Rules

The most fundamental question being asked by the Junta and its blind
followers is this: 'why follow the rules?' To most Americans, following
certain rules just makes sense; very few people need to have the rule:
"don't run with scissors" explained to them.

Many rules exist to help us not get killed. Others are expressions of our
prejudice and need to be abolished. Others are the rules we, as a society,
are supposed to cherish and live by.

The Constitution is just such a set of rules. The Bible is not. And that's
where they get in trouble.

For all their professed fundamentalism, the religious right in America is a
cafeteria form of Christianity. They believe the parts of their Bible that
they choose to - and then expect everyone else in the world to abide by
their choices.

The Junta has a similar take on the constitution. They choose to believe
the parts that support supreme executive authority and interpret the rest
to follow.

But the Constitution is not such a document. Certainly by the 'strict
constructionist' standards of the ideological Right it's not. The
Constitution stands for a definitive set of laws.

These are laws that we are raised to agree with and cherish. For most of
us, it's more than simple word-worship. We teach ourselves to understand
concepts like 'freedom of the press' are very much of the 'running with
scissors' variety.

We understand why a free press is crucial to keep the country democratic
(with a small 'd'). It's not a spiritual concept. It's a concept that makes
us who we're are. And, not to be crass, but love it or leave it.

And that's perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the !ush-Cheney-Rummy
cabal. The rules they break are not the 'no cookies at bedtime' variety.
They're the 'no doing headstands on the ledge' type. And they don't get why
we object when they drag us out there with them.

There's a report in the NYT this morning about Israel releasing a bunch of
video showing Hezbollah terrorists using schools, homes, and mosques as
cover. They fired at the Israeli army from civilian-populated areas, which
made it legal under the rules of war for the Israelis to fire back.

Rules of war. Sounds almost silly. War is about the human extremes of
violent behavior. Why would there be rules? Why would anyone follow them?
The simplest answer is self-interest. If you shoot from civilian areas, the
other guy will shoot back and kill your civilians. Maybe the other guy will
shoot at you from where his civilians are. Hell, maybe he'll shoot from
where your civilians are.

Hezbollah was also running guns and missiles under cover of white flag. But
if you break that rule, you lose all that a white flag truce can do for you
(like evacuate your wounded). Is it worth it?

We seem to have entered a rules-free period in history. People like
Georgie, obviously raised with no moral compass, break the good rules
because they believe that they are entitled to pick the rules for all of
us, the construction be damned.

And so we torture prisoners, begging our enemies from now on to torture our
captured combatants. We hold thousands of prisoners in a Kafka world of
justice-free cells and trials with invisible evidence.

And they - we - do it all in the name of a country and a Constitution that
holds less meaning every time they act to 'save' it.

The rules they've broken are the rules that tie us together at the most
fundamental level. If you break them, you are either grotesquely
ill-informed or you are a believer in dictatorial fascism.

Either way, America is not a country you should live in. We believe other
things.