Not so much an infamous day as a regretable failure to pay attention to Emily Post's doctrines of war.
He (John Yoo) would reduce the power to "declare War" to a mere formality, a courtesy to the enemy;New York Review of Books There you go. Roosevelt was just being a hypocrite when he declared that December 7th, 1941 a date which will live in infamy. As it turns out the Japanese were just doing what he had the power to do as well - go to war without the quaint courtesy of a note on monogrammed writing paper letting the other side know what was coming. I have learnt a couple of things in the last few weeks. The many cries that "Clinton did it as well" in reference to, variously, detention camps in Guantanamo Bay or domestic espionage have taught me that there is a wide-held belief that an Executive stretching out to grab the crown of unfettered power - even if it means breaking the law - is fine so long as it is bipartisan. If anyone calls shenanigans, they are just being fake . Oh no, hang on, I think I may have learnt the wrong lesson. I think I might have learnt that there are very few conservatives and liberals, just op-ed pages and a blogosphere chock full of partisan whores. The conservatives, the Red Devils, carry water for executives who seem hell-bent on reducing the contents of constitution of Australia and the US to questions in some soon to be released edition of Trivial Pursuit. No, I don't think it is an overstatement to say that the Howard's use of the Corporations powers for IR legislation is going the same way as the Commerce clause in the US, a macguffin for unlimited powers. Meanwhile, the left is quite happy when the Federal government uses its power to ban firearms, but cry civil liberties when gay marriage is banned. They're happy to see the Hawke government prevent the Franklin River Dam using dodgy readings of the Constitution, but revile Howard for his own dodgy readings. Wait, there's still more. I just remembered, I didn't just realise these things, I knew them all along. I just tried to pretend that I was a centralist when all along I knew in the back of my head that there is no such thing as centralism; there is governance, and then there is bipartisanship. There is politics, and then there is Left and Right. There really is a date that will live in infamy. On September 11th, 2001 everything really did change, it marked the point where a spotlight was shone on partisan warriors everywhere, and their hypocrisy was there for everyone to see, like luminol reacting with the blood of liberty on their very chops. There's no such thing as a Centrist as they define themselves, eschewing the extremes of Left and Right, holding a moderate position. Centrism is like atheism; a Centrist still stakes out a position and moderation still informs where they will stand on any issue that comes along. Left, Right, Centrist; why don't they all just go to Church Street, Parramatta and buy themselves a team guernsey.
