Uh, what's that?

The soul-less and ethically challenged "respectable intellectual center" went along with all of Bush's excesses and are still fighting against accountability for major, heinous crimes. And now these respectable individuals can't handle the prospect of this person on the supreme court because she is a woman and a Latina.

I've about had enough of these respectable intellectual centrists. They've been wrong again and again and again. I don't know that much about Sotomayor, but I do know that she brings an impressive background and life experience that is radically different than what we see in the usual suspects appointed to the Court, and this is just what this country needs. What we don't need is yet another standard conservative nominee who is capable of rationalizing torture from heinous crime to fraternity prank.

I fully realized when I wrote my post that someone would jump all over my 8th amendment argument. I'm not a lawyer, but I can read the Constitution and it is often pretty clear. The 8th Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, as well as excessive fines and bail. What I see in the 8th is that it allows society to draw the line on what is cruelty and prohibits the government from crossing that line. That, combined with the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments, seems to leave no wiggle room for any person serving in an official capacity in our government to inflict torture even before someone has had due process. Look at it this way: If you can't detain a person indefinitely without a trial, just what gives you the right to torture without a trial?

As for the ticking time bomb that you persist in addressing. It all sounds very reasonable: you have a situation that will cost lives and you must stop it. But consider this: torture is very very good at extracting confessions, not accurate intelligence. That has been its primary use throughout history. Waterboarding was the favored method of extracting confessions used by the Khmer Rouge and by the Spanish Inquisition. Sleep deprivation was a favorite of the Soviet secret police. These people wanted confessions for their show trials. They didn't care if the information was accurate. The FBI in particular has people who are very very good at extracting more accurate intelligence by using more traditional methods. You may argue that these methods are useless in a ticking time-bomb scenario, but I'd point out that we don't know of any such scenarios where torture saved the day. Also, I suspect that any real terrorist would resist, knowing that they had but a short time to hold out for.

First, the stupid ticking time bomb scenario and the second one he gave have been debunked to death, so I'll not comment on those, except to say that Awklib hit the nail on the head.

The analogy between the pacifist and the no-torture absolutist, however, strikes me as lazy, wrong, and just plain vile. The Constitution recognizes war as a legitimate activity in some cases and provides for it. The Constitution however forbids torture, indirectly through it's Article VI clauses supporting treaties such as the CAT, and explicitly in the Eighth Amendment.

People who think like Krauthammer are fallen, in a moral sense. Torture is immoral and depraved, period. Those who support torture are joining the ranks of those they see as vile enough to torture, and by taking us there are doing incalculable damage to this country. Any good they might fantasize they are accomplishing by engaging in barbarism can never offset this damage.

Is that all they've got? Fearmongering?

Seriously, the lack of a decent opposition party is no cause for celebration. As more and more "moderate" conservatives abandon the GOP and turn to the Democrats, that party will lurch ever more rightwards. That's not good for anyone. Our political system is more disfunctional than ever. Sen. Durbin states the obvious when he says the banks own Congress. And these clowns try to distract us with fear.

Here's an idea, GOP. Take up a real issue. Instead of fearmongering with terrorists, Mexican immigrants, and "socialists" who protest against AIG and the G20, instead of sticking it to the workers while pretending to care about their problems, focus the populist rage on the real culprits of our current mess, Wall Street and large corporations. Hey, whaddaya got to lose?

Oh; forgot. Just like the Democrats, you get hundreds of millions from them. Sigh...

I too am puzzled. Specter has 13 months to establish a track record as a real Democrat. I would have thought that given his previous position that he would take the opportunity to endorse it and thus help himself with Democrats. Still, he said in his statement, in the context of not always voting with the caucus, that his position on EFCA will not change. But does that mean he would not vote for cloture on EFCA, or just that he wouldn't vote for in in an up-down vote? Don't know.

Chicago school ideology essentially boils down to a call for the return to the boom and bust cycle that has been going on since pre-Biblical times. Sure, they disguised it with a lot of pretty and complicated pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo, but that is essentially what they have advocated. And unlike its nemesis, Keynesian economics, it has brought us (the non-elites) nothing but pain and suffering. Their trail of devastation, extending in time from the late '70s to the present day, includes most of South America, South East Asia, and now the US and Europe. What were these prize committees thinking?