Quotation of the Day

If this country actually did have that famous rule of law that we talk so often about, if we actually cared about the UN Convention Against Torture that we pushed through 30 years ago, if we actually gave a damn about torture and human rights as we so often grandly claim to, that trial would have taken place here. But we don’t mean any of those things. We condemn every other nation for doing what we do, then we feign offense at the outrageous suggestion that we are hypocrites. We arrest and prosecute others, like the son of Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, for torture and we issue grandiose statements of our eternal commitment to human rights. That, ladies and gentlemen, is American exceptionalism.

Ed Brayton

Quotation of the Day

[R]eason must be the guiding principle of our democracy. In a nation of citizens from so many different backgrounds and beliefs, the only way we can solve our problems is through cultivating intelligent, moral, and ethical interactions among all people.

Pete Stark