“Laws!? Like who the fuck cares!” = motto for the last eight years = Horton

[L. Coyote]

No Comment - http://harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004433
By Scott Horton
February 20, 12:50 PM
Our Voyage to Brobdingnag

Prepared introductory remarks for the Arthur N. Rupe Great Debate: Torture and the Law, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, February 19, 2009.

This is my second trip to Santa Barbara to speak at your university ...........

....

Let’s consider what’s at stake. Our democracy and our understanding of the relationship between its vital institutions, especially the executive and the Congress; avoiding a presidency with dictatorial powers. Upholding our traditions and values. Being a leader in the international community. Attending effectively to our security. One thing flows through the Bush years—it’s a conviction that our laws, our Constitution and our democratic values were a weakness best supplanted with an all-powerful executive. Gone is the careful system of checks-and-balances that the Founders crafted. In Jane Mayer’s book The Dark Side, I found one very revealing passage. A senior CIA figure describes his meeting with David Addington and Dick Cheney at which the legality of the black sites came up. “Laws!? Like who the fuck cares!” That could stand as a motto for the last eight years. And it presents us with a dilemma. We can agree with Nixon that “if the president does it, that means it’s legal.” That’s one dark vision of our Constitutional order. Or we can hold to the view of our Founding Fathers, which Thomas Paine summed up this way “in America, the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”

.......

[gratuitous]

1. And we can either try our own criminals

Or someone else will do it for us. And they might not be all preoccupied with due process, rules of procedure and other legal niceties. They might just decide to punish Americans willy-nilly without regard to actual guilt or innocence. If you don't mind dying (or seeing a loved one die) to pay for Bush administration crimes, then by all means, let's just move on and not wallow in the past.

[L. Coyote]

3. Or, we can knuckle down for the next attack and hope it's not a NUKE!!

Don't expect the retribution to be much different than the crimes.

We all witnessed what happened when we did nothing about the Bush overthrow.

[KGodel]

2. = vs -

The symbol "=" means "is equal to".

You consistently use it instead of "-". It drives me nuts. I created an account on DU just so that I could mention this.

As an example: Laws!? Like who the fuck cares!” = motto for the last eight years = Horton

I don't think that's what you meant. Horton is not equal to a motto or "who the fuck cares".

Most of your posts would make sense if you replaced "=" with "-"

[salguine]

4. And the motto from here on out, indefinitely, if there are no prosecutions.