Mouthing the principles, tenets and ideals of America is a threadbare substitute for patriotism.

Living them, constantly practicing them, and unfalteringly supporting and bolstering their equal application to all is truly functional patriotism.

Such dutiful engagement is the glue which binds the past with the future and stands as both the welcome boon and the innate demand incumbent upon all who benefit from the shelter built upon that foundation.

“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” [Maj. Gen.] Taguba wrote. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. “The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture,” he wrote.

A White House spokeswoman, Kate Starr, had no comment.

[snip]

Leonard Rubenstein, the president of Physicians for Human Rights, said there was a direct connection between the Pentagon decisions and the abuses his group uncovered. “The result was a horrific stew of pain, degradation and … suffering,” he said. Source

Not a scintilla of reasonable doubt.

Such is not us — not We The People — not in any manner, way, shape or form.

The very soul of America and of freedom has been violated. Bring the inhuman, inhumane cretins to task.

Thomas Romig, a major general who was the Army’s judge advocate general from 2001 to 2005, agreed that the JAGs were pushed to the side: “It was a disaster,” he said.

[snip]

“As they viewed it, due process is legal mumbo jumbo,” said Romig, who’s now the dean of Washburn University’s law school. “They wanted to get them, get the facts and convict them. … If you’re caught as a terrorist, you’re presumed guilty and you have to prove you’re innocent. It was crazy.”

When Romig objected to pushing the boundaries of interrogation procedures during meetings in late 2002 or early 2003, he recalled that civilian defense officials replied that the time for law had passed.

“Guys, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. It’s time to take the gloves off,” Romig said he was told by Marshall Billingslea, a deputy to Douglas Feith — who was then the undersecretary of defense for policy, the Pentagon’s third-ranking official.

Romig said that he and other military officers asked, “Do you realize the implications of what you’re saying?” Source

’nuff said.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s opinion for the majority in Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196) was an almost rhapsodic review of the history of the Great Writ. The Suspension Clause, he wrote, “protects the rights of the detained by a means consistent with the essential design of the Constitution. It ensures that, except during periods of formal suspension, the Judiciary will have a time-tested device, the writ, to maintain the ‘delicate balance of governance’ that is itself the surest safeguard of liberty.” Those who wrote the Constitution, he added, “deemed the writ to be an essential mechanism in the separation-of-powers scheme.”

Even though the two political branches — the President and Congress — had agreed to take away the detainees’ habeas rights, Kennedy said those branches do not have “the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will.” Source

A bit more:

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.” Article

That 5-4 margin for the supremacy of the Constitution — of it being a living documentation of inalienable creed — is, once again, a key reason why the occupant of the White House should not be an adherent nor espouser nor enabler of dogmatically retrogressive ideological blather (i.e., John Sidney McCain III). Who were that dissenting 4 who raised the flag of fear above the flag of law? Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts (attribution).

Lady Liberty cannot — must not — be waterboarded; her torch once quenched allows — nay, encourages — the reign of darkness.

Ye old scribe votes for the former.

Let’s do it. Together.

If you wish to give it up, realize going in that it has a value (or it wouldn’t be so eagerly sought and hoarded) and that you — more often than not — are releasing it free and clear, along with any and all future control of the data.

What happens to our data happens to ourselves.

This shadow self doesn’t just sit there: It’s constantly touched. It’s examined and judged. When we apply for a bank loan, it’s our data that determines whether or not we get it. When we try to board an airplane, it’s our data that determines how thoroughly we get searched — or whether we get to board at all. If the government wants to investigate us, they’re more likely to go through our data than they are to search our homes; for a lot of that data, they don’t even need a warrant.

Who controls our data controls our lives.

[snip]

We need to take back our data.

Our data is a part of us. It’s intimate and personal, and we have basic rights to it. It should be protected from unwanted touch. Source

Like, whaddaya expect? I’m only 6th in line to the President and head a department getting one-third of the budget. It’s not like I have any authority or anything.

Sheesh. Don’t get friction burns on the fingertips from passing those bucks at warp speed, Mr. Secretary.

If ye old scribe could be granted one boon, it would be that the very first thing on the morning following inauguration day come January, the next president would append an official signature to this executive order:

All executive orders signed by President George W. Bush are herewith rescinded.

12 words. Is that too much to ask?

Is it too much to ask to reassert freedom — to stop cold the yet ongoing mauling, evisceration and outright rape of the Constitution a president swears to “preserve, protect and defend” (citation) in the inaugural oath?

UPDATE May 29, 12:25 p.m.: Rumblings of reason?

It is a fetid space indeed inside that nutshell, but — in a nutshell — this snippet from a Q&A piece stands as a sage summation:

Have we done something that can’t be undone in Iraq?

Iraq is already undone. Remember this: There is nothing in Iraq that constitutes a genuine threat to the United States of America. Iraq is purely a domestic war. It’s a war that’s being fought right here in America. As soon as our politicians decide there’s nothing to be gained politically from staying in Iraq, we’ll cut and run. We’ll dump Iraq like we dumped Vietnam.

Haven’t we reached that point? Or gotten close?

No. There are still too many politicians in D.C. who’ve invested too much political capital into Iraq. The American people have to get completely fed up with the war, and we’re not there yet. The majority of Americans are frustrated and don’t like the war but it’s a superficial frustration. Right now, we have these misleading statistics. People don’t realize that April was the bloodiest month in Iraq in the last seven months. The surge is over. It’s lost. It’s gone. Every benchmark of success the surge was based on has collapsed. Source

A 21^st century law of diminishing returns: The more mass media outlets we have, the less the masses appear to know.

Commonwealth or peonage? Equality or elitism? Law or fiat? Progression or regression? Mine, mine, mine or ours?

Bolstering or jettisoning the currently somnolent self-correcting mechanisms of the American system?

Democracy or corporatocracy?

Yes, the choice come November is that stark. And that perilous.