Citizenship has been conditioned out of us; we are to be "vigilant Consumers!", no more, no less. Citizenship is an alien concept to most of us any more, and the idea that the People of the United States are sovereign, not the current Autocrat and his enablers and toadies, is ridiculous to most Americans.

Regaining Citizenship for all Americans must become a primary objective of any New Progressive Reform. It's basic.

Music to my ears, my friend, music to my ears. I teach a class on political participation. I ask my students the first day of class to write a definition of citizenship--hardly any of them can. In one assignment, I ask them to conduct an interview with a public official and write a paper on the official's views of citizenship, participation, impediments to participation, etc. Hardly any of the public officials make much sense on these topics.

My experience is that people generally think of citizenship as abiding by the law, paying taxes, and voting. Aside from voting, everyone here legally must pay taxes and everyone must abide by the law. So what is unique to being a citizen? What is our duty as citizens? Our sole legal duty is jury duty--yes, that thing that most people will do anything to avoid.

What about our rights as citizens? Everyone here is protected by the rights elaborated in the Constitution. Citizens have additional rights: the right to vote, the right to run for office (though naturalized citizens can't run for president), the right to seek redress in federal court, and the right to protection from the U.S. government while abroad. These are pretty powerful rights, all in exchange for jury duty. You would think that citizens would welcome the chance to be more active and feel a sense of obligation to contribute to the public good in return for those powerful rights.

This is the message I try to teach my students. Sadly, most of them can't be bothered to vote, let alone participate in other ways.

But when Obama goes in the OPPOSITE direction, further right, is there not a point at which Greenwald and his readers would say, "Enough. We might lose this election, but we demand a party platform that does not maintain the status quo of exceptionalism that we see in political-class organs like WaPo. We'll vote Green Party unless and until the Democratic Platform is to our liking..."?

The problem for us in the Reality Based Community is we recognize which direction the trend lines are going and seek to reverse or at least slow them, evidentially unlike yourself and Walter "Rorschach" Kovacs as you apparently prefer to simply ignore them. We also recognize our individual influence is limited at this time, so throwing a historic election like this one for "principle" is a fool's action and likely will have graver consequences for us all than we've seen to date.

Believe it or not, I applaud your willingness to hold unpopular position here as you actually seem to believe in them. But don't imagine for a moment you've any moral force behind you. You're risking following a path tread by the likes of Dzhugashvili and ilk. Pardon the rest of us if we decline.

Your answers only lead to further questions, Elephantman.

To me, the two most important issues to be faced by the next President will be security in southwest Asia, and the filling of the next Supreme Court vacancy as well as a large number of federal court vacancies. On those two issues, I have real agreement with a McCain Presidency.

"Security in sowthwest Asia": security of what precisely? National sovereignty? Religious freedom? US hegemony over the natives? Establishing a Starbucks in every square mile between Baku and New Dehli?

The stable and secure flow of oil is definitely one of those things. Greater democracy, along with openness of information and markets is another. The Iraqi and Iranian people (forget about their govenments) want to sell us oil, and they want to buy American movies, video games, and s.u.v.'s. We should all do more of that, unless national security dictates otherwise.

"Filling of the next Supreme Court vacancy": filling it with what? A genuine jurist? A legal schoolar with actual credentials? A sock-puppet? The mummified body of Felix Frankfurter?

This one's easy. I expect McCain to appoint someone in the mold of Roberts or Alito. I'd prefer someone in the mold of Scalia, but that is too hopeful with a polarized Democratic Senate. (Notwithstanding the fact that Scalia was confirmed 98-0.) We might get someone in the mold of Thomas, i.e., the Hon. Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and that too would be great.

You can't go throwing such platitudes out without detailing what you actually mean. Not if you want to be taken seriously anyway...

-- Iokannan in the Well

I just did.

But all this exercise proved is the obvious; that you despise my politics and I despise yours. The difference between me and my candidate is that my disagreements with Senator McCain are peripheral ones. Whereas, Glenn's differences with Obama go to the core beliefs that Glenn has been writing about for as long as there has been a FISA issue. Beliefs that Glenn thinks are central to the notion of what it means to be an American.

Thank you for a most clear and rational answer to my question. I, too, am worried about those court appiontments, and that is what is keeping my hand on the lever for Obama, for now.

I cannot speak for Glenn Greenwald but for me, the feeling is that our national commitment to universal human rights, that came out of our revolution and was reaffirmed most strongly at Nuremberg, may be past reviving. People want to be rich, powerful and safe more than they want to be principled or consistent. They may wish to be consumers more than than they desire to be citizens of a republic. What you may underestimate is that a government that feels is can skirt the law on one thing today may have no scruples about doing something that you find eggregious tomorrow. You as a conservative must understand that government, without a vigilant press and public, is wont to expand its powers to tax, spend, and regulate to the nth degree. Add a heavy dose of secrecy, and you wind up with a dangerous mixture the Founders warned us against. Just wait until the Total Surveillance State uses its powers to ferret out every dime you've made or spent to tax in order to pay for itself and its imperial pretensions. After all, if you've got nothing to hide, why shouldn't the government know everything you do, say, and make?