If all mind altering substances were legal and readily available, we'd have Rudy Giuliani saying he didn't see why anyone thought their use to coerce information out of prisoners was considered torture -- "after all, you should see how many I consume on the campaign trail." Or maybe "sedatives administered by suppository to naked prisoners aren't part of extraordinary rendition, it depends who administers the suppository. Ted Haggard knows this great suppository guy in Brooklyn..."

Please!!! This is utter idiocy! The KGB were atheists without any moral compass. Thus their victims were perfectly justified in fearing the worst would happen to them.

In contrast American interrogation techniques, no matter how enhanced, are clearly...

... done with Gawd's will in mind, performed lovingly, and under the auspices of Christian teachings (see, e.g., Torquemada et al., "Pyrotechnics, material tensile strength, and enhanced interrogation techniques", J. Interrog. & Prof. Eth., Vol. 106, pp. 316-393 (1487)).

Cheers,

[dopey-o, to Giuliani]: Actually, I think you're not man enough. You talk a good game, but we already have a president like that.

... and, to be frank, that's been a freaking disaster....

Cheers,

Remember the America before 9/11?

Our heads were up our asses.

True, but why you're telling us that is beyond me. We knew that back then (witness the Starr Chamber panty raids, and the RW foamer comments about "missiles up camel's butts"). We, OTOH, generally had a pretty good grasp on reality and current affairs (see, e.g., Gore's recommendations for airlines, and Richard Clarke's presentations to the incoming maladministration).

What puzzles me more, though, "Tiberius" is why you haven't done anything to rectify that in the interim.

Cheers,

bamage.

Try not to eat a snail that crawled through a flop of ergot. achacoo. bless you.

buzzes like snail-ergotcha gets ya's all wired. Come rain drizzle, whatever may,

tomorrow+buzz-be=Gone.

Brain snaps and neron neo=con-snark~suffer sizzle synapse, and always,

like a fried brain head got poached or pooched~~smooch, eh. bambage?

'um need a assburn and pepo-bismal.

Dismal.

Remember the America before 9/11?

Our heads were up our asses.

What puzzles me more, though, "Tiberius" is why you haven't done anything to rectify that in the interim.

Cheers,

-- Arne Langsetmo

What puzzles me more, though, "Tiberius" is why you haven't done anything to rectalfy that in the interim.

There, fixed that for ya.

Binomial data is the least informative, agree or disagree? ;-)

LOL.

"There's two kinds of people in the world, those that use the fallacy of bifurcation, and those that don't...."

"There's two kinds of people in the world, those that point out the fallacy of bifurcation in others, and those that don't."

"There's two kinds of people in the world, those that write comments about people who know about the fallacy of bifurcation, and those that don't."

...

(anonanon)

...

"Ma'am ... It's turtles all the way down...."

Cheers,

What puzzles me more, though, "Tiberius" is why you haven't done anything to rectalfy that in the interim.

The thought occurred to me too. But methinks it might be lost on Tibby.... But thanks for the correctum. ;-)

Cheers,

I'll even go a step further...

Provide a comprehensive list of the liberal politicians at *any* level of government who are in favor of ending the drug war.

It couldn't get any easier than that.

Liberals are so in favor of personal freedom, right?

Also, given that the great majority of arrests and imprisonments in the drug war are for cannabis, I would like to hear a rational argument why cannabis should be illegal. -- Aycharaych

I have been watching this tete-a-tete between you and LWM and I fail to see the point of any of it. You want and admission that "liberal" politicians don't care about and indeed promote the war on drugs? They absolutely don't care and they absolutely do promote it... but then they aren't "liberal" either.

I find the entire argument ridiculous and cannot for the life of me understand why you are pushing it so hard. From what I can gather it seems you are a hard core Libertarian and are just trying to call out both of the two parties for their blatant disregard for civil liberties. Fine. I agree whole heartedly. So?

Listen, with the exception of a very few (and I mean maybe 3 or 4 that I can think of) politicians that set themselves apart, there is one party in this country not two. A liberal position on drugs or drug laws would more properly represented by a nation such as Holland. Their laws are convoluted and even a bit strained and perhaps do not go far enough in decriminalizing drugs but they have a much more "liberal" view of the situation than we do.

So, having said all of that, if your point is to show us all how non-liberal the supposed liberals in this country are I think you are explaining things to us that we already know. I can only speak for myself as what I perceive to be a liberal but I am not fooled by the Clintons and people like Obama. They are "moderate" to center-right, placating corporate politicians. Calling them liberals doesn't make it true. Perhaps I have missed something wrt to argument here but from my perspective the conversation is becoming tiresome not because you have a point but because we already know these things.

One of the most distressing things to me about the course of conduct of this administration is how it may affect acknowledged international legal norms and standards. The use of torture is one example, together with indefinite confinement of foreign and domestic suspects as enemy combatants without access to the federal court system, and especially, the attempt to evade the Geneva Convention rights of combatants.

Usually, the authority cited for these measures is the Article II constitutional power of the president to wage war as Commander in Chief. A truly unfettered constitutional power of the president to wage war would mean that ,as a matter of constitutional law and prerogative, any measure the president might choose to use in time of war is mandated by the constitution and can not be restrained or limited by any treaty, domestic law, or action, of either of the other branches of the federal government.

In its broadest terms, this would mean that any action commonly accepted as being a war crime in the international community would be a legitimate exercise by the president of his war making power, the use of genocide might be legitimate, for example, in the president's absolute and unassailable discretion.

In addition, it could be argued that the war making power granted to the president necessarily contains all ancillary powers needed to give effect to that power, including the power to raise taxes or borrow money to wage war, or to carry out the activities of the unitary executive.

Further, any attempt to restrain the actions of the president by the federal courts, or by Congress, including the attempted exercise of the Congressional power of impeachment of the president because of his use of these powers would be utterly unconstitutional, and beyond the powers of the Courts and Congress.

Tyrannosaurus President.

This is the broadest possible interpretation of the Article II powers of the president, and is much further along the continuum of powers than those which this administration has advocated, but the seeds of such an interpretation, and the expansion of the presidency into an American Dictatorship are clearly seen in the utter contempt for established norms prevalent in their actions to date.

If the United States has been unable to limit the expansion of presidential powers and curtailment of civil liberties we have already seen in the aftermath of 9/11, what would prevent something like the above nightmare scenario from emerging in a time of real conflict and real danger?