hi doma,
that they sometimes do. although i think a difference between your analysis and mine is this.
i think the most dangerous folks are gripped by a sense of the virtue of their ideas.
rather than needing a conspiracy to magnify the world's problems, i think what you really need is ironclad belief.
cheney becomes evil not because he wants to torture people but because he is determined to keep america safe at all costs. torture ends up being justifiable in a mind gripped by that desire to the exclusion of all other ones.
the same thing is controlling the folks in washington about privacy. privacy is just a casualty of the demand for zero exposure to insecurity.
we humanoids are not brilliant at nuance. we tend to think of poles and miss the opportunity to find the temperate zones between them.
but in terms of the law pursuing the mighty just as it does the powerless folks - 40 years ago, us culture presumed this and adopted it. now not so much.
america protects its political leaders from legal action. torture is illegal under international and us law. there should be consequences. the us now has to proise not to torture people when applying to have them returned from asylum. now that is humiliating.
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