Skip to main content

As Usual, Becky has the best analysis of telecom amnesty....

... and those of us in Delaware can again hang our heads in shame at Tom Carper's craven vote.

Becky, that Girl in Short Shorts, lays out the best simple (but not simple-minded) analysis not only of what telecom amnesty means, but just how much of a travesty it is to portray the Democratically-controlled Congress as opposing the Bush administration on anything significant.

Junior has also unequivocally stated he will veto any version which does not give amnesty to the telecommunications companies, who participated in his illegal spying program. He won't even accept a 21 day stop gap extension of the current law, to keep us safe until the House can act on this.. Its all or nothing, and its all about priorities. It seems protecting the pocketbooks of giant telecommunication companies is more important than dead Americans.

So yesterday the Senate gave our president the greatest gift all. They retroactively rendered crimes committed by Bush’s illegal spying program totally cool and stopped any chance of a judicial ruling about the program's legality—putting a halt to all the pending lawsuits, which have not been going all the great for the telecoms.

Back in the 1970's America kicked Nixon out on his ass for much less. But today, even though the Senate has become quite concerned about Bill Belichick's videotaping of defensive signals ,we embrace lawlessness and our elected leaders thwart all efforts to investigate it. And the media and nation cares much more about a baseball player who might have used roids or HGH.


Crap like this is why I continue to maintain (a) that a McCain-Clinton presidential contest means that all of us lose, because it simply places yet another political insider in charge, and nothing substantive will ever change; and that (b) there isn't that much different between Delaware and the US Congress--when it comes down going along to get along, there isn't much to choose from.

This also gives credence to what many Libertarians see as one of the most appalling hypocrisies of American politics: that the so-called differences between right and left or liberal and conservative are less useful than the distinction between statists and libertarians.

This Telecom vote means that not only is the State right in destroying your privacy, but IT WAS ALSO RIGHT to do it WHEN IT WAS ILLEGAL.

Up next: retroactive amnesty for CIA operatives who engaged in water boarding when it was illegal, too.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...