Bloodless Coup

Add that to my post about the Homeland Security guys going after the library patron for looking at porn. We had a long discussion there about this, but just to reiterate: people are stupid greedy power hungry and lazy. Any law should take these characteristics into account, and expect that idiots will fuck it up, the corrupt will exploit it, and the lazy will overlook it for their own convenience. Oh yeah, and the sadists and puritans will use to get even with people they dislike/disapprove of.

I feel much safer now. Remind me to never fly.

Binky, the most important document in American law, the Constitution, plainly takes this into account. Which is precisely why the contempt for that document manifested by the folks in power these days is so alarming -- both philosophically, and, as these stories illustrate, in the breech.

And of course on that last point, we should always keep in mind that there is one saving grace to the breath-taking incompetence and laziness of the Bush administration - given the times and their philosophical inclinations, imagine just how bad things might be if this team was even remotely effective at building coalitions or much more popular. It's not a happy thought.