Dukehorn: I’ll hit your individual points below, but first wanted to say that as a former military officer, I am absolutely appalled by the torture memo(s) and Gitmo. I should provide a little context and backup on this as well. I was a military advisor in Central America (specifically El Salvador) with the Rangers during the Reagan years (I was there from ’84 – ’88), so I am more than a little familiar with the use of torture and various interrogation techniques. I will say from experience that we gleaned little to anything of value, intel-wise, by using torture. It was used mainly by the Salvadoran military to send a message, and it was a practice that we shut down fairly quickly after we realized how detrimental to our cause it was.
As to your individual points:
A) Yes. While not explicitly stated, I see the erosion of our civil rights, especially privacy, as the major issue confronting us as citizens right now. I pointed out earlier in this thread that neither the Dems or Repubs seem to care overmuch about individual liberties anymore, and the mad scramble to be first to sign the Patriot Act by both parties was positively terrifying. The old Ben Franklin saw about trading liberty for security rings more true now than ever.
B) Speaking as a Catholic and an American, yes, there is (or should be) separation of church and state. The amount of power that the religious right wields within the Republican Party is indicative of how dangerous a “state religion” can be, and your question about Intelligent Design underscores the danger of checking our brains at the door. Not to state it too strongly, but Intelligent Design is nonsense. However, that being said, I am also not jumping on the Al Gore/Inconvenient Truth bandwagon either. Global warming is not settled science by any stretch of the imagination and the demonization by the left wing of scientists and scholars who have the temerity to speak out against the consensus shows that the hard Left can be just as close minded as the far Right on certain subjects.
C) Absolutely not. Having spent my some of my time in the Army in Germany during the Cold War, I have no desire to see political commissars (of any political stripe) attempting to “steer” science. As above, this applies to the Left and Right.
D) No. If you are here, even as a non-citizen, certain rights should accrue to you. If you are guilty of a crime, you should be punished accordingly, however, the notion that any person who is not a citizen can be arrested and held without any sort of due process for an indeterminate period of time goes against everything I believe in as an American. While I realize that is probably an unpopular sentiment with some, I would argue that as with (A) we are sliding fast down a particularly slippery slope when it comes to individual liberties, and no one seems to paying attention.
I read (briefly) about the “blacklisting” of liberals and left leaning folks at DOJ and I don’t think there is anything more I can add to that. It is clearly wrong, and speaks to the Brownshirt mentality that now exists within this administration.
Yeah, it is disingenuous to criticize social programs whilst the military dumps billions into programs like the B1 bomber. However, that is also a little disingenuous in that many of those social programs were non-starters in their own right. Given the long-term failure of many social welfare programs, one could argue waste on both sides of the issue. The Dems like throwing money at social programs, the Repubs like throwing money at Defense. Both are wrong and right, all at the same time.
Sorry for the long-winded treatise, hope this answers your questions.
