This feels good. Let's do it. Probably what this vile child rapist was thinking to himself as he tore that child up. A developed, civilized democracy has laws and constitutional frameworks to differentiate itself from the kind of thinking that child rapists use. That's one of the differences between us and what goes on in Zimbabwe, Iraq and Darfur. We shouldn't throw all that away in anger, good though it might make us feel till the chickens came home to roost.

Put this sick bastard in jail for the rest of his unnatural life. Use one of the cells currently occupied by a pot smoker.

BlueSun,

"I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops."

"I'm going to be judicious as to how to use the military. It needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the extra strategy obvious."

I googled the "corps(core)" typo in this to see where it came from. It comes, believe it or not, from the Commission on Presidential Debates part of whose mission statement is "...to ensure that debates, as a permanent part of every general election, provide the best possible information to viewers and listeners..."

This typo and the "extra(exit) strategy" typo later fail to "provide the best possible information" to us.

OK, I know all this sounds like the spelling police but if we couldn't even produce a reliable semi-official transcript of a presidential debate was it too surprising that the same kind of sloppiness was all too apparent in the execution of the post-invasion strategy of a war waged as a contradiction to everything that the presidential candidate was saying?

This post started out as a means of letting you know that, among all the subsequent dreck, at least somebody read and mostly agreed with the points made in your longish, thoughtful post but, noticing the typos, got to thinking that as a trivial but telling illustration of the whole Iraq misadventure they nicely complemented the same general points you were making.

Perhaps a far more relevant inquiry would be whether the increase in gun ownership simply means more criminals dying, which many people would not consider to be a bad thing.

More criminals will die if gun ownership is increased. Obviously. A good thing? Probably. More non-criminals will die too. Obviously. A good thing? No.

There are no simple answers here. If the Second Amendment did not exist today then any attempt to change the constitution to include it would almost certainly fail given the certain opposition of the government. Is that a good thing? Yes and no.

Joe,

I'm not saying we don't need stats to back up any argument that we care to make one way or the other, I'm just saying that mathematically and experientially we know that more instruments available to kill people easily with will mean that more people will be killed more easily.

Goatman,

I know your argument about which people give up their guns and which don't is both compelling and flawed. Its flaws are subtle and beyond my desire at this point to make my brain hurt thinking about it and turning those thoughts into words. But you're wrong. So there. Maybe you're not, though! Later. Maybe.

your notion of a "militia" doesn't work with the way the term "the people" has been used and interpreted in our Constitution.

Posted by JOE

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" seems clear enough to me, so I'm not arguing that we should reinterpret the Second Amendment. The part about "people" meaning "person" is less clear to me and if, indeed, there are many precedents stating that people means person, I can only say that I'd have to consider each one on its merits because people clearly can sometimes not mean person in the real world. Given that people does mean person as far as the Constitution is concerned then you are obviously correct in saying that a militia can be a party of one and this, in itself, is not a convoluted argument.

I stand by my own belief though that if constitutional interpretations do mean that people always means person regardless of context then regardless of the fact that I have no constitutional or legal qualifications or expertise entitling me to say so I still say that such interpretations are full of shit.

The gun supporters will have their statistics and the gun opponents will have theirs. We don't need statistics of any kind to figure out that the more guns there are the more deaths and injuries there will be caused by those guns.

That's just math and common sense though supporters will say it isn't. Zero guns would mean zero deaths caused by guns. 100 miliion guns will cause more deaths than 10 million guns. It's the price we pay for keeping the constitution sacrosanct. Pity some people don't feel the same way about Habeas Corpus and searches and seizures but those are different and less important rights apparently.

Ultimately the Second Amendment is now saying that a militia can be party of one. I can't see how the founders could have meant that otherwise they would have worded it differently but I know the usual suspects could and would come up with all kinds of convoluted arguments to say that that was exactly what they meant.

So what. Your parents give you a religion. You decide to do whatever you want to do about it later. I couldn't care less if he was a Muslim at age 3, 5 or whatever. The ign'ant wing of the American public will care of course but there's nothing to be done about that except to tell them that they're wrong to vote against him on such a basis. Or if you're a GOP 527 encourage them in their beliefs. Not the GOP itself, no, never, of course not, they'd never do that.

Why does Rove bother? It's not as though McCain would offer him a job if he won. It could be that the poison is so deeply embedded in Rove's psyche that he needs to release it every so often to avoid some kind of psychotic meltdown. But it's simpler to coclude that he's just an asshole who gets his jollies by being an asshole.

Every so often it's useful to be reminded that creatures such as Rove exist and often latch themselves on to creatures such as Bush to their mutual benefit. Without each other they'd both be occupying a position in life more suited to their lack of anything good or useful to offer.

Remind me again. How did we get ourselves involved in this lunatic asylum of hatred, religious insanity and despair and what's in it for us?

"My own gut reaction is that it's probably mostly true"

You may want to read the linked pdf in the article. I'll short-cut that a bit for you:

If this is an urban legend then it was also used in the minority report on the Habeas Corpus Act passed by the Senate with Senators Kyl, Graham, Cornyn, Coburn and Sessions writing a dissenting opinion detailing these subsequent crimes by released detainees. That's who Scalia was quoting. It originated in the Pentagon I believe and was broadcast by CNN and the Washington Post. That's how it got into circulation. If we could trust any of the above perhaps we'd be more inclined to believe them. That's the heart of the problem.

My own gut reaction is that it's probably mostly true but this doesn't alter the fact that Habeas Corpus should not be rescinded at the whim of the president. Particularly when you get a president like Bush whose stupid decisions in the first place like going to war and authorizing torture lead him to Gitmo, the Detention of Terrorists Act and the Military Commissions Act and the subsequent need to cover his ass.

We're supposed to put our constitutional rights at risk for the benefit of the likes of Bush and Cheney? I don't think so.

War is war and shit happens. This appeared on British television. Needless to say, nothing like this ever appears on US television.

Wrong war. Wrong place. Wrong time. And all because we elected an idiot as president

Hi Herm,

Just back from my morning walk and workout and ready to relax with some Euro soccer later today. Some things still can't be taken away from us though they may be bugging the weight machines to pick up me grunting "Bush is a useless idiot" as I struggle with my later reps.

BL2 is like one of those Soviet-era Central Planning Committee communist apparatchiks with his rigid definitions and party-line parroting. If we're not technically in a recession or depression whats happening out here in reality world will do. BL2 doesn't inhabit reality world so.........

....a sweltering afternoon of registering black voters in the park,...

Posted by herm.

I'll assume that it was on Obama's behalf but good job whoever it was for. Just sent Obama $10 and looking forward to getting more involved. I volunteer for Senior programs so I think I can combine the two. Even when they insist on voting Republican which, despite everything, some of them still do. But it's Texas, so........ Compared to 2004 there are more who won't, I'm glad to say.

Great thread. All the best DR features. A digression into definitions which reinforced the very point the thread was about and what Goatman was arguing against like nothing else could have. Jennifer Aniston! Me too, Goatman. Alas, it will never be. Iraq. Bin Laden. Charles Manson! What no, Hitler yet.(This doesn't count.) Finally BL2 and "leftys". Ahhh!