http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20070618_radack.html and

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/18/53337/5489

you moron. You absolutely have to put quotations around democraticly and legally when talking about Hitlers elections in Germany.

Because those elections were neither. I think you all should just keep sitting in your dark corners, wringing your hands, moaning about how bad things are.

Don't worry, the gov will be by soon and take you away to your rendition location.

I do believe in the Constitution. But I know it is powerless when our leaders are allowed to ignore it.

Ideas are worthless if all anybody ever does is think about them, which is what you seem content to do. Just wait it out, and the people who took our rights will eventually give them back. You wouldn't be OK with someone taking your car just because they would probably bring it back, eventually, when they didn't need it anymore, but you are OK with someone taking your right to free speech, your right to be secure in your person, your right to due process, etc...

Do you believe that the Constitution is imbued with some innate power to make evil men come to the light? It isn't - its power only exists as long as people are willing to fight for it. That's what we need to do, and we need to do it now because the first rights that are being taken away are the ones that give us the power to oppose our government.

We can't stop being America because it's too dangerous and then return to being America when it's safe.

Your mantra seems to be that of GW - "stay the course". Mine is that of Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

To each his own, I suppoose.

[Tiberius]: Comparing the USA today to 1930's Germany is just silly, panicky talk. If this was the same would we be having an election in 2008? Of course not.

Hitler came to power (for the most part) "democratically" and "legally". It was only after he'd gotten the Chancellory that he started consoldidatin power and getting rid of the opposition.

But I'll agree with you: The "Reichstag fire" is not proving as successful the second time round. People are getting a little more wary, mainly because Dubya started the more umpleasant things (like war and secret prisons) earlier, before he had really gotten the population behind him. Tough luck for you, Tiberius. Your Republicans will have a hard road to hoe, for quite some time. Too bad you hitched your wagon to him, eh?

Cheers,

I said I believe in our system and that it will see us through. You don't. You believe the Constitution and the American people are weak. You see destruction all around.

Have a little faith. We don't live in a police state and we won't so long as we keep our heads.

We went through years of no defense and after 9/11 we are going through years of extreme defense, but the balance will come.

Comparing the USA today to 1930's Germany is just silly, panicky talk. If this was the same would we be having an election in 2008? Of course not.

I don't get it. Thompson is a nobody. He is old, unattractive, dogging the young ladies worse than Clinton ever did, and downright uninformed. Oh, my bad, he is the perfect conservative Republican. He is a bad actor as well. Reagan!!!! Resurrected. Chris Mathews must like the older men. I guess he didn't have a good daddy figure. Oh, the level of intelligence of those paid by the MSM.

BB

What I find particularly disturbing is the content of the dissent from Judge Hudson, whose remarks tell me that the important victory in this case is not as firm as it should be. Hudson's dissent appears to be based solely on accepting the truth of the government assertions that al-Marri is a dangerous person and that the president is fully justified to detain the man as an enemy combatant solely on those grounds, and despite the clear assertion in the majority opinion that the USA Patriot Act should have been the proper legal basis for the arrest and detention of al-Marri. That he dissents in the face of the well-marshalled evidence of his colleagues tells me we still have a long way to go to regain the surety we need.

It also clearly indicates to me that the US government is caught in a web of its own incompetent ad hoc decisions since 9-11.

Another terrorist attack here might be just what GW needs. Unless of course, and I know this is a long shot, the media does their job.

If that were to happen, Katie Couric could spend hours pointing out how the attack could never have happened if only the government had taken minimal security precautions. Wolf Blitzer could delight us with an endless parade of real security experts who could explain in excrutiating detail how the Bush administration has done not one single thing to make Americans safer. Maybe we could come up with some kind of TV extravaganza where journalists from everywhere would jump all over people from the highest levels of government to find out where all that money that supposedly got spent on security actually went.

And if we got really lucky, maybe all these newspeople would look at each other when they were done and say "You know, this actually doing our job thing is kind of fun! We should do it some more!"

But you are probably right, it would turn into another Bush love-fest and the media would have a week long special mourning the fact that our great protector has to leave us after only 2 short terms.

[certifiedprepwn3d]: Furthermore, Tiberius doesn't seem to grasp the fact that all this shredding of the Constitution has shown no evidence of actually physically making us any safer at all. Ports? Borders? Nuclear facilities? Electrical infrastructure? Information security? Mass transit? Where exactly are we on these things?

See, Bush has it all figured out. We don't have to worry about protecting those things because we're fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them over here. Why would the terrorists want to come here to kill Americans when it's much easier to kill Americans in Iraq without having to put in all those travel miles. Besides, Bush seems convinced that the terrorists couldn't find America anyway.

Not quite. Another terrrist attack here would be just the thing to haul Dubya's a$$ out of the wringer (didja see that the Justice IG is looking into whether AGAG committed OOJ ... and Scooter's going to prison?), they're thinking. Get the folks rallying around the flag with Dubya all wrapped up inside again (and now they can even blame the Democrats for sumptin' or another, which they would surely do).

Or even better yet, they could then, in case things are looking really bad for them politically, even try and invoke martial law....

First Reichstag fire has been burning down, and they're starting to feel a bit chilly right now.

Cheers,