Still waiting

Sorry for the delays, if anyone still drops by.

I will be blogging more later, when I am not teaching philosophy of biology (did I mention I also have a fulltime job?). In the meantime, Bloomberg are reporting that the US is breaking all international law in "disappearing" suspects to hide them from the Red Cross. What with Homeland Security, denial of habeas corpus, right to trial, access to lawyers, and governmental decisions about who may have rights or not, is anyone else thinking Germany 1930s?

When a society turns into its enemies, then they have lost. For America's sake, I hope Kerry wins, but America needs to completely cleanse itself of militarism and hypernationalism pretty soon if it is to remain a free and democratic nation. Right now, Indonesia, which struck down sentences on the Bali bombers since they were based on retrospective legislation - a total nono in common law - is more democratic than the US in many ways. At the very least it is a country under rule of law, at least recently. [Late note: this may be overstated; oh, OK, it's overstated. Indonesia is still a very militaristic nation, and the judiciary suffer from executive interference. But even in this, it seems the US is not that far ahead.]

My own country has re-elected the conservative government, but this ought not to be considered under the assumptions of the American political landscape - our conservatives are, at the middle, more like the American "liberals" or social democrats. Our leftist parties are much more radical than anything permitted in American discourse.

Anyway, back to philosophy sometime soon.