Bio

I am an Associate Professor of Government at Skidmore College and the editor of the The Great Lie: Classic and Recent Appraisals of Ideology and Totalitarianism.  I teach political philosophy and constitutional law.  My research has taken a few paths: totalitarian regimes and dissident political thought; executive power and the Constitution; liberalism and civil society.  Avid tennis player and fan, recent convert to the glory of ice hockey.


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Flagg Taylor
Name:
Flagg Taylor
Hometown:
Saratoga Springs, NY
Joined:
Sep 21, 2011

Recent Comments

Flagg Taylor

I love that movie too!

EThompson

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

EThompson

And at least he wrote one good song, Tiny Dancer.

Noooo........ Not................. Tiny Dancer....

Ok, so shoot me because my second favorite movie of all time Almost Famousfeatures this song in a wonderful scene on the tour bus. :) · 5 hours ago

Flagg Taylor

double post, sorry 

Edited on May 17, 2013 at 7:41pm
Flagg Taylor

Are there reporters out there digging into the "stand down" order?  I would think there might be people in the military willing to talk.  This aspect of this whole affair hasn't received that much attention.

Flagg Taylor

Things I'd bring back:

Bike-riding without a helmet

Fast food menus without "wraps" (check that--how about a "wrap" free world)

Phones w/o caller ID

Libraries with real journals and magazines

Good bookstores

Reporters

Daily gym class for grade schoolers

Flagg Taylor

Family Feud w/ Richard Dawson.

Flagg Taylor

Oooh.  I haven't been in a bar in quite some time.  This is nice.

Flagg Taylor

I'm in agreement on Press Your Luck and Hollywood Squares!

Flagg Taylor

Edward, It's very busy here in the summer, so if you were coming from out of town, you'd have to make reservations early.  Mama T and Fred--we could set a time to meet at the track and another time at a restaurant.  I'm not a huge horse racing fan either, so a few races would be fine with me.  But I do like the spectacle.  I'm up for anything.

Flagg Taylor

I like your substitution and agree that it is more accurate.  The language of "progress" has seeped into ordinary language and it disguises the radical nature of the agenda.  For example, think about how often one hears the phrase "move forward."  Well, what if moving forward means ending up in a ditch?  Reminds me of a great exchange at the end of the Whit Stillman film The Last Days of Disco. Start watching at the 1:20 mark.

Flagg Taylor

He ate ribs and listened to salsa music with the dude!

Flagg Taylor

EJ--Here's a post from The Postmodern Conservative very much in sympathy with your argument here.  One key quote:

We don’t need another conservative alternative to the mainstream media. We need a conservative version of the mainstream media. Patrick Brennan is right that there is no great clamor for such a thing. My sense is that this is a case in which supply could create its own demand. – and the demand would not come not so much from current Fox News viewers, but from across the right, center, and apolitical segments of the population that do not watch much Fox News.

Flagg Taylor

I just pulled Leisure off my shelf the other day with plans to reread it!  Now I am eager to get this other book.  Thank you Katievs.

Flagg Taylor

(cont.)

Who knows, perhaps a denial of a truthful way of thinking, is attended indirectly by serious political consequences, though those consequences may appear in circumstances not necessarily the same as those in France during WWII.

Flagg Taylor

Mollie's post and this debate reminds me of Czeslaw Milosz's The Witness of Poetry.  He quotes Simone Weil:

Dadaism, Surrealism are extreme cases.  They expressed the frenzy of total license, the frenzy which takes hold of the mind, when, rejecting all consideration of value, it plunges into the immediate.  Good is a pole that by necessity attracts the human mind, not only in action but in every effort, including the effort of pure intelligence.  The surrealists set up a model of non-oriented thought; they chose for a supreme value a total absence of value.  License has always entranced men and this is why, throughout history, cities have been sacked.  But the sacking of cities has not always had its equivalent in literature.  Surrealism is such an equivalent.

Milosz follows (in his own name) with this:

I anticipate the objection that it was the defeat of France that prompted Simone Weil to pronounce such bitter accusations.  Let is consider though, that the defeat in question was a classic case of the weakening of resistance against totalitarianism and that the Dadaists and Surrealists had nothing but scorn for democracy, in which, they were the worthy successors of bohemia.

Flagg Taylor

Yes, we are.  But he isn't now being questioned as an enemy combatant--the FBI is using the public safety exception (from New York v. Quarles). The interesting question for me is where the President's power to designate Tsarnaev an enemy combatant is rooted.  Are his Art. II powers sufficient (as the Govt argued in the early enemy combatant case Hamdi)?  Or, as the Court plurality said in Hamdi, is this power (in the GWOT) rooted in the congressional AUMF from 2001? 

Mark: Looks like we are in agreement.  That's why the WH announcement doesn't make sense the way they are using the terms since Tsarnaev is apparently being questioned as an enemy combatant although the timeframe over which this may be being done is unclear.

Flagg Taylor

shelby_forthright

 

Yes, correct--the designation is separate from the military tribunal issue.  I see no reason to try him in that forum. · 0 minutes ago

0 minutes ago

Flagg Taylor

shelby_forthright

Mark: Can you clear something up for me?  My understanding is that as an American citizen, Tsarnaev cannot be tried by a military commission.  If he is to face trial he must be tried as a defendant in a normal criminal trial.

However, he can be declared an enemy combatant and interrogated without counsel present but if he is tried in a criminal court any information obtained from questioning while he was an enemy combatant cannot be used against him.

Is my understanding correct?

Designating someone as an enemy combatant does not mean they'll be tried by a military tribunal. He'd still get his trial in a civilian criminal court. And yes, any information they gain while questioning him as an enemy combatant can't be used against him in court but they don't need that information to make their case. They already have what they need to put him away. The value of interrogating him as an enemy combatant goes beyond this case. · 1 hour ago

Yes, correct--the designation is separate from the military tribunal issue.  I see no reason to try him in that forum.

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