Finally, large corporations DO control the federal government because lots of byzantine laws and regulations, which require legions of expensive CPAs, lawyers and lobbyists, are a small cost of their doing business. That works wonderfully well for gatekeeping and preventing start-up competition. Fortune 500 CEOs are rarely libertarian; small businesspeople are far more likely to be.

I cannot disagree entirely. But I would like to add to this.

I have heard lobbyists themselves say that they are in fact public servants of a sort (!), providing a valuable service to the government by helping to research and draft legislation. It is no coincidence that the need for this far-from-selfless service has increased as the time elected legislators have to spend spend actually deliberating and legislating is increasingly displaced by the need for constant campaigning and fundraising.

Expenditures for television ad slots make up the vast majority of the ever-escalating cost of campaigning, and are directly responsible for the need for Members of Congress having to spend so much of their time soliciting funds, rather than doing their jobs. Then, the higher spending of one candidate begets yet higher spending of other candidates, and the feedback loop accellerates.

It all then comes full circle to the need for lobbying firms and their clients as both stopgap assistants to the time-consuming legislative process, and the providers of the funds necessary to stay in power. The two-pronged dependency becomes indelible, fait accompli.

That's, of course, not all there is too it -- but a significant reason nonetheless.

Mona -

But on foreign policy and civil liberties wrt the DoJ, FBI and NSA, I just do love him. And as the Executive, those are currently what is most important. But he isn't going to get the GOP nomination anyway, so the point is moot.)

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His importance is what Glenn wrote of: bringing the national political conversation to focus on imperialistic militariasm.

Again, agreed. I liken Mr. Paul to a batshit crazy musical genius. He dazzles you one minute with wonderful things you seldom get to hear, then he turns around and pisses on your shoes.

No, what you are saying is not only unobvious, it is blatantly untrue. Doing things for political purposes means rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies; it has nothing to do with succeeding at the task that you are supposed to be doing. At best, there is a constraint that you try not to piss the voters off by completely botching up the job.

I see that this was fundamentally a misunderstanding of terminology. But it does point to another issue. You define "political purposes" as patronage, crass power favors and punishments. I define "political purposes" in the more traditional sense, as efforts designed to get elected or keep one's self in power.

Interestingly, the former definition merged with and, to a large degree, consumed the latter in the Rovian mold of contemporary Republican politics. In other words, "political success" became defined as narrowly targeted attempts to reward allies and punish enemies, but in a way that is calculated to win popular elections. One example, among many, is the exploitation of terror fears to both win elections and to enrich military/contracting entities.

Ironically, of course, this strategy resulted in the ultimate destruction of both purposes. A backlash at the polls, and a fragmented and cannibalistic political coalition. To me, this proves that it is actually in politicians' own interests to be as responsive to the public as possible (while also demonstrating principled leadership), and not attempt to tinker with the machinery of division in an effort to eek out the narrowest majorities while blatantly rewarding political allies.

Which of Ron Paul's opponents paid you to post that?

My favorite defense of torture has to be the good old "I/others do this stuff to myself/themselves all the time, so what's the problem?" I believe none other than David Rivkin, "military law expert," argued as much very recently.

Many have voluntarily fasted for extended periods of time, for political, personal, or religious purposes, so I suppose starving prisoners isn't that bad.

People voluntarily subject themselves to tasering, for training and demonstrative purposes, so shocking prisoners with powerful electrical currents isn't that bad.

Boxers voluntarily enter a ring, knowing that they will be punched brutally in the face and may even be knocked out or permanently injured, so beating prisoners until they are unconscious or brain damaged isn't that bad.

Speaking of brain damage, when did our national discourse get so unbelievably stupid.

I'd take a strict constitutionalist over any candidate cuurently running for President in either party.

As a dabbler in constitutional law, I take issue with casual use of the term "strict constitutionalist." Like "pro life" and "activist judges," this term is heavily and deliberately loaded to carry the implication that anything not qualifying for the term betrays the constitution, etc.

The term "strict constitutionalist" has allowed jurists such as Justice Scalia to get away with carrying the banner of the only "legitimate" constitutional philosophy, with most others internalizing this highly dubious premise to a large degree.

Any constitutional scholar worth his or her salt will tell you that "textualists," "originalists," "strict constructionists," and the like can be every bit as arbitrary, inconsistent, and outcome-determinative as their much-maligned "living constitution" counterparts.

Any time someone lunges at me with the "strict constitutionalist" canard, I challenge them to tell me where in the constitution it specifically and explicitly applies the First Amendment to the states and the courts, creates executive privilege, allows courts to overturn statutes, differentiates racial from other forms of government discrimination, and on and on.

No one has constitutional "principle" cornered. There certainly are more and less consistent or principled applications of constitutional law, but people who hide behind the banner of "strict constructionist" or "originalist" have simply found a very fashionable way of foisting their own biases on the less informed.