[h/t Anarchist Bitch ]

Hube has asked this question in several variations: When talking about bigwigs like KSM that have, as we've apparently been told, crucial info about an impending 9/11-like attack (or worse), it would be negligent to NOT take the measures that were utilized to gain that information. Would it be "honorable" to not take this action -- and allow thousands of innocent American civilians to perish? So that we can "hold our heads high" and say, "We didn't treat KSM harshly!" This is the utilitarian/ticking bomb theory: at what point does the importance of the information we're seeking justify whatever it is we have to do to get that information. Jacob Hornberger answers: My question is: Why limit torture to suspected terrorists? Why not expand it to suspected murderers, drug dealers, robbers, and kidnappers? After all, can’t those types of people commit just as heinous an act as terrorists? Consider, for example, the drug dealers along the U.S.-Mexi...

... is because the story is now emerging that many American officers stood up and pushed back on the torture issue, declaring the Bushco position invalid on moral and legal grounds: As early as November 2002, the military was pushing back. The Air Force cited "serious concerns regarding the legality of many of the proposed techniques" because they "may be subject to challenge as failing to meet the requirements outlined in the military order to treat detainees humanely." The top legal adviser to the Criminal Investigation Task Force weighed in, arguing that the techniques "may subject service members to punitive articles of the [Uniform Code of Military Justice]." The "utility and legality of applying certain techniques" was, the lawyer advised, "questionable." Getting more to the point, he added that he couldn't "advocate any action, interrogation or otherwise, that is predicated upon the principle that all is well if the ends...

I've written several times about the debasement of the Libertarian National Committee and the transformation of the LP's national organization into a sclerotic neo-conservative echo chamber. But we've now got ourselves a walking, talking self-parody of that extreme in the form of Wayne Root, and it's all in embarrassing clarity. Wayne thinks that Obama loves bailouts because it allows him to dictate terms to American big business, who have just been forced by bailout mania to all come for their gummint cheese, which Mr. Obama has had the audacity of attaching conditions to. I guess a REAL anti-socialist government would give them a bailout without conditions, or something like that. On the front page of his web site, he has an interview with "Michael Savage," the fringe-right commentator who famously told a dissenting caller "Oh, so you're one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig; how's that?" Because we need that s...

I think he's still pissed that he didn't get to be Secretary of State: Having just wrapped up his high-profile visit to Pakistan, Senator John Kerry (D - MA) pointed to growing turmoil in the South Asian nation, and slammed the Obama Administration for not having “an adequate policy or plan to deal with it.” According to Sen. Kerry, the “comprehensive new strategy” the administration presented last month “is not a real strategy.” Sen. Kerry also cautioned the administration against talking about an “Af-Pak” policy. Though aimed at presenting the administration’s view that the two conflicts are inexorably linked through a unified US strategy, the senator says “it does a disservice to both countries and to the policy” and that the respective governments “don’t see the linkage.” But, as much as I generally think he's a pompous ass, this time Kerry's right on the money.

A lot of our friends suggest that the question of greater taxation has been settled, that patriotic, adult Americans understand that that they have to be willing to pay significantly more taxes to improve education, infrastructure, health care, and that only rightwing extremists, racist tea baggers, and fanatic libertarians are still concerned about our tax burden. Apparently not so. Kilroy provided the link that sent me to this March 2008 study by the University of Delaware regarding what kind of tax burden First State citizens would be willing to accept in order to improve public education. The results are ... surprisingly libertarian for a State that is portrayed as a leading light in the Obama-nation. Here are the results: 83% of Delaware citizens reject the idea of a sales tax to support education. 76% of Delaware citizens reject the idea of increasing income taxes to support education. 66% of Delaware citizens reject the idea of increasing property taxes to support educatio...

Damn I am proud to be associated in any way with Steve Newton... From a year ago : A Libertarian Manifesto for Delaware and the United States I really wish you would run for office, Steve. I believe you could really bring real hope of real change with the type of intellectual and political honesty, absent hubris and self-aggrandizement, for which so many people still thirst these days. I think you could offer excellent public leadership, free of political careerism, cronyism, and patronage or partisan interest, while consistent in offering constructive ideas, measured action, and specific realizable alternatives to runaway illicit and/or ill-conceived state powers, no matter at what level or of what variety.