Decius wrote:

BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

Oh Fuck...

I'll be one to say "I told you so." A number of people (like me) have been talking, and yelling, and screaming that we are looking at the worst bunch of assholes ever to sit in power in Washington. And people keep saying, "you don't understand 9/11" or "you're a Chicken Little."

No, it's because this was the first bunch of scumbags who would try to do something like this. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the United States of America, rogue superpower. "May you live in interesting times" is an ancient curse. they just got incalcuably more interesting.

Decius wrote:

BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

Oh Fuck...

I'll be one to say "I told you so." A number of people (like me) have been talking, and yelling, and screaming that we are looking at the worst bunch of assholes ever to sit in power in Washington. And people keep saying, "you don't understand 9/11" or "you're a Chicken Little."

No, it's because this was the first bunch of scumbags who would try to do something like this. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the United States of America, rogue superpower. "May you live in interesting times" is an ancient curse. they just got incalcuably more interesting.

Decius wrote:

BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

Oh Fuck...

I think you're being naive if you think there's any other way that a nation will respond to the 'terrorist threat'. We are rapidly approaching a future state in which individual rights and privacies will be next to impossible to protect all in the name of 'peace and security'.

The US is following the lead already established in areas of the world that have had to deal with far more strife (Europe, Israel, Indonesia, etc) for far longer. The US doesn't have the maturity in its political system to have a leader appear which will be steadfast and uphold the ideals by which this country was founded. Our society is too soft and we are too cushioned in our way of life to even consider having a few terrorist attacks as the price you pay for having a great and free society. We're too busy worrying about football scores and Paris Hilton's antics to take this position. Hell, we couldn't even keep our citizens safe from water and then couldn't coordinate a plan to restore order and rebirth to NOLA. Our approach to this 'threat' should be to excel as a liberated and peaceful society. Be like Athens where a dead soldier was simply the price paid for existing. A dead soldier here is a travesty. You can kill a man, but you can never kill the ideals by which he lived his life. An 'enemy' can never win in such a situation.

It won't stop until you are either RFID chipped or something similar, your every move tracked for 'security' and 'convenience' - or you are cast out of society, unable to do even the most basic actions (work, procure goods, travel normally) because you are a blank record. In the end, the 'terrorists' did win the moment we responded with fear and started rationalizing our ideals. The battle is over. We lost.