I think we need to be in the same physical location to get a good riot going. It's hard to generate the roar of an angry crowd sitting alone in my office.
I desperately want a "have you no sense of decency, sir?" moment for people who think like Hewitt does. The arc of the moral universe is long, and if it can't bend toward justice it might as well bend toward scorn and ridicule.
About the impact of this on the elections - are there any polls that asked Average Americans if they can define the term "habeas corpus"? And then asked whether Mr./Ms. AA whether the constitution protected one's right to go before a judge to see if they were being imprisoned unlawfully? The results of said poll would probably make me want to cry (my guesses on the percentage who get them right: 10% for question 1, 80% for question 2) but I think it could shed some light about the impact this may have on the election. Again, probably in a way that will make me want to cry.
I don't know if it's effective or a good idea -- it's mostly anger -- but I just want to call them cowards. They're so afraid of their shadows that they're terrified by the possibility that some poor sap we've been slapping around, whether or not he's actually a terrorist or just someone we accidentally locked up, might get into a courtroom and ask the court to let him go. I really want to pop a paper bag behind Hewitt's head just so I can watch him piss himself.
I think your number for 1 is way too high. I bet at most 5% of Americans could define habeas corpus.
I also bet the answer to 2 depends entirely on how slowly and carefully you explained the issue, and whether you mentioned the word "terrorism" earlier in the conversation.
In the sixties, long after Welch's decency moment, I met a lot of adults who hadn't been chastised, for whom "McCarthyism" would have been meaningless or who would have taken it as a compliment. Just as the movement toward this day has been inexorable, with relatively little drama for most people, so that this doesn't look like a big day at all, so will the movement away from all this not be sudden, nor will a lot of minds actually change.
The language of HH's post is striking. "Collapse," "unmoored," "lost it collective mind." These are the same kind of apocolyptic words that the left uses to describe the right these days. There is a sense on both sides that things just can't continue.
OT: I always thought "The Paranoid Style of American Music" would be a good title for an album of protest songs.
I called Clinton's office to ask her to support a filibuster. I called it the 'Military Commissions Bill'; the staffer called it the 'Torture Bill'. No commitment on the filibuster, but I know where her staff stands.
Kidnapping people, locking them up forever, giving them no opportunity to demonstrate their innocence. That's not "bringing them to justice" -- it's bringing the US to injustice.
Of course, the spineless wimp Democrats who supported torture and kidnapping are being attacked just as much as the ones who stood up for the Constitution and human rights. So much for voting out of fear. Why don't they get it?
Tim, I knew what you meant in 8, but this kind of bill would still be a federal matter with any kind of federalism short of secession (which I don't favor and think is unconstitutional). Unless you in some way changed the jurisdiction of the FBI, ATF, Federal Marshalls, Secret Service, etc. so that they'd need a states permission to operate in that state. Which is pretty fucking strong federalism.
Mmm. For 'strong federalism' to mean the capacity of your state to protect you from the Feds, we'd have to roll back the Civil War. That may be a good idea at some point, but I'm not seeing it yet.
(Although, if all 50 states went their separate ways? NY is a pretty damn viable country. I bet we're agriculturally self-supporting, even without mentioning NYC as an economic driver. If we kept Jersey, too? Even better.)
20: I know it's a loser, but what I really want is guarantees in state constitutions that provoke fights whenever what should be federal standards are violated. At the end of the day, the law says whatever the courts say the law says, court fights are part of the way what the law says gets negotiated, and a strong federalist architecture is a way of structuring the fights.
Well, it's just that insofar as this is about foreign affairs and regulating the national military, it's not the sort of thing that states qua states can have different opinions on.
Well I went ahead and called Menendez and Lautenberg's office. Both are maintaining lists of people who called to support a filibuster so obviously I am not alone. I must say the intern who is answering Lautenberg's phone the last couple of times I have called there is extraordinarily inarticulate for someone in his line of work.
Well, it's just that insofar as this is about foreign affairs and regulating the national military, it's not the sort of thing that states qua states can have different opinions on.
Of course they can. They can recharacterize actions, they can claim rights that must be balanced, they can claim rights of interpretation; they can say whatever they want. It might all be disingenous and in bad faith, it might be bad for the country if they won, but they can more or less claim whatever they want. And provoke a fight. Imagine if all of the Blue states--that is, almost all of the productive states-- were fighting explicitly with the federal government over issues on which all prior relevant history indicated that the states should clearly lose. I think people would worry about the possibility of disunion. And I think it would bring everyone to the the table.
I suspect that Hugh Hewitt and Kathryn Jean Lopez are possible enemy combatants. Furthermore, I suspect that I can get them to confess to this in under seventy-two hours with techniques that will be perfectly legal in the bold new America ushered in by H.R. 6166.
Thanks, -gg-d. 32 seems a bit premature -- every Demoncrat but 1 in the Senate voted in favor of the habeas amendment. If every Dimmocrat (but one, for the sake of argument) votes against the bill and it passes (as it would), does this cut strongly against the party?
If they could have filibustered and didn't, yeah, it does. I'm still voting for them as better than the alternative, but if they don't filibuster they're a bunch of craven, useless, tools.
Yeah, what happened on that? Yesterday or the day before Glenn Greenwald was saying that the bill wouldn't come to the floor of the Senate before the elections. I don't understand Congressional procedure at all.
What seems to have happened is that Democrats didn't get out in front because they didn't know what was going to be in the final form of the bill, and then there was what, a day? between the final form and the vote. Which is fucking insane. I think harder than that about buying shampoo.
44: Wasn't that the wiretap bill? I was confused by the same thing at TPMm. 45 is no excuse; they could've been kicking up a fuss instead of hoping for that evil ambitious shit McCain to save their asses.
What seems to have happened is that Democrats didn't get out in front because they didn't know what was going to be in the final form of the bill
Pretty hard to guess, wasn't it? Ponies for everyone? Netflix bonus coupons for Gitmo inmates?
They knew ALL they needed to know.
And now we are told that 6 Dems kept a filibuster from happening. They should be run out of the party. And a party that won't run them out, isn't a party I care to support.
I can handle living in a country with literally no party that deserves my support. What I can't handle is getting repeatedly let down by the party I do support.
(Quoting you for facts at 49, LB, not trying to mix it up with you. I'm angry at the Dems, not at anyone on this thread, & afraid of confusing the two.)
No, fair enough, and I looked at your 49 and thought "Yeah, if it looked like I was defending them, I didn't mean to".
The 'we won't show you the bill until the day we vote on it' crap is powerful, though, and powerfully undemocratic. Public opposition looks (what's everyone's favorite word?) unhinged! when it's directed at what might be in a bill rather than what we know is. But that's no excuse for the way the Democrats lay down.
More proof they just don't get it. On the same day Congress is set to pass a bill that desecrates our country's founding principles, Karen Hughes says that it may take years to fix the U.S. image abroad because of...the sex and violence in American movies.
"One of the things that I hear a lot, particularly in deeply conservative societies, is that parents feel kind of assaulted by American culture," Hughes said. "The sex and the violence that they see on television and movies ... some of the lyrics of our music."
I just registered on Hewitt's site to call him a cunt (I live in the UK, where that's an acceptable and everyday expletive, so you feminazis can fuck right off). Actually, I just asked whether he had any shame at all. I'm inclined to think not. That might have been the most craven thing I've ever read.
mcmc, i actually regret the feminazis remark, but i won't regret turning in my US passport for an Irish one. i will, however, grieve. what has happened to my country?
You're lucky you can do that. I'm so, so sick of the U.S. right now, of the cowardly unprincipled people who've just traded away their most basic rights for some dream of safety, or without even knowing or caring, of the corporate feudalists who are running the government as if they're the CEOs and the citizens are employees, of the bought and paid for press. I wish I could get the fuck out of here.
mcmc, you're welcome to camp out in my backyard for a couple of weeks, if that's any consolation, but you'd probably get deported to darfur or the congo in the end.
the sick thing is that none of the people who have voted for the pro-torture bill actually believe it's needed. they're just trying to get re-elected. that includes sherrod brown, whom i've met and whom i consider a good guy. how long we'll stay in this muck is anyone's guess.
the sick thing is that none of the people who have voted for the pro-torture bill actually believe it's needed. they're just trying to get re-elected.
The meta-sick thing is, living in a country where voting for the pro-torture bill is seen as a good way to get re-elected. As opposed to a country where such a vote would be like drawing a swastika on one's forehead.
Racketing up the ladder of meta-sickness, living in a country in which voting for the pro-torture bill is seen as a good way to get re-elected, not because the poopulation is pro-torture but because neither the media nor the opposition (nor even conscionable members of the ruling party for goodness sake) speak out to make publically known that this is, in fact, a lawless torture bill, so 95% of the population doesn't even realize what's going on.
She's right, we need to get back to the party of FRD.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:28 PM
Only 34 Democrats in the House voted to bring these killers to justice in this fashion.
and by "killers" I mean people picked up at random who might have connections to killer like organizations
and by "this fashion" I mean lynch mobs.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:37 PM
She inexplicably slighted JKF, though.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:38 PM
I think we need to be in the same physical location to get a good riot going. It's hard to generate the roar of an angry crowd sitting alone in my office.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:39 PM
It is Hugh Hewitt who favors FRD over JKF.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:39 PM
I desperately want a "have you no sense of decency, sir?" moment for people who think like Hewitt does. The arc of the moral universe is long, and if it can't bend toward justice it might as well bend toward scorn and ridicule.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:42 PM
I think I just swallowed my own spleen.
Posted by redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:44 PM
Does anyone still trust the vast breadth of our fellow citizens enough to oppose strong federalism?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:44 PM
About the impact of this on the elections - are there any polls that asked Average Americans if they can define the term "habeas corpus"? And then asked whether Mr./Ms. AA whether the constitution protected one's right to go before a judge to see if they were being imprisoned unlawfully? The results of said poll would probably make me want to cry (my guesses on the percentage who get them right: 10% for question 1, 80% for question 2) but I think it could shed some light about the impact this may have on the election. Again, probably in a way that will make me want to cry.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:44 PM
I don't know if it's effective or a good idea -- it's mostly anger -- but I just want to call them cowards. They're so afraid of their shadows that they're terrified by the possibility that some poor sap we've been slapping around, whether or not he's actually a terrorist or just someone we accidentally locked up, might get into a courtroom and ask the court to let him go. I really want to pop a paper bag behind Hewitt's head just so I can watch him piss himself.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:47 PM
I think your number for 1 is way too high. I bet at most 5% of Americans could define habeas corpus.
I also bet the answer to 2 depends entirely on how slowly and carefully you explained the issue, and whether you mentioned the word "terrorism" earlier in the conversation.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:48 PM
In the sixties, long after Welch's decency moment, I met a lot of adults who hadn't been chastised, for whom "McCarthyism" would have been meaningless or who would have taken it as a compliment. Just as the movement toward this day has been inexorable, with relatively little drama for most people, so that this doesn't look like a big day at all, so will the movement away from all this not be sudden, nor will a lot of minds actually change.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:48 PM
8???? WTF does 'strong federalism' have to do with anything?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:49 PM
13: Basically, I want my Blue state to start acting like a country, because I no longer trust my country to do so.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:54 PM
LB, that's my thought as well. If we interpret him sincerely, he's cowardly; if not, he's a shameless opportunist.
When I think about this I'm amazed at how little faith people like this have in our principles.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:54 PM
The language of HH's post is striking. "Collapse," "unmoored," "lost it collective mind." These are the same kind of apocolyptic words that the left uses to describe the right these days. There is a sense on both sides that things just can't continue.
OT: I always thought "The Paranoid Style of American Music" would be a good title for an album of protest songs.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:56 PM
I called Clinton's office to ask her to support a filibuster. I called it the 'Military Commissions Bill'; the staffer called it the 'Torture Bill'. No commitment on the filibuster, but I know where her staff stands.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:57 PM
Hugh Hewitt: fascist and liar.
Kidnapping people, locking them up forever, giving them no opportunity to demonstrate their innocence. That's not "bringing them to justice" -- it's bringing the US to injustice.
Of course, the spineless wimp Democrats who supported torture and kidnapping are being attacked just as much as the ones who stood up for the Constitution and human rights. So much for voting out of fear. Why don't they get it?
Posted by Nathanael Nerode | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:59 PM
16 -- wow that's an excellent idea. If I ever compile an album of protest songs I will seek your permission to use it.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:59 PM
Tim, I knew what you meant in 8, but this kind of bill would still be a federal matter with any kind of federalism short of secession (which I don't favor and think is unconstitutional). Unless you in some way changed the jurisdiction of the FBI, ATF, Federal Marshalls, Secret Service, etc. so that they'd need a states permission to operate in that state. Which is pretty fucking strong federalism.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 12:59 PM
I also just called the NY Senators again.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:01 PM
Mmm. For 'strong federalism' to mean the capacity of your state to protect you from the Feds, we'd have to roll back the Civil War. That may be a good idea at some point, but I'm not seeing it yet.
(Although, if all 50 states went their separate ways? NY is a pretty damn viable country. I bet we're agriculturally self-supporting, even without mentioning NYC as an economic driver. If we kept Jersey, too? Even better.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:03 PM
20: I know it's a loser, but what I really want is guarantees in state constitutions that provoke fights whenever what should be federal standards are violated. At the end of the day, the law says whatever the courts say the law says, court fights are part of the way what the law says gets negotiated, and a strong federalist architecture is a way of structuring the fights.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:04 PM
LB -- We're with you, but I expect South Jersey to secede and join the slave states.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:04 PM
The tomatoes come from North Jersey, right? Who needs Atlantic City.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:07 PM
So, am I understanding correctly that the vote could take place at any moment now?
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:07 PM
I dunno. If you have a TV, which I don't, check C-Span.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:09 PM
Well, it's just that insofar as this is about foreign affairs and regulating the national military, it's not the sort of thing that states qua states can have different opinions on.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:10 PM
Does anyone still trust the vast breadth of our fellow citizens enough to oppose strong federalism?
Because I trust my fellow citizens of Lubbock so much more.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:11 PM
Well I went ahead and called Menendez and Lautenberg's office. Both are maintaining lists of people who called to support a filibuster so obviously I am not alone. I must say the intern who is answering Lautenberg's phone the last couple of times I have called there is extraordinarily inarticulate for someone in his line of work.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:16 PM
Well, it's just that insofar as this is about foreign affairs and regulating the national military, it's not the sort of thing that states qua states can have different opinions on.
Of course they can. They can recharacterize actions, they can claim rights that must be balanced, they can claim rights of interpretation; they can say whatever they want. It might all be disingenous and in bad faith, it might be bad for the country if they won, but they can more or less claim whatever they want. And provoke a fight. Imagine if all of the Blue states--that is, almost all of the productive states-- were fighting explicitly with the federal government over issues on which all prior relevant history indicated that the states should clearly lose. I think people would worry about the possibility of disunion. And I think it would bring everyone to the the table.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:23 PM
Today, I'm thinking I will not vote Democratic again in a national election. I want to vote for an opposition party, and there isn't one.
As the post vividly demonstrates, there was NO excuse not to filibuster. None.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:30 PM
Hate to bring you guys down from your cheery mood.....
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:31 PM
Labs, what's the post title from? It sound familiar, but googling it in quotes didn't work.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:32 PM
"The hills are aaaa-live with the paraaa-noid sound of music ...."
Speaking of Hewitt, Tokyo Rose died yesterday. Hewitt and K-Lo don't even have the excuse of a being captive behind enemy lines.
#29 gets it exactly right. Southerners get a little giddy when the Yankee yoke is removed.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:36 PM
I suspect that Hugh Hewitt and Kathryn Jean Lopez are possible enemy combatants. Furthermore, I suspect that I can get them to confess to this in under seventy-two hours with techniques that will be perfectly legal in the bold new America ushered in by H.R. 6166.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:42 PM
Are 32 and 33 an oblique way of saying that the vote has been called? Or something else?
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:43 PM
The vote hasn't happened yet.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:47 PM
Don't they have to vote down two or three more amendments first?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:49 PM
32 disavows any obliqueness.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:51 PM
Thanks, -gg-d. 32 seems a bit premature -- every Demoncrat but 1 in the Senate voted in favor of the habeas amendment. If every Dimmocrat (but one, for the sake of argument) votes against the bill and it passes (as it would), does this cut strongly against the party?
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:53 PM
If they could have filibustered and didn't, yeah, it does. I'm still voting for them as better than the alternative, but if they don't filibuster they're a bunch of craven, useless, tools.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:56 PM
And they didn't get out in front of the issue either. It would've been nice to build some momentum against this instead of hoping it would go away.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 1:59 PM
Yeah, what happened on that? Yesterday or the day before Glenn Greenwald was saying that the bill wouldn't come to the floor of the Senate before the elections. I don't understand Congressional procedure at all.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 2:00 PM
What seems to have happened is that Democrats didn't get out in front because they didn't know what was going to be in the final form of the bill, and then there was what, a day? between the final form and the vote. Which is fucking insane. I think harder than that about buying shampoo.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 2:02 PM
I called Inouye and Akaka. Akaka's staffer was at least a little bit engaged with the issue. Inouye's mostly sounded bored.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 2:05 PM
44: Wasn't that the wiretap bill? I was confused by the same thing at TPMm. 45 is no excuse; they could've been kicking up a fuss instead of hoping for that evil ambitious shit McCain to save their asses.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 2:07 PM
Ah. That'll teach me to skim.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 2:09 PM
What seems to have happened is that Democrats didn't get out in front because they didn't know what was going to be in the final form of the bill
Pretty hard to guess, wasn't it? Ponies for everyone? Netflix bonus coupons for Gitmo inmates?
They knew ALL they needed to know.
And now we are told that 6 Dems kept a filibuster from happening. They should be run out of the party. And a party that won't run them out, isn't a party I care to support.
I can handle living in a country with literally no party that deserves my support. What I can't handle is getting repeatedly let down by the party I do support.
No more.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 3:03 PM
(Quoting you for facts at 49, LB, not trying to mix it up with you. I'm angry at the Dems, not at anyone on this thread, & afraid of confusing the two.)
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 3:04 PM
No, fair enough, and I looked at your 49 and thought "Yeah, if it looked like I was defending them, I didn't mean to".
The 'we won't show you the bill until the day we vote on it' crap is powerful, though, and powerfully undemocratic. Public opposition looks (what's everyone's favorite word?) unhinged! when it's directed at what might be in a bill rather than what we know is. But that's no excuse for the way the Democrats lay down.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 3:18 PM
My overwhelming emotion at all of this is not anger, sadness, or contempt. It is incredulity. How the hell did this happen?
Posted by Glenn | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 3:20 PM
Am I mistaken in 34 that the post title has a source?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 3:24 PM
The 'we won't show you the bill until the day we vote on it' crap is powerful, though, and powerfully undemocratic.
They should filibuster any such thing on general principle. Wait -- "general principle" -- they don't have any. Never mind.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 3:39 PM
More proof they just don't get it. On the same day Congress is set to pass a bill that desecrates our country's founding principles, Karen Hughes says that it may take years to fix the U.S. image abroad because of...the sex and violence in American movies.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:04 PM
I just registered on Hewitt's site to call him a cunt (I live in the UK, where that's an acceptable and everyday expletive, so you feminazis can fuck right off). Actually, I just asked whether he had any shame at all. I'm inclined to think not. That might have been the most craven thing I've ever read.
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:10 PM
53: Best not to go digging for anonymous sources. Wouldn't want anything...unfortunate to happen.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:12 PM
hooray for peter snees.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:20 PM
Snees. Re feminazis, fuck you too. Otherwise, quite right.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:22 PM
mcmc, i actually regret the feminazis remark, but i won't regret turning in my US passport for an Irish one. i will, however, grieve. what has happened to my country?
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:27 PM
what has happened to my country?
Dude, we folded awful fast, didn't we?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:34 PM
You're lucky you can do that. I'm so, so sick of the U.S. right now, of the cowardly unprincipled people who've just traded away their most basic rights for some dream of safety, or without even knowing or caring, of the corporate feudalists who are running the government as if they're the CEOs and the citizens are employees, of the bought and paid for press. I wish I could get the fuck out of here.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:36 PM
All that's left is for Bush to declare himself a god. He's gotten about as close as he can, in a "Christian" country.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:38 PM
The bill hasn't actually passed yet. I think we're right on the edge of folding, or doing something totally sweet and awesome.
I vote for the second option. So who's going to purchase the toilet paper?
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:38 PM
mcmc, you're welcome to camp out in my backyard for a couple of weeks, if that's any consolation, but you'd probably get deported to darfur or the congo in the end.
the sick thing is that none of the people who have voted for the pro-torture bill actually believe it's needed. they're just trying to get re-elected. that includes sherrod brown, whom i've met and whom i consider a good guy. how long we'll stay in this muck is anyone's guess.
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:43 PM
the sick thing is that none of the people who have voted for the pro-torture bill actually believe it's needed. they're just trying to get re-elected.
The meta-sick thing is, living in a country where voting for the pro-torture bill is seen as a good way to get re-elected. As opposed to a country where such a vote would be like drawing a swastika on one's forehead.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:48 PM
true. sad, but true.
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:51 PM
Racketing up the ladder of meta-sickness, living in a country in which voting for the pro-torture bill is seen as a good way to get re-elected, not because the poopulation is pro-torture but because neither the media nor the opposition (nor even conscionable members of the ruling party for goodness sake) speak out to make publically known that this is, in fact, a lawless torture bill, so 95% of the population doesn't even realize what's going on.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 4:53 PM