[mburbank]

"For someone who throws arrogant around like breath mints, that's a pretty bold assumption. So if the courts don't find this unconstitutional,what then for you Max? "

I'm sorry, what's bold about it? If the courts don't find it unconstitutional I'll think they were wrong and live with it, like I did Bush V. Gore. The law of the land is that the Supreme court is the final interpreter of the law. What did you imagine I'd answer, Kev? Armed resistance? Move to Canada? I'll be ashamed, I'll think we've gone astray as a country and I'll acccept it. Concidering that W may well get a chance to appoint another SCJ, I may have to do a lot of tht in my lifetime.

You don't have to teach me a hstory lesson, Kev. I went to college, it's not as special as you might think. I won't mae the argument that W is the worst President ver, I'm not educated enough. I'll leave that to Presidential Historians, who are already seriously debating the possability, as outlandish and bizarre as it might sound coming from me. I know, I know, David Halbertsam and company are all unhinged hacks. I'll just argue that he's gone way further than any of the Presidents from administrations I've lived through and you can argue about what, Clinton and Bush. Again, there are arguments to be made by intelligent people of good will. It doesn't really matter to me if something bad has happened before. The House Unamerican Activities committee was bad. If it comes around again, the hitsorical precedent, surprisingly, wil not make me feel better about it.

Waterboarding, by the way, is a very old method of torture. The K'hmer Rouge liked it a lot. It's historical purpose has been illiciting confessions of guilt.

"Presidents do conroversial things, push controversial legislation, and the court's test it against our constitution. You seem to think what's going on right now is outside the boundaries of the process, but this is the process. "

Agreed. Do you think this means, (since you want to talk history) That slavery, genocide, prison camps, blacklisting, civil rights, all of which faced the tests you are talking about in American History, weren't worth getting excorcised about? Or is the strongest reaction you favor not being ecstatic. It's the right and maybe even the duty of citizens in a democracy to care passionately about it.

"If I said again that the bill had holes, would you call me a fascist, or just morally vapid?"

I'd lean more to morally vapid. I don't think you are a fascist at all, in that I don't think you favor it. Jim Crow Laws 'had holes in them'. TYhe Great compromise 'had holes' in it.

The military judge and the military lawyer are both members of which branch of government? And since they don't have to charge an enemy combatant prior to the end of the WOT, and one of the things a prisoner can not challenge is his incarceration as an enemy combatant, at what point will the prisoner make this challenge? Who has been brought to trial so far, or is planning to be brought? I think the total so far is seven. Everything you quoted applies only to those who reach trial. And no enemy combatant needs to be charged to be held. Are you assuming I haven't read this stuff? I already told you I had. I don't argue that there's enough here for a skilled lawyer to start prying at. But I also don't think it says what you think it says, and I don't think it provides any serious protections. I think it's very, very abusable, and I don't think you need to wait fifty years for that kind of power to be a temptation, especially concidering this administration was using it before it became retroactive law.

"But it is still important to keep in mind where these people came from, who they are, ad what they've done"

You know that for a fact about these people, who have yet to stand trial and who will have evidence used against them they cannot see, and evidence arrived at through... alternative methods here and in countries we know torture people? Bush didn't seem in a real rush to see them brought to justice, just held, until it was election time. And now that he's got the law, he doesn't seem in a big hurry to have any trials again. Some of these poeple are almost certainly deeply evil. Some of them are no dsifferent then when they were fighting the Russians on our dime. And some of tem are totally innocent. We don't know for certain who's who. That's where rights could help.

"But we've also released people who have gone right back to fighting us."

Well, that certainly obviates us of any wrongdoing. I would say you are absolutely right. But if I started out as an inncoent Afghani, probably disposed to dislike the west, and you kept me in a cage for three years and occasionally used 'alternative interogation techniques' on me, you know what I'd do when I got out? Fight you.

"Even in our own justice system, which you use as a basis for your concerns, has many flaws. innocent people go to jail sometimes, and innocent people even get executed sometimes. Does that mean the whole system is rotten? "

Well, I think it means the death penalty is really rotten in y opinion, but that's another thread. As far as the rest of it goes, no, it's not rotten, but it's got lots of problems. SO, if you take that system and remove from it things like the need to charge people, or account for their wherebouts, and you add in the possability hat they can be toprtured, and that coerced evidence they can't see can be used against them, well, you get a lot closer to a line that could be called rotten.

"If it over steps the constitution, then the courts will decide, no?"

One hopes. In the meantime, it is okay with you tat I think what's happening jobs really wrong, right? It doesn't strike you as bizzarely inappropriatte to care?