Letters to the Editor
Baldie McEagle
Published Letters: 992 Editor's Choice: 3
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The point, elephant
[Read the article: Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is that we do NOT think or feel that way. We fell differently. We're just not that scared of enemies we could largely neutralize or win over just by calling off the bombs, dogs, and troops we have sicced on them and their parents and children.
If our political system were simple and perfect, we could decide policy by just adding up the people who feel your way and the people who feel our way, and base policy on the outcome.
Or system isn't simple and perfect, but it still doesn't work by everyone just listening (and pandering) to the most frightened segment of the voting population, cry as they might.
So why do you insist on telling us over and over of your own fear?
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Oh, and
[Read the article: Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]to answer your question:
What makes you think there must always be a monetary damage amount when you file a lawsuit? You only need $damages$ when you sue for damages.
So, try another question.
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"Genuine" privacy
[Read the article: Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think E-man laid that concept out pretty clearly: it's privacy that demands monetary damages when it's violated. For example: trade secrets, technology, corporate secrets, military secrets, blueprints for rockets, new Coke flavors, and so on---things worth actual money, with a value in the market.
In other words, "corporate" privacy. If you're not a company or self-employed, E-man thinks you don't have "genuine" privacy.
By his thinking, I probably shouldn't be able to sue a chemical company for poisoning the birds that otherwise might sing in my garden. I mean, they weren't even mine to begin with.
What do they can someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing?
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Almost funny
[Read the article: Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]E-man tries to sway us with fear. He's told not to try to sway us with fear.
His response? "I can't sway you."
I must have missed the part where he tried to convince us with facts and arguments.
He's right though---if "we" have a candidate, it must be Obama now. And we'll just have to see.
Final comment, for E-man and for everyone who has castigated our useless Senate:
One must recall that democracy is not easy. And there's nothing permanent about it. Ever. We're lucky to have the system we have, and the people we have in it, because we have gotten so used to a system that didn't spy on, arrest, imprison, torture, execute, and bury us in mass graves, but ran without a lot of intervention---few riots, no rebellions, no civil wars. Think about how rare that is.
Remember that the gears of both justice and democracy turn slowly even when they are healthy. It took 2 or 3 years, but in 1944 the Supreme Court finally invalidated the internment of Japanese American citizens, and by that time the camps has already been largely emptied. It's not about Americans being nice people---it's about a system that ultimately punishes or at least neutralizes criminals.
Right now this system seems fairly compromised, like a virus in the brain. This may even be a sign of eventual death. But we have several layers in our public immune system. We vote to re-elect Congress every 6 years. We've already seen what's to come in the 2006 elections. I have no doubt that Constitutional transgressions will continue---count on it---and voter anger will increase. Our elections eventually will sort this out. But apparently not until we hand the authoritarians enough rope, and the freedom to hang themselves.
(We'll still be a corporate oligarchy, of course.)
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poor peewee
[Read the article: Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like brightstar and many others, you confuse Glenn's posts with the comments of those you claim come here to "suckle on his demented tetes."
The more extreme positions floated around here tend to come from posters. I think Glenn genuinely tries to understand what is going on in politicians' minds---which is why I read his posts.
He's said many times that many Democrats in the Senate seem to agree with the administration's perspective. Generally he follows this with a description of the gulf between their apparent thinking and that of their constituencies.
Just to fill you in, since you haven't been following along. No need to gloat, in other words.
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Voting yes and then no
[Read the article: Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My senator, Bob Casey (I don't keep up with "Magic Bullet" Spector) did what many Dems may have done. He voted for each amendment, and when they were shot down, voted for passage of the bill as is.
I find it difficult to consider this pattern evidence of a positive desire to inflict a police state. It may be naivete, it may be blindness, it may be a number of things. But not that.
Is it possible that Casey et al (the 19 + Obama) simply considered the bill's modifications important enough, and the power of the Senate great enough (some institutional stupidity there, I know), that it seemed worth the risk to pass it and hope for the best?
Not a strategy I would advise, obviously. But I'm not a senator.
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Broder is indeed pathetic
[Read the article: FISA 101]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The worst part of it is that Broder isn't just echoing Bush's use of the word "politics" when he sets "bipartisanship" against supposed "gridlock."
It's that millions of Americans think the same way: Political disagreements are scary! Protect us from them!
Almost as frightening as terrorists.
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Can Congress be sued
[Read the article: The courts and Congress affirmatively conceal and protect lawbreaking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for not fulfilling its constitutional duty?
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But it's true
[Read the article: A week of petty though typical attacks on Obama produced nothing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama's father bore a distinct resemblance to Patrice Lumumba!
Except without the beard!
They both wore Black-revolutionary glasses!
And he was such a "problem" that the CIA had to conspire with Belgium to kill him. So ...
is this paternal communist fashion influence what we really want in a president? I mean, maybe it's unfair, but I think it's worth wondering.
Hell, it's unreasonable not to wonder.
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What does that even mean?
[Read the article: A week of petty though typical attacks on Obama produced nothing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The Clintons are known political cat burglars. They pilfered Republican jewels in the ’90s, and Hillary has purloined as much as she can stuff in her pantsuit from her husband and Barack Obama."
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It's called "overdetermination"
[Read the article: A week of petty though typical attacks on Obama produced nothing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Doesn't the "secret Communist" smear kind of undermine the "secret Islamist" smears?
Any self-respecting elitist liberal snob would know that.
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This Jackson Diehl guy
[Read the article: McCain: Threatening to bomb sovereign countries is "naive"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]sounds like he needs further monitoring and investigation. For starters, has he been having an affair with Joe Lieberman?
Make a note, Bat Boy!