Hair on Fire

Bruce Ackerman:

Congress may give the president the power to lock up almost anyone he thinks is a terror threat.

How stupid is this? The president already has this power, it's part of the police power exercised by every peace officer in the ocuntry, but of all others the president is least likely to have the power to keep it quiet. There are too many leaks in the agencies that would have to carry out his wishes.

This is part of the meme I've noticed more and more lately, that we're living in some kind of police state. It's childish, of course, but it's being repeated by people like Ackerman, Kerry, Leahy, etc. with such alarmism that you wonder what they've been smoking. There has been no end to campaign season since 2000, but it's getting more hysterical and ridiculous as the election nears.

The time to worry would be when the press and the Democrats have nothing bad to say about the president. Then you'd know they were either all suppressed or complicit in a plot.

May I propose Cockalorum's Law: The number of public claims that the government has become "Orwellian" or "Big Brother," is inversely proportional to the likelihood that such claims have any basis in fact. (If it really was Orwellian, such claims wouldn't be allowed in print.)

This also reminds me of a second theory: The degree to which a party complains that the other party is insufficiently bipartisan, is inversely proportional to the complaining party's ability to obtain votes for its position.

I'm still studying the coincidence of women with webcams in their bedrooms and women who are privacy activists.