Occasionally, when I am bouncing through sites, I come across the site for the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Quite some time ago, I came to the conclusion that these guys weren't for me -- they seem to be ultra-conservative. I have to say 'seem' because after a while, I stopped even glancing at what was on the page; I simply moved on.
But this evening, coming to the site and preparing to leave just as quickly, I was caught by a discussion of a book which addresses the president's actions relative to the FISA court and to the use of 'signing statements'. I'm in favor of the first, and opposed to the second, which means that I'm the president's ideological opposite in that regard. (Good.) I read the article, which can be found here. And you know: they make some damn good points. The author may be ultra-conservative; and its possible that the rest of the book isn't worth spit, but these points, as outlined in the article -- they make sense to me.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, Jawge?
1 comment:
Basically, you're in agreement.
The problem lies in the last part of the article - Ron Paul states something that, while obvious, offers nothing to the debate about Bush's actions. All he's done is re-iterate an underlying reason for the overall debate about civil liberties and Bush's cavalier attitude to them.
John Yoo is infamous for his tortured [sic] logic; a review of his arguments concluded the man needed to go back and redo "Civics 101".
I've read Greenwald's book; I didn't think enough of it to consider it worth reviewing. He makes some salient points, and they're definitely cross-aisle issues, but he didn't address the history of the civil rights violations with enough depth. He criticized, well enough - and he picked the issues that were too easy. He certainly didn't examine the legal framework (both legislative, and institutional) that allowed Yoo to come up with his fairy tales. (Okay, he might have glanced in their direction, occasionally.)
Bush has run amok with his secret signing privileges; he does act like an old-time monarch. The issues all of this tosses in the air are going to concern historians and law-makers for many decades. As the Chinese saying goes, rephrased perhaps: we live in interesting times. :-)
Carolyn Ann
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