Crime pays a heck of a lot better when crimes are not punished. This is how you get the culture of corruption. That and when the leadership is committing the crimes. There is a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.

The other factor you’re forgetting to include is the increasing power of the netroots. At this point, there are basically two power centers in the Democratic party- the Washington insiders, and the netroots. At the moment, the insiders have the advantage, but that’s changing. And the netroots has no patience for corruption- because if you’re corrupt, by definition you’re not listening to the majority of your constitutents, which means you’re not listening to the netroots, which means the netroots are not happy with you. Take a long, hard look at how the netroots is treating Joe Lieberman, or Hillary Clinton. Any sort of major change will simply further empower the netroots- moving power out of the federal goverment, not to the states, but to the individuals. This is another major check on corruption.

Now, the problem is that while Republicans might make noise about repealing it is that they may not have the power to do it. I have zero faith that most Democrats will somehow restrain themselves while the Republicans won’t. So I now expect incredible and borderline insane capabilities to be par for the course for the executive — neither *party* is going to want to step down from that kind of power while they have it, and I don’t trust them to look beyond that point.

We might, if we’re lucky, get some more oversight via the legislative branch if we get a split legislative and executive…but I think the Republicans are managing to self-destruct enough.

This disaster — the entire situation we’re currently in — is because of the sick world of two-party politics and “party loyalty”.

You’re naive if you haven’t figured out by now this is about power. Small goverment states-rights civil liberties are about restricting the power of liberals. For conservatives, there is not limit to the power they desire. You have a legitimate philosophy (one I basically share)- you don’t want either party having this sort of power. What you have to realize is that most Republicans simply don’t want Democrats having this sort of power.

Note, the push to prevent Hillary (or whomever) from getting this sort of power will be aided and abetted by the liberals. Including me- I don’t want Hillary to have this sort of power. I sure as hell don’t want Lieberman or Biden to have it. I think a Dean or a Clark would be honest enough (like Carter) to not use it- at which point they don’t need it either. The liberals will join the push because we don’t any President to have this power. The conservatives will simply be pushing to make sure Democrats don’t. How do I know this? Because the conservatives aren’t pushing right now to take this power away from Bush.

Remember this when a Democrat wins and Conservatives “find their ideology again”. Stop beleiving the bastards. Take a long hard look at everyone. Take a look at the stands that the conservative blogs are taking. If they’re still supporting Bush, at this point, they don’t really beleive in small goverment and civil liberties, not for Republicans anyways. If they are turning on Bush, then they have some principal. Take a look at the conservative talking heads on TV. Take a long hard look at the conservative politicians.