So, what can we do?

I nominate al loomis as commissar of the revolutionary forces. adnoto can be minister of propaganda.

</snark>

The answer to "what can we do," if you want to bring about change, is organize. Full stop. There's also integrity of a sort in the position advocated by my comrade IOZ: sit back and enjoy the inevitable, devastating collapse of Empire with sex, drugs and fine art.

WWJHD? What Would Joe Hill Do?

As I've said before... in many ways IOZ is who Glenn would have become if he'd spent less time in college studying the law and more time in college doing bong rips and finding boys to corrupt. And I mean that as a compliment of, and a dig at, both of them.

They are both brilliant and incisive observers of our political system, though Glenn's spelling is better. Each is a valuable corrective to the other.

PS: You read IOZ and you came here with "whaddowedo?" Dude.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

-- Helen Keller, My Religion (1927)

Let me interpose myself here. Can you explain what it was in Kitt's comment that indicated "intellectual egotism... not to mention pettiness?"

I thought your last comment indicated that Kitt says he's doing the same thing you "assert[] we're all doing here." And I agree with that.

Before your back-and-forth turns into flameage, I wonder if you could try again and focus what your criticism is. Because I tend to think it's a miscommunication rather than a real disagreement. And we're early in the thread for a piss contest.

thx

nvm. I withdraw my question.

Kitt: it's the word "bordering" he's focused on.

Norm: it was wry sarcasm. The sarcastic part was "cynicism;" "bordering on" was a throwaway phrase; ironic understatement. It wasn't a way of commenting any sort of a conceptual border or making any sort of a broader point. A later commenter misunderstood the sarcasm and focused on the word "cynicism." And here we are.

Now shake hands or heru-ur will send you to the corner for an hour.

You're both wide of the mark.

simply that the captions were take-offs of IM spelling and grammar... it totally loses the funny spin if it is simply supposed to be cats being short on spelling and grammar rules.

It's an evolved thing, which means there's not a "it's simply this" about LOLspeak, or "kitty pidgin" as one observer (http://www.dashes.com/anil/2007/04/cats-can-has-gr.html) calls it.

If it helps, think of it as an hybrid of netjoke humor of the form "Im in ur noun, verb-ing ur related noun," internet memes ("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_want), lamer-l33t-speak "d00dz!!1!" and bad grammar.

kthx

if "you knew" the person in custody had the knowledge to prevent a horrible terrorist attack...

Mona calls this an "extremely rare" circumstance... I'd characterize it as so impossible as to render the argument effectively self-refuting. How do you "know" somebody has knowledge about some event without having knowledge of the event itself?

I mean, is the scenario realistically other than the following:

Somehow, the government has very reliable information that a specific group has a specific horrible weapon, and intends to use it at a specific time in the very near future. With all this specificity, the one piece of information that we lack is the exact location of the attack. Fortuitously, however, we have a person in custody who we know has that very information.

I am perfectly serious, can the "ticking time-bomb" scenario possibly be different than this?

If not, is there any point in discussing exceptions to a blanket rejection of torture - especially given that we know TO A CERTAINTY that once torture is deemed acceptable, even with conditions, that it will be more and more widely used.

This is, IMHO, intentional moral confusion. And I want no part of it.

the people attacking the US used to mock our laws and due process as weak and ineffectual. This is a fact. So my question is... how do we deal with that? You are facing an enemy that exploits that as weakness.

I don't accept that as a "fact." I know that the first thing out of Cheney's mouth when he was making the rounds of the 24/7 news coverage in the days after September 11 was "we have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will."

That case has not been made, in my opinion, except through mere assertion.

Yes, following legal methods we will inevitably be frustrated in trying to capture those that will do us harm. Police are similarly frustrated, and as a result there are tens of thousands of murders in our cities year after year.

How come we never ask "how to deal" with our own murderers who "mock our laws and due process as weak and ineffectual?"

does the fact that one individual with a suitcase nuke can take out a city up the anti so much that the equations of due process need to be reevaluated?

Due process is not an "equation."

Also, what is it with the cartoon hypotheticals? "One individual with a suitcase nuke?" How about one individual with a flying exoskeleton and a death ray?

Technology has changed terrorism. Just sayin'...

Sayin' what? Exactly what? You've come in here, proposing improbable hypothetical after improbable hypothetical, without making any sort of a case as to why any of these hypotheticals should change our system of laws.

Do you have, in fact, any case to offer? At all?

But why do I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that it won't be enough?

Enough for what?

Zeus's beard, kid: who gave you the sense that perfect safety is something we have any reason to expect in this life?