Fallacies

I am upset about tax cuts.

The tax cuts recently agreed to by the Obama Administration received some minor concessions by Republicans, chief among them the extension of unemployment benefits for a still-out-of-work America.  What they agreed to do in exchange, however, was extend Bush-era tax cuts, even for the wealthiest Americans, for another 2 years.

How are we going to pay for this?  How does the Republican party possibly justify at this point the idea of trickle-down economic theory, when it was following 8 years of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that our markets entered this recession?  They like to say you can't spend your way out of a recession, but even if that wren't completely inaccurate, you can still raise money in it.  The tax cuts already given to us by the Obama Administration have been the largest cuts in history - over $282 billion dollars in taxes were lifted from the public over the last two years.  That's more relief to the middle class and working Americans than any President before him has given.  If the economy hasn't recovered yet, then cutting taxes more isn't going to help.

Let's just get it out in the open - the looming debt crisis in the country is going to continue getting worse, and for all their talk about wanting to make sure they solve this problem and don't pass it down to our children and grandchildren, the government has done practically nothing to make sure that is more than simple rhetoric.  I fully expect that 10 years from now, we will still be grappling with our greivous budget deficits and trade imbalances.  If there were better ideas, better ways of moving forward, they're being shot down now in the name of "bipartisanship."

What does the President hope to gain by caving in to Republicans yet again?  Is he so willing to compromise and find a middle ground that he'll go as far as to give the other side of the aisle everything they ask for and call it cooperation?  The message being sent right now is that it is to the advantage of the minority party to completely obstruct the positions of the majority party and then blame any failure to act or push through major policy on their shortcomings.  Unless our political gridlock is broken, that will be the model of governance we have moving forward.

The term that applies here is The Fallacy of the Middle Ground.  Middle ground is often sought because of the idea that, in any given argument, the correct option is somewhere in between the two opposing sides.  President Obama has tried to make it a touchstone of his Presidency that he reach across the aisle and work with Republicans to include them in creating of legislation.  The response has been to hinder any forwarding of any Democratic policy at every turn, no matter how beneificial it may be to the country.  Their policy is "Just Say No" to each and every bill that comes down the pipe should it have the names of any Democrat on it or any relation to the Obama Administration agenda.  Does that sound like responsible politics?  Does that sound like the example a minority party should be setting?

No, and that's the fallacy.  Sometimes one side is absolutely wrong and the other is absolutely right.  The Republican party is absolutely wrong in the way they have chosen to conduct themselves for the last two years, and if Barack Obama wanted to make any kind of lasting impression in his Presidency, he should have moved forward without them.  What happened instead was that they moved further and further right, and then insisted he meet them in the middle.  Whatever accomplishments he has had in the course of his first term, they are overshadowed by his utter failure to play the political game and repeated public defeats at the hands of opponents he keeps trying to make friends with.

Of course, the response by Democrats has largely been to blame as well.  That's another issue here - their reaction to the obstructionist policy of the Republicans has been equally as wrong.  They've fought amongst themselves and against the President, and attempted to distance themselves from Obama and show that they're "conservative Democrats."  The response of the public to that idea during the midterm elections was pretty clear - if we want a conservative, we'll just elect a real one.  So rather than responding to a united front with another united front, with superior numbers, they fractured and split and only aided the Republicans in making them look like buffoons. 

This approval of tax cut extensions for the wealthiest Americans is just an example of what the next 2 years will look like if there's not some kind of movement in the Democratic - or Republican - party to say "wait, no, this isn't helping America, this is bad for our citizens, and riding the party line isn't going to get anything done to get people back at work." 

You know why Americans are out of work right now?  Because we're shipping jobs overseas at a record pace, and concentrating our efforts on recovering them.  The problem with that is that these are the jobs that we built our country on 60 years ago, and the countries taking them are just now catching up to where we were then.  We should be putting our effort into innovation and discovery, into creating the next wave of new jobs to employ millions of Americans like manufacturing jobs did for decades.  Yes, we should put effort into retaining the old jobs while we still need them, but not to the exclusion of building a future for America instead of clinging to its past and complaining about its present.  The Republicans are big on telling you that before we do anything else we need to focus on jobs and the economy.  How many of them have offered anything to back up that statement in the way of actual solutions?  And "cut taxes, reduce spending" does not count.

So yeah, I'm angry.  I'm angry at our President, I'm angry at our major political parties, and I'm angry at the portion of the population nodding their heads and saying "yes, this is how the Republicans should act."  I'm angry we elected a President that promised discourse and togetherness conceding point after point in order to force the appearance of cooperation. 

Sometimes, Mr. President, you don't negotiate, or make deals, or try to reach aross the aisle.  Sometimes you say "no, I am right, I will explain to you why I am right, and I will make sure everybody knows I am right, and if you are not with me on this I will move forward without you."  You make your case, you bring it to the people, and you argue for it, only making concessions if a legitimate point against you is raised.  Once you pick a battle, you see it through to the end.  I know you're not perfect, but you should be better than the fallacy of the middle ground.  That middle ground is a chasm that you keep falling deeper into.

I'm also angry that politics continually drive me to make long, rambling posts expressing my frustration.  But I have standards I hold my elected officials to, and I refuse to compromise on them.

Republicans and The Great Unemployment Screw

House Republicans blocked unemployment extensions.

This is a very bad thing.

Here's why in a super-tiny nutshell (more details and numbers here - also the source of the image above - and here): in a recession, there are fewer jobs than there are job-seekers. (We've been making improvments, but not enough yet.) This means that without unemployment, many many qualified workers - not deadbeats, mind you, but people who are simply victims of the numbers imbalance - will be pretty well and screwed.

These folks may cease to be able to pay mortgages or rents, cease to be able to buy significant amounts of food, and so forth. This money therefore does not go to the retailers and renters who depend on their customers and rentees. It's a domino effect of badness. The Congressional Budget Office recognizes how bad things would have been had we not had UI extensions previously.

Compare this to the tax cuts for the wealthy which the Republicans want to keep (while saying that we "can't afford" the UI extensions) - the wealthy tend to sit on their money, and that which they spend may well go to foreign countries via strange tax loopholes and business ventures or plain old vacations and importing. Regular joes who are unemployed spend much more locally.

I was unemployed for several months in 2009-early 2010 and again late this summer. The money I got from the government (some of which was unemployment extension from Congress), where did it go? Why, to groceries. Local dining. Gas. Rent. Utilities. Student loans. Household items. Local entertainment (largely theatre, which was then most likely spent by those artists on groceries rent etc.). Health insurance via COBRA. A car repair or two. I carefully balanced my budget to make sure my expenses did not excede my unemployment payments, so that I could keep my savings for luxuries or emergencies (I only ending up using about $200 of them). The point is - nearly every penny of the money the government sent to me went straight back into the economy. (By the way, most of these purchases did also incur sales tax, and the businesses I and those liked me helped support pay taxes, too.)

Now, the economy wouldn't work whatsoever if the government just took money from the working people, gave it to the non-working people, and expected that this money would then go back to the working people when it's spent on groceries. Someone has to generate the money in the first place.

The important thing here - the one super-important thing to remember is:
THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH JOBS FOR EVERYBODY.

During my unemployment, I applied to two jobs a week minimum. I took my time crafting those applications, customizing the cover letters, etc. It didn't matter. If there are dozens of qualified people applying for the same jobs, then dozens-minus-one of them are not going to get it. Period.

In this original post about my unemployment (which cooked up quite a little localized Internet firestorm, albeit with typical talking points) (and which I never realized was getting so many responses at the time - I should learn to watch for comments more closely), I mention how the prospect of going to work at Starbucks was not a pleasant one. Two things I neglect to point out in that post: one, Starbucks does not have infinite jobs to offer for unemployed knowledge workers/college graduates. Neither do Walmart or anyone else. During a recession, all the unemployed middle-managers and artmakers and decently-paid office peons (myself being in the latter two categories) can't just all suck it up and move over to Starbucks and Walmart. Especially because some of them couldn't feed their families or keep their houses on Starbucks wages (whereas unemployment gives them enough to do so). Nor can little part-time jobs always fill the gap, because some people - like me - can't afford health insurance without employer assistance or a significant paycheck ($350 of my unemployment checks went to my insurance, plus deductibles), and can't go without insurance for health reasons.

(The thrust of my original post was more complex than that, and, as a late response to those that misread it, was mainly critical of myself. The point of that post was to examine the psyche of someone in my position, not to argue for or against unemployment insurance. This post you're reading now is arguing for unemployment insurance.)

(Additional note - I am currently employed, thanks to our very own b.graham and ali d. Networking trumps both brute force resume-carpet-bombing and tactical cover-letter-strikes.)

Simply put: if you think that, during a recession, leaving the unemployed high and dry will either lead them to get off their lazy asses and get work, or at least give them their due punishment for being freeloading bums, you're wrong. (Even if, reading my previous post, you deem me to be in the lazy-freeloading category, there are millions who definitely are not.)

In a recession, preventing the bankruptcy and poverty of the qualified-but-unemployed prevents the recession from worsening and allows the economy to recover while maintaining quality of life. When the recession is over, that's when you get tough on the expense of unemployment and start looking for deadbeats.

In conclusion: letting these benefits expire does no good for anybody. The government only saves money in the immediate sense; in the long run, tax incomes are hurt, economies weakened, and everybody loses.

So the Republicans are either total hypocrites ($830 billion for tax cuts to the rich okay, $12.5 billion for UI extensions not okay!) - practically bald-faced in their commitment to robbing the poor to feed the rich - or they're stupid.

Or there's a third option (not incompatible with the other two): the Republicans may realize this is all a bad thing, and are doing it anyways, because the only thing that matters is making Obama lose in 2012. It's for the good of the country!

Postscript: It should be noted that the extension bill isn't necessarily scuttled yet; but it's unlikely that it'll get altered to the Republicans' liking before it expires on November 30, thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday. Give some serious thanks!

Guess It's Politics Season Here at TG

Dear Maryland-Politician-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Because-You-Know-Exactly-Who-You-Are:

When you tell me, through the TV of course because why would you call me I'm not your friend, not to worry because if I vote for you you won't raise my taxes, that is exactly when I start to worry.  Because I may not be the best numbers girl (in fact I might actually be the worst), but I'm pretty sure we're still in a capital-R Recession.  And it seems to me that no matter which state of the union we're in, there's a yawning, creaking budget gap between what we have, and what we need. So. There's that.

And yes, yes, I heard the part where you said you would close said budget gap by trimming the bureaucratic fat, so to speak.  But what does that mean? Because if it means, "Hey, we know we waste a lot of money so we're going to have our special team of government accountants go through every line of the budget to see where all our money goes and hope to God we've overlooked some million-dollar pen purchases (because, er, we probably have)," then I'm all for it. 

But I can't help but suspect that you really mean, "Hey, we know we waste a lot of money so we're going to shut down arts and welfare programs because those guys don't vote, and also no one cares about them."  

This worries me.

So I wanted to let you know that I vote, and I care.  Granted, I care that my taxes actually go to something rather than being borne into the ether by virtue of the first stimulus bill, but I also care if my lack of taxes is going to shut down yet another high school art department, or yet another nursery for drug-addicted infants.

I care about that a lot.  And I vote about it, too.

So I just felt you should know.  Your advertorial comfort almost single-handedly lost my vote. (That, and the fact that for some reason you think gay marriage is a ridiculous notion not fit for the great state of Maryland.)

Thanks, and I'll see you next voting season,

B.Graham

Disillusioned

I wrote this post three times and deleted all three drafts.

Each one was radically different than the others, despite trying to say the same thing each time. Each time I looked at it and said to myself "wow, this is straying really far from my original point."

Because my point, the only point I want to make, is that I used to believe in John McCain and now I don't. Up until this point I've ignored or excused his erratic behavior, but I've hit my limit of what I can tolerate. He's not a good man, he's not a good public servant, and he's not the person I thought he was.

The breaking point was, of course, McCain's continued filibuster of the move to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Because when you see on a hiring line that the government enforces a policy of non-discrimination regardless of race, gender, ethnic origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, physical disability, or age, they're holding that standard to everybody but themselves. You can't serve in the military and be openly gay. I had really hoped McCain was above this. It turns out he is far below.

Looking back on it, I've probably been fooled by the man's persona for a long time. Like many, I believed he took a strong stance against the things he believed to be morally wrong without caring about the consequences to his career. After all, he sponsored McCain-Feingold, which went against the conservative grain and tried to reform campaign finance. He's come out time and again stating that he believes in climate change and our need to combat it. He voted against the Bush tax cuts which squandered the Clinton-era surplus long before the war ever started. I really thought we had a guy here we could count on. I thought, given the chance, this guy would honestly change things.

If I had been paying better attention, I probably would have realized that he was more than a little duplicitous when he stuck so strongly by President Bush's side despite the fact that during the 2000 primaries, Bush was totally a dick.

I mean, seriously.

I might have thought more about it when Bush decided in 2006 that while signing McCain's bill on torture, he'd decide personally what did and didn't constitute torture and McCain didn't raise a word of protest. It might have stuck out a little more when he voted against a bill which would ban same-sex marriages in 2005, and then had on his website in 2008 that he believed marriage was only between a man and a woman and would appoint judges who felt the same if elected. If I hadn't been so taken with the idea that this guy was a reformer, a real, honest-to-God bi-partisan centrist who was concerned with doing what's right instead of what's easy or good for his career, I might have found it more than a little strange when he marched down the streets in Iraq and proclaimed them "safe," neglecting to mention that he was with an escort of over 100 U.S. soldiers at the time.

But it's hard. This man was my hero.

I don't have a lot of male role models in my life. Up until I was 16, if I needed guidance on what kind of man I wanted to grow up to be, I had to look either to my Uncle or Spider-Man. In 1999, the only thing I knew about politics was that Clinton was leaving office after giving America a lot of money and new definitions for "sex" and "is." Then John McCain shows up and wants to be President, and it seems to me for all the right reasons. Bush to me had the charisma of a goal post, which made him roughly twice as charismatic as Al Gore. I didn't care about them - I wanted this guy. He was passionate, driven; he really wanted to speak to my generation and make sure America, and its government, kept working for us.

In 2004, John McCain said this during an interview with MTV regarding Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

"There's many of us who are not comfortable with this issue, and I'm one of them. Primarily because I hate to see legislation and government involved in people's lives. ... But society is changing. We now have a don't-ask-don't-tell policy in the military. When I first came into the military, that would never have been possible. Society is evolving. Whether it's evolving for better or for worse, I'll let someone else make that judgment."

This gave me hope. Because when you're a public official, you don't have to like a policy - in fact, I'd say it's not part of your job to agree with everything sent your way. You just have to assess if it is what the people want. Vocal opponents of Don't Ask, Don't Tell would probably jump on McCain for not condemning the policy outright with this statement, but you know what? He shouldn't have to. What he's saying here is regardless of how he feels, society is changing and, whether he thinks it's right or wrong, it's his job to serve the American people, and the majority of Americans are against the policy.

So even as an old man, presumably set in his ways, he was not going to use his position to exert his wishes over those of the American people.

And now he filibusters the vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He filibusters not because he's trying to support the troops, since there are obviously tens of thousands of armed servicemen and women he's distinctly not supporting. Not because he thinks it's the will of the American people, they've clearly spoken out in favor of repeal. He's doing it because his Senate seat is up for grabs and he wants to make sure he earns the Republican nomination, so he's sticking up hard for the party line.

In 2008, when John McCain had a chance at becoming the President, I stood behind him. I believed in him, and whenever anyone pointed out his dramatic shift in tone, I brushed it off. "He's just pandering to the conservative base so that he'll get elected," I would tell them. "Once he gets into office he'll go back to his old self." Even though he lost, largely, in my mind, due to his choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate, his concession speech seemed to confirm everything I thought. Obama won, he lost, now it was his job to help the President any way he could, because that was the will of the people.

I was wrong.

The reason I deleted my other drafts is that I spent so much time trying to dig up all the good McCain had done that I meandered completely away from the point. I did this because I wanted to balance what I was saying with examples of how he was a great guy before. But his filibuster finally makes me wonder if that was ever really the case.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell violates the first and fifth amendments of our Constitution. And remember, this is a step forward from pre-Clinton years; Reagan described homosexuality and military service as "incompatible." Why would anyone stand up in support of violating an American's rights, especially a member of our military? Why would anyone stand up to prevent such a violation from being repealed? And asking those questions inevitably leads me to more questions.

Why would McCain suddenly support a fence along the border, blaming illegal immigrants for home invasions and murders? This completely reverses years of opposition to rhetoric which blames immigrants for our problems.

Why would McCain not make a comprehensive statement on his plans to protect Social Security during his 2008 campaign, when he did during 2000?

Why would McCain support an anti-abortion agenda, and then vote No on a bill which would have given $100 million to reduce teen pregnancies through education and contraceptives in 2005?

Why would McCain attack a plan to cut Medicare and Medicaid spending by $491 billion in 2009 when his own 2008 campaign ran on a platform which would have cut over $1.3 trillion?

Why would he pledge to vote "No" on Obama's stimulus plan unless the tax cuts from the Bush era were made permanent - the same cuts he voted against in 2000?

Why would McCain emphasize so strongly his desire to work with the President, support the President, and help make America stronger with the President, healing the red/blue divide in this country, only to become his most vocal critic and opponent?

Because . . .

Because he's not a hero.

He's not an arbiter of change.

He's just a politician, doing what politicians do. Trying to appeal to his base of solid voters to make sure he keeps his job for a few more years. And now that is actively hurting the troops he's claimed to support so actively all this time.

And I have to ask myself, in the midst of all this, what if it was unpopular amongst McCain's base to be Jewish? What if they demanded Jews not be allowed to serve openly in the military? Would McCain stand in front of Congress and say that it's for the good of the troops that no one who's Jewish be allowed to observe while in the armed forces? If that was the party line being taken, would I watch John McCain on the Senate floor filibustering an attempt to enforce the first amendment?

Like he's doing right now?

And in answer, yeah, I probably would, because there's no reason to think McCain would be any different in anti-Semitic America than he is in homophobic America.

I thank John McCain for his years of service to this country during Vietnam. That is where my gratitude for his work ends. Because now I can't tell if all the work he did in the Senate was legitimately for the good of this nation or just the good of himself. Shame on you, McCain, for failing to support our troops in favor of supporting yourself. Shame on you, McCain, for choosing to oppose the rights of Americans because your Senate race was a little tougher than usual this year. Shame on you, John McCain, for costing me my role model.

I wanted to be just like John McCain. I wanted to stand in front of Congress and demand we do the right thing. I wanted to be this dynamic persona who reached across party lines when he needed to because as much as he believed in his own convictions, he believed in helping America more. I wanted to be the one who changed things, who made a difference, who never backed down from what was right even if being pushed down upon by a sea of wrong.

So thank you, John McCain. Because I've decided I still will be. I'll be everything you pretended to be, everything you are not.

And one day in the future, when some young boy or girl looks to our government for a hero, I will not let them down.

Friends Like These III

Hello there. It's been awhile since we've done this, so for those of you unfamiliar with the experience, I will elucidate.

On "Friends Like These" I pick and up and transplant an IM conversation wholesale and put it here, warts and all, the only caveat being the editting of our screen names. For privacy's sake, you understand. What I hope to accomplish is using my discussions to help stir up debates of your own. Today is a long one, so I'll try to keep my introduction short. Suffice to say, my friend "B" and I will talk late into the night (time stamps provided) before we're through.

Today on Friends Like These, B and I discuss: Law and Jurisdiction



Me (02:18:06): There's almost 500 Pokemon now.

Me (02:18:18): And STILL no Peniserpent, Penisaur, or Cockmaster.

B (02:18:34): That is an absolute travesty!

Me (02:19:01): Quite franklyh I'm disappointed in the entire industry.

Me (02:19:16): frankly*

B (02:20:25): Are we back to the literary industry?

B (02:20:33): Or entertainment as a whole?

Me (02:21:02): I just meant Pokemon.

Me (02:21:15): Though I guess we could easily extrapolate.

B (02:21:54): I just didn't realize Pokemen, itself, had become an industry.

Me (02:22:30): Oh yeah.

Me (02:22:37): Games, books, movies, TV shows.

Me (02:22:55): I guarantee you our grandkids will be wandering the globe capturing real pokemon.

B (02:23:11): Well, that would make Miley Cyrus and the Olsen twins industries of their own.

Me (02:23:32): An argument could be made.

B (02:23:35): I don't think our grandkids are going to grow up before the world ends.

Me (02:23:58): Well of course not, not with shit like Dialga and Groudon wandering around.

Me (02:24:07): We are fucked, B.

Me (02:24:40): I just hope they put out some more good video games in the interim.

B (02:26:00): Did you know that Israel had the bomb during the Yom Kippur War and were close using them?

Me (02:26:21): I know that there has long been unconfirmed suspicion Israel has already produced nuclear bombs.

B (02:26:28): The U.S. stepped up their assistance precisely to convince Israel not to nuke Syria and Egypt.

Me (02:26:42): Israelis are crazy, man.

Me (02:26:50): But I can't blame them.

B (02:27:13): I think that's fucking gangsta.

Me (02:27:22): Imagine being given a swath of land where you're surrounded on all sides by enemies that want nothing more than to completely obliterate you from the Earth.

B (02:27:24): Like I said before, Israel is cool in my book now.

B (02:27:33): The only people more gangsta than the Israelis are the Irish.

Me (02:27:40): Who make it part of their religion to kill you.

B (02:27:40): And, come on, you can't get any more gangsta than that.

Me (02:27:53): It certainly is stiff competition.

B (02:28:04): And, by the way, you just described what it's now like to live in the United States.

Me (02:28:22): Mexico and Canada want to obliterate us?

B (02:28:44): I strongly doubt they'd shed a tear at the loss, but you know what I meant.

Me (02:28:52): Yes, I do.

Me (02:28:57): But I've realized something recently.

Me (02:29:15): I don't think terrorist organizations grasp exactly how vast and complicated this country is.

B (02:29:17): Actually, we're worse off. For the most part, Israel had to worry about the enemies surroundin them.

B (02:29:34): We're threatened by enemies among us who hide behind our own laws and civility.

Me (02:29:36): America isn't anything like where they originate from.

Me (02:30:04): Over 3,000 people died on September 11th.

Me (02:30:16): The population was back to where it had been before within 2 days.

Me (02:30:26): America's HUGE.

Me (02:31:11): And fully capable of killing hundreds of thousands of their people in response to every attack.

B (02:31:30): I agree with you, BUT...

B (02:31:41): There's two things that you're leaving out.

B (02:32:57): First, it's impossible, in the practical sense to "destroy" America, you're right. There's too many people over too much space, even the Russians might not have enough nukes left to wipe out everything. But, I think the terrorists are smarter than that. The violence is a means to an end.

B (02:33:06): America is vulnerable because of the stupidity of its people.

B (02:33:20): The more they hurt us, the more we welcome them into our fold, the more we protect them.

Me (02:33:37): Well, yes and no.

Me (02:33:58): There will always be an element screaming that it's "our fault" other people are violent and ignorant.

B (02:34:08): Exactly.

B (02:34:21): And with little whispers and little nudges, our enemies make those voices louder and loude.r

B (02:34:39): And most Americans are stupid enough to go along with it.

B (02:35:09): The second point is connected.

B (02:35:36): We are certainly capable of killing thousands of their people for every one of ours... except for the fact that we can't do it.

B (02:35:41): We would NEVER get away with that.

B (02:36:02): What I call the Swordfish method would be an extremely effective deterrent, but no one can publicly support it.

Me (02:36:13): True.

B (02:36:34): And that's what I mean about them hiding behind our laws and civility.

B (02:36:37): They KNOW we can't do that.

Me (02:36:42): However it's very naive to suggest that nothing goes on behind closed doors when it comes to the defense of our country.

B (02:36:45): They KNOW what we can and can't do and they count on that.

B (02:37:18): We both know for a fact that things happen behind closed doors, this is true.

Me (02:37:26): There was a lot of outrage, as I recall, when people found out about the things Cheney had authorized.

Me (02:37:35): Without public knowledge.

B (02:37:39): Exactly. And your boy put a stop to that right away.

Me (02:37:49): Actually, I don't know if that's true.

B (02:37:49): That's why I don't support him.

Me (02:38:10): An attack worked heavily in George W. Bush's favor in getting him re-elected.

Me (02:38:14): People were really scared.

B (02:38:17): Say what you want about Bush and Cheney, but you have to give them that. They made the choices that other people wouldn't have bmade.

Me (02:38:35): And the general mindset was that Republicans were going to be better for defense than Democrats.

B (02:38:40): You can't tell me, in the same position, that Obama would have had the guts to authorize "enhanced interrogation techniques".

Me (02:38:52): Regardless, here's the situation now;

Me (02:39:04): If something else happens during Obama's first term, he KNOWS he will not get re-elected.

Me (02:39:13): If I were President

Me (02:39:48): I'd be making sure that the country stayed safe until November 7th, 2012, no matter what.

B (02:40:17): I agree with you on one thing. Obama is going to be good at some stuff. The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not going to be won by the Army alone, that's just a fact.

Me (02:40:17): If there's another attack on American soil the country will swarm back to the Republicans in droves.

B (02:40:59): Diplomacy and things of that nature (with a healthy amount of ammunition, yes) are what's called for, and I do agree that he's got the mindset for it.

Me (02:41:08): Actually, I've been wondering something.

Me (02:41:16): And hoping you can clear this up for me.

B (02:41:19): Sure.

Me (02:41:21): The war in Afghanistan.

Me (02:41:25): We were doing REALLY WELL there for awhile.

Me (02:41:29): What happened?

B (02:41:49): Okay, that's a complicated answer...

B (02:42:06): First off, I don't think we were doing as well as you thought. It just wasn't a popular topic in the news.

B (02:42:20): American soldiers were dying just as much as they are now, it's just that Iraq is what sold papers.

Me (02:42:37): Well, I do know that after our initial push, we threw out the Taliban.

Me (02:42:41): But then they came back.

B (02:42:46): I'm getting to that.

B (02:43:09): The campaign in Afghanistan was even more successful, initially, than you know.

B (02:43:42): Ironically, it was a concession to diplomacy (I know, right, from Bush??) that was ultimately the gravest error in strategy there.

B (02:43:45): The short version is this:

B (02:44:44): The CIA and Special Operations Forces organized a ridiculous guerilla army that wiped out the Taliban in, basically, record time. They backed the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and, especially, Bin Laden, into a corner they couldn't get out of.

B (02:45:28): But, they left the back door open. The boots on the ground asked for Army Rangers to drop into Pakistan and cut off the last line of their retreat.

B (02:45:59): Afraid of stepping on Pakistani toes, the leadership decided against this and fed information to the Pakistani security forces, who were tasked with preventing the escape.

Me (02:46:10): Oh.

B (02:46:16): Unfortunately, the Pakistani security forces are about as corrupt as Mexican Federales.

B (02:46:35): So, it'd be like chasing a drug cartel to the border, then counting on Mexico to make sure they don't slip away.

B (02:47:12): So, as I'm sure you know, the most dangerous thing about a deposed regime is that if you don't wipe them out entirely, they're going to come back.

B (02:47:24): And they'll come back with greater motivation, better resources, and much, much more support.

Me (02:47:31): Historically that is accurate in nearly every case.

B (02:47:57): So, the Taliban had a chance to regroup, people had a chance to see that the new American-backed government wasn't perfect, and the Taliban preyed on that.

B (02:48:00): Power of suggestion.

Me (02:48:15): Government corruption has been the iceberg of so many of our operations.

Me (02:48:32): In Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Me (02:48:37): And Mexico, while we're at it.

B (02:48:51): See, the problems that we had are this:

B (02:48:59): Afghanistan was the blueprint.

B (02:49:08): If you want to fight a war, that's how it's to be done.

B (02:49:18): By the time the American people knew, for a fact, we were at war, it was over.

B (02:49:37): There were boots on the ground within a week of 9/11 and within a month, the Taliban were all but obliterated.

B (02:50:00): And, if we wanted to deny we had any part of it, we more or less could have done so.

B (02:50:26): I think we should have learned a lesson from that when we hit Iraq.

B (02:51:24): We need to face the facts that our conventional army is there for show and is NOT effective in the modern world.

B (02:51:30): We have to have it, because we have to.

B (02:51:44): But you can't perform heart surgery with a chainsaw and a sledgehammer.

B (02:52:12): Anyway, that's where we went wrong.

B (02:52:29): When you topple a regime, you can't leave any remnants over to become the new underground.

B (02:52:41): Because the underground is always what's popular.

B (02:52:44): I mean, look at Obama.

B (02:52:52): In a way, he was the underground, the underdog.

B (02:53:13): No one's ever happy with the sitting government, so when you start whispering about "change", everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

B (02:53:23): You know what I mean?

Me (02:53:28): I do indeed.

B (02:53:55): I think that Obama's on the right track with Iraq and Afghanistan, though, as much as I hate to admit it.

B (02:54:14): See, the down side of Special Operations is that they're a small force and they're just not designed for operations like we have now.

B (02:54:28): An increased conventional presence in Afghanistan is what's needed to stabilize the situation.

B (02:54:34): And I think it'll work.

Me (02:54:38): I do, too.

Me (02:54:41): The surge worked.

B (02:54:44): Likewise, in Iraq, we have to let them stand on our own.

B (02:54:48): *their own

Me (02:54:55): I'm nervous about that.

Me (02:55:02): I don't know if we'll get involved or not.

B (02:55:07): See, here's what we need in Iraq:

B (02:55:15): We need to reverse it.

Me (02:55:25): But a completely sovereign Iraq makes me wary of another Iraq-Iran war somewhere not that far down the line.

B (02:55:33): Afghanistan needs conventional forces to stabilize the region.

B (02:55:52): Iraq needs us PUBLICLY out of the picture, with ninjas in the shadows to keep the peace.

Me (02:56:01): I've said that for awhile now.

B (02:56:07): If everyone KNOWS we're propping up the government, it's useless.

B (02:56:18): But if we prop them up subtly, eventually they will be able to stand.

Me (02:56:37): What would really be best for the government in Iraq is a public show of telling America it's time to leave.

Me (02:56:49): And us conceding they're capable of handling themselves and withdrawing.

Me (02:56:53): And then privately, we continue to work together.

B (02:57:08): The same way we work with Mexico, for example.

B (02:57:39): Did you know that one of the Green Berets' major missions throughout their history has been operating in Mexico, attempting to help the Mexican government deal with the cartels?

Me (02:58:44): I did not.

Me (02:58:53): They don't seem to have had much success.

B (02:59:21): I believe their hands are tied too much, but that's a topic for another day.

Me (02:59:29): Fair enough.

B (02:59:42): But they idea of having an American presence there, carefully pushing the Iraqi government in the right direction is what we need.

B (02:59:54): There's nothing more for a conventional military force to do.

Me (03:00:02): I don't actually want to change the topic to comic books

Me (03:00:12): but I think we'd really benefit if we actually had someone like the Punisher.

Me (03:01:03): A methodical, well-armed, implacable urban vigilante dedicated to the eradication of criminals.

B (03:01:52): The problem with the Punisher is that he's a fantasy.

Me (03:01:54): Someone completely unbound by the restrictions of normal society with complete and total deniability.

Me (03:02:07): That is a major drawback to him, yes.

B (03:02:19): One person can't have that much power, that's why our legal system was designed the way it was

Me (03:02:32): Well he's an outlaw.
Me (03:02:36): The police don't actually go after him.

Me (03:02:53): More or less because they appreciate him doing their job and probably saving their lives in the long term.

Me (03:03:02): But he's outcast from society.

B (03:03:10): As flawed as our system is, and believe me, it's completely broken, it exists because the police can't just DECIDE someone's guilty and execute them. It doesn't work.

B (03:03:12): The power would corrupt.

Me (03:03:14): He'll never be thanked or loved for his work, and history will remember him as a monster.

B (03:03:50): Again, that's part of the fantasy.

Me (03:03:54): Did you hear about that bank teller who lost his job for chasing down a robber on foot?

B (03:04:08): Reality is that the police are capable of solving most crimes, it's just a matter of making it a priority.

B (03:04:16): The Punisher is too high profile, he'd be caught.

Me (03:04:47): It's true.

Me (03:04:57): Although, if he were turned loose in Mexico, let's say.

B (03:05:10): Well, that brings me to another topic.

Me (03:05:17): Excellent.

B (03:05:29): I know we've discussed this, but I need to refresh this because it's a central issue in my book.

B (03:05:40): There's a difference between CLANDESTINE and COVERT operations.

Me (03:05:55): Alright.

B (03:06:09): Basically, with covert operations, we can completely disavow any knowledge of the activity (just like Mission Impossible).

B (03:06:19): And believe me, that happens.

Me (03:06:26): Right.

B (03:06:32): ONLY the CIA can conduct covert operations.

Me (03:06:38): And clandestine?

B (03:06:51): Clandestine means that it's still secret, but there's limitations to it.

B (03:07:10): You still have to play by the rules because it's still official U.S. action, basically.

B(03:07:38): So, the CIA can go where and do things the military can't.

B (03:07:55): Because if we send the SEALs, for example, and the worst case scenario happens, the world knows what we did.

B (03:08:05): I'll give you an example:

B (03:08:15): The mission is to, say, assassinate a cartel leader

Me (03:08:54): Well, wait.

B (03:08:58): We send a SEAL team who sneak into a foreign country, carry out the mission, but when they're extracting, there's a mechanical breakdown and their chopper crashes. They get captured by government forces.

Me (03:09:07): So you're referencing an event like the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

B (03:09:21): Sure, let's go with that.

B (03:09:39): The only reason that you and I know about the failur of that mission is BECAUSE that was a military unit that did it.

B (03:10:15): American soldiers die, we can't say, "Uh... we have no idea who that is.

B (03:10:29): We can make up a story about how they died, but we can't disavow them.

B (03:10:41): Our own laws make it so.

B (03:10:59): I know it's confusing, and in some cases it's a very subtle difference.

B (03:11:07): But it's an important distinction, nonetheless.

Me (03:11:11): I get it.

B (03:11:36): The Iran Hostage Crisis was such a clusterfuck because there was no way we could even BS our way out of it.

B (03:11:40): Too many people knew too much.

Me (03:11:47): Where does the Secret Service fall?

B (03:12:19): The Secret Service is strictly responsible for the protection of the President (and other select VIPs) and (for some reason) counterfeiting issues.

B (03:12:23): (Counterfeiting money.)

B (03:12:35): They're basically a law enforcement agency.

Me(03:12:45): I always wondered about that.

Me (03:12:55): You'd think the FBI would have jurisdiction over that.

B (03:13:17): Federal law enforcement is a clusterfuck on its own.

Me (03:13:17): Maybe

Me (03:13:25): because there are Presidents ON THE DOLLARS

Me (03:13:37): it's the Secret Service's duty to make sure they stay safe.

Me (03:13:52): Although I guess if that's the case we could counterfeit the fuck out of some $100s.

B(03:14:20): I'm sure there's a reason for it, somewhere in their history.

B (03:14:40): A lot of different agencies trace their history back and sort of fell ass-backward into their jobs.

B (03:15:00): Mainly because crime is an ever-changing thing.

B (03:15:20): Which is why we have so much redundancy and confusion, actually...

Me (03:16:15): Huh.

Me (03:16:35): It appears the Secret Service was founded exclusively for the purpose of pursuing counterfeit money.

B (03:16:48): See what I mean?

Me (03:16:57): So it's actually protecting the President that's the second job.

B(03:17:29): I'm sure there's an interesting story about how they wound up protecting the President, but when you look at it from this angle, it's kind of dumb how that works.

Me (03:18:04): Ouch,

Me (03:18:06): I think I have your story.

Me (03:18:19): The legislation bill which would have created the agency was on Lincoln's desk.

Me (03:18:24): The night he was assassinated.

B (03:18:38): Heh.

Me (03:19:02): Then after McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Congress requested the Secret Service extend their duties to protecting the President.

Me (03:20:01): Well, now we know.

B (03:20:34): Makes sense.

Me (03:21:16): Basically, they had been formed.

B (03:21:25): Happens a lot.

Me (03:21:29): And the only other organization like them at the time was the U.S. Marshals.

B (03:21:46): Look at the Marines.

Me (03:21:47): So after 2 assassinations in the spam of 35 years, someone had to take up the job of protecting the President.

Me (03:21:53): And the other agencies didn't exist yet.

Me (03:22:11): So it fell to the counterfeiting guys.

B (03:22:32): Since they've been formed, the Marine Corps has always been something that we never really knew what to do with and were constantly trying to do away with.

B (03:22:43): And instead, their mission just evolves into whatever is needed.

Me (03:23:03): We don't have a primary function for Marines?

B (03:23:08): Nope.

Me (03:23:21): Isn't it just killing people?

B (03:23:35): ...Actually, you're kind of on the right track.

B (03:23:45): A Marine once summed it up the best:

B (03:24:26): "Marines are like America's pitbulls. They keep us chained up, mistreat us, and generally ignore us, until they decide they want to let us loose to go and bite someone."

B (03:25:24): But, anyway, we let the evolution of our defense, law enforcement and intelligence agencies run unchecked until it makes no sense.

Me (03:25:29): Sounds about right from everything I know.

Me (03:25:52): Solution would seem to be a complete overhaul and reorganization, likely eliminating several existing agencies.

B (03:26:04): Actually, I disagree.

B (03:26:16): Well, no, I don't, but I think you're looking at it the wrong way.

B (03:26:40): I don't think we need to, for example, eliminate the Air Force.

Me (03:26:51): With so many overlapping jurisdictions and conflicts of interest in our justice system, I don't see another way of efficiently cutting down on the amount of red tape involved in keeping our country safe.

B (03:27:09): Well, yeah, I guess in some cases we do need to eliminate some shit.

Me (03:28:30): Especially in the intelligence field.

B (03:28:46): Well, I would like to point out a fundamental problem there and see if you have a solution.

Me (03:28:54): Getting the important stuff where it needs to go shouldn't be like playing telephone.
Me (03:29:00): Go for it.

B (03:29:09): Because there IS a reason for how fucked up shit is, though we've lost sight of it.

B (03:30:04): See, we have the NSA, whose SOLE mission is what's called SIGINT (Signals Intelligence, which means they snoop into E-mails, radio signals, telephone calls, etc.) They, like the CIA, have absolutely no lega authority to operate on U.S. soil.

B (03:30:15): This is because Americans don't like being spyed on, which makes sense.

B (03:30:45): That means that anything that happens WITHIN our boders, falls to the FBI, who treat it as a criminal act.

B (03:31:11): Unfortunately, they can't PREVENT anything from happening. Until someone tries to crash a plane into a building, he hasn't committed a crime.

B (03:31:18): Now, the reason for this is simple.

B (03:31:31): If you have ONE agency doing all of this, they become too powerful, and that scares people.

B (03:32:41): So, the sword cuts both ways.

Me (03:32:43): So

B (03:32:56): Because if the FBI builds a great case against a cartel, their case ends at the border.

B (03:33:13): And if the CIA locks onto a terrorist organization, they have to let the shitbags go at the border.

Me (03:33:33): Do we HAVE a proactive agency dedicated to stopping crimes BEFORE they happen? DIA? The U.S. Marshals? INS?

B (03:33:50): You can't stop a crime before it happens, it's not a crime.

Me (03:34:04): Right, but the intent to commit a crime is still punishable.

B (03:34:09): Nope.

B (03:34:24): And the agencies you just listed have almost nothing to do with terrorism.

Me (03:34:31): Sure it is. Conspiracy to commit ______.

B (03:34:42): And the DIA is absolutely the most redundant and useless organization we have.

Me (03:34:54): I know, I meant more in the field of just pure domestic defense.

B (03:35:17): Well, the DIA is just a black hole that sucks up excess money and provides NOTHING that's not already being supplied.

B (03:35:21): But don't get me started ont hat.

Me (03:35:46): If someone can prove that a person was preparing to murder someone else, that's a crime. Conspiracy to commit murder.

Me (03:35:56): The same with committing fraud or treason.

B (03:35:59): In theory.

B (03:36:05): But not in reality.

Me (03:36:25): How does it work in actuality?

B (03:37:05): Well, if I'm planning on stabbing you in the eye, you can't charge me with it until I actually pull a knife in your presence and try to jam it in your orbital socket.

Me (03:37:33): But that's attempted eye-stabbing.

B (03:37:41): So, unless your theortical proactive agency is there at the EXACT moment, you're either going to get stabbed in the eye, or there's no crime.

Me (03:37:47): Not conspiracy to commit ocular penetration.

B (03:38:05): Right, but if I get stopped on the WAY to your house to stab you in the eye, I can't be charged.

Me (03:38:16): If you leave a detailed outline of your plan to stab me in the eye where the police can find it, you can be at least detained.

B (03:38:34): Detain me. When I get out I'm still going to stab you in the eye.

B (03:39:46): The bottom line is that the only way you can stop me from doing it, legally, is to basically KNOW that I'm going to stab you in the eye, and have cops waiting to stop me as I lunge at you with the knife.

B (03:40:11): And, even if you do, it'll take a few months for it to go to trial, during which time I'll be loose on the streets to try it again.

B (03:40:28): And it'll be a 16 month trial where my lawyers will argue that I was entrapped into trying to stab you in the eye.

B (03:40:45): And the burden of PROVING that I was REALLY going to stab you in the eye is still on the government.

B (03:40:56): I mean, what evidence do you have to show that I was going to stab you in the eye?

B (03:41:27): I mean, when the jury sees me with my hair slicked and combed, in my nice suit with my pretty powder blue tie and the innocent look on my face... is anyone REALLY going to believe that I was going to hurt you?

B (03:41:59): Plus, the media will be digging up every bad thing you've ever done, until people think that you DESERVE to be stabbed in the eye.

Me (03:42:06): Well in the case of conspiracy you'd need to have left some sort of evidence of premeditated eye-stabbing or have given a confession.

Me (03:42:21): Also it appears there would need to be at least one accomplice.

Me (03:42:29): But!

B (03:42:34): That's fine. I confessed to the police, but my lawyer will argue that it was a false confessoin and I didn't know what I was doing at the time.

Me (03:42:34): If both of those requirements were fulfilled

Me (03:42:52): then yes, you could be put away without ever having actually committed or attempted to commit a crime.

B (03:43:27): Again, in theory.

Me (03:44:05): If you're going to bring the defense of a lawyer into this, then nothing can be taken for granted.

B (03:44:14): Exactly.

B (03:44:16): That's my point.

B (03:44:51): So, to use a real example, when the CIA was tracking the 9/11 hijackers and let them go at the border, they KNEW what was going to happen...

B (03:44:58): But you can't prove it in a court of law.

B (03:45:31): So, if the FBI had so much as brought them in for questioning, they would have sued and the U.S. government would be directly financing the next terrorist attack against itself.

Me (03:45:58): Is it feasible to have a proactive agency? How big a change in our legal system are we talking here?

B (03:46:18): Not much, actually.

B (03:46:25): Bush laid the groundwork for it.

B (03:46:34): The problem is that it's easy to abuse it.

B (03:46:50): When he came up with the term "enemy combatant", the rules went out the window.

Me (03:46:56): That's universally the problem.

B (03:47:18): Real quick, though, I want you to understand how AWESOME enemy combatant status is.

Me(03:47:26): Go ahead.

B (03:47:32): See, we have to treat scumbag criminals with certain rights.

B (03:47:58): And if the Mexicans were to invade and get arrested by Border Patrol, we have to treat them with rights as soldiers of a foreign army (thanks to the Genevea Convention).

B (03:48:12): Enemy combatants, however, don't wear uniforms and don't belong to a state army.

B (03:48:23): They are, however, recognized as a dangerous threat to the safety of the US and her people.

B (03:48:46): They have no rights. They get thrown into Gitmo and questioned endlessly until they cough up the information we need to know.

Me (03:48:58): That sounds fair.

B (03:49:00): This is awesome, but, as much as I hate to admit it, it's flawed.

B (03:49:08): First off, mistakes DO get made.

Me (03:49:34): Well that's only natural. Look at the number of people wrongfully imprisoned.

B (03:49:46): So what if someone is legitimately NOT a shithead scumbag and gets declared an enemy combatant?

Me (03:49:49): I know the margin is relatively insignificant when you look at the prison population as a whole

B (03:50:03): They're not guaranteed a chance to prove their innocence, they're not guaranteed any type of trial.

Me (03:50:16): but even in trials by jury with evidence scrutinized to the extreme, mistakes can happen.

B (03:50:18): And the power to declare someone an enemy combatant is too loosely defined.

B (03:50:55): As much as I hate to be the voice for this... the thought of one upstanding American citizen suffering like that for the price of 100 terrorists locked up forever... it's hard to stomach.

Me (03:51:14): Hm.

B (03:51:22): I can handle it...

B (03:51:26): But the American public can't.

B (03:51:45): Now, where I disagree with Obama and the rest of his bleeding heart liberals is that terrorists don't deserve rights.

B (03:52:03): And the enhanced interrogation techniques we use on them are too soft in and of themselves.

Me (03:52:13): I can get behind that.

B (03:52:24): Waterboarding is nothing compared to what we SHOULD be doing to these shitheads.

Me (03:52:54): But with the status of our legal system as you've just defined it, how do we get where we need to with them WITHOUT enemy combatant status?

B (03:53:16): That's just it, I can't think of a good answer.

B (03:53:20): Well, wait.

B (03:53:31): First off, we NEED enemy combatant status. That should be there to stay.

B (03:53:41): We're in a world where we will NEVER fight an other enemy in uniform.

B (03:53:43): EVER.

B (03:54:11): Enemy combatant status is THE most powerful and necessary tool in the defense of this nation in the years to come.

B (03:54:27): But, frankly... I don't know how to make it "safe" to use.

Me (03:56:05): So the problem is that the definition and the resultant lack of rights works.

Me (03:56:16): But the loose nature of how that definition is applied leaves too much margin for error.

Me (03:56:33): There's got to be a better way . . .

B (03:56:42): Well, here's the fundamental problem:

B (03:56:51): Right now it's basically a matter of common sense.

B (03:56:59): But you can't use common sense in the law.

B (03:57:17): Once you apply the law to something, you take away it's power.

Me (03:57:33): Hm.

B (03:57:33): A reasonable person can sit there and decide who's an enemy combatant and who isn't.

Me (03:57:43): This country has a long way to go still.

B (03:57:57): But a group of people can't look over each other's shoulders and decide who is.

B (03:58:16): And you can't write up a definition that will hold up in court and not leave room for someone to wiggle out of it.

Me (03:59:36): That is an intrinsic problem.

Me (03:59:56): But it's such an integral and completely necessary part of our legal system.

B (04:00:19): I agree, as much as I don't want to.

Me (04:00:26): Now don't get me wrong, there are far too many gaps.

B (04:00:28): I just don't understand why we can't make it so that common sense can rule the law.

Me (04:00:40): And there's a lot we could plug up without altering how the law works.

B (04:00:57): But, here's the thing...

Me (04:01:02): But the practice of being able to argue the law is one of the foundations of our country.

B (04:01:08): I wouldn't change our legal system under most circumstances.

Me (04:01:10): It's why we have a Supreme Court.

Me (04:01:19): It's why we have law schools, for that matter.

B (04:01:22): Becuase the fact that we have the protections and freedoms and system that we do is what MAKES America.

B (04:01:33): We're on the same page.

B (04:01:53): Again, it's just the abuse of that practice that's taking its toll.

Me (04:02:01): So.

B (04:02:07): And it has run rampant and unchecked and that's we're stuck.

Me (04:02:12): We either find a way to make people better.

Me (04:02:17): Or we turn the legal system over to robots.

Me (04:02:34): They tried that once, it's part of the Green Lantern mythos.

B (04:02:40): See, even that won't work.

B (04:02:47): Robots don't have any more common sense.

Me (04:02:58): Before they tried Green Lanterns, the Guardians of the Universe commissioned an army called Manhunters to safeguard the cosmos.

B (04:02:58): The problem is the arguing of the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law.

Me (04:03:09): Then one day there was a programming error and they slaughtered an entire section of the galaxy.

Me (04:03:51): Mostly for that exact reason.

Me (04:04:00): Mechanically, they could only obey the letter of the law.

B (04:04:06): See, our problem is that, we can all, as a country, look at something and say, "That's wrong" and yet, it's legal.

Me (04:04:08): There was no definition allowed for "spirit."

Me (04:04:34): I'm with you on this one.

B(04:04:51): See, my understanding of it.. is that our legal system was designed with juries for precisely that point.

Me (04:05:01): Yes.

B (04:05:03): A jury of your PEERS is supposed to sit there and say "that's wrong" or not.

Me (04:05:15): A lawyer is capable of arguing the exact letter of the law until he's blue in the face.

Me (04:05:30): In theory, it still falls on the jury to determine if it captures the spirit.

Me (04:05:52): But, here's where I find a major flaw in the system.

Me (04:05:57): Jury selection.

Me (04:06:11): The random selection process is a fable.

B (04:06:47): It's not a fable, it doesn't exist. They don't even pretend its random any longer.

Me (04:06:52): The jurors who come to serve are selected at random, true.

B (04:07:02): Part of the process of a major trial is lawyers picking and choosing who they want to stay.

Me (04:07:04): But then from that random pool, exactly the right jurors for the defense are chosen.

B (04:07:32): You know what part of the problem is?

Me (04:07:39): I don't know when or why that was decided to be fair.

B (04:07:47): You know why?

Me (04:07:50): I agree with people with genuine conflicts of interest being dismissed.

Me (04:08:05): But that should be up to the judge.

B (04:08:06): Because when this country was founded, a lot of laws were written by people still smarting from the oppression of England.

B (04:08:24): So we went to great lengths to write the laws to protect us from the government.

B (04:08:27): But, that's what gets abused.

Me (04:08:41): Well, here's where it got us.

B (04:08:48): It made more sense in 1776. But we have to have some TRUST in our government too!

B (04:09:08): You can't have the judge select the jury, because it's biased because HE'S a government official.

Me (04:09:29): People WANT to trust their government, but we're also, as a species, fearful and gullible.

B (04:09:31): The legal system is tipped in favor of the defense because the government controls the police, the courts, and the prison.

B (04:09:52): So it's a failsafe to protect us from the government.

B (04:10:01): That's why the police have their hands tied so often.

Me (04:10:03): But a judge by definition has to remain impartial.

B (04:10:15): We have to tiptoe around all these different lines that the bad guys can hide behind.

B (04:10:36): If we believed the judge was impartial, we wouldn't have a jury.

B (04:10:49): Theoretically, the jury should be the judge, too.

Me (04:11:10): Well primarily the judge is there to mediate and direct.

B (04:11:31): Excuse me for a few minutes.

Me (04:11:36): Sure.

Me (04:11:44): I'll keep going.

Me (04:11:56): The judge does have authority to decide sentencing.

Me (04:12:09): But not guilt or innocence.

Me (04:12:49): That's why there shouldn't be a belief that there's some sort of conflict of interest.

Me (04:13:03): The judge still gets to perform his duties regardless of who sits on the jury.

Me (04:13:42): Letting lawyers with a vested interest in who hears the case choose the sitting jurors is patently absurd.

Me (04:15:16): The only other thing I can think of is creating a third party that exists specifically to filter out jurors who are unfit to serve certain cases.

Me (04:15:41): With no ties to the defense, prosecution, or maybe even the court itself.

Me (04:16:23): They simply look at the facts provided about the case, compare it to the facts about the jurors, and eliminate the people who might have obvious bias.

Me (04:16:26): One way or the other.

B (04:24:14): I don't see any flaws in the logic, I just can't see a way to put it into a decent practice.

B (04:24:23): Except, of course, to say... common sense.

Me (04:24:42): Thomas Paine would admire you, sir.

B (04:24:54): Common sense would tell you who is and isn't fit to sit on a jury.

B (04:25:05): But you can't write common sense into the law.

B (04:25:16): And worse yet, common sense is an uncommon virtue in this country.

Me (04:25:54): This just occured to me, and it might sound far-fetched.

Me (04:26:38): But, this would all be much easier if there were a way to teach religious beliefs without extending them to the idea that seperate beliefs are wrong (and in some cases punishable by death).

Me (04:27:00): Because the heart of every major religion is being able to determine for yourself right and wrong.

Me (04:27:17): Is that too far out there?

B (04:27:37): In a way, yes.

B (04:28:01): First off, there are a number of religions that ACCEPT other religions.

B (04:28:11): Islam, for example, is THE most tolerant of all religions.

Me (04:28:14): Judaism! (is not one of them)

B (04:28:21): Islam accepts Christians and Jews as people of the same God.

B (04:28:48): Secondly, who decides what religions are legit?

B (04:29:00): The Church of Satan is extremely tolerant as well.

Me (04:29:04): In theory? God.

B (04:29:06): Fundamentally, anyway.

Me (04:29:12): Yes, it is.

Me (04:29:27): I was just referencing more the belief system espoused.

Me (04:29:33): Not the particulars.

B (04:29:35): Yes, but your God chooses to remain silent, so he doesn't get a vote.

Me (04:30:05): Which is unfortunate, but I can understand why he wouldn't want to influence the public.

Me (04:30:21): It would be like if Superman endorsed a candidate.

B (04:30:41): Please don't get me started on that.

Me (04:30:49): Alright.

Me (04:30:59): I think I'll wrap this up, actually.
Me (04:31:09): I decided a long way back that this was becoming another Friends Like These.

Me (04:31:30): So ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed reading this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.

Me (04:32:07): Because this is commonly what an evening is like - when you have friends like these.