If we have any respect at all for the people who wrote our Constitution and their stated fears and hopes, this consolidation of power in one branch of government is the fundamental evil the Constitution was drafted to avoid. And it is happening now; it has happened already.
Extremely well put, LB.
Have you heard any defenses of this behavior from committed conservatives, other than the "don't be such an alarmist / surely it can't be that bad" variety? Idealist? baa? (sorry to pick on you two, but you are Unfogged's official token conservatives, and I really am interested in your thoughts on this).
Also LB, know any good recipes using pork?
There are good recipes that don't involve pork?
And the post is largely a rip-off of Greenwald's linked post -- I wanted to get it up here, and I'm not crazy about posts that just link; I have a tendency not to click through unless the text sells me on the link. I would have ripped off digby, but didn't read the post until after mine was up.
Disagree entirely about Luttig. He's an unprincipled bastard.
I'm reasonably sure Digby's a guy.
But he's got limits. That's the thing about judges -- they aren't perfect, no class of people is, and many are biased in one way or another. But most of them aren't cheats: they know what the law is, or, in doubtful or previously undecided areas, what they believe the law should be, and they honestly apply that law to the facts of the cases before them.
Luttig gave the administration carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to Padilla, under the stated theory that they had that power, constitutionally, when national security demanded it. This was a bad decision, and it's bad because of his bad politics. But it's a judge applying his view of the law. What shocked him, and wouldn't have shocked an unprincipled cynic, was the administration's evasion of further review -- realizing that whatever he'd decided didn't matter, because the administration was going to do what it liked regardless of what the courts said.
I was too, but other folks seem very sure Digby's a she.
4: Oh. I'd been agnostic, but recently saw a bunch of references to digby as 'her' and figured reliable info had come out. Still no?
There are good recipes that don't involve pork?
Anti-Semite.
My gen-dar says Digby writes like a man, but I wouldn't put money on it at this point.
Anti-Semite.
It's not our fault God has chosen to torment you people at every opportunity.
Mine did, until I'd been reading for quite awhile, and then I started to think that the consistently absolutely non-personal tone sounded like a woman intentionally writing impersonally. Not that it matters, anyway.
My gen-dar has changed its mind. I'm pretty sure Digby's a she, these days. (In the beginning, I think Digby was stylistically influenced by Billmon, who can be pretty damned macho.)
And yo, I scooped your ass on both these stories.
6: Aren't people generally sure Digby's a 1) she (or a he for that matter) because they've seen him referred to as a woman and weren't aware there's a mystery, or 2) For the same reason you cite yourself.
You and the rest of the blogosphere -- I was slow off the mark.
good recipe involving pork:
take some sea salt, a bay leaf, some thyme leaves, a doz or so peppercorns, and crush 'em in a mortar and pestle or under a rolling pin. rub that all over a pork tenderloin and let sit a while (overnight, 8 hours, something like that).
preheat oven to 350
take some good rich homemade stock (not canned, because the salt would be a problem) and reduce it by 2/3 or more.
brown the tenderloin and put it in a roasting pan in the oven for an hour
cook about a half chopped onion in a little butter. add 1 1/2 c wine and reduce by 2/3. add the reduced stock and cook a little more. strain. whisk in 1/4 tsp sugar and 1 tsp dijon mustard. that's sauce robert. if you want sauce charcuterie also add 3 or so sliced cornichons. the sauce should be made with demi glaze if you have that but i assumed you didnt.
of course you could just roast the pork w/out the sauce. slice thick and pour some of the sauce over it
13: Well, I think it from the style. The absolutely no hints of personal life showing through reads to me like a woman writing neuter.
I cannot weigh in on the Digby Gender Debate. And I don't have much of an opinion on the datamining other than it pisses me off. Look, the regulations are old, unsuited to tracking terrorists with cellphones, and since it's not 'wiretapping', getting a traditional warrant is impossible.
Fine and dandy. We have this thing called a Congress, that can pass new laws that can balance new security concerns and technology with personal freedoms, and a thing called a court system, that can tell if the new laws are constitutional and achieve balance with protected freedoms, but you're supposed to let Congress and the courts do that.
I'm kind of pessimistic. My sister, who is generally my token conservative on these things, is convinced it's okay because it's just the terrorists that would get tracked. But how do you know a priori if someone's a terrorist? (I make a lot of international calls. This pisses me off.) And if you do, why can't we make it so there can be a paper trail.
16: How so? I read digby pretty assiduously and I can't remember a personal fact or anecdote. No location, no pets, no hobbies: there may be something I've missed (oh, I could have missed lots, I'm like that) but I don't remember any personal data at all.
The way Digby writes about the relationship to his father, his brand of cranky, his brand of angry, his brand of humor, how he writes about sexual issues, and the 60s. It all sound very male to me. I could well be wrong.
My sister, who is generally my token conservative on these things, is convinced it's okay because it's just the terrorists that would get tracked.
Has she read this latest story? It is everyone now (except the Qwest customers). They're putting every domestic call into a database. So she can't console herself with 'just tracking the terrorists'.
19: Well, in that sense, sure. But he's a very personal in another sense, as opposerd to say tpmcafe or mydd posters. He certainly writes about his feelings and attitudes.
He also writes about his relationship with his father and how his political opinions have evolved, about being a boomer.
I don't think my sister is sane on this one, but I haven't talked to her today.
I hope none of those wrong numbers I've gotten have been terrorists.
I make international calls too, fewer than I used to, but I call domestically to someone who also calls (dah dum DAH) the Middle East!
But what I really want to know is what they've managed to collect on the Clintons.
22: Okay, this really doesn't matter. But I just googled Hullabaloo for mentions of 'father', and found this:
And, I personally need look no further than my 80 year old father, a retired Navy man and veteran of WWII and Korea who thinks the rhetoric about Saddam and impending war with Iraq is a “joke.” We’re talking about a former John Birch society type wing-nut here, a man who treated the possibility of my older brother refusing to go to Viet Nam as a very personal insult.
That reads female to me, because she doesn't raise her going or not going as a source of strife. I think a man writing that paragraph, even if he were too young for the draft, would have brought himself into it. It's not conclusive -- he could be a man really working at staying ungendered -- but I think a man not making a serious effort to be ungendered (which seems less likely for a man than for a woman to do) would have brought in his own relationship to a possible draft.
11: In the beginning, I think Digby was stylistically influenced by Billmon, who can be pretty damned macho.
I have my doubts about the order of causation here -- Digby was commenting on Eschaton a long time ago, way back in the rateyourmusic days (comment service before Haloscan), and I don't think Billmon had hit it big then. In fact... this may be Billmon's first guest post at the old Kos site, and digby's archives (barely) go back before then.
I've always assumed Digby was male because of the name and the picture of the guy in the sidebar, but Digby's shtick at Eschaton was to be a parody freeper (kind of like Colbert), so that might be part of it.
Anyway, I think Digby should be grammatically Standpipical.
[Back to important stuff: Bush making self into lawless dictator instituting universal spying, bad.]
25: Come on. You think there is anything, absolutely anything, possibly embarassing about the Clintons that hasn't come out already?
I don't think his style has changed.
But LB, we don't have proof Hillary is a lesbian. Yet.
You're right, Matt. Digby's debut was Jan. 1, 2003; Billmon's archives only go back to Apr. 11, 2003. I don't think that last part is quite right, though. Anyway, Digby was commenting all over the damned place back in the day...
I make calls daily to weekly to someone who works closely in a potentially separatist region. Not teh Muslims, but I still make a note to shout out to the NSA during phone sex.
the picture of the guy in the sidebar
I'm pretty sure that's Howard Beale from Network. Which said just about all there is to be said about television journalism.
And, you know, WTF? How about "Making the administration go through legal channels should be OK, because it's only bad administrations who wouldn't want to go through legal channels"?
You got me curious, dammit. I was dead certain Digby was male. I remembered Jane Hamsher talking about meeting she/him. I Googled around, and noticed Hamsher never uses pronouns:
I had this conversation with Digby one time, and I don't think Digby has blogged about it (or at least I couldn't find it). But Digby says that one of the enduring "truisms" about Democrats that the Republicans managed to exploit so well...
Hmmm. Suspicious. But then I came across this one where she gave the game away:
Digby was in Mexico but sent his best and counseled that we LA bloggers "gotta knock that chip off those Philly bloggers' shoulders."
Well, I wouldn't really be surprised either way. But Hamsher's met digby in person, before the quoted reference?
But had Jane met Digby then? She could've been assuming, and dropped that assumption after meeting Digby. Tristero has referred to Digby as "he" a couple of times, but says he has no idea whether that's right.
Y'know, we could ask Digby.
But how would we know if Digby lied!
By listening in on the special tap on Digby's phone, duh.
The 'nobody knows digby's gender' thing has been rattling around for long enough that I'm pretty sure digby is intentionally not telling. That's partially why I'm guessing female -- the genderlessness appears to have been purposeful from the start, and I just can't see intentionally posting as genderless occuring to a man, unless he were a very consciously-academic-feminist kind of guy, which digby doesn't sound like.
Oh, fer chrissakes, don't go all Perry Mason on me. Ok, the "him" reference was Aug. 25. Here's the post I remembered, Sept. 24:
Then Thursday I finally lured Digby into having coffee. What can you say? The suave, charming and brilliant Digby did not disappoint, we yammered non-stop for three hours and I would probably still be sitting there if I did not have a date to clean out my garage.
And here's Sept. 29th, a post titled "Clash of the Titans":
I'm off to lunch. I get to introduce TBogg to Digby. Talk about out of my league.
Atrios (who I have reason to believe is really Lindsay Lohan) thinks this will resonate more because the folk will realize, "They snooped through my phone records!" Do you think so? Or will the "it's only terrorists!" people say, "Well, I have nothing to hide"?
Oh, fer chrissakes, don't go all Perry Mason on me.
But I have so few other pleasures in life. Well, ribs.
Helloooo? I'm having phone sex over here, and we're still talking about Digby?
Or will the "it's only terrorists!" people say, "Well, I have nothing to hide"?
I think that's more likely. Hell, I'm not a terrorist. They know that, and they're really really looking for terrorists. Why would I get in their way? I have nothing to hide.
Such confidence in their government, given all evidence to the contrary, says I.
Helloooo? I'm having phone sex over here, and we're still talking about Digby?
Try having phone sex with Digby. See if that works.
'Smasher, I appreciated it.
I've lost confidence in the ability of the American public to get outraged over privacy issues where the government is concerned... but maybe they'll get mad at AT&T and Verizon?
Before, the story was about international calls, and that was a little easier to rationalize away for your average Joe who doesn't make international calls. Your average Roberto and Ahmed were already pretty damned nervous before the story broke, but Betty and Joe thought that Roberto and Ahmed should be nervous.
Now the story is about domestic calls, and the US government's behavior might seem to Betty and Joe like a nasty mix of telemarketers and identity thieves. I doubt Betty and Joe fear that they'll wind up in Gitmo, but people really don't like thinking that their personal data is walking around in unexpected ways.
I think this one won't go away easily.
I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Office building. Sealed windows.
I suppose I could throw a chair?
Well, you could e-mail it. It'll get to the right people.
No, you're right. We should all be shrieking with outrage as loud as we possibly can. Despair is the enemy.
I've found that waiving around Justice Jackson's concurring opinion in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer on the street corner gets my point across quite well also.
Dear chair, ...
I never thought this would happen to me...
You know, in some ways, this is quite nice. No more, "Oh, but is this is in keeping with our democratic traditions," or "I worry about the slippery slope," or, "Gawd, I'd like to punish them for what they've done to the country, but I can't justify it legally." It's just a straight fight for who gets to rule. Last time we did this, we did alright.
The telcos could potentially be liable for tens of billions of dollars of fines. Not that I expect this Justice Department to prosecute it.
Did somebody change the index template? Sidebar comment links are busted.
Is this the kind of case that could be done qui tam style?
Or is that only for false claims. Drat.
But this *is* in keeping with our democratic traditions.
Democracy, like capitalism, is based on deep faith in competition. Whoever wins the competition is, by that fact, shown to be doing what's best. Any attempt to hamper the winner, through such misguided measures as taxes or regulations, must necessarily make things worse.
There can be no dispute that, like rewarding one's allies, the correlative act of refusing to reward one's opponents-- ... --is an American political tradition as old as the Republic.
The Republicans are spending their political capital to reward their supporters. That's what winning the election means: they get to write the laws. The invisible hand of the political marketplace will ensure that whatever is done by the incumbent produces the best possible result.
above quote is from
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-191.ZD.html
Scalia and Thomas, dissenting.
Schneider's right; we need a benign dictatorship, and we need it now.
I can't tell you how relieved I am to find out that my big blog crush on Digby is now at least ambiguously non-gay.
60: According to the link in 58, it's a private right of action. EFF has already sued, though I don't know if this is a pay-the-judgment kind of suit.
A report on this USA Today story this morning on NPR playing when my (clock-radio) alarm went off, and it made me sit up straight in bed. I had no idea that I could feel such affection for a telecom company.
Hey, Jackmormon had an excellent point over at ObWi:
Was anyone else surprised and impressed that it was USA Today that got this scoop? It's not exactly the first newspaper I think of when I think "hard-hitting investigative reporting." Whoever leaked this program wanted Mom, Pop, and the Grandparents deep in the heartland to know about it.
Personally, I did not think of that.
I'm actually pretty impressed with USA Today overall. Sure, the stories are short and few, but they're generally well-done and not as hackish as the big dailies can often be. It also tends to tackle issues that don't get much play in other media.
I'm with teofilo, I think. I used to believe there was an eternal ranking to newspapers: WSJ/NYT, WaPo, LAT, and everyone else. I still believe that the WSJ is the best paper around, but I'm much less sure of the ordering of the rest, and more sure that an appropriate ordering would vary with the subject area. USA Today has been much less timid about criticizing the Administration than some of the other majors. And Time, while it still sucks, sucks less.
Another victory over hierarchy for the Internets!
Now I have to admit that I haven't read USA Today for at least two years, and the last time I picked it up I was focussed like a laser on international stories, which it wasn't so good on.
But I do remember seeing USA Today and some local paper at every single grocery store and gas station between the Bay Area and Boulder, when I drove that trip. NYT? WaPo? Forget about it.
Yeah, it's not so good for international news. But it does a lot of solid domestic reporting on issues that don't get much play elsewhere.
I just can't see intentionally posting as genderless occuring to a man, unless he were a very consciously-academic-feminist kind of guy, which digby doesn't sound like.
I seriously considered doing this, but I'd read through a bunch of discussions of pseudonymity before I began posting.
I could see starting out not specifying a gender without really thinking about it, then realizing later that you hadn't yet and going on like that deliberately. I think both men and women could do this.
I don't have the energy to type this out or I would, but check out the blockquote on page 248 (Amazon page link). It also has one of the funnier uses of "[sic]" I've seen.
That is indeed an awesome use of "[sic]" and a thought-provoking blockquote.
73: Certainly possible. I think I've talked myself into a stronger position than I actually hold here.
Check out Jack Cafferty on this stuff; for the three people on the web who haven't seen the clip already. The man is cross.
(a) Why not just let the mystery of Digby be a mystery?
(b) Go, Armsmasher, go! You phone-sex fiend, you.
(c) I wanted to post something on Reynolds' one-line reaction, which was something like "hey, didn't we already know this? What's the big deal?" A ringing endorsement of individual liberty, that.
This will blow over. Nobody will care. We have no rights anymore. Hey, did you see this week's Apprentice?
That's your nightly installment of The Long Gray Twilight of the American Revolution. I'm the Voice of Doom. Sweet dreams.
I fear that slol is right, and it depresses the hell out of me. Are there any boomers, or older, in the audience? Why did the press go after Nizon so ferociously?
Is Bush a greater threat to the Republic than Nixon was? I tend to think so, but then we lack perspective. I did see that several historians think that W. may be the worst president ever.
What's the big deal?
Nobody will care.
Right. The law doesn't matter. That's the upshot of the Reagan revolution. I don't know whether it began with the effort to impeach Earl Warren, or the assault on activist judges, but by the time Reagan was elected it was over. The viewing of the corpse of the rule of law came during the testimony of Olliver North. He was proud that he'd violated the law, and became a hero for it.
That was the time of the triumph of deregulation. Deregulation, of course, means that there are no rules to play by, no rules to respect. Winning means you can screw around with the APIs purge the voter roles.
When Scalia and Thomas agree that the proper role of government is to reward the supporters of the winning party, we don't have a political system based on the consent of the governed. We don't care about rules, or fairness, or participation. We have a system in which the purpose of politics is to channel the wealth and power of the government to those who will keep the current CEO party in power.
on preview: during Watergate there was some general agreement that the law mattered, that the game should be played fairly rather than solely to win.
Are there any boomers, or older, in the audience?
I'm already known to be a crazy old man (an identity I'm once again embracing) - but to be more specific, I was born early in 1953.
My recollection is that it wasn't simply the press going after Nixon, but Congress. Sam Ervin, asking the pointed questions or witnesses under oath. Others, whose names I should remember. Also the federal judge in the tapes case, John Sirica.
Is Bush a greater threat to the Republic than Nixon was?
I don't think Bush, per se, is the problem. He's the symptom, the result, the effect.
The threat is the large, and increasing, number of people who truly believe that
- government is bad
- less government is always better government
- regulations are always burdensome
- markets are always the best answer
- laws are matters of opinion, and mine's as good as yours
- facts are matters of opinion, and mine's better than yours
- faith is more important than knowledge
- freedom of religion means I'm free to establish mine as official
- taxes are always too high
- it's right and good for me to pursue my own self-interest exclusively; anything standing in my way, such as a misplaced concern for someone else, is bad. This is a sort of extreme social Darwinism: the rich are better than thee and me, for they create the jobs that pay us $5 an hour as gardeners.
But haven't there always been lots of people who believed those things? Goldwater ran for president in 1964--sure, he got creamed, but he had a definite base of support.
My impression is that Goldwater was a whole lot more moderate than anything passing for Republican today. However, I was 11 at the time, so I have no memory and am relying on secondary sources I can't identify. I do remember the TV ad with the little girl and the mushroom cloud - but my impression is that he was proposing a policy a whole lot saner than the unlimited pre-emptive nuclear war policy we have now. I'll try to come up with some data with Google.
Really? My impression was always that he was basically proposing nuclear war as part of his platform. But here's your list, and how Goldwater measures up:
- government is bad
Check.
- less government is always better government
Check.
- regulations are always burdensome
Check.
- markets are always the best answer
Check.
- laws are matters of opinion, and mine's as good as yours
Probably not, but I don't know enough to really say.
- facts are matters of opinion, and mine's better than yours
Again, probably not.
- faith is more important than knowledge
Definitely no.
- freedom of religion means I'm free to establish mine as official
Again, no.
- taxes are always too high
Check.
- it's right and good for me to pursue my own self-interest exclusively; anything standing in my way, such as a misplaced concern for someone else, is bad.
I would say yes, but I'm not really sure if his rhetoric addressed stuff like this.
Most of the list is just restatement of the "regulation is bad" idea, which is certainly the philosophical basis of Goldwater's conservatism and modern libertarianism, and I think there have always been a lot of people who believed it. The rest is more specific to this administration, and I'd say it's more of a real problem.
According to Wikipedia, Goldwater got 38% of the vote. That undoubtedly includes a lot of more moderate, Rockefeller Republicans who didn't like his policies but would always vote republican.
Compare that with today's level of support for Bush, also in the 30s. I think Bush's loyal committed base is larger than the equivalent group in 1964, but I'm really just guessing.
But in those days there were Rockefeller Republicans, and Republicans who believed in the integrity of the system; who believed in fairness rather than simply in winning. Remember, there was great Republican support for the Civil Rights Acts.
Contrast that with Tom Delay's TX redistricting scheme, which was obviously solely intended to game the system. To produce a result, rather than to produce a fair election.
Maybe it was just that during Watergate we had a Democratic congress, but I'd like to think that there was also then some respect for law. Maybe the disrepect goes back to 'Impeach Earl Warren' and beyond, but I'd like to think that there was some golden age in which democracy actually worked.
IIRC, Goldwater was a libertarian. Bush is a Southern Republican. Totally different animals, it seems to me. They might nearly be opposites.
86 is basically what I'm saying. I don't think you can really blame anti-government ideology for the current mess; it's always been there. What's changed is something more complicated about the balance of political power which has given rise to guys who do the kinds of things Bush and DeLay have done without anyone opposing them.
And there are still Rockefeller Republicans; look at baa and Idealist. There are just fewer of them and they have less influence, because of the power shift I mentioned above.
I'd like to think that there was some golden age in which democracy actually worked.
See, I don't think there was. There's always been corruption and anti-government ideology, it's just that now we've got a peculiar combination that makes democracy work worse than it has in a long time.
Menand's review of Perlstein's book on Goldwater.
IIRC, Goldwater was a libertarian. Main thing I remember about Goldwater is that he was strongly pro-choice in his last years.
Isn't this thing about democracy being based on competition relevant to the point that democracy /= freedom? You can be pro-liberty and anti-democracy (founding fathers, John Wilkes), and you can be pro-democracy and anti-liberty (Bush, Blair). Your choice.
Bush is a totally new Cheney/Rove-created animal: the US president as dictator:
1. Voids laws he signs by attaching "signing statements" to them that says he has the right to execute or not execute the law as he sees fit
2. Lies to us -- Hitler Big Lie technique (Iraq WMD) and small lies to evade accountability ("nobody thought Katrina would breach of levees")
3. Shreds habeas corpus by calling detainees "enemy combatants"
4. Promotes torture
5. Spies on US citizens
6. Claims to be instrument of God
7. Reduces Congress to lackey status
8. Uses fear and terrorist boogieman to promote nasty agenda
9. Loves to operate in secrecy
These are all hallmarks of a dictator -- the like of whom we've never had in a president until Bush.
Nobody will care.
The results are in. Washington Post Poll finds that most Americans don't care. I'm in the 24% that strongly object. I feel like Cassandra.
I guess some good news is that a majority say it was OK for the press to reveal this information.
Teofilo, I don't think that there are any Rockefeller Republicans left. Idealsit isn't one, and I really doubt that baa is one either.
Rockefeller was a rea; piece of work, much more of a big spender than any DLC-ized Democrats.
Orin Kerr has an analysis of the legality of the call data collection (maybe, but probably not).
Nobody will care.
If past history is any predictor of future events, most people won't care at first, or will actively support the president's right to fuck them in the ass - and then, much later, will slowly come to the conclusion that the nation's bleeding rectum may not in fact be prima facie evidence of our stern vigilance in the face of the Islamofascist menace, and why didn't somebody tell them about this anyway?
A slightly larger majority--66 percent--said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made, the poll found.
"I'm sure they'll just ignore us and go after the real terrorists. I don't have anything to fear." WTF? We've seen how the government deals with taxes, what makes us think they'll get this right? We're Americans, we're not supposed to trust the fucking government.
The problem with living in a republic is that one's fellow citizens may be sheep apathetic unreflective allowed the vote there.
Nobody will care.
Reminds me of the post-9/11 poll that said 41% of Americans thought it was illegal for the press to criticize the government.
It's not that they don't care; they're simply hopelessly uninformed. They don't know what to care about. War? Diabetes? Britney Spears? It's all the same.
90, 95: But notice that this "US president as dictator" has a 29% approval rating. These aren't the just-after-9/11 days, when everybody and their grandmother was actually tilting fascist in America behind a nigh-invincible Bush. Unless the Democrats pretty massively fuck up, they can expect huge gains and at least the House back come November, for the most part because the Republican Party has tied itself so closely to - and is now drowning with - this president.
There are two real questions on the matter at hand: (1) whether there will be another panicked resurgence of "give them all our rights" after the next attack, and (2) how much of this protofascism will survive when the next Democratic president takes over. While Democrats easily outshine Republicans on civil liberties, the list of genuine, committed civil libertarians in the Democratic field begins and ends with Russ Feingold.
Is there any way to turn separation of powers into a national issue for the elections? "Take Back Our Constitution -- Elect A Democratic Congress"?
You're not reading the same polls I am. 66% of the country thinks its okay, because there's nothing in MY phone records, and they're just getting the terrorists. That doesn't translate into a Democratic advantage to me.
101: Have they done polling on this story yet, though? Up until the USA Today story, the official line was 'only overseas calls'. Now it's everyone. I can see that making a great deal of difference to my inlaws (my sample Middle Americans. Well, they live in NY, but once you're an hour outside Elmira, it's not much like the rest of NY.)
101: I wasn't talking about polling on the NSA issue; I was talking about polling on actual elections. Democrats have been trouncing Republicans in generic congressional polls and on pretty much every issue for the last couple months. At some point in the next couple years Democrats will regain power; if the public supports illegal data-mining, it just means that illegal data-mining will just be in the hands of Democrats. The issue then becomes (1) how long are people going to support this (note that even Americans figure out some stupid ideas are stupid after a while) and (2) will the next Democratic president suddenly warm to the concept once they're above the law?
Are there any boomers, or older, in the audience?
This isn't a subject I've researched, but who owns the media? Speaking ex recto, I have the impression that media consolidation is now quite advanced: most cities have 1 major newspaper at best, "major" newspapers in many cities are franchises or subsidiaries owned by large corporations (the Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times, and I don't know what else they own), and as for television news, well, if Disney owns the network? Then, look at the trouble people had to go to to try to prevent one chain of network affiliates from airing a mockumentary that egregiously slandered Kerry--are we to imagine that their day-to-day coverage is fair and balanced? It's all part of the, you know, vast right wing conspiracy.
What is the purpose of think-tanks but to influence opinion? Every time I see the Heritage Foundation quoted as a respectable source I feel a little more pessimistic.
I remember when I used to think call-in radio shows were funny.
Unless the Democrats pretty massively fuck up
I find it hard to be reassured by anything preceded by this qualifier.
I remember when I used to think call-in radio shows were funny.
I think that, read in an uncharitably literal way, this sentence implies that you have the power to alter the past.
106: No, I hadn't. Even though the poll is post-story, though, that doesn't mean people had really processed that this was different yet. I'd want a week or so for the story to sink in before trusting a poll.
107: Is this one of those "I wish I would of" things? It's cruel of you to criticize the grammar of an art major, SB.
The bad news is the Democrats WILL fuck up (hey, they're too scared to advocate pulling out of Iraq NOW, which a majority of Americans would go for in a big way).
The good news is Bush has fucked up so much (and fucked the GOP for at least a decade), it won't matter if the Dems fuck up, they'll still win.
88: That's a lovely piece, eb. Did you notice this bit:
"The decision to campaign against Goldwater as a dangerous warmonger seems logical today, but that is largely because of the effectiveness of the campaign."
It's cruel of you to criticize the grammar of an art major, SB.
It's foolish of me to criticize the grammar of a chronomancer!
87:I don't think you can really blame anti-government ideology for the current mess; it's always been there.
It's always existed, but it hasn't been ascendant.
One purpose of government is to limit freedom, to make and enforce rules. To say, for example, drive on the left; don't discharge sewage into the river; don't sell dangerous herbs without testing; don't use monopoly power to manipulate markets.
This rule making function of government is based on a belief in cooperation; a belief that if we all work together, according to agreed rules, we'll all be better off.
The anti-government ideology abhors these rules. It denies their legitimacy. It concludes 'it is okay to break rules because rules are bad; laws don't matter.' In other words, that government is bad; less government is always better government; regulations are always burdensome; markets are always the best answer.
The anti-government ideology is based on a belief in competition; a belief that if we each strive for our individual gratification the magical invisible hand of the market will make us all better off.
If rules are bad, if limits on freedom are bad, then it certainly doesn't matter whether the executive is ignoring the limits on power imposed by the rules of the constitution.
If rules are bad, then it certainly doesn't matter whether redistricting is used to prevent free and fair elections; it doesn't matter whether government contracts are doled out as a reward to supporters.
There's always been corruption and anti-government ideology, it's just that now we've got a peculiar combination that makes democracy work worse than it has in a long time.
True. It's not that the ideology is novel. It's that it gained power with Reagan. Because its adherents don't believe in playing by rules, it's difficult for those who do believe in playing fair to dislodge.
I'd like to think that democracy worked
- when districts weren't gerrymandered so effectively to protect the incumbent;
- before media consolidation deprived us of a meaningful free press
- when the fairness doctine preserved diversity and discourse on the airwaves
- when big money wasn't the sole path to election
That is, before deregulation ruled the world.
Sorry to ramble on so. It's a necessary part of the cultural heritage of crazy old men.
