The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Faisal:

The opinion that "real people don't create anything" is imaginary. Here, I will prove it:

1. Real people don't create anything.
2. Writing is a creative act.
3. Therefore, real people do not write.
4. Therefore, a real person could not have written such a rant.
5. Therefore, the rant is not real.
6. Q.E.D.

[snarky]Maybe the theory is that every war we fight (with the House of Saud's support) will cause the street to get more inflamed until they rebel and overthrow the Sauds, who have to flee to Miami like people escaping Castro. Then the rebellion will form a democracy where they can vote on how much they hate us. Meanwhile, the Saudi exiles' influence will wane once they have to control their zillions from within the US rather than from thousands of miles away. It's much harder to deal with distractions like "Baywatch Nights" than, say, ruling a country.[/snarky]

Something I noticed while hanging around political wonks for the past 20 years (lived outside of DC, can't help it) is that the "Republican Revolution" came from the bottom up. The various republican factions (religious, neocon, libertarians who want to win votes., laisez-faire businessmen, etc) have been very disciplined in getting involved in school boards, state senate races, etc. It worked it way up and then into the House and then the Senate and finally the presidency. And at each stage, involvement at the lower levels helped gain power at successively higher levels. In the simple case, state senator candidates often come from school boards. In the complex case, President Bush is President in part becaause the Republican dominance of Florida's executive branch went very far down.

This is entirely subjective, and one person's P.O.V. If it's true, then it implies that for the Democratic party to get back in the game it will need to stop thinking solely about "who do we run for President" and start thinking about "how do we get a voice at every level and every stage of the process". If it's true then the dems would be foolish to turn away interest when it could be channeled into local politics at least.

Liberalism as in John Stuart Mill?

I seem to have reached a new level of bad typing and worse editing skills tonight. "a lot of the arguments", "predated", "for the same reasons".

I plead guilty to excess hyperbole. I meant it (admittedly unclearly) as an allegorical point. A lot of the argument for torture (not to mention a number of other constitutional bypasses) today are being justified with the argument that the framers of the Constitution did not have to deal with enemies intent on the destruction of America, with people within the country who were loyal to foreign powers. etc.

But the nascent country was full of people loyal to the crown and the crown wanted the independence movement crushed. While the events of the Boston Massacre predate and to some extent contributed to the move to independence, and the people involved were not yet citizens of the non-existent USA, I do think the principles of justice which Adams argued for were as relevant today as they are then - for the reasons - and the contexts are not as dissimilar as torture proponents would claim.

It is perhaps worth noting that references to this quotation on the web indicate it was said by Adams in defense of British soldiers accused of murder in the Boston Massacre. Which is to say: in reference to foreigners who murdered American civilians and were intent on the destruction of the United States of America.

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