Category Archives: Uncategorized

Maybe the Republicans Really Mean It?

You know, I’m starting to get the idea that the Republicans actually don’t like Obamacare. You have to admit, the first clues were pretty subtle. I mean, they haven’t even voted 50 times to eliminate it—and that’s over how many years? But they’re starting to leave better hints, like shutting down the government (except for the parts that shoot people and blow stuff up).

So now I get it. And after all, how can you NOT be driven into a mouth-frothing, head-exploding, purple-faced Fox News anchor rage by the thought that more people in the country might get health insurance? Really! Because you know what that would mean, don’t you? That’s right. It would mean that when those people got sick or hurt, they’d be able to pay their medical bills! And what self-respecting doctor, nurse, therapist, ambulance service, pharmacy or hospital would ever want anything like that? No real capitalist (or Republican) could in good conscience support anything that would increase their number of paying customers. More income? How commie is that? And doesn’t it just make you sick to think that all those people will now go to the doctor and get their high blood pressure treated instead of doing their patriotic duty by dying of a heart attack or stroke and thus ridding the country of some more Takers? The whole thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Or is that reflux? Maybe I’d better see my doctor—good thing I have medical coverage. Too bad about you, though (ha ha, just kidding—it’s not too bad about you).

All right, maybe I turned the sarcasm dial up to 11, but last night I had a conversation with some Republican friends and relatives who were astounded by the fact that I didn’t think Obamacare was pure socialism. Right. I pointed out that getting lots of people to purchase a product from for-profit companies was kind of the core of capitalism (and the point of every tv commercial). But they countered with the idea that it was the government plan to help some people pay  for it that was the socialist-plot part. Hmm. By those lights, then I guess that when the government pays private companies outright for tanks and planes and bombs that we must be looking at pure Marxism. Or is it only socialism when the government spends money to heal people rather than kill them? Guess so.

Republicans Continue Attempts to Thwart Republican Health Plan

So, the Republicans in Congress continue to strain every fiber of their being and every last cent of the Koch brothers’ carbon-based loot in their valiant effort to fight off—the Republican Health Care Plan. Yes, the evil Obamacare, its nefarious schemes unmasked to all in a Web video recently that showed a leering Uncle Sam preparing to do a pelvic exam, was for the past TWO DECADES—the Republican Health Care Plan. Yes, it’s a Republican baby, paternity confirmed on public record, conceived in response to the Clinton health care plan of 1993, and built on the foundation of an individual mandate to purchase insurance from private insurance companies. A Republican governor (what was his name again?) actually implemented this plan and Republicans continued to advocate for it—right up until the time a Democratic president proposed it in the apparently mistaken belief that Congressional Republicans could at least be persuaded to vote for a Congressional Republican program. “Hah! Consistency? We spit on consistency! Though foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and we have small minds, and are foolish, we reject consistency as it is much less important than denying health care to the poor and a victory to the Muslim president whose socialist plan will result in a windfall of profits for private insurance companies and…Never mind! Remember what we said about consistency!”

The history of the Republican plan was described by Ezra Klein in the New Yorker. Briefly, in 1989 the Heritage Foundation published “Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans,” which suggested that all individuals be required to purchase health insurance (like they must auto insurance). Then in 1993, as an alternative to the Clinton plan, the Republicans included the individual mandate in their Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act (sponsored by John Chafee, RI and co-sponsored by 18 Republicans). In 2006, Sen. Ron Wyden (D, OR) and Bob Bennett (R, UT) sponsored the Healthy Americans Act (11 R and 9 D co-sponsors). Broad Republican support. No Uncle Sam ob/gyn videos…until president Obama changed his mind in 2009 and used the Republican plan to design the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Then the blue-blooded, rock-ribbed Republican baby morphed into the evil Obamacare.

So what exactly is in Obamacare that inspires such vitriol and hatred from Republicans? What makes Georgia state insurance commissioner, Ralph T. Hudgens, say he will do “everything in our power to be an obstructionist.” Well, Obamacare tries to help poor people, and that ought to be enough right there, don’t you think? But besides that, what’s in the plan? Fasten your seatbelts, folks, and raise the blast shields, because here’s a straight look into the maw of hell that is Obamacare, which proposes to:

  • Prevent insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums to those with preexisting conditions, and from rescinding coverage after people have required expensive care
  • Require plans to cover preventive services without cost-sharing (deductibles)
  • Allow children to remain on their parents’ insurance up to age 26
  • Eliminate lifetime limits on coverage
  • Raise Medicaid eligibility to 138% of federal poverty level
  • Create health insurance exchanges in which people without employer or Medicaid coverage can buy insurance (and cost-sharing for some of those who need help paying for it)
  • Require everyone to have health insurance beginning in 2014 (the individual mandate)
  • Require plans to spend at least 80% of premiums on actual medical costs
  • Penalize employers that do not offer affordable coverage to their employees (with exceptions for small employers)

OMG! OMG! Insurers can’t drop you when you get sick or get so sick that you cost too much! They can’t deny you coverage because you had asthma when you were young? They have to spend 80% of the premium money you pay them on actual medical care (note that Medicare spends 96% on medical care)? Help, help! Call the Thought Police!

You know, I’ve looked at more detailed summaries of Obamacare (see this summary from the Kaiser Foundation) and I’m still looking for the evil. The only evil I can come up with is that it’s not Medicare for All—but that’s because it’s a Republican plan, now isn’t it?

The Ruse in Syria

Well, if the dodgers and duckers in Congress are going to take a position on Syria, then I guess I should as well. Here goes. Basically, I think the chemical weapons issue is really just an excuse to mobilize public (and Congressional) opinion behind a regime change operation—or I should say, an attempt at regime change. I think this is highly likely to end poorly for the US and rather likely to end poorly for most Syrians. Thus I am opposed to both what is apparently being proposed (limited air strikes aimed at degrading Assad’s chemical capability and deterring him from using them) as well as the hidden agenda that I think is actually being planned (unlimited attacks plus whatever aid and assistance to the rebels it takes to bring down the regime—essentially Libya v2). Here’s what’s wrong.
Chemicals a ruse: I’m as reluctant as anyone to underestimate the stupidity of politicians but the alleged rationale goes far beyond the borders of even American political logic and reason. Kerry and Obama have specifically stated that our only goal is to stop the Syrian government from using chemical weapons again. That’s the only casus belli; we’re not intervening to stop civil war and civilian massacres (then we would have to explain why we haven’t intervened in even bloodier wars in Africa), we’re not trying to bring democracy to yet another Muslim country. No, we’re just enforcing the international ban on use of chemical weapons. That’s all folks!
This is nonsensical because by our own arguments, we would therefore have to consider it “mission accomplished” if Assad used no more chemical weapons but accelerated his pace of shooting, shelling and bombing his people. Our “logic” is such that 10,000 dead by conventional means but no chemical casualties is more of a “win” than 1,000 dead by nerve gas. Really? That’s a preposterous ethical judgment. Not even US politicians could believe that—and I don’t think they do. Is this just verbal quibbling? No, assuming for a minute that we do “persuade” Assad to stop using chemicals, is he just going to give up and move into exile? I suppose that’s a theoretical possibility, but I think it’s much more likely that he’ll accelerate his conventional attacks in order to crush the rebellion quickly before we decide to intervene further. More deaths will ensue. I suspect that this likelihood is planned for by the White House, perhaps even counted on. Once Assad escalates his butchery, it will be easier to sell the public on the case for more direct action. That’s the only reason I can see that we would maintain the otherwise irrational prioritization that dying in agony in the street from a bullet through your abdomen or being burned alive trapped in the ruins of your bombed house is so much more acceptable than being killed by nerve gas.
Why it’s likely to end poorly for us: I know we’d all like to see the Syrian butchery stop, and if Harry Potter showed up with his magic wand, we would all insist he wave it. However, there’s no magic wand; there’s only military force, and before we pull out the sword (or before we do anything, really), we’re obliged by the standards of rationality to weigh the risks/costs vs the benefits.
Now, Kerry and all the spokespeople have tried to do an end-run around the need to make this assessment by saying, “The worst that can happen if we fail to act is that things continue as they are.” Really? You’re telling us this is a military attack with no downside? Only good things could come of this? The risk is zero, so it’s all benefits? That’s the same failure of anticipation that got us into trouble in Iraq. Even though I don’t think Kerry and Co. actually believe this, no one on the shows where they made these claims (all this past weekend) or in commentary afterwards challenged this absurdity, so let me help them by listing a few of the possible downsides of our (ostensibly limited) bombing of Syria:
• Increased killing of civilians by conventional means (by Assad as per above, plus whatever ones we kill ourselves)
• Increased Muslim anger due to yet another US military intervention in yet another Muslim country leading to further East-West polarization, more Muslim radicalization and more terror attacks on the US
• Increased likelihood of equally direct intervention by Assad’s supporters, Iran and Russia, escalating the conflict from an internal Syrian one to a regional if not international one
• And if greater intervention does manage to drive Assad out, the subsequent regime is likely to be equally repressive and non-democratic but more Muslim extremist (and likely to commit atrocities on government supporters, particularly the Alawites)
Possible upsides?
• The attacks somehow convince Assad to negotiate with the rebels who, despite all current appearances, somehow unite into a coherent bargaining force that can find enough common cause with each other and their opponents to participate in forming a stable government
• The US looks like a champ for bringing an end to a war that no one seems happy with (including the participants)
I think the downsides are highly undesirable and the upsides are highly desirable, but I find the downsides much more likely than the upsides, and thus I come down against unilateral US attacks on Syrian installations (if you want to talk about things that the world could do as a united front to help solve the problem, that’s a different issue from what is now being proposed by the White House and a matter for another essay).

Voter ID Again

Friday, Judge Bernard McGinley of PA Commonwealth Court (see http://www.inquirer.com/local/pa/220015271.html) once again temporarily barred enforcement of last year’s Voter ID law. Didn’t overturn it, didn’t give a permanent injunction, didn’t make it unconstitutional, just barred enforcement pending a final determination. Gotta think about it some more. What’s to think about, other than how to explain his lack of fealty to the Republican overlords of the state who bragged about how the law would give PA to Mitt Romney last year? What, exactly do you need to scratch your head about in regards to a law designed to keep registered voters from voting?
Now, one of my Republican friends (yes, I have Republican friends) insists that the law is there “To keep Mickey Mouse from voting.” That is, he thinks that the law was passed to protect us from people (or rodents) who aren’t legitimate, registered voters. Well, I don’t want M. Mouse, or Ben Dover, or Walter Melon coming and voting in Chadds Ford either. But the thing is, we already have a way to keep them from voting. It’s the list of registered voters that is given to every polling place. If you aren’t a registered voter, you’re not on the list. If you’re not on the list, you don’t vote. You can be a 4-star retired general with a pocketful of picture IDs including signed pictures of yourself with the president and the pope, BUT if you’re not on the list, you don’t get to go in the booth and push buttons. And, if you ARE on the list, the state has determined that you are a duly registered voter in that precinct. The Voter ID law kicks in only at that point, when duly registered voters come to vote. The law says that they need to show certain forms of ID (which conveniently are less likely to be held by the young, poor and elderly) to prove that they are in fact that registered voter—and not someone else impersonating them. And, despite having over a year to provide the court evidence that voter impersonation occurs in PA (and hence would need to be blocked by an ID law), the state has come up with precisely zero cases of voter impersonation in PA. But the plaintiffs in the case are actual people who are registered voters who have legitimate reasons why they either cannot get or have extreme difficulty getting the state-mandated ID. So we have clear harm (not just theoretical) from the law and not one bit of benefit. What’s to think about, Judge McGinley?

Special Needs Court

You’d think I was referring to cognitively impaired benchwarmers like Clarence Thomas, who struggles to follow the complex logical argument implied by the series 1, 2, 3, 4…? (until Antonin Scalia explains it to him). But I just learned that “special needs” is a term for a “special” doctrine the FISA court has been using (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/in-secret-court-vastly-broadens-powers-of-nsa.html?hp).

The special needs doctrine allows courts to make exceptions to the 4th amendment’s requirements for search warrants. The camel first stuck his nose under the tent in 1989 when drug testing of railway workers was allowed, and then later expanded to permit drunk-driving checkpoints and airport screenings. Now, the doctrine has become the workhorse of the FISA court to allow whatever government intrusion they want (such as that of the current brouhaha about storing data on all of everyone’s emails and phone calls) as long as they can convince themselves that the haystack they’re searching theoretically just might perhaps contain a needle “relevant to a terrorism investigation or other intelligence activities.” “Other intelligence activities” is pretty broad, don’t you think? So what else are they snooping in? Well, it’s secret (I mean, that’s the whole point of having a secret court. It wouldn’t be secret if everyone knew what you’re doing.) But if you think that all they’re doing is storing metadata, let’s you try a little experiment. Call up one of your friends (not me!!) every couple days and talk about how to make a dirty bomb. See what happens. Think you’ll find a lot of friends willing to help in this experiment? Does the idea of doing this make you just a teeny bit nervous? No? Bet your house and your job? Thought so. Even those of you who really trust the current administration now have a little twinge in the back of your mind about what you say.

“Special needs.” Right. “We ‘specially need to ignore the 4th Amendment because it’s kinda inconvenient to keepin’ tabs on all you numbnuts out there.” If we really think it’s a good idea to amend (or repeal) the 4th amendment, well then shouldn’t we just man up, debate the issue publicly, decide what the exceptions to needing search warrants are, and then hold a state-by-state vote, just like the Constitution requires? But then the exceptions wouldn’t be secret! The evildoers will know what we’re doing!

A word about secrecy. Some of you may be old enough (or well-read enough) to remember the “secret” bombing of Cambodia in 1970 during the Vietnam war (triggered the deadly Kent State protests). Do you think that the thousands of tons of bombs falling on their heads was “secret” from the North Vietnamese sneaking through Cambodia? From the Cambodians whose country was being carpet bombed? No, they all thought it was pretty damn obvious! It was actually only “secret” from us, from we-the-people in whose name it was being done. Same with the snooping and spying. Every evildoer who didn’t just walk down from the goat pasture knows that he’s likely to be: followed, bugged, wiretapped, watched by satellite, listened to by directional mikes, have every electronic communication monitored in real-time, and probably tracked by genetically-engineered mind-reading wolves that understand Arabic. They assume all that! It’s we who must be kept in the dark.

These “special needs” programs to circumvent the Constitution are bullshit. I don’t know if this is how the terrorists win, but I sure know it’s how Americans lose.

Syria: How Many Are You Allowed to Kill?

Not us (the US hunting license doesn’t seem to come with a bag limit), I mean the government of Syria, the rebellion against which has resulted in some 93,000 deaths to date (on both govt and rebel sides, although mostly civilians caught in the middle).  John McCain and Bill Clinton are beating the war drums trying to get us all worked up and ready for yet another mid-East war under the unspoken assumption that no country is entitled to kill anyone in order to maintain the status quo. It’s just not permissible to use force to keep a government in power and in control of its whole country. Right? I mean, that’s what made Saddam evil, wasn’t it? He killed people who rebelled against his government, or people who his spies thought looked like they might be thinking about rebelling. How evil is that! I mean, who would dream of killing suspected rebels based only on surveillance data?

So the US is clearly against killing rebels, right? Really? Tell that to honest Abe Lincoln, whose actions to quell the rebellion against the United States cost the lives of 600,000 Americans.  And he didn’t even have any nerve gas.  Everybody seems to think that was just fine. Ancient history? How about some more recent examples. We chased the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan in 2001 and have been fighting there ever since to keep the new, preferred Afghan government in power. Quashing that rebellion (or, more realistically, trying ineffectually to) has caused the deaths of many 10s of thousands of Afghans (poorly counted).  Another one? We overthrew the government of Iraq in May of 2003 and installed a new one. Every bit of the fighting in Iraq over the decade since then has been to kill rebels trying to defeat the new Iraqi government. Conveniently, nobody’s gotten an accurate count of the number of Iraqis who’ve died as a result, but that (again, poorly counted) figure appears to be in excess of 100,000.

All right, so it really is ok to kill rebels. But then, if it’s fine for 100,000 to die to keep a shitty Iraqi government in power, how is it a casus belli when 93,000 die in the course of keeping a shitty Syrian government in power? Which is it? Killing rebels good? Killing rebels bad?

But Rob, we were killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep Al Qaeda forces from getting control! Oh, that explains it. It’s ok to cause death on a massive scale as long as it’s to keep Al Qaeda and other Muslim fundamentalists from overthrowing a government (after all, we don’t want them in power because they’ll kill people who oppose them). There we go. But hold on. Many of the Syrian rebels are Al Qaeda or Muslim fundamentalists, and now we want to help them. Damn, there goes that theory. This is hard. Wait a minute. I detect a common thread here. Killing rebels is good when we do it, even on flimsy excuses (drone strikes anyone?), and bad when anyone else does it. There you go.

Now Rob, that’s not fair. Sometimes we support rebels and sometimes we support governments. It just depends what’s in our national interest. 

Oh, ok. And our national interest in Syria is what exactly? If it’s not keeping Assad in power, and it’s not letting Muslim fundamentalists gain power, what is it? Haven’t heard that yet. Seems to me, our main national interest should be to not get dragged into yet another mid-eastern snake pit that will drain money, lives, time and effort that we could better apply to problems that affect people here in the USA.

The Security State: Bend and Spread ‘Em

The recent revelations about the NSA’s data collection efforts on phone calls, emails and internet use have lots of people, including myself, up in arms (figuratively, NSA, figuratively!!). But people are talking like all this alarm might actually lead to some change. Well, let me tell you that the snoopy horse is not only out of the barn but so far down the road that the cloud of dust has already settled and the clickety-clack of hooves not even a distant echo. Besides, lots of people just love that the govt is keeping its paternal, all-seeing eye on everything we do (the ultimate helicopter parent, except these helicopters are black). These people say “I’ve got nothing to hide, so let ‘em listen.”

Well, all you people with “nothing to hide” need to learn the difference between “secrets” and “privacy.” Let me help you out. The reason most of you are reluctant to drop your pants in public, bend over, and spread your cheeks so that passersby can inspect your nether regions is not because you have something illegal going on in your butt to hide but because there are certain things that you wish to keep private (and I thank you for that). And just because some people like to post naked pix of themselves online doesn’t mean it should then be mandatory for us all.

And why exactly does the government treat the program itself as something to hide? If it’s perfectly legal, oh no, nothing wrong here, perfectly constitutional, why does the spying (oops, I mean “safety monitoring”) need to be such a secret? Why are people being prosecuted for trying to tell us about it? After all, for a decade, every terrorist has worked under the assumption that the US govt is doing everything it can to tap their calls and emails. It’s certainly no secret to them. If anything, these reports on the NSA’s advanced capabilities are likely to help deter would-be terrorists, and should be publicized even more. Hell, they should make shit up about what they can do. No, the govt is desperate to hide its 4th amendment abuses from us, not the terrorists. Why? Because they know that the prospect of having what you say and to whom you say it stored in a big database (that “no one will actually read”) will have a chilling effect on free discourse—admit it, it’s there at the back of your mind right now, isn’t it? The idea is not so much to find out what we’re doing and saying as to intimidate us from doing and saying it in the first place.

But I don’t know why the govt should be concerned. When was the last time they reversed course on anything even when pretty much everyone wanted it (background checks at gun shows, anyone?), much less when lots of people on all sides of the political spectrum think it’s just fine.

Orwell’s 1984. You thought it was a fantasy novel, not the new operator’s manual for the USA.

Liberal Guilt and the IRS “Scandal”

I’m tired of liberal guilt. One whiff of criticism and we prostrate ourselves, baring our backs for the conservative whip. “We’re bad, oh so bad! Please beat us so we can prove how sorry we are!”

Let’s stop the self-flagellation long enough to think. Now, nobody’s saying that even one Tea party applicant was inappropriately denied tax-exempt status (we’d have heard about that for sure).  Nobody’s saying that the IRS held conservative applications to different, more stringent standards—their applications were all judged by existing IRS rules on who can get tax-exempt status. No, what the Tea people are complaining about to high heaven is that a higher percentage of conservative applications were given detailed scrutiny—instead of, apparently, a quick gloss that lets more applications be mistakenly given tax-exempt status. In other words, they were less likely to be able to get away with cheating.

Well, too stinkin’ bad! I can’t work up a lot of guilt about someone whose main complaint is that it’s harder for them to cheat than the other guy and that they’re being made to follow the rules. What I can get worked up about is the fact that apparently not everybody who wants tax-exempt status is getting carefully scrutinized. The IRS should look at every such application with high suspicion. But people who get caught breaking the rules have no legitimate beef.

10 Years Since Shock and Awe

Ten years ago, we were treated to the opening of the “Shock and Awe” campaign as bombs and cruise missiles rained down on Iraq. Well, I wasn’t shocked, as it had been crystal clear since at least the preceding September that Bush, Cheney, et al were marching to war and that nothing, bar nothing, would sway them from that course. Weapons inspectors finding nothing (remember, they were IN Iraq in the months leading up to the war and reported they were finding no evidence)? No matter. Trumped up evidence—uranium purchases that didn’t exist, meetings with al Qaeda that didn’t happen, photos of random buildings and trucks labeled “weapons labs”? Who cares.

What I was awed by, and remain even more so today, was the abysmal gullibility of the American people, particularly the “reporters” in the news media who were taken in by Dick Cheney’s shell game. Osama bin Laden goes into a hole in Afghanistan. Cheney and Bush make a few swift hand movements while muttering “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!” and, voila, everyone points at…Iraq. And off we go, ignoring the group that actually attacked America, charging down the rabbit hole of Iraq. And they didn’t just pull the wool over our eyes, We The People grabbed the wool out of Cheney’s cold, slimy hands, jammed it on our own head, pulled it down to our neck and crazy-glued it to our face. We bought it. We broke it. And we’re still paying for it.

Even more awe-inspiring is that today, the people responsible for this $3 Trillion fiasco are treated as seasoned experts, old hands whose opinions are still courted (see Paul Wolfowitz interview recently at the American Enterprise Institute  where he, no surprise, continues to defend his debacle). And Rumsfeld tweets to remember the 10th anniversary of the “war to liberate 25 million people,” rather than the “war to pretend to look for weapons of mass destruction.” How bad do Republicans have to screw up, how much do they have to cost us in money, lives and reputation before they are held to account? That question is not answerable scientifically, because it’s an event that has never yet occurred, so we can’t say what the limit is. But it’s time we hit it.

Drone Wars, Contd.

I confess to being more than a little puzzled by some of the discussion about our Drone Wars. Just how is it at all relevant that when we drop a bomb on somebody, it’s different when there isn’t a person sitting in the airplane that drops the bomb? If somebody is sitting inside a bomb-laden aircraft and flies it into our country and blows stuff up, that’s an act of war. But if the same guy (or gal) is sitting in another country while flying the same bomb-laden aircraft, then it’s no big deal? It’s just fine? I don’t see the logic in that.

And suppose for the sake of argument that it is morally and legally correct to fly planes (oh, that’s right, drones) into another country with which we are not at war and kill people there. Well then, the definition of justice (same rules apply equally to all) means it has to be fine if others do it. So is it ok if Bashir Assad sends drones into the USA to blow up Syrian dissidents here (along with just a couple—not many, mind you, only a few) American passers-by? And by “ok” I mean that we have no legitimate legal or moral ground for protest.

Most all the support for the Drone Wars seems to revolve around the idea that these are bad people being killed and we’re all better off for it. Well, maybe (though see previous post “The Beatings Will Continue…” that the long-term consequences may well be very different from what we want and anticipate). But that assumes that we know for sure that the people being assassinated are in fact the people who are doing all those evil things. And how do we know that? Why, because the government tells us they have secret information that they are. The people who are doing both the deciding and the killing told us that what they’re doing is right. Trust us. Everyone seems perfectly happy when a secret government group, using secret information that cannot be questioned in a court of law takes it on themselves to be judge, jury and executioner. How is this any different from sheriff Jim Bob taking the suspected cattle rustler out behind the jailhouse and shooting him “while attempting to escape?” And for those of you nodding your head because you like that idea just fine too, how do you know the sheriff shot an actual rustler and not somebody who failed to pay his bribes on time? Oh, that’s right, the sheriff said it was a rustler. And sheriff Jim Bob would never abuse his unchallengeable powers of life and death. It’s amazing to me to have to actually point out to people that the whole reason we have courts, and checks and balances, and rules and laws and all that founding-father stuff is to prevent the government from abusing its power. And the power to decide life or death based on secret findings  that are never checked by an independent 3rd party (say, the courts) seems pretty ripe for abuse.

Now, I’m disturbed that there’s plenty of passive support for the drone programs by Democrats in Congress—I expect them to know better, but I’m not surprised that they lack the spine to confront the president. But I’m downright baffled that the far-right, Constitution-in-the-back-pocket crowd that doesn’t trust the government to set minimum standards for health insurance plans is happy to throw all our individual rights and freedoms down the crapper too. But maybe that’s only so long as the people being killed by the government have dark skin, beards and funny, non-Christian names. I bet they’d sing a different tune if the government started taking out middle-aged white men with buzz cuts and military service medals. “Trust us, they were plotting against democracy. Evidence? We don’t got to show you no stinkin’ evidence!”

And finally, if these drone assassinations are so legal, why are even the legal justifications behind them secret (see NYT article)? The Obama administration has refused to release the legal arguments their advisers have put forth defending the attacks. They must be really persuasive arguments, huh?

This is not doing us any good abroad, and it could well prove fatal to democracy and the rule of law in the country. The terrorists never could “destroy America,” but we might, if we don’t stop trying.