General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm astonished so many DUers are cool with ending Habeas Corpus [View all]indepat
(20,899 posts)'cause Democrats have largely been afraid they'd shit their pants if labeled soft on communism, soft on crime, soft on drugs, later soft on terra, or weak on national defense. What is is what is. We had the McCarthy hysteria in the early '50s, jails have long over-flowed with non-violent minor drug offenders, the Constitution has been shredded in a climate of fear, need for control, and the unattainable goal of perfect security due to the terra threat, and the United States, with 5% of the world's population, spends nearly as much as the entire rest of the world on MIC spending. Meanwhile, our economy and standard of living have nose-dived in an era of burgeoning income inequality and inadequacy and unfairness in the Federal income tax code, tens of millions are jobless, under-employed, living in poverty, all too many are homeless, and tens of millions do not have access to adequare health-care. As a consequence, the US has fallen to the bottom/near the bottom in almost all meaningful measures of quality of life among industrialized nations, including longevity and infant and maternal mortality. Welcome to the neocons' wet dream by having achieved much of the RW PNAC agenda for the 21st century: we can all see its enevitable consequences. Alas, if only Democrats had not so often been afraid of shitting their pants if labeled weak or soft by the Rethugs, maybe some of this onslaught on we the people and our Constitution could have been thwarted.