[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by mburbank

Kev, you can think of this as 'passing bill' as opposed to 'not passing a bill'. That's one interpetation. I see a constitutional crisis and my country legalizing torture and suspending habeus corpus and the system of checks and balances.

Max, for a country to legalize something, they generally pass laws, right? In a very basic sense, that's how it goes, correct? All of this outrage is over a piece of legislation, so you can't jump up and down about it at one turn, and then dismiss the legislative aspect to it at the next.

If it's a "constitutional crisis," then the courts should see that, right?

I think your interpretation (to compare, when I state these things they're called "arrogant") is a lot of hyperbole, and not consistent with the bill. It's easy to scream and rant like this author did, it's not so easy to propose alternatives.

So since we can't get anything constructive out of this hack, I'll have to turn to you, Max:

YOU ARE NOW A U.S. SENATOR WHO OPPOSES EXCESSIVE INTERROGATION AND TORTURE. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

This is what people are talking about here when they say you got arrogance when you started eating meat. You like to say you always argue on the merrits, but I think you overestimate yourself. More and more you pretend that the other side of arguments simply doesn't exist.

Max, the other side of the argument believes you're a Nazi and a totalitarian if you don't agree with him. Should I respect that argument?

On the meat thing-- this is, btw, what Max Burbank does now. Kahl highlighted some of the actual bill's text for you, so as to cool the hyperbole and rhetoric that's being thrown around in this thread. You didn't respond to that, but you did take the time to take a personal shot at me. I don't know if it's desparation, or simply the lack of an argument, but this is what "some people" are talking about when they mention your inability to address issues, Max. Now your cheerleaders will jump in here shouting "YeAH, u pizowned him Max!", but that doesn't change the reality of the matter.

Tell me you can't see the argument that what happened at the end of this congressional term isn't more significant than 'passing a bill'. You want to argue this is hyperbole, do it, but stop pretending it's hysterics about nothing.

It's most certainly hysterics, and it is, after all about a bill on Capitol Hill. We weren't a step away from dictatorship two weeks ago, were we? What triggered all of the Third Reich talk? A bill.

As I pointed out in the other thread, I'm not ecstatic about this bill. There have been better versions, but they wouldn't have passed. I think we could've done better, and frankly, if the courts knock this down I won't shed a tear. But the notion that this has codified torture, disabled habeus corpus, and granted dictatorship to the executive is hyperbole, to say the very least.

Are you arguing that the President does not have the power to have people tortured by any serious deffinition of the word? Are you arguing that he does not now have the right to declare people enemy combatants and make them dissapear until the WOT is over (if ever). Are you arguing that he does hve to prove to someone outside the executive branch that he has just cause to have someone declared an enemy combatant? There's a big gray area about what he can legally do to American citizens, so I won't even ask about that, lets just say kidnapping people in other coutries and whisking them away on executive say so alone with no oversight. Are you arguing that he'd never abuse these powers, and no future president would either, and though we've never based our system of ghovernment on blind trust, it's okay to do it now?

`(C) Such term does not include any alien determined by the President or the Secretary of Defense (whether on an individualized or collective basis), or by any competent tribunal established under their authority, to be-- `(i) a lawful enemy combatant (including a prisoner of war); or `(ii) a protected person whose trial by a military commission under this chapter would be inconsistent with Articles 64 through 76 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 12, 1949. '

If you think that standpoint is ridiculous, laughable, absurd, why not explain yourself. I dare say you embarass yourself when you are so didactic.

Max, you posted this "emotional response" of an article. I dare say it's hypocritical of you to pick at other people's authors/articles, yet back-peddle and make excuses for this one.

I think the author's standpoint is all of the above, and he invites that criticism through his gross exaggerations and rhetoric. I'm not going to defend 100% of the bill, b/c I don't support 100% of the bill. But you, and people such as Mr. Keillor, put people in an untenable position. Either you support fascism and codified torture, or you are a good person. That seems rather 'didactic' to me.