Left2Right and More On "Our" Values

Court Round-Up: The Supreme Court didn't overturn an injunction against action against the use of an illegal drug in religious ceremonies per a federal religious freedom law. Perhaps of more note, it accepted for argument cases involving peer-to-peer file sharing and application of treaty obligations to criminal cases. Such events as well as a lower court that in part held that "a dog is not a technology -- he or she is a dog" is covered here. I discuss Judge Pickering's retirement statement here. The Bush Administration's failure to take "no" for an answer is discussed here. And, an article on the "Deferred Sentence" of the Rehnquist Court can be found here.

A nod to another interesting blog that is just starting out and is a united (and still getting its feet wet) effort to promote a left of center philosophy. A discussion, including the comments, on faith based initiatives (including how they are applied in a discriminatory way, but the original intent is in some sense honestly benevolent) and the re-segregation of cities after a mid-1970s Supreme Court case that limited the means of dealing with the problem are two highlights. This statement also caught my eye:

This website's mission statement asks how we might better express our values. We might make a start by expressing them in the first place instead of shrinking from the opportunity. In at least three respects, I feel we should have been more forthright in this last election: more forthright about being appalled about the conditions at Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo, more forthright about finding intolerable the number of Iraqi casualties and the conditions of life in Iraq, and more forthright about our concern for the poor.

I have recently read elsewhere about how the conditions at Abu Ghraib did not come up in the debates, which I cannot confirm given I did not watch them. Suffice to say that the issue as with the others were not much covered in the campaign, surely not with much passion or special emphasis. Sen. Edwards' "two Americas" theme did highlight the poor, but as I distressingly noted, he often seem MIA during the general election campaign. It rankles as we now hear how Rummy et. al. have not properly taken the interests of the troops at heart, and how this issue is getting so much traction.

Did this suddenly occur in the last few weeks? Why wasn't this and related issues firmly taken by the horns and used to show how even those who support the War in Iraq must admit that it was handled badly. After all, the pictures of abuse hit many of us in the solar plexus. Again, I must say: where in the hell is the leadership?

What a bloody sad waste of potential. Anyway, good blog, and given a respective nod by conservative leaning Volokh Conspiracy, partly because both have some libertarian leanings. And, I agree with the argument: the answer to the current leadership must include a passionate statement of competing values. The need for change in the quality of leadership is clear, but this second factor is also quite important.