If you had committed a crime, and had the ability to change the law so that it wasn't a crime, would you?

I don't really know what to say about this, except that it appears to me that one of the players of this Parker Brothers game wants to scribble out the rules on the box mid-game. You can change the rules of the game AFTER the game is over and the next one is to begin, but changing mid-game is an ugly move.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't legislation used to be doled out more conservatively such that a president couldn't change rules to affect the nature of executive powers for THEIR OWN term? Perhaps that was just my warped sense of justice getting out of hand.... But now, we see that they're trying to change the rules BACKWARDS in TIME??? Are we going to unimpeach Clinton next? Or resurrect Nixon?

Seriously though, the torture/"torture" has taken place, and justice necessarily is going to take place. You can rewrite the rules such that taking candy from a baby is not only legal, but required, but that doesn't match with morality. In the end changing the rules to make bad behavior OK ends up making ones code of conduct into a hideous monster, covered in bandages that have pictures of charlatans imprinted on them.

The world is watching, so even if the powers that be in the U.S. choose to go further down their spiral by trying to legitimize their misdeeds in their code of conduct, the global code of conduct will not bend, fold, or break.

Baldly, in front of the whole world, and history, would people authorize torture and then try to legitimate it, in the interest of their own power, and their own safety?


When I hear/read about our people torturing other people to keep our "homeland" safe, I can't help thinking about an accidental concept a friend accidentally read wrong on a bumper sticker: Satan Peace.

You've got your Real Peace, where everyone in the whole world is able to lay down on the ground at the same time and look up at the clouds to see if they can find horses, elephants, and bunnies (not really that, but the essence of it being peace/rest, with the absence of coercion from any party, where everyone has laid down their arms, and has no fear of others taking up arms against them (a process that may take time, but won't happen without commitment from the parties on OUR side - by "OUR" I mean whichever side you happen to see yourself on)).

And then in contrast to Real Peace, you've got Satan Peace. The one that everyone in power seems to be aspiring to nowadays. In Satan Peace, it is US against The Adversary(Satan), and they see it as the same. How do we obtain peace? We either eliminate the adversary entirely (hello genocide/holocaust!), or make them weak enough that we can hold them at bay (hello occupation, and decimated civil infrastructure). Of course, holding the enemy at bay means troops, lots of them, ad infinitum. And weapons.

music: "Enter me with the rhythm of a body that was born to lose two times." Melvins - Revolve

colors: black and white and grey all over

mood: refreshed and exasperated

chant/prayer/mantra: i am blissful. i am immortal.


pax hominibus,
joel