Preemptive pardons have happened before .. Just recall GHW Bush's preemptive pardon of Cap Weinberger.

And yet we constantly hear of Clinton's pardon of Mark Rich.

Weinberger, not so much.

It's kind of like every single neo-Nazi and KKK member in the country supporting Ron Paul for president and now hating Bush and his policies. Ain't polictics cool?

I'd prefer Kucinich or Gravel though.

Go back and read my previous letters, you'll find that I'm very consistent in what I advocate and what I believe.

By the way, what is you "better metric"?

Why do you criticize my metric and yet fail to provide a better one of your own?

There isn't any such thing as accurate information, only varying degrees of inaccuracy.

Sitting on a jury and listening to different witnesses relate their version of the same event will teach you this in a remarkably short time.

I grew up being taught that America was a shining 'city on the hill', above the depravities of human nature.

Every society on the planet indoctrinates its children to believe that their's is the best and most perfect of cultures.

Why should America be any different?

By the way, what is you (sic) "better metric"?

How about this, and I'll do my best Jeff Foxworthy impression just for you.

You might be living in a police state if you try and leave the country and find out that it isn't allowed.

You might not be living in a police state if more people are trying to get into the country than are trying to get out of it.

Last time I checked, you are free to leave. Please, do so.

Last time I checked, some asshole or another is trying to put up a wall at the border. Not to keep people in, but to keep them out.

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/hpsci-chairman-reyes-honors-d-ncs-jose-rodriguez.html

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
THE WORK OF A NATION. THE CENTER OF INTELLIGENCE.

Press Releases & Statements

HPSCI Chairman Reyes Honors D/NCS Jose Rodriguez
August 16, 2007

On Tuesday, 16 August 2007, during the 4th annual "Border Security Conference" in El Paso, Texas, Congressman Silvestre Reyes presented Jose Rodriguez, Director of the National Clandestine Service, with a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in recognition of his three decades of dedicated service with the Central Intelligence Agency. Here is an excerpt:

CHAIRMAN REYES: [...] We have an individual here that Mike Delaney tells me was the impetus to – I hope all of you are familiar with the TV series “24.” This gentleman that I’m about to thank was really the genesis – with a few liberties that Hollywood takes – the exploits of Jose Rodriguez are documented in the series “24.” So he admitted to me that he likes fast cars. I won’t tell you about the women, but I will tell you about the fast cars. (Laughter.) He is a connoisseur of fine wine. [...] Mr. Jose Rodriguez, Director of National Clandestine Service. Please give him a big round of applause.

(Applause.)

JOSE RODRIGUEZ: When I said yesterday that I was a little nervous because I was dropping trou – I didn’t mean it in the “24” series sense; I meant it in dropping cover. But I am truly honored, Congressman. [...]

- - as found at www.cia.gov

Thanks to Lindsay Beyerstein for the www.cia.gov link.
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2007/12/jose-rodriguez.html

I want to thank you for the thoughtful comment.

Essentially: what good is democracy without accurate information?

I apologize for my inability to pinpoint quotes here, but a common idea I hear is that democracy fails when people figure out that they can vote money for themselves (somebody help me out here on specifics). I argue that the sentiment is correct, but not in the way that it is most often implied. It is not the 'great unwashed masses' that have benefited from voting to enrich themselves, but rather the privileged few. It takes money to make money, so to speak. I have no wealth to back a sympathetic candidate, I have only the power (and what is one vote among millions?) to vote for one who I divine will best fight for my rights. I cannot even be confident in that without accurate information. I can accept imperfect information, but not information that is deliberately distorted to affect an end almost certainly against my interests.

What is my recourse? So far it is to read Glenn and others, taking solace from him and various commentators that at least I am not alone in recognizing that the current American system does not benefit the public.

I grew up being taught that America was a shining 'city on the hill', above the depravities of human nature. A place where the ideals of humanity could not only survive, but prosper. A place where torture, war for profit, and the trampling upon the unfortunate for the benefit of the few was to be reviled, not rewarded. The more I have learned about American history, the more I realize that we have never achieved such a state... but also the more I realize that the fight for such a state has never been abandoned. America has not thrived because of the greedy few, but rather in spite of them.

-- DogFather

Does this sound familiar?

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

I'd like to tell you who wrote it but I can't. Some ultra conservative Bircher wingnut penned this bullshit in the late fifties or early sixties. It's the kind of bullshit propaganda that Ron Paul and other wingnuts grew up on. You can read all about it here:

The Truth About Tytler

by Loren Collins

Who penned the above words? If one were to put one's faith in the reliability of the internet, the obvious answer would be Alexander Tytler. Or Alexander Tyler. Or Arnold Toynbee. Or Lord Thomas Macaulay. Or...

The truth is that despite their frequent use, the author(s) of the above quotes are unknown. With regard to the first quoted paragraph, the Library of Congress' Respectfully Quoted writes, "Attributed to ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER, LORD WOODHOUSELEE. Unverified." The quote, however, appears in no published work of Tytler's. And with regard to the second, the same book says "Author unknown. Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli. Unverified."

Yet despite this factual uncertainty, these quotes are not only frequently attributed to Tytler, but just as frequently employ his antiquity as a means of enhancing their reliability. I myself was misled for years before being informed of their "unverified" status.

Thus, I attempted to trace the origins of these quotes, as best I could. For the first quote, ending in "dictatorship," I have chosen to adopt the title "Why Democracies Fail," or WDF for short, which is perhaps the most common title given the quote. The last sentence of the first paragraph does not appear alongside the earliest instances of the quote. For the second quote, I have chosen to use the title "Fatal Sequence," or FS, which was the name given to it in a 1989 newspaper.

The earliest usage I have discovered of "Why Democracies Fail" is from May 3, 1959. It appeared on page 35 of The New York Times Book Review, in the "Queries and Answers" column. The relevant portion of the column, which was first among that day's queries, read as follows...

http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html

As far as the "shining city on the hill" Reagan crap:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=America_is_a_shining_city_upon_a_hill

The place you describe is far from Reagan's America. Right now it's the Scandinavian countries, Canada, or some European countries. Social democracies with mixed economies (yeah, socialism), the dreaded "welfare states" that most closely resemble it the "shining cities on the hill" you describe. In a word, you've been repeatedly had. Welcome to America where the "trampling upon the unfortunate for the benefit of the few" is the end result of that particular kind of "liberty" wingnuts are always going on about. I guaranfuckingtee you that ultra conservatism, anarchocapitalism and right wing libertarianism is not the way to avoid or prevent that. Long story short, Ron Paul is Reagan on steroids, minus the warmongering, but last time I checked, those loonies at the RLC thought Star Wars missile defense was a good idea. That was in 2000.