editor's Choice: 26

Thursday, July 12, 2007 06:53 PM

RE: Tucker Carlson, stalwart defender of sexual privacy

Keep in mind that Tucker Carlson, in his own way, like so many others of his kind, is also a prostitute.

Sunday, July 15, 2007 03:33 PM

Setec Astronomy

Musings on protecting the guilty.

How do we define "mild, restrained secrecy"? Nobody knows. It's a secret.

How many secret overseas concentration camps does Bush have going? Nobody knows. It's a secret.

How many people has the Bush administration secretly tortured to death? Nobody knows. It's a secret.

How many Americans does the Bush administration have imprisoned in secret concentration camps? Nobody knows. It's a secret.

What are Bush's plans for suspending the Constitution and declaring a dictatorship? A few in Congress know, but it's a secret, and anybody leaking such secrets might find the Constitution suspended a little earlier for them than for anybody else.

Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.

- Samuel Johnson

He who trusts secrets to a servant makes him his master.

- John Dryden

The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State.

- Josef Goebbels

For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

John 3:20

Sunday, July 15, 2007 06:45 PM

Svensker

How did these awful people end up in control of my country?

Democracy, which has grown up in the last three hundred years, represents, with its emphasis upon individual responsibility and individual actions, the most difficult societal system, requiring a definite human maturity.

Totalitarianism and especially fascism can in many ways be regarded as an escape from this difficulty into the irresponsibility of following a leader who deprives the people of their liberty and their maturity but promises them 'security' and 'economic progress'.

To this end, personal immaturity and self-gratification are celebrated and promoted by corporate America in particular, and in U.S. culture in general, because it prepares the electorate to give up its responsibility to maintain democracy in favor of totalitarian leadership.

The primary weakness of democracy has always been the possibility of electing to office persons who are prepared to subvert that democracy. Throughout history, from Athens to Rome to the Weimar Republic, democracies have nearly always succumbed to this weakness and devolved into personal or party dictatorships.

Does that answer your question?

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

- James Madison

The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.

- Milton Friedman

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

- John Adams

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

- William O. Douglas

Sunday, July 15, 2007 07:35 PM

L.W.M.

Yes, we've all heard Winston Churchill's famous dictum that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others that are tried from time to time. What do you suggest? Anarchy?

Gandhi was once asked what he thought of democracy in America. He thought it would be a good idea.

You're laboring under the delusion that the US is a democracy. It's not. In most of it's history, and all it's history since WWII, it's been an empire pretending to be a democracy, particularly at the national level.

In answer to your question, hey, I'm with Gandhi.

Sunday, July 15, 2007 09:11 PM

Explanation

The purpose of Bush administration secrecy is to protect the guilty, and that includes Bush.

We have seen the outrages perpetrated by the Bushites despite their secrecy, which suggests that these are only the outrages the Bushites could not hide or suppress or distract away from, because there are too many. Even the outrages we have seen have been heinous in the extreme.

It gets worse the more you look at it.



For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

John 3:20

Monday, July 16, 2007 08:38 PM

Vitter: "I believe I received forgiveness from God."

Similiarly, we have to believe that God forgives all the crimes committed by Republicans: torturing taxi drivers to death, raping children in front of their parents to humiliate them into talking about the insurgency, knocking over third-world countries for fun and profit, robbing trillions from millions while pretending to 'help' them, plus the usual compulsion to lie, even when the truth actually serves even better but ya gotta stay in practice, y'know?

Bush, for example, can do no wrong. If The President does it, it's not a mortal sin. It's a sacrament.

Well, you can't blame me - I'm heaven's child

The second son of Mary mild

And twice removed from Oscar Wilde

But he didn't mind - why, he just smiled.

And the oceans part when I walk through

The clouds dissolve, the skies turn blue

I'm held in very great value

By everyone I meet but you.

Gotta puke. Back later.

Monday, July 16, 2007 08:47 PM

The truth is

Nobody can prove that God didn't forgive Vitter.

That's good enough for Vitter. Why isn't it good enough for you? What are you, some kind of godless communist or something?

Obviously it's Vitter's accusers who are the sinners, because they can't prove God has forgiven any of them.

Vitter: "Holy, yes. Martyr, no. Back off or I'll go all biblical on yo ass."

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