And how did that make you feel? BTW, I'll send you a bill at the end of the calendar year.Mad wrote:I got a little bullied in jr. high, but that's because I was smaller than everyone else until about 10th grade. And even the guys that bullied me one week would be my friends the next.
And that's probably why I've gotten through some of Plato. As for your not holding my lack of interest (which is probably more of a lack of discipline than interest) in reading philosophy against me, thanks. Though you probably have plenty of other fodder as far as that is concerned.So reading the dialogues is pretty baggage-free so far as philosophy goes, and very free of jargon.
Yeah, I'm not extrapolating the temporality requirement from the text. I'm not reading "extraordinary circumstances" as rare because they are confined by a specific time, or state of emergency. I'm reading "extraordinary circumstances" as rare because they happen only in the most unusual of circumstances, but a state can live in a perpetual threat of those circumstances. And I'm not finding anything in the text to contradict my first assumption, so I'm going to stick with it for the moment. (Please note, I'm not trying to argue anyone to that point, because there's also nothing to concretely demonstrate that Arendt isn't talking about temporary states of emergency.)Something, in other words, that necessitates the temporary cessation of the normal behavior of government and requires some other kind of behavior, possibly even something criminal or immoral.
Anyway, sticking with my first assumption, let's drop the capital punishment because I think it's muddying the waters. (Mad, you're aware that when I was talking about capital punishment I meant on the federal level, used in cases of treason or other crimes against the state? I'm not talking about executions on the state level, essentially as retribution for a murder crime.) For the moment, let's go with the Guantanamo example. Isn't it possible to easily imagine that such civil violations will continue indefinitely? In reality, they already have. The United States have, for upwards of five years, incarcerated people who have never been granted a trial. Thus, even without the U.S.'s rather lenient incarceration laws, I think "according to normal standards" these would be considered criminal acts. The U.S. has shown no intention of making this a temporary measure. The laws have been approved more than once by its legislative branch; and the judicial branch is proving to be ineffective in trying to deal with it. (Not that much of the current judiciary cares to nowadays.) What's to prevent the U.S. from declaring that this is how it will indefinitely handle cases involving defendants who pose a terroristic threat to the U.S.? And, really, would that change the claim that it is an act of state for Arendt? It would still fulfill the "extraordinary circumstances" category, wherein not all defendants are relieved of their habeas corpus rights, only those who in the extreme cases pose a terroristic threat. It would also fulfill the criminal means requirement, that would not be justified under normal circumstances