There have been countless articles dedicated to the similarities between America's growing imperialism and ancient Rome's. The similarity, of course, is too pronounced to ignore, though its accuracy and degree may reasonably be debated.
Now we have taken yet another step in Rome's direction. The Roman Republic had, as part of its governance structure, the emergency office of dictator which could only be held for six months in states of emergency. The dictator was just that: an authoritarian figure whose pronouncements carried the force of law. The office had such a short term limit because it was designed to free up impediments to solving an immediate crisis, and once that crisis had been resolved, the regular rule of law was supposed to resume.
Of course, that's not the way it always worked. The dynast Sulla managed to install himself as dictator indefinitely. And, importantly, Julius Caesar's demand that he be made dictator for life was the final nail in the coffin of the Roman Republic.
There are plenty of cases where authoritarian regimes come to power in times of national emergency, and this was clear to our Founders. Nonetheless, they never created a constitutional office of dictator even in cases of severe national distress precisely because they were so acutely aware of what that provision had brought about in the Roman Republic. And yet, here we are now. Our president has created the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive which effectively gives him dictatorial control of our branches of government for the duration of:
any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions
I wonder how long our republic will last.
Labels: 'merica, george-bush, history, politics, rome
When asked about torture, people inevitably point to the "ticking time bomb scenario" as an example of a situation in which torture is justified. Most of the time, torture apologists don't point out the no ticking time bomb scenario has ever been recorded in history. Read that again. There has never been a situation where a terrorist has been captured and torture would have been able to save lives in imminent danger.
And yet we have mealy-mouthed presidential candidates like Mitt Romney who claim that we need to engage in "enhanced" interrogation techniques (in Romneyspeak that means "not torture") in ticking bomb situations. He wants to double our detainment camp at Guantanamo for the express reason that it denies prisoners of the rights they would be afforded on American soil. The line about doubling Guantanamo, by the way, was the money line that drew enthusiastic applause from the audient. You see, suspected terrorists are like radioactive HAZMAT, we can't risk them touching the very land we live on!
Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any real chance at all the Mitt Romney will be the Republican candidate for president, but it's a sad state of affairs where a man who is as wrong as he is on security is considered a serious candidate.
Labels: election, mitt-romney, politics, rebpulicans
The latest craze these days is to come up with an Iraq withdrawal plan, preferably with bullet points. Well, budding political strategist that I am, I've written up my plan to withdraw the troops from Iraq and paved the road to the White House for any candidate who has the courage to take me up on it. Look at the footer of this page, this plan is licensed under a Creative Commons license (as if that were relevant). You, too, can adopt the Darian Plan For Withdrawal From Iraq:
- Announce immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, return of habeas corpus rights for all Americans, and a renewed commitment to the Geneva Conventions.
- Immediately begin public, high-level negotiations with Iran and Syria and ask those countries for help in Iraq. Our interests are aligned with theirs. Cease beating the war drums against Iran.
- Having thus laid the groundwork for a return to international law (you may also want to close our "secret" CIA prisons and our "extraordinary rendition" programs), go back to the U.N. and tell the truth this time. Offer to pay for whatever international U.N. troop numbers are necessary to bring some measure of order back to Iraq and withdraw American troops. One of the reasons the United States is losing the war of ideas is because we started this war under false pretenses and we've turned Iraqi life into a living hell. The U.N. does not suffer from our deserved lack of credibility.
- Broach that subject we've desperately avoided: maybe Iraq is not a viable state; maybe it needs to be broken into a Sunni, Kurdish, and Shiite state. This is an international debate and belongs on the floor of the U.N. General Assembly in addition to the Iraqi Parliament.
- Open all of the civilian contract work bidding up to international corporations. Sever the sweetheart deals that have made a mockery of the sacrifices our armed forces have made. With a transparent bidding process, other nations will have a stake in rebuilding Iraq and the American people won't have to be fleeced by the likes of Titan, C.A.C.I. and Halliburton (among others).
Always remember that
Iraq ≠ Baghdad. We have not been able to pacify the
capital of Iraq, so it's time to admit our mistake, seek outside help, and, yes, pay for it.
Labels: iran, iraq, politics, syria, U.N., war
Everyone on reddit has been complaining lately that the quality of posts (both suggestions and comments) has gone down along with the variety of topics. This may well be true, but I don't know that the problem is caused by the influx of ex-Digg users. Rather, I think these new users are just doing what reddit itself has naturally set them up to do. The problem of article variety, in any case, is something that's caused by one of reddit's core features: karma.
That's right, karma.
As a measure of relative importance in the reddit pecking order, karma is something all new users naturally want. And the only surefire way to gain karma points is to suggest articles that other redditors will upmod. The new users (in addition to the fairly homogeneous reddit old-schoolers) almost invariably upmod the same few topics, so new users have every incentive to suggest (as frequently as possible) every new Dawkins utterance, Bush gaffe, or cute cat picture in lieu of seeking out new content and posting infrequently.
Of course, karma is not to blame for all of reddit's problems. The general decline in redditor literacy is indeed a product of reddit's new success, but for me, anyway, that is a smaller price to pay than a decline in the quality and variety of daily stories. Particularly for RSS users, the top 25 or so posts are the most important part of the site and removal of the karma feature (or at least making it hidden from end-users) may help re-orient reddit's downward trajectory.
Labels: technology, web
Help David
find Lucy, please. Distribute this link as far as possible and maybe it'll work out for them. The internet shouldn't only ruin people's lives!
Labels: internet, meme, relationships
