"'When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,' [Dick] Cheney said."I understand his point (though I disagree with it). My question is: how can such an intelligent man, who I'm sure has read more history than I ever will, appear to so utterly lack awareness that this same sentiment, with different specifics, has been put forth for time immemorial - and often leads to the sort of tyranny our Constitution boldly sought to prevent?
There are, and always have been, really bad people trying to do really bad things. But the protections of the Constitution don't come with asterisks. They are what America is, not how it acts in Good Times toward merely moderately bad people (though...were Charles Manson and Ted Bundy any less evil than Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?).
I'm loathe to quote Jon Stewart, a mere comedian, to rebutt Dick Cheney, who, agree with him or not, is an erudite man. But, as Stewart said,
"If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values, they're hobbies."Torture, for one thing, doesn't work.
1 comment:
Call him erudite, if you wish, but in my view Cheney is nothing but a ruthless sixteenth century colonial viceroy, doing his damndest to exploit the rest of the world, couching his justification in the lie of self defense.
He has been a master of leveraging power and influence, before and after a lucrative career as a corporate profiteer as the top dog at Haliburton. His moral values are juvenile and retarded, in this guy's book any means necessary is justified in seeking the end result he desires, which is military and financial dominance of the world by his savage, greedy constituency.
The man has no compunction lying to the American people, twisting the truth, or hiding the truth because he became drunk on the the false premise that the Executive branch of the United States government is an absolute ruler of the people.
He does not represent the United States that I live in or the United States that is based upon the laws of the Constitution.
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