Letters to the Editor
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"We can't have a president who..."
Is this for real? This is a joke, right?
We currently have a "president" who heard voices inside his head and thought God was telling him to kill people.
...a "president" who was installed by the Supreme Court instead of by election
...a "president" who is opposed to nearly every statement in the Constitution
...a "president" who supports torture, concentration camps, wars of aggression...
The sad thing is, I could go on and on, but I won't. Does she honestly think we're going to be upset because a Presidential candidate has nice hair?
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@ DogFather
DogFather, I think you'd enjoy more serenity in your liberalism if you could just bring yourself to abandon the idea that the U.S.A. is some unique gift of God or Darwin to global political discourse.
Much as I love my country, I never forget that her prosperity as of about 1863 was built on near genocide against native Americans, and on the last instance of chattel slavery among European and European-descended nations. And anyone who supposes that wealth and prosperity in 2007 is unrelated to wealth and prosperity in 1863 just doesn't grasp the frame of mind that fruitfully encounters historical evidence.
Like other peoples, the American people bring to the table good things and bad. One of the worst things they bring to the table is insufferable pride.
You wrote (under the heading, "Thoughts on 'an armed society is a polite society'"): "If nothing else, Bush's administration has shown us what happens when a man is untethered from the limitations of public scrutiny. Every action by said administration has been taken with as little public recognition as possible. What has it brought us? Torture, wars of aggression, and a massive transference of wealth from the public coffers to private accounts. Is that America?"
And "The key difference, the difference that supposedly sets America apart from the rest, is that there are laws and rules that would prevent me from doing so."
How do American laws and rules set us apart from, say, England, or Australia, or Sweden, or Norway, or India?
We Americans would do the world a great favor by ridding ourselves of our ethnocentric "American exceptionalism". And I think you're right on the verge of understanding that.