A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Leviathan

  • Living in an “endemic surveillance” society

    Go, USA! (link via Unqualified Offerings) Read more

  • The menace of Rudy

    Speaking of executive power-grabbing, The American Conservative has put out a special anti-Rudy issue. Glenn Greenwald writes about Rudy’s authoritarian tendencies, while Michael Desch looks at his ultra-hawkish foreign policy. Read more

  • Will a Democratic president remember the lessons of the last seven years?

    Jack Balkin is worried that, when it comes to executive power, ostensible Democratic critics may learn to love the imperial presidency if a Dem takes the White House in 2008. It’s worth recalling that conservatives used to complain about the imperial presidency, especially during a time of strong popular liberal presidents. And, more recently, Republicans Read more

  • Just doesn’t apply himself

    Report Card on the War on Terror via Balkinization Read more

  • Go, NPR!

    One of the annoying things about the recent debate over waterboarding has been the media’s tendency to refer to it as “simulated drowning.” This is inaccurate and gives a distorted view of what the process involves. Having water poured into your lungs is not a simulation. So, I was gratified to hear Nina Totenberg on Read more

  • Worse than Gonzales?

    Via Gaius, John Nichols says that Mukasey is just that. And it’s not just the waterboarding issue, bad as that is, but his general perspective on executive power and privilege: “Mukasey Is (Much) Worse Than Gonzales.” Makes one long for the halcyon days of John Ashcroft. Read more

  • Pete Stark learned to love Big Brother

    Via Jim Henley I see that my former congressman Pete Stark (D-CA) has gotten himself into a heap of trouble on account of some intemperate remarks he made during the S-CHIP debate: House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) filed to censure Stark in order to express his disgust with comments the lawmaker made last week Read more

  • The “preventive paradigm”

    “In isolation, neither the goal of preventing future attacks nor the tactic of using coercive measures is novel or troubling. All law enforcement seeks to prevent crime, and coercion is a necessary element of state power. However, when the end of prevention and the means of coercion are combined in the Administration’s preventive paradigm, they Read more

  • It’s the national security state, stupid

    Andrew Bacevich, reviewing several new books on the presidency, contends that the Imperial Presidency is a symptom, not the cause of our current troubles. The underlying problem is the state of permanent semi-mobilization that the country entered into after World War II and the attendant national security apparatus that it gave rise to. In matters Read more