Text 19644, 70 rader
Skriven 2008-08-15 07:20:26 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
  Kommentar till text 19640 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
Ärende: Morality and law
========================
Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Thursday August 14 2008 at 11:49:

RB>> Secret wiretaps without judicial approval or review (not even that of
RB>> a secret judge)?

RW> Never happened to US citizens.

Not only did Bush admit this was his current practice, but he stated that he
intended to continue it. Congress grumbled that the executive was pre-emptimg
the powers of the legislative, but did nothing.

RB>> Retroactive legalization of illegal wiretaps by phone companies?

RW> Only Congress can pass legislation.

And the president can propose and lobby for it. The present climate wasn't
created by congress, and in fact congress was merely a rubber stamp before the
last elections. Even now, the democrats are so scared they'll be accused of
being "soft on terrorism" that they are sometimes even more hardline than the
republicans. The whole atmosphere is one of fear and suspicion.

RB>> Concentration camps outside the USA to avoid the need to obey US law?

RW> US Concentration camps? That's rediculous.

I didn't write "extermination camps". Get real.

RB>> I'm not only talking about Guantanamo

RW> Gitmo is a retirement community, where those being held are treated
RW> better than American criminals held in American prisons.

And I thought you were relatively well informed up to now. If you are, you're
sure not thinking when you write such patently untrue things.

RB>> - the secret CIA prisons are meanwhile public knowledge.

RW> Rumor and nothing more.

Bullshit.

RB>> Let's just ignore Iraq, but what Bush has done to _Americans_ reminds
RB>> me of the retroactive legalization of the "Night of the Long Knives"
RB>> in Germany in 1934.

RW> Of course you know this from experience? I've yet to see anything of
RW> the sort and I live here.

Then you're blind, Roy. I don't ignore history just because I don't like the
conclusions.

RB>> I've come from defending the man because I didn't see proof of
RB>> misdeeds, to seeing just what he has done to America, its legal
RB>> system and its reputation throughout the globe.

RW> That's because you're too easily swayed by the liberals in Europe.

Again, bullshit. I just don't happen to be as extreme in my views as some, try
to see both sides of an issue, and I'm capable of changing my mind when the
circumstances warrant that.

The only thing we may agree on is that given the choice between Bush and Gore,
I also reluctantly would have picked Bush. But that's, as the Germans say, a
choice between the devil and beelzebub (also known as a choice between cholera
and plague).

Cheers, Bob

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