2007-10-04

Torture states love secret law.

Torture states love titular "opposition" enablers who provide immunity for crimes.

Somewhat but not really very separately, The Volokh Conspiracy picks up on the "opposition == Satan" observation/cultural meme I've been talking about for many years now. Meanwhile, in slowly getting there news, Sullivan has caught up with me on the necessity of repudiation, as well. Sadly, I don't think that'll happen any more than the contributor he's quoting does. I think the Democrats will be all too happy to have the unlimited, unchecked, lawless powers the Bush administration has so far successfully claimed.

And, talking of Sully, I mentioned in a reply to

dustin_00's post here (linked to earlier, but reposted for those who didn't follow the link) the problems with the current political dynamic. I want to copy it over to my own journal at top-level:

[The Democrats] are also failing to reign in even the worst of the legal and political power abuses of the current administration; I rather think they'd enjoy having that power themselves, tho' I think more of it is pure political cowardice and 2008 planning. The even bigger problem, of course, is that in this way both the war (and its doctrine) and the expansion of powers will be made bipartisan, which in this context means institutionalised, and permanent. There was a window for these to be repudiated; had either actually happened, the ball would still be in play. As it is, however - with both objectives being specifically repudiated by the Democratic leadership - it is literally the end of the limited-powers republic. That does not mean it is the end of democratically-elected government; it is still a democratic form of government, albeit a particularly non-responsive one dominated by an abstracted political class far more sensitive to its own needs than anyone else. It means merely that the last remnants of the old republic have been swept away, as it were - in reality, if not in form.

The United States has faced this crisis (or variations on it) repeatedly throughout its history, and has, on the whole, met it each time. This time, however, it appears to have failed. (This is not yet certain and I may yet be surprised. However, I would indeed be surprised. Pleased, but surprised.) I hypothesise that the demographics of the situation are key to the failure, in that whereas normally this phase of the generational cycle would see the current politically dominant generation - and its calcified set of conflicts - starting to lose its grip on power for various reasons, including simple die-off by age, this time, it - and by "it" I mean the "Baby Boom" generation - is so outsized (and fundamentally in better health than predecessors) that it was able to achieve power early, and then to perpetuate its holdings, and, in turn, perpetuate the crisis it has created. By doing so, and by being unable to respond coherently within itself, it has institutionalised the aforementioned calcified conflict set, and the abuses that have spilled out from it. Hence, the current predicament.

Sullivan touches upon that idea at the end of this entry, noting that "in the cycle America has been in since the sixties, the truth is barely relevant." Finally.

ETA: I don't mean to be picking on the Boomer generation in particular here; the key point is the size and health (and hence duration and extent of hold on power) being the new factor - not the calcification. Other politically-self-identifying generations have gone through similar sorts of ossification too. The important difference is that they haven't been as dominant as early or for as long, so the earlier iterations of this phenominon have been forced out of their stimulous-response cycles earlier than we're seeing now, simply by the fact they'd end up reasonably soon in positions where they were sharing power with people not sharing the same dynamic.

2007-10-04

torture states love

animal pictures (not mine)

more G9 fun

bad timing, flower