...respond to emergencies in a manner other than catatonic paralysis ..."

Maybe Americans expect their government to not start conflicts or cause emergencies. I realize that big-government-worshipers have trouble with the concept of being friendly to others until they give you a real reason not to be friendly, but most Americans really do think their government is doing all it can to avoid armed conflict.

Boy, is the public in denial.

Great journalism at the Arkansas Times.

-- sysprog

Arkansas: The answer to the question I posed on a previous thread. A totally red state, usually guaranteed to vote Republican in any presedential election (except for former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, who carried the state by comfortable margins in 92 and 96), with nothing but Democrats in every major state office from the Governor on down, in the state legislature and every federal representative, save one, John Boozman. Curious. Arkansas certainly isn't a bastion of liberalism like Massachusetts.

Ideologues in their own right. But an appropriate title for any post from the right libertarian quarter.

Gene Healy...It’s All About Me

[...}

Also, Glenn Greenwald has kind words about Cult today on his blog, in the midst of a nice dissection of McCain’s speech of yesterday on judicial nominations.

Finally, if you’re sick of the self-promotion, I’ll leaven it with a little self-criticism. In the Reason article, I spend a few paragraphs talking about the political aftermath of Katrina, and how the president pushed for, and got, vast new powers to use the military to keep order domestically in the wake of a natural disaster. Very few people noticed the provision when it was slipped into a defense authorization bill signed the same day as the Military Commissions Act, but the new exception to the Posse Comitatus Act was significant, and a great example of how presidents are driven to seek new powers when faced with a public that holds them responsible for acts of God. Yeah, well, very few people–including me–noticed it when Sen. Patrick Leahy helped get that provision repealed a few months back. I didn’t know that–since the changes were technically to the Insurrection Act, they didn’t come up in my Google News Alert for “Posse Comitatus”–and I wrote those paragraphs as if the law was still in force. So, sorry about that. Congress. It screws me even when it’s doing something good...

http://genehealy.com/2008/05/its-all-about-me-2/

Maybe Americans just expect a president to respond to emergencies in a manner other than catatonic paralysis (My Pet Goat), or fiddling like Nero (Katrina).

A president cannot have dictatorial powers, because he is fallible, not every time, but enough times so that his decisions and actions should be skeptically and seriously scrutinized for errors in judgment, analytical diligence, perception, or the emotional state that is clarifying or obfuscating the probability of a negative or positive outcome. Apparently, enough people believe that an acceptable cost/benefit ratio currently exists.

If any of our leaders are basing their decisions on an ideological or religious concept they must be immediately institutionalized for thirty days of observation, at which point a committee decides whether to extend the examination for an additional thirty days. If at the end of sixty days there remain questions as to the subject's suitability for reintroduction a six month extension may prove necessary.

If there has been no improvement after the eight months, the subject is removed from his or her government duties until suitable employment can be found. Common causes for termination from government positions are megalomania, paranoia, sociopath disorder, unresolved Oedipal complex, Kleptomania, pyromania, fundamentalism, sadism, bestiality, psychosis, compulsive onanism, perfectionism, (because it is delusional,) inappropriate innocence, and numerous unpaid parking tickets.

It is simply remarkable that one single human being could compress so much inarticulate stupidity into 39 words.

I’m sure this stupid fuck is up to his eyeballs in debt, his house is worth less than his mortgage, his job is at risk, and he can barely pay his gas bills to get to that job, where he is forced to suck the dick of another right-wing dumbshit asshole who is his “supervisor”. Remember, it’s delusional freaks like this fucknozzle who are exactly the “base” of the Republican Party who McCain is sucking up to.

We can sympathize with the plight of idiots like this, who are understandably under a huge amount of stress and unable to provide for and protect their families, and angry because they have finally realized that the right-wing “conservative” koolaid they have been drinking for decades has really been plutocrat diarrhea, scientifically designed to appeal to their basest most ignorant impulses. But we cannot allow sad sick fucks like this angry incompetent demented shitbag to set the course for the future of our nation.

With many thanks to physio prof.

The Straight Talk Express took another sharp right turn today as John McCain promised his conservative base four more years of out-of-touch judges that would threaten a woman’s right to choose, gut the campaign finance reform that bears his own name, and trample the rights and interests of the American people. Barack Obama has always believed that our courts should stand up for social and economic justice, and what’s truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves.

Now, Glenn, you're a constitutional lawyer. Should courts stand up for social and economic justice?

If you miss an occasional post, do not fret. You can always drop into your local FBI office and read their copy.

Have a good trip.

Anonymust is right, I am traveling. I've been following the threads as best I can, but as good as they've been, it's not easy reading 26 pages of comments on a cell phone.

Regards to all....

well, we do have it, but it isn't seen as something spiritual, just as an ultra-free-market economic doctrine : Thatcherism, asset-stripping, privatisation, rolling back the "welfare state," etc. This last point about the "welfare state" is extremely imnportant, I think for this reason : immediately after WW2 a "Labour" government came to power, which promised to provide cradle-to-grave basic services for all, without means testing. This was to include : comprehensive unemployment benefits to a modest but tolerable standard of living, including rent ; "council housing," i.e. publicly subsidised housing administered through local councils, which are what we call our borough administrations ; a "national health service," i.e. 100% subsidised basic health care ; and subsidised primary and secondary education, including 100% grants for both tuition and maintenance expenses for those who passed fairly basic entrance exams qualifying them for further education. Of these currently only the "national health service" remains. The roll-back of all these things and the re-privatisation of "the commanding heights of the economy" such as power and telecoms has been accompanied by a strident Hayek-style rhetoric under the "Conservative" governments and a more shamefaced version of the same doctrine under "Labour" ones, but grandiose claims of spiritual superiority have not been so common, and I really think this is because, at least in south-east England, the dominant area in mass media terms, Calvinism is not and has never been fashionable.