The Big Picture and the Closeup

It can be seen, then, that there is a clash between the empathic world view, the conscience, that informs our laws, grounded in a respect for others, and the psychopath’s. So who is right?

On Advice of Counsel               In discussing whether we should prosecute the people who ordered or committed torture, I’ve been drawing some artificial distinctions for clarity.  I’ve contrasted the working torturers, the folks who slammed other folks into walls and poured water over their airways, with the Pentagon and Langley brass who merely ordained […]

Bonus Baby Befuddlement            As a number of commentators have pointed out, the $165 million in AIG retention bonuses that have so preoccupied us all in the last couple of weeks are a mere distraction.  Our economy has huge problems to solve, and the bonuses are neither at the heart of the problems nor, in […]

Thus the Supreme Court’s solution to the problem here was to rely on Congressional authorization of war as a sufficient substitute for Congressional declaration of war. The Court never directly addressed the ship-owner’s point that the Constitution speaks only of declarations of war, not of authorizations. The Framers would have been spinning in their graves.