Bad choice of words on my part. I meant that I'm sure they feel that Bush has no interest in human rights. I happen to agree, but that's beside the point.

You imply how bad a communist state would be, but then say that the relaxation of our civil liberties is an okay compromise. But that's exactly why you think a communist state would be so bad. (I assume. It's certainly what most people seem to think. The economic communism itself isn't necessarily so bad, except for it doesn't really work at that extreme. Capitalism doesn't work at that extreme, either.)

The problem with the ``illegal combatants'' situation is that people, including US citizens, can be scooped up and imprisoned without any sort of justification. Okay, so I'm lumping in the Patriot Act, but it's all the same thing in my mind. Do we have any proof that that Padillo guy had a dirty bomb? We can only go by what some folks have told us. And what would be wrong with having a public hearing on it?

Oh, and, by the way, the only good news I've heard about the ``war on terror'' is that Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were deposed. I can't come up with much else. Nor do I think that their successors will be significantly better.