Letters to the Editor
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edit, then push publish
That last should have read; A true democracy doesn't ask a citizen for a bill of mental health before it allows him into the arena.
Apologies.
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m.b.f.
That was the Old Testament; in the new one (Matthew 22:37-39)
(NIV)
Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
The proscriptive requirements of the 10 commandments are replaced by positive rules.
You should also like "The Genesis of Justice" by Alan M. Dershowitz. His book goes over the development of the idea of justice in the Torah, and how it becomes more ideal, more human, and more mature, over time. He stops short of the New Testament, but I believe that you could continue the logic until you get to the two commandments, above.
I have used this logic to get a rough idea of the maturity of the neocon/Christian speaker by how far advanced in the Bible their idea of justice is. If they are talking about laying waste a country for the sins of a few, they are early in Genesis, with very primitive justice. "Eye for an eye" is a little farther on, is still punitive, but is at least showing equivalence. Then you have the 10 Commandments, which have some positive injunctions. I cannot recall one getting all the way to the New Testament and the Gospels (when is the last time you heard any neocon/rw/self-proclaimed conservative talk about "turning the other cheek.")
As an aside, as I was searching for the proper citation, I ran across a screed that they would love their neighbor as themselves, but that the neighbor was a Demon and should be destroyed. [Sigh] If only Christians would act as Christians, liberals as liberals, and conservatives as conservatives, we could have much more civil discourses.
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@jojo
It's actually quite a fascinating subject and unfortunately I've got to run before exploring it in the depth I'd like. On my way out the door though I will throw out one sweeping generalization. The less exposure people have to differing cultures in the first place, the more likely they are to end up conservative. If you look at the red state/blue state divide, it seems to me that a lot can be explained by the simple fact that the coasts have large diverse populations while the inner states are more homogenous and less populated in general.
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edit
in which the plaintiffs can prove that they were subjecft to surveillance
subject.
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describing
WT, I put autism in ".." in one of these comments. After, that, it just became a heuristic, the description is the key. This is why the media keeps internalizing the noise machine. Noise machine attacks, media describes attack, noise machine repeats attack, media backs down.
"I know you are, what am I"
Repeat it enough and sometime people start to believe it. The inversion of American democracy began with the subversion of its language.
When Thomas Paine turned into a champion for neoconservatism, something flipped. Describe that or nothing will change.
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/speech.asp?spid=4
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again" - Reagan, quoting Paine. Nov. 13, 1979
Remember CNP?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_For_National_Policy
Founded by Tim Lahaye, a dominionist. Lahaye lives in a world where "all is possible," an end of the world fantasy world.
CNP was founded in 1981 by Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series of books. Other early participants include Paul Weyrich, Phyllis Schlafly, Robert Grant, Howard Phillips, a former Republican affiliated with the Constitution Party, Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail specialist, and Morton Blackwell, a Louisiana and Virginia activist who is considered a specialist on the rules of the Republican Party and who, with Karl Rove, engineered the 2004 Republican election strategy
Viguerie is known as the "Funding Father" and is described as the "Thomas Paine" of our era. When Thomas "Age of Reason" Paine is being invoked to justify the world view of a Christian Reconstructionist former John Birch Society organizer, something is wrong. Viguerie is putting on a mask. "Thomas Paine" is that mask.
You want to know why the movement, the real movement that Coulter provides the window into, is so extreme. Its because its the John Birch Society. They just dropped the name and went underground.
Membership is by invitation only. The membership list, previously made public, is now "strictly confidential." Guests may attend "only with the unanimous approval of the executive committee." Members are instructed not to refer to the organization by name, to protect against leaks.[1] It is said that the secrecy is intended to insulate the Council from the liberal bias of the news media as perceived by its members.[2]
Look at the member list. Up-is-down in the Christian Reconstructionist world. What is "true" is what the Authority says it is. If the Authority says Iraq has WMDs, then it has WMDs. If the Authority says we need to go to war with Iran, then we go to war with Iran.
Anyone that says otherwise, they are terrorists, despots, and liberals to be Delivered From, by the Grace of the Lord (and possibly his humble servant Sean Hannity)
I've got an uncle who spends his life in that world, doing nothing but reading Tim Lahaye novels. he thinks the rapture is coming, its coming any day now. he'd probably go euphoric if the M.E. got nuked
Describe them and you embarass them. They know adults are about, that "all is not possible." But they will resent it, and if they can marshall the force, grow the crowd big enough, they'll take over.
Read Hedges. Read Golberg.
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There is still some hope in the courts
I agree with Glenn that standing is perhaps the biggest barrier to getting the merits of the NSA controversy decided -- excepting only the shameful strategy of Bush's lawyers, who could fix the standing problem easily if they had faith in the legal theories they claim exonerate the president on the merits. A straightforward test case could be brought, and Bush should facilitate it to carry out his duty to "see that the laws be faithfully executed."
But I do think there is still an arguable case for standing in the ACLU v NSA case, and I was surprised the plaintiffs did not press it more aggressively in the Sixth Circuit. Perhaps this is tactical: The same question probably would have to be refought in the Supreme Court, win or lose.
The doctrines governing standing are such a muddle that they can present a Rorschach test to judges. Those disposed to take a case can rationalize a finding of standing; those who prefer to duck a case can rationalize the opposite.