Don't worry you're safe from his post deletes here! It's not his column, he can't find you!

This is so basic a 6-year-old could understand it, but it appear I have to explain it to you. The atrocities inflicted by al Qaeda and associated terror groups are reprehensible on their face and nobody disagrees. Executing journalists, killing civilians, all horrible things that must be opposed, with military force if necessary. But they are not done in my name or with my money. We live in a representative democracy (republic if you want to argue semantics, but let's not). The people put the leaders in office, and we expect them to use our money and the blessing of our votes in a way that complies with basic morality. Torture offends basic morality the world over. There is no legitimate moral argument for torture, aside from extreme "ends-justify-the-means" moral relativism. So I am unsurprised when terrorists act like terrorists and respond accordingly. I am outraged when my government acts like a terrorist organization and respond accordingly.

As for whether detainee mistreatment has been used as a recruiting tool, Maj. Matthew Alexander (a former Army interrogator) has said publicly that he was told repeatedly by insurgents that they were inspired to fight in Iraq by reports of American mistreatment and brutality. But sure, don't listen to the guy who was actually there.

People are lazy, so I did the 10 seconds of legwork. Here's the full quote, in all its racist glory.

"In our private conversations, Judge [Miriam] Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice [Benjamin] Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see."

Truly the ravings of a madwoman who wants to enslave whites.

E-Man, you seemed to imply that if this killing is condemned by the vast majority of right-wing and Christian leaders, it cannot amount to terrorism. But Islamic terrorists are condemned by the vast majority of Muslim leaders. In both factions, there are violent fringe groups. In both cases, the acts committed by those groups are acts of terror.

None of the posts by right-wing loons should be kept up. Let everybody see what they think.

Finally, to all the people who call abortion "murder": Please don't change the meaning of the word. The killing of a fetus or unborn child or whatever you want to refer to it as, has never been classified as murder by any legal code, including God's own (as an earlier LW pointed out). Murder is a legal term. You can't change the meaning of a legal term by repeating a slogan, no matter how long you keep at it.