Corpus, Corpus, Who's Got the Corpus?
The justice department, which is supposed to uphold the law, actually sent a memo worthy of the Nazi legal system explaining why the Geneva Conventions and U.S. laws did not apply to "terrorism suspects." Any American may apparently be arrested as a "terrorism suspect," and tortured, according to justice lawyers. Replace "terrorism suspect" with "enemy of the people" and you have Stalin's Soviet tyranny.
At first, the right to torture applied only to the Guantanamo gulag. Then, to Afghanistan. Then to Bush's so-called war on terror in Iraq. Torture and/or brutal mistreatment of Muslim captives suspected of "terrorism" now seems common in U.S.-run prisons abroad and, increasingly, at home.
History shows once a regime authorizes torture, it comes to be widely used against all sorts of suspects -- criminal as well as political. Recall up to 90% of all those arrested by the U.S. as "terrorism suspects" turned out to be completely innocent.
When legal and moral constraints are removed, or undermined, states run rampant over their people's rights. Both Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union embarked on their monstrous crimes after co-operative lawyers set the legal stage for their actions.
# Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Torture, War, and Presidential Powers - why we must not allow a U.S. president to act above the law, ever, in even the smallest detail.
It is precisely during times of relative crisis that we should adhere most closely to the Constitution, not abandon it. War does not justify the suspension of torture laws any more than it justifies the suspension of murder laws, the suspension of due process, or the suspension of the Second amendment.
# George F. Smith at Strike the Root - The Story of the Fed Is a Story of a Crime - a review of the main ideas in Edward Griffin's The Creature from Jekyll Island, which tells how the Federal Reserve was born and how it works. [root]
Griffin is detailed and clear about how the Fed works. In the old days, when governments wanted more money but were afraid to increase taxes, they printed it and forced citizens to accept it by making it legal tender. It was too crude a scheme to fool most people, but now, with modern central banking, the theft is virtually imperceptible.
First, government doesn't create money directly; its central bank does. Second, the bank rarely needs to turn to the printing presses. Instead, it often buys government debt, such as bonds, by writing a check. "There is no money to back up this check," Griffin explains. "By calling those bonds 'reserves,' the Fed then uses them as the base for creating nine additional dollars for every dollar created for the bonds themselves. The money created for the bonds is spent by the government, whereas the money created on top of those bonds is the source of all the bank loans made to the nation's businesses and individuals . . . .
"The bottom line is that Congress and the banking cartel have entered into a partnership in which the cartel has the privilege of collecting interest on money which it creates out of nothing . . . . Congress, on the other hand, has access to unlimited funding without having to tell the voters their taxes are being raised through the process of inflation."
# Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - To Hell in a Bipartisan Hand Basket - why, if you vote at all this November, you should pick the Libertarian candidate. There's not one wit of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.
Was there really an ideological difference, then, or did everyone just assume that there was?
How is it that elephant President Bush who lied us into a Persian Gulf war is more admirable than donkey President Johnson who lied us into a Tonkin Gulf war?
What good is a Republican Party that defeats Hillarycare in the 1990s only to support piecemeal Republican Hillarycare today in the form of taxpayer subsidized prescription drugs for seniors?
What is the difference between President Bush's conservative collectivist redistribution plan called "Faith-based Initiative" and the scores of liberal collectivist redistribution plans with similar high-minded names?
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The hand basket in which the country is going to Hell is a bipartisan container.
# Jerry Pournelle - TSA Anonymous - Dr. Pournelle had a run-in with airport sekurity amounting to basically a strip search. When he made to write down the name and badge number of one particularly rude flunky he was told that doing so was against regulations and if he did it they would refuse to allow him on the plane. So he memorized it instead. No word of lodging a complaint.
# Jason Burke at Guardian Unlimited - Secret world of US jails - once you get rid of habeas corpus, you can do anything you want with "detainees", laws to the contrary notwithstanding. [root]
In the past three years, thousands of alleged militants have been transferred around the world by American, Arab and Far Eastern security services, often in secret operations that by-pass extradition laws. The astonishing traffic has seen many, including British citizens, sent from the West to countries where they can be tortured to extract information. Anything learnt is passed on to the US and, in some cases, reaches British intelligence.
