In MY country, if you are arrested for a crime, no matter how much evidence the authorities have against you, you have the right to be charged with something and to not be subjected to torture. MY country was founded pretty much on those basic principles, because the guys who wrote up MY country's Constitution had lived in a dictatorship, where these inalienable rights were not recognized by the unitary executive. The king, that is. And these inalienable rights are recognized the world over as HUMAN rights. Not the rights only of the people who live in MY country. One practical reason for that is that it protects the citizens of MY country from people who might invade MY country and kidnap people they don't like for religious reasons, say, and lock them up in torture chambers indefinitely without bringing charges or allowing due process of law to give them a chance to defend themselves.

Which country do YOU live in?

about be-bop-o but I just ignore him or her instead. Now I've added a few others to my list. Sheesh, guys. Can't you get a room or something for the libertarian in-fighting about Venezuela?

This is a debate between those who have lost faith in the system and those who still believe we have a strong Constitution that will pull us through.

I am among those who have lost faith. Our Constitution did not foresee the possibility for corruption that would arise from the need for candidates to finance multi-million-dollar election campaigns. Untraceable electronic election results were an impossibility in 1789. The framers did their best to allow our government to represent the people fairly, but did not foresee that the two-party system could come to trump the built-in checks and balances among the three branches. Innovations like instant run-offs and proportional representation are badly needed here in America. I do not trust the Constitution to protect us, and I don't think the people who wrote it would expect us to worship it so slavishly. They were, after all, overriding the Articles of Confederation by writing it. Perhaps we need to get into that spirit. Maybe it's time to reconsider the fundamentals.

I also think that allowing this administration to publicly piss on the Constitution's grave is a dangerous precedent. We progressives are always saying that you can't let industry police itself and expect them to protect the common good; the executive branch is an industry badly in need of regulation. And yet, every day, Congress gives them more power, in defiance of the electorate's will.

BTW, Harrington, do you have anything against the censure idea?

I certainly think we should use all the resources the Constitution provides before we tackle the problem of radically revising the document that has brought us this far. One of those resources is impeachment, and I see the current hearings as building toward impeachment - not detracting or distracting from it. I felt more hopeful about that a couple weeks ago, though. There is more wheel-spinning now, it seems.

My point overall is that if we don't get these guys out of office before the next election, it is going to be much harder to enact anything that resembles a democratic process, because we are consenting to this style of governance. It is a dangerous precedent. If we don't make it clear that we will not stand for unitary executives, then we will never be without one.

What makes oxytocin politically inconvenient? Is that the chemical we're discussing? I think labor involves a cocktail of hormones, so I'm not sure which specific one you mean.

My personal experience is that breastfeeding (also, like orgasm, run by oxytocin) is designed to ward off PPD. However. The best thing of all is not having heaps of dishes and laundry to despair over while you're trying to take care of the new, demanding little creature.

A little support - casseroles, dish-washing, taking the baby for a walk - through the first three or four MONTHS (not DAYS) goes a long way. Just in case anyone here knows anyone who is having a baby anytime soon, this method has been proven to help with garden-variety PPD.

OOOOO, since that's physically impossible for humans, maybe in the state of nature, the father does that part! Do you think we can make a case?

get a meta-answer.

I see a lot of commentors in the Salon forums talking about what idiots the American people are. While one could argue that that shows these commentors are idiots, I don't think that reflects the commentors' actual opinions of themselves. ("Do you think the majority of Americans are idiots?" If you say yes, does that mean you think YOU are an idiot?)

How can a poll that asks people what they think other people think tell us anything except what people think other people think? If you see what I mean. Meta-answers could be interesting, but ... confusing.

I think some of you need to try an experiment in living hand-to-mouth for a year or so. Give away your car and house, quit your job, get a minimum wage job without vacation or health benefits and try to get - and keep - an apartment. And then see how often you manage to use the money you scraped up to pay the rent so you can travel, for whatever reason. For most of the rest of the universe, money is FINITE. I am not usually into seeing other people in pain, but you guys who are calling this person an asshole for not magically materializing cash and time to visit his mom? I would love to see you helpless and hungry, your paltry possessions left at the curb for others to pick through.

I don't understand. Are you questioning the existence of abortion clinics?