The DemocraticUnderground can say things the Democratic Party cannot say.

[patrice]

285. Imagine the kind of president you'd like best dealing with these same issues in exactly the manner

that you wish. How many dead, hurt, sick people would it be worth to you if that president happened to be wrong? Where's the line between acceptable and too many?

No one likes or wants any of this. No one thinks any of these powers should be used indiscriminately, but pretending that the world isn't what it is doesn't get us any closer to changing these things and can in fact lead to horrendous situations in which change becomes geometrically LESS possible than it is now. I'm not saying that makes this okay. I just need to see some recognition that the hypothetical I pose is possible. Let's be honest about the negatives of the path that you propose, so that instead of trying to destroy someone who is trying to manage what he was handed, and that's not just this issue, but all of the interconnections between it and between all other issues (after an entire history, from day one, of various kinds of corruption that cause this, corruption that won't be going away just because we get Obama to stop whatever) . . . instead of only trying to destroy someone who has everything he can possibly do to manage what he's been handed, let's consider a broader approach that does not require anyone to abdicate their principles but to, instead, address the challenges of those principles in a more realistic context, a context that recognizes the positives and negatives of any and ALL positions.