cheese it, the cops!

So, now China is the reasonable one at the Table...

Ok, if China is making the reasonable suggestions in the hopes of preventing deadlock and disaster, we really are through the looking glass,  Alice and Alia....

Crusader Mike

dick cheney's terrorist state

halliburton applies for membership in the axis of evil.

reject defeatism

talk about a bizarre, screwed-up blog. check out the defeatists! .

the knockdown argument redux

ok, so here is the form of an argument for anarchism. what y'all think?

definition of 'anarchism': the view that all human associations and structures of authority should be fully voluntary.

argument:
there are three primary arguments for the legitimacy of state power.
(1) social contract, according to which persons agree to give up certain liberties in exchange for certain protections, thus forming a state. social contract theory rests on consent, because no contract can be made involuntarily.
response: as a matter of fact, no such consent is solicited or given. showing this would require anwering the various accounts of "tacit consent" in various social contract theorists. i assert that this can be done easily in many ways. note that social contract theory entails anarchism as defined above.
(2) pragmatic, according to which people's uninhibited action is so often greedy or criminal that they must be constrained by authority to behave justly.
response: this commits the ontological error of ascribing super-human status to the people who compose the state, else the authority (=weaponry) invested in them cannot address the problem but only exacerbate it, as demonstrated by the wars and genocides prosecuted by nation states. since state power is practically destructive, pragmatic considerations should draw you toward anarchism.
(3) "ethical," on which state power can be justified by and when and to the extent that it increases the justice of a society (rawls, plato, etc).
response: unlike the last two, this at least is not an obvious non-starter. note that it entails that justice is something independent of state power: it gives an account of "natural justice," perhaps (well this would be my preference) in terms of "natural rights." the binding force of law in this case would not be found in the law, but in the justice for which, supposedly, it is instituted. then any law which is a violation of the justice that precedes the existence of the state is not binding. this will take you straight to thoreau, then straight into anarchism, except in a case wherein law coincides precisely with conscience.

q.e.d.
and not only are the arguments not convincing, they all pull at you toward anarchism. fans of state power should just come right out and admit it: state power is, er, justified only by force.

this seems like the outline for a book, ya know?

ninth amendment

my creators column from last week: asking roberts about the 9th amendment.

the hatchling speaks

the mighty chump orrin hatch , telling the next chief justice to keep his mind open to torture and dictatorial flourishes of executive power:

The question is this: What is the best way for our society to protect ourselves against terrorists not affiliated with a nation state, wear no uniforms, and really secrete themselves in ways that have never been done before?

On the one hand, there are very specific international rules embodied in the Geneva Conventions that specify how enemies in traditional warfare are to be treated.

On the other hand we have the traditional criminal law protections contained in Title XVIII of the United States Code that define the rights accorded to criminal such as the famous Miranda warning and the right to obtain counsel.

HATCH: What everyone is struggling with is how do we apply these two traditional methods against nontraditional enemies who clearly are nontraditional?

Actually, sounds like most emergency rooms in big city hospitals...

It was the stuff of nightmares. Poisonous water moccasins were swimming in the filthy water of the flooded first floor, and snipers, rats and even a 12-foot alligator were roaming the treacherous area just outside the hospital's doors.
                                        Bob Herbert, NY Times

Besides the fact that talking about poisonous water moccasins is a bit redundant (non-poisonous water mocasins are called water clogs...), Bob Herbert has put a great piece together here. It appears that Katrina is one of those cases where the private sector really did try to do the right thing and help people as much as possible, and FEebMA got in the way. Great example of why letting yahoos who don't believe in government run the damn thing is a bad idea.

Crusader Mike

And let the masturbatory orgy of self congratualion and blowhardness continue

Jeff Sessions This may be a good moment to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that in this country unelected judges don't write the laws. We have unelected lobbyists to do that. Under our system, judges merely interpret the law and decide presidential elections.

Specter Senator Sessions, let me interrupt you right there. We're not here to argue among ourselves and ignore the nominee. We're here to deliver 30-minute speeches disguised as questions and ignore the nominee. So let me turn to Senator Bid - -

Coburn And when I think of the flaws in the reconciliation process! And the gerrymandering! Oh, the suffering! Oh, the humanity! Waaaahhhh ... waaaahhhh. (Senator Coburn collapses and is taken back to his office on a stretcher.)
                                                             David Brooks, NY Times

Of course, we need to remember that Coburn was the dude who campaigned for the Senate contending that the greatest threat facing schools in Oklahoma was rampaging lesbian gangs ass-aulting petite, cute, little high school girls in the girls' restrooms. And, he won. So much for divisiveness...

Crusader Mike

loyalty oaths

republicasns at the roberts hearings were already squawking about today's ruling by a district court judge saying that schools can't require students to say the pledge of allegiance. i'm surprisingly squishy on church/state issues, having argued among other things that biology classes ought to acknowledge and describe creationist alternatives to evolution, for example. but i actually do believe requiring students in public schools to acknowledge god violates the first and fourteenth amendments. but as i've argued before it's not even the religious content that bothers me. it's the ludicrous idea of having children recite loyalty oaths to the government. it's maoist, more or less.

yap yap 2

ted kennedy, like everyone else today, gets 20 mins for questions. he's not going to waste it by letting roberts participate in any way whatever.

euthanizing katrina

adam brings my attention to this astonishing story about doctors killing patients to save them in new orleans.

idiocy

orrin hatch is a frigging idiot. i'll give you bits of today's transcript later.

roberts against the geneva conventions

good summary in the la times of the situation with regard to roberts's role in the decision in the hamdan case denying that the people held at guantanamo the protection of the geneva conventions. the situation with luttig and padilla is similar: perhaps he's kissing up to the executive in hopes of a nomination to the supreme court, while establishing vast new executive powers.

dictatorship of commerce

one interesting thing last night was chuck schumer's questioning roberts about the constitutionality of congress's use of the commerce clause. he essentially said: we regulate every aspect of the life of every american by interpreting even the tiniest gesture of the tiniest alaskan as affecting interstate commerce. (classic example: last year's raich case on med marijuana.) now, judge: you wouldn't regard this as a strained interpretation of the constitution, would you? i don't think anyone who doesn't have colossal powers of self-delusion doesn't understand that the commerce clause is a pretext, not a serious justification. of course roberts's answer: because that is likely to be before the court (over and over), i won't answer.

multiples

so, i'd be interested to see what you think of going to a multi-author format. i started with crusader mike because, for one thing, he doesn't have a blog. plus i think there's an interesting overlap/contrast in our approaches. but i would think about adding more as time goes on. the drawback as i see it is that it's cool to have a single voice etc. but then again, it's cool not to. as a practical matter it turns out that while i like blogging, i am not one of these insane machines who can blog all day every day. there are big temporal holes, then a flurry. so of course multiple authors make things more consistent. anyway, thoughts.

feingold for pres

russ feingold would make a great president. his questioning of roberts was lovely: about civil liberties after 9.11, about roberts's decision in the hamdan case, etc.

yap yap yap, senator

this is right. the opening statements were incredibly repetitive and useless. and then i don't have much respect for the sens who use most of their questioning time to give yet another speech, identical to the one they gave yesterday: grassley and biden were egregious this morning. or the insane, useless lobs: do you think judges should legislate from the bench, usurping the power of the legislative branch? (hatch , more or less, e.g.). why yes, dumbfuck, i do.

First, kill all the lawyers

From the Desk of Crusader Mike

I usually read the WSJ editorials so that I can raise my blood pressure. When I finally check out with the anuerisym, I want it to be a really good one, and the Journal really helps me practice. However, this column by George Mellonan is so right on that one begins to almost believe that when individuals of good faith reason together, at least the doors to perception might be a bit ajar. Hell, even Trent Lott has reasonable things to say! Could I have been wrong about these guys? Or is it the case of the blind pig eventually finding the acorn?

And forgetting to eat the damn thing. Dumb fucking pigs! The Journal's journalism is actually pretty good, and this piece posted this morning about 11AM makes it seem that we are all doomed. Even when they have the plan in place, they can't execute.

will and poverty

i don't, of course, fully agree with george will. but lord the man can write. the classical conservative approach of blaming the poor for their poverty will not do. but the argument about the insincerity and corruption of our politics are perfectly just.

Ice, Ice Baby...

You know, this Katrina stuff is getting tooooooo easy. Not even big easy. My only question was is this a Brownie BooBoo or a Dickie the C cluster?  Besides, it's a mere drop in the bucket...200 trucks at $900 a day for 7 days to haul ice to places that didn't have any real problems, and certainly didn't need ice. Not even close to a rounding error when this one gets done...

Joseph Campbell Time

Mostar was one of the more interesting cities in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. Obviously, one of the results of the war was the contamination of the water table with some serious forms of hallucinogens.

On the other hand, when you try to find a hero by consensus, look what pops up here...

Is this accountability, or just timing?

From the desk of Crusader M...

Brownie has definitely done one heckuva job; no doubt about that. Question is will he go to work for Haliburton or the Carlysle Group?

Class, race, incompetence and chihuahuas

Crispin and I differ on Paul Krugman; I find his thinking interesting albeit occasionally hysterical in tone. Of course, he is an economist and understands addition, subtraction and stuff like that, and is dumbfounded when the administration doesn't. No TVs, no calculators. I did find this piece interesting; this bunch does give cronyism a bad name.  Talk about not having your game face on; am I the only one who finds having a Czar of Homeland Security who bears a striking resemblance to a SS death's head not reassuring?

Bob Herbert is a different story. I usually find him overwrought, even if understandably so. But sometimes caring a lot can make for some very real reporting. You do start to wonder, what would Hunter S.Thompson do in this one...

Truth

Crusader Mike says:

Truth hurts.

Quick Summary

Link:

From the desk of Crusader Mike:

Decent summary of the unfolding Katrina debacle. Seattle is particularly concerned about disasters, given the active volcanos, earthquakes, flooding and potential tsunamis that the region embraces. It appears that failure to communicate and failure to imagine really did more than Katrina did to screw things up on the Gulf.

My graduate students and I did an exercise based on Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline last week, where we basically timelined the events and failures as we knew them -- and there is an interesting spectrum of opinion in the room, from Birkenstock liberal to oblivious to Grover Norquist -- using the 5 disciplines as our way of trying to figure out what happened. Interesting approach; despite ideological differences, seemed to be able to find a way to reach some consensus on what went wrong.

Fixing it will be a bigger problem. Not so much New Orleans -- I still vote for the theme park subcontracted to Disney -- or the coast where MGM Mirage and Harrahs seem to have a lot under control -- but so it works better the next time.

been listening to the stones' "bigger bang" some more. there are a clutch of songs that you could drop creditably into any stones album: "sticky fingers" or "exile on main street" or "beggar's banquet." there's not in my book higher praise available. these would include (in the lowercase run-ons of the sleeve): roughjustice, letmedownslow, itwonttakelong, shesawmecoming, and laughinearlydied. they used to always say of the new stones album: it's their best since "exile on main street." well...

my creators column is about the supreme court and ninth amendment.

let me put thrust of luttig's decision (washpost story) in a slightly different way (see below): it relies on its presumption of padilla's guilt as a justification for its denial to padilla of due process.  does that sound like a constitutional procedure? or a reasonable procedure?  rather it is an absolute legal black hole into which anyone might tumble, with no possibility of ever emerging. once anyone enters this world of detention detached from all the rights enumerated in the constitution, they are by definition guilty, essentially of treason. it's an a priori legal procedure on which the production of evidence is by definition irrelevant and impossible. that the administration would assert such a self-evidently absurd and arbitrary power shows you something about the administration. that a judge would affirm it is mind-numbing.

via amcop : you might want to check this out.

i'm reading luttig's decision in the padilla case (available here). first of all, with no qualification, he accepts everything that the solicitor general asserts about padilla; that is, he asserts baldly that padilla was an al qaeda operative. this begs the question in a way that - if it were put into general operation - would make the existence of the judiciary of the united states otiose: all cases could be decided by prosecutors. presumably, the accusations presented by the justice dept are precisely what padilla wants a trial in order to challenge. in the absence of such a trial, luttig's flat assertion of padilla's guilt both presumes him guilty and denies him the opportunity to present evidence to the contrary.
    the case is decided on the grounds of congress's authorization of bush to use force in "the war on terror" after 9.11. the resolution, however, makes no mention of "enemy combatants" whatsoever, and certainly does not suspend habeus corpus etc. if congress had intended the resolution to provide these powers, it would have specified them.
     luttig's opinion relies most heavily on the majority opinion in hamdi v rumsfeld , written by sandra day o'connor. but despite the fact that luttig claims that the cases are "identical," he does not, unlike the supreme court, grant the poor sap any due process whatever. the heart of the decision, a compromise between the two sides, is this: "We therefore hold that a citizen-detainee seeking to challenge his classification as an enemy combatant must receive notice of the factual basis for his classification, and a fair opportunity to rebut the Government’s factual assertions before a neutral decisionmaker." luttig makes no mention of the outcome of the case on which his opinion depends, and denies jose padilla all, absolutely all, due process rights.
    just pray, pray that this avowed enemy of the most fundamental constitutional liberties never becomes a supreme court justice.