natural selections LXVI
The sixty-sixth edition.
» The Commissar has a picture from Steven Spielberg’s “prayer for peace in our time.”
» Goldstein has rounded up all of his NSA/FISA posts. Still not sure what to make of the whole thing, and here’s why: Whether President Bush did anything illegal is a matter that, I assume, a passel of lawyers will decide. The larger question of how far is “too far” to go in defending against terrorists is something you’ll have to decide for yourself. I point you to these because I think they’re well-written and largely devoid of the shrieks you’ll see on television and in other outlets. A mostly-civil debate has been taking place there.
» Why I refused to join the teacher’s union, V: From Professor Bainbridge.
» Ouch: Tony of Tony’s Kansas City takes a sledgehammer to the identity-politics platitudes he found on the Kansas City Star editorial page.
» Ken Wheaton places blame for the media hype on the miner story where it belongs.
» Eric Scheie finds a juicy bit of backstory in the developing Abramoff affair.
» Despite his trip down the primrose path to Kos-dom, Josh has a couple of good points: here on living wills and organ donation, and here on stem-cell research. For Heaven’s sake, get your final wishes put in writing, and make sure they have the force of law.
01.08.2006 @ 13:58
I have to say I’m surprised you haven’t been more into the spying story.
As you frame the issue above, there’s the question of whether the President’s authorization of warrantless spying *is* illegal, and the question of whether warrantless spying *should be* legal in general.
It seems like there’s an issue in between there. Should the President have the power to make up the authority to order this sort of surveillance without any Congressional action? I see this as a small-government/libertarian issue, not because of the spying (though I have qualms about that, too), but because of the essentially limitless claims of Presidential power being advanced.
That claim is what I object to. Regardless of the technical legality or the broad tolerability of the program, there’s an issue of massive grab of executive power, unchecked by any other branch.
Seems like the sort of thing that would interest you.
01.09.2006 @ 08:19
That’s a fair criticism.
Basically, what happened was a bunch of personal stuff pulled me away from the computer at that time. It isn’t that I’m not interested in it; I have my own questions about it. I just haven’t had the time.