The Hypothetical

Vice President George H. W. Bush previously headed the CIA and was “out of the loop on Iran – Contra.”

Having someone “out of the loop” was an essential ingredient of plausible deniability.  Plausible deniability was one means of dealing with covert operations that were not as covert as intended.

George W. Bush and subsequent administrations have advocated “transparency.”  Bush 43 had an Hispanic employee of the Justice Department Alberto Gonzales develop position papers or defenses for torture.  That employee became the first Hispanic Attorney General.

The United States of American should be 100% against torture under any and all circumstances.  When the hypothetical occurs, the practitioner of torture should have to rely on the mercy of a jury in his trial by peers.

Minimal government is best.  President George W. Bush’s intentions were good.  He was an Evangelical Christian.  Unfortunately, he led the USA down the Road to Hell.  Vice President Cheney accelerated the process.  Cheney and Rumsfeld were members of the paranoid Nixon Administration.  Richard N. Perle a paranoid appearing person was a staffer for Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson beginning in 1969.

To the sins of the sixties, Bush 43 added Michael Chertoff who served as the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security and “co-authored” the USA PATRIOT ACT and Viet D. Dinh an émigré from Vietnam.  Dinh is a lawyer who served as an Assistant Attorney General of the United States from 2001 to 2003.  Born in Saigon, he was the chief architect of the USA PATRIOT Act.

With all the problems we currently have, isn’t it time to give capitalism a chance.  It enables people with significantly different value systems to interact in the global economy.  See Course Number 5665 at http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=5665.  We should declare victory in the War on Drugs majorly escalated by Richard M. Nixon and go home.  President Obama is on the right track here.  For the Gun Control enthusiasts and the Comprehensive Reformers, I have provided a Must Do List at http://dr2htay.blogspot.com/2012/12/must-do-something-list.html

The Thinking About Capitalism course provides background for why we should let China and other emerging economies protect their infant industries like our Founding Fathers did.