Wrote Barbara Boxer about HR 4848.

Hope it helps.

(They didn’t because they’d have been horrified by the very idea.)

Just as one should at around twenty-four months – but not with armies and Constitutions and biospheres and clemency petitons.

I watch (when I can stomach it) and listen to the braying neo-cons and Bush/Cheney cultists defy logic, Constitutional law, American history, and the Enlightenment so they can get over their terrible two’s.

The Yoo’s, Addington’s, Gonzales’, Cheney’s – I’m sure they and the other wingers’ parents did the best they could. I’m sure even Bar and GHW did the best they could.

But I am also certain the fundamental structures and implements of America’s national power are very dangerous in the hands of children.

There’s a reason that a significant hunk of the Freeper pool (yecch – I think I just developed aquaphobia) is comprised of males living with their parents. There’s a reason that Bush/Cheney’s pro-corporate jihad on regulatory power is celebrated and promoted by closeted Congressmen (hi Randy Cunningham), GOP officials (hi Ken Mehlman) and telepreachers (hi too numerous to mention) oppressed by their own internalized homophobia every waking minute.

Although I’d like to say this perspective gives me understanding, and thus compassion and contentment, it doesn’t.

The developmental arrest evinced in those who – even with the deepest legal training – pretend to find a basis in Constitutional law the pretext for them to claim as adults the omnipotence they imagined as toddlers scares me.

If you have an empty stomach, imagine someone like Cheney or Addington or Rumsfeld – someone so insecure that they have spent thirty fuckin’ years re-telling the US disaster in Vietnam until they can tell themselves their nation (and so, though projection, their self) is invincible.

Imagine the yawning pit of inadedequacy and fear these adult children carry with them in every decision.

And imagine the lies they will tell themselves – and the military, intelligence, and law enforcement – when the whole fantasy of ultimate Imperial tyranny is snatched away from their hollow, empty lives.

Toddlers need to feel omnipotent because they find utter helplessness unberable. When the adult toddlers Bush and Cheney feel helpless – they’ll do what any terrified two year old does.

But they’ll do it with armies and navies and NSA’s and FBI’s and DIA’s and those helpful camps Halliburton has rushed to put up for FEMA.

FEMA – not so good as a helping hand. The FEMA plan drawn up for civil unrest in response to a US military invasion overseas was, of course, not intended as a helping hand. Nope, before he was selling electric fence Ollie North drew up the FEMA plan for what to do with those pesky citizens if they exercised their First Amendement rights in incovenient numbers.

Ollie’s plan for FEMA is a mailed fist: mass internment of US citizens.

And the folks Col. North worked with after he drew up the FEMA plan – why – bless me – some of these same folks have popped up to help save us from – how convenient – Iran.

So I celebrate SCOTUS’ assertion of the primacy of our Constitution and the rule of law.

And at the same time I fear that POTUS is so severely impaired (and has gathered to him those similarly afflicted) that the preservation of the Republic will feel like an assault upon his very self.

And I fear that ignorant, fearful, yawningly insecure man and his equally damaged followers will destroy two hundred and thirty years of lawful government in order to redress the wrongs they suffered at twenty-four months.

We’ve already seen what happens when the toddlers drop FEMA. What will happen when they wield it?

And when the toddlers lash out at Iran – what is their plan for the blowback at home?

Some days the victory celebration I’m expecting for Joementum seems impossibly far off.

Hope it’s just a trick of the summer fog.

You wrote:

‘The Federalist No. 47, p. 324 (J. Cooke ed. 1961)(J. Madison)(”The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny…”)

As someone who spent a good deal of her academic life studying American political theory and history, as well as political theory and the divergence of conservative and liberal political thought, it intrigues me how flipped the actions of the various factions in American government have become at this point in our history.

How is it that so many “conservatives” have now become the advocates for an activist judiciary which would go well beyond settled legal precedents and historical anecdotal and documentary evidence to validate extrajudicial and extralegal behavior?…

[ellipsis mine - kjm]

… and I, frankly, have an enormous amount of difficulty reconciling the greater “wingnut” arguments regarding Administration actions and the justifications therefor beyond the obvious concern for that grasping, greedy toehold on power to be maintained at any cost.’

ck 81 says:

“Kevin Drum has an interesting post, with Jebby’s take on Dubya:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.c…..009095.php

“Jeb kind of laughed, Engle recalled. “In Texas, they call guys like George ‘a hard case.’ It wasn’t easy being his brother, either. He truly enjoys getting people to knuckle under.”

This, apparently, is the real Bush Doctrine: America’s goal is to get the rest of the world to knuckle under to us, one dimwitted action at a time. Suskind calls it Bush’s “global experiment in behaviorism.” Doesn’t seem to be working too well so far, though, does it?

bellumregio 92 says:

“Cheney and the unitary executive advocates have opened a new chapter in American history. Quite contrary to Yoo’s claims their interpretation of American law and tradition are quite radical. At the center of the argument lies the belief that in times of danger the executive is not bound by law imposed by the legislature or the courts- he is in essence a dictator.”

__________________________________________

I fear that Dubya’s and the neo-cons’ sustained, ruthless assault upon representative democracy and distributed power arise from their own deep pathologies.

Bush’s apparent pre-occupation with authority, dominance, and autonomy – even after becoming “the most powerful man in the world” – brings us all back to little George’s tender years.

Imagine – if you can – a young George – too young even to take pleasure in torturing frogs. Probably still young enough to cry – maybe even for a hurt animal.

Then imagine a very small George around ambitious Bar and cold, stitled, calculating GHW. For small George to develop empathy – the capacity to imagine another’s emotional experience – at least one big person has to be able to extend emapthy young George.

Bar and GHW do empathy as well as they do compassion. Shit out of luck on that one, little George.

For small George to develop autonomy – the experience of functioning as an individual – at least one big person needs to have the awareness and altruism to allow young George to make small decisons in his life. Someone has to stand back and be unintrusive enough to wait for small George to make (very small) bad choices and allow him to integrate that experience in his future explorations. Someone needs to be able to allow the very small bad choices to safely unfold in context of greater safety.

Letting little George choose the wrong clothing for playtime wouldn’t kill him. Letting little George go play at the oil pump might. (Ideally, the big people offer play choices that don’t include the oil pump…even in the Bush/Cheney playgrounds.)

Now imagine Bar having any sense, any inkling that very small George had an independent inner existence. Imagine Bar deciding to make the time in her obsessive quest for power to allow George to make small choices, rather than just deciding for him. Imagine GHW having the insight to foster little George’s autonomy – cause GHW has such empathy and compassion.

If you all can imagine it, good on ‘ya. I just tried and my vision started to go all funny and the cats looked scared. (Warning – these are the prodromal symptoms of spontaneous cranial explosion).

Shit out of luck on autonomy, too, little George.

Bar and GHW’s obsessive quest for power and money doesn’t leave time for niceties like child-centered play. Little George is told to do what works for Bar and GHW – and punished when he doesn’t. Little George can’t develop intospection – that’s a luxury available to small people who are asked about their perceptions, feelings, ideas. So little George doesn’t have the tools to conclude: “I am angry when Mom and Dad tell me to quit smirking”. Little George probaly lacks the tool that would allow him to identify his emotions (you think Bar ever asked?), much less name them.

Little George’s develop of core emotional and human competencies is permanently deformed by the very bad fortune to have undergone child development around Bar and GHW and whatever ghouls would endure the grown-ups.

Little Georgie is so stepped upon when most small people learn to make choices that he NEVER feels he is free to choose. Even when he is all grown up and POTUS, he is still fighting to assert his absolute autonomy.

Just as one should at around twenty-four months – but not with armies and Constitutions and biospheres and clemency petitons.

(continued)

then I read some of the comments at the wapo and stopped crying in disbelief. But then again, that emotional roller coaster is nothing new to me, unfortunately ;(

Although as new general consel of Boeing I don’t know how much good it will do

Yes! Yes! Yes! Excellent!

Sincere hope that yesterday’s historic decision will embolden the dems to finally stop snoozin’ and to act on our behalf!

Christy — thanks for the wonderful posts on the Hamdan decision. I think we can finally spy some cracks in the conservatives’ facade.

Have already started talking to family who’re here visiting. The conversation will continue through the weekend as we go to others homes. It’s too important to push to the background, especially on Independence Day weekend.

Will get the emails out to various in government too. If we all do it, maybe they’ll all finally wake up.

Enjoy each others good company everyone…

Never give up!

glc