Interesting. My impression is the exact opposite – it is entirely clear which side Andrew Sullivan is going to come down on, with every issue. He’s very consistently fiscally conservative, even to the point that it annoys me. He’s also very consistently pro-human-rights, even to the point of still supporting the Iraq War on humanitarian grounds. He has a strong, consistent stance on torture and indefinite detention of prisoners. And he’s consistently torn-up about abortion.

Agreed. Sullivan seems like more of an issue voter, and therefore seems more reasonable than most bloggers I read.

Interesting. My impression is the exact opposite – it is entirely clear which side Andrew Sullivan is going to come down on, with every issue. He’s very consistently fiscally conservative, even to the point that it annoys me. He’s also very consistently pro-human-rights, even to the point of still supporting the Iraq War on humanitarian grounds. He has a strong, consistent stance on torture and indefinite detention of prisoners. And he’s consistently torn-up about abortion.

Of course, in staking these positions, he also consistently refuses to be consistently allied with either party. Perhaps that’s what you mean?

You’re right on about Lincoln, though.

Lincoln knew the right things to say. But when you get right down to it, his administration padlocked more opposition newspapers than any American president — including Jeff Davis — ever did. They also were not above inciting a mob to do their dirty work for them. He also completely ignored the Supreme Court’s orders (and at one point wrote out a standing order for the arrest of the Chief Justice) and suspended habeas corpus and held thousands of men without charges in a system of “gulags” that included Fort McHenry.

Different times, different crisis, different America. But he took a wide swing outside the Constitution to deal with a crisis. And over time, the rights came back and constitutional rule was restored. And in fact Americans had more right — and more of us had them — after the war than before. The same pattern prevailed in World War I.

No polemical point being made here. Just an observation. Don’t get plowed by Lincoln’s rhetoric. He was a smooth and supple politician.

Anyone want to go phishing?

Well, we can legally torture and murder people now.

meh… We could do that 5 years ago, too. It just wasn’t as frequent, or as publicized, as it is now.

For crying out loud, if somebody wants to look at porn on the internet in a public library, there’s nothing the library can/will do about it. That wasn’t happening 5 or 10 years ago. People have more rights now than they used to.

and what is it that we can’t do now, that we could do 5 years ago (besides carry a knife onto a plane)? I just keep forgetting.

Well, we can legally torture and murder people now. I guess that’s more freedom technically…