Artificial atoms
My mission this winter has been to understand electronics a little better, and in aid of that I listened to an excellent Great Course on nanotechnology. What a stunning field! The course fully delivered in terms of explaining what might be accomplished by nanotechnology in the near future in terms of things like cameras, medical treatment, and solar power. It fell down considerably in the more difficult task of explaining how these things can be accomplished, frequently reverting to jargon and ill-defined terms. In one breath, the lecturer was unsure whether his audience had heard of the periodic table of the elements. In the next, he was throwing around terms like "quantum dot" and "band gap" as if they meant something to the average layman.
So with my free time today, I tried to run down popularized sources that would help me understand semiconductors, microelectronics, and quantum dots in a way accessible to people who have no command of the mathematics of wave mechanics. Here are some of the things I found out.
Any popular discussion of nanotechnology is going to throw out all kinds of exciting possibilities of quantum dots, but what are the little thingummies? The definition is often given as something like electrons confined in a space measured in a fairly small number of nanometers. But what do we mean by "confining" the electron, exactly? We've been told we can neither stop them nor ever know exactly where they are.
The answer apparently lies in the same sort of thing that goes on when we say an electron is in orbit around an atomic nucleus. One of the quandaries that led to the development of quantum mechanics was our inability to visualize how electrons behave in an atom. In classical mechanics, an oscillating or rotating electron should be generating an electromagnetic wave. In other words, it should emit light and, in so doing, lose energy. It should therefore spiral gradually into its nucleus after a while, but it doesn't. What gives? Apparently the thinking is that electrons in certain kinds of permitted energy states, which we call "orbits" (though they're not like planetary orbits), are stable and neither emit light nor lose energy and fall into the center of the atom. If they gain or lose just the right amount of energy, they can jump up or down into the next permitted energy state, but until that happens they're on autopilot. I gather we don't know why this is so, only that it's the way things happen. So it must be that electrons in certain states can hang out more or less indefinitely under the influence of a particular atomic nucleus, and that's what we mean--loosely--by their "confined location." I gather further that a quantum dot pulls off something like the same trick, but without benefit of a nucleus. In that sense, a quantum dot has been called an "artificial atom."
How does a nanotechnologist confine electrons in a dot, without using an atomic nucleus as an ordering device? He relies on the special qualities of the materials we call semiconductors. These are materials that neither freely conduct electricity, as metal does, nor totally insulate it, like glass. Instead, they allow a very tiny amount of electricity to pass, but only if we excite the system very slightly, such as by introducing a tiny charge or some light. As I understand it, natural semiconductors tend to be crystalline structures formed from elements with four electrons in their outermost 8-type shell, which form covalent bonds with other similar atoms. The addition of trace amounts of elements with either 3 or 5 electrons in their outer shells creates a situation in which the crystal is either slightly short of electrons or slightly overstocked with them. (Something about the regular array of the crystal is conducive to the electrons moving about in a useful way.) The movement of the spare electrons, or the movement of the missing spaces where an electron should be (as in the case of those little puzzles that are solved by moving around the "hole"), or both, function as the carriers of electric current. We have developed considerable ingenuity in adding just the right sort of this or that to produce the excess-electron materials ("N"-type) and electron-depleted materials ("P"-type) that we need. When we sandwich N and P materials together, we find that we can precisely control when current will and will not pass across the boundary between them.
One very handy semiconductor device is a diode, or rectifier, which basically is some N-material stacked against some P-material that functions as a one-way valve: electric current will go through on one voltage but not on its opposite. This is what we use, for instance, to convert AC current to DC. An even handier device is a transistor, which is in essence two diodes back to back. It is a sandwiching of electron-oversupply and electron-undersupply materials (N-P-N or P-N-P) in such a configuration that applying a tiny current to the middle part of the sandwich permits a current to pass through the whole shebang. That is, the transistor is either an off-switch or an amplifier, depending on whether it's put in the "on" position by a small current. (Electrical switches weren't new when transistors were developed, of course, but the old style required a big "gate" of conducting material that could be opened or shut by brute force. The "switch" in a transistor can be tiny and energy efficient.)
Even cooler, when the current passes through the transistor, it has been amplified. How does the amplification part work? George Smalley, one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for nanotechnology in the 1990s, used this analogy: Tie a bale of hay to the tail of a mule, then put a bit of effort into striking a match to light the hay, and observe the level of energy expended by the mule. A transistor is a device in which a lot of current is ready to flow once an initial stimulus has triggered it. Until the trigger happens, nothing flows, but after the trigger happens, the information contained in the trigger is transmitted in vastly louder form.
It turns out that judicious manipulation of semiconductor materials permits us to shave away the crystalline structure in which electrons are permitted to flow until, at last, they are confined to a plane (a "quantum well"), or to a long, narrow tunnel (a "quantum wire"), or a little cube or sphere (a "quantum dot"). Why bother? Well, to take the case of quantum dots, it turns out that we can fine-tune the size of the dot in order to exert a precise control over the size of the little packet of energy that's required to enter the system and bump the electron to another level. When it falls back down, it will emit a tiny bit of light at a precise and controllable frequency. This is proving handy in the development of TV screens in the form of extremely thin layers that emit bright, clear light in any color we like upon the application of an extremely small current. It's also possible to construct medical nanoparticles that combine antigen-like recognition particles and light-emitting quantum dots, so we can let them roam in the bloodstream until they encounter a microbe or a cancer cell, then emit light that's color-coded to let us know which problem they found. They can even be programmed to release a toxin to destroy the microbe or cancer cell with minimal effects on surrounding tissue, which should not only decrease side-effects but also lessen the ability of the problem cells to develop resistance. In the context of solar power, quantum dots hold the promise of something very much like artificial photosynthesis that produces electricity rather than sugar.
It's perfectly amazing how far this field has advance in the last couple of decades.
So with my free time today, I tried to run down popularized sources that would help me understand semiconductors, microelectronics, and quantum dots in a way accessible to people who have no command of the mathematics of wave mechanics. Here are some of the things I found out.
Any popular discussion of nanotechnology is going to throw out all kinds of exciting possibilities of quantum dots, but what are the little thingummies? The definition is often given as something like electrons confined in a space measured in a fairly small number of nanometers. But what do we mean by "confining" the electron, exactly? We've been told we can neither stop them nor ever know exactly where they are.
The answer apparently lies in the same sort of thing that goes on when we say an electron is in orbit around an atomic nucleus. One of the quandaries that led to the development of quantum mechanics was our inability to visualize how electrons behave in an atom. In classical mechanics, an oscillating or rotating electron should be generating an electromagnetic wave. In other words, it should emit light and, in so doing, lose energy. It should therefore spiral gradually into its nucleus after a while, but it doesn't. What gives? Apparently the thinking is that electrons in certain kinds of permitted energy states, which we call "orbits" (though they're not like planetary orbits), are stable and neither emit light nor lose energy and fall into the center of the atom. If they gain or lose just the right amount of energy, they can jump up or down into the next permitted energy state, but until that happens they're on autopilot. I gather we don't know why this is so, only that it's the way things happen. So it must be that electrons in certain states can hang out more or less indefinitely under the influence of a particular atomic nucleus, and that's what we mean--loosely--by their "confined location." I gather further that a quantum dot pulls off something like the same trick, but without benefit of a nucleus. In that sense, a quantum dot has been called an "artificial atom."
How does a nanotechnologist confine electrons in a dot, without using an atomic nucleus as an ordering device? He relies on the special qualities of the materials we call semiconductors. These are materials that neither freely conduct electricity, as metal does, nor totally insulate it, like glass. Instead, they allow a very tiny amount of electricity to pass, but only if we excite the system very slightly, such as by introducing a tiny charge or some light. As I understand it, natural semiconductors tend to be crystalline structures formed from elements with four electrons in their outermost 8-type shell, which form covalent bonds with other similar atoms. The addition of trace amounts of elements with either 3 or 5 electrons in their outer shells creates a situation in which the crystal is either slightly short of electrons or slightly overstocked with them. (Something about the regular array of the crystal is conducive to the electrons moving about in a useful way.) The movement of the spare electrons, or the movement of the missing spaces where an electron should be (as in the case of those little puzzles that are solved by moving around the "hole"), or both, function as the carriers of electric current. We have developed considerable ingenuity in adding just the right sort of this or that to produce the excess-electron materials ("N"-type) and electron-depleted materials ("P"-type) that we need. When we sandwich N and P materials together, we find that we can precisely control when current will and will not pass across the boundary between them.
One very handy semiconductor device is a diode, or rectifier, which basically is some N-material stacked against some P-material that functions as a one-way valve: electric current will go through on one voltage but not on its opposite. This is what we use, for instance, to convert AC current to DC. An even handier device is a transistor, which is in essence two diodes back to back. It is a sandwiching of electron-oversupply and electron-undersupply materials (N-P-N or P-N-P) in such a configuration that applying a tiny current to the middle part of the sandwich permits a current to pass through the whole shebang. That is, the transistor is either an off-switch or an amplifier, depending on whether it's put in the "on" position by a small current. (Electrical switches weren't new when transistors were developed, of course, but the old style required a big "gate" of conducting material that could be opened or shut by brute force. The "switch" in a transistor can be tiny and energy efficient.)
Even cooler, when the current passes through the transistor, it has been amplified. How does the amplification part work? George Smalley, one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for nanotechnology in the 1990s, used this analogy: Tie a bale of hay to the tail of a mule, then put a bit of effort into striking a match to light the hay, and observe the level of energy expended by the mule. A transistor is a device in which a lot of current is ready to flow once an initial stimulus has triggered it. Until the trigger happens, nothing flows, but after the trigger happens, the information contained in the trigger is transmitted in vastly louder form.
It turns out that judicious manipulation of semiconductor materials permits us to shave away the crystalline structure in which electrons are permitted to flow until, at last, they are confined to a plane (a "quantum well"), or to a long, narrow tunnel (a "quantum wire"), or a little cube or sphere (a "quantum dot"). Why bother? Well, to take the case of quantum dots, it turns out that we can fine-tune the size of the dot in order to exert a precise control over the size of the little packet of energy that's required to enter the system and bump the electron to another level. When it falls back down, it will emit a tiny bit of light at a precise and controllable frequency. This is proving handy in the development of TV screens in the form of extremely thin layers that emit bright, clear light in any color we like upon the application of an extremely small current. It's also possible to construct medical nanoparticles that combine antigen-like recognition particles and light-emitting quantum dots, so we can let them roam in the bloodstream until they encounter a microbe or a cancer cell, then emit light that's color-coded to let us know which problem they found. They can even be programmed to release a toxin to destroy the microbe or cancer cell with minimal effects on surrounding tissue, which should not only decrease side-effects but also lessen the ability of the problem cells to develop resistance. In the context of solar power, quantum dots hold the promise of something very much like artificial photosynthesis that produces electricity rather than sugar.
It's perfectly amazing how far this field has advance in the last couple of decades.
That's Not What They Mean, Volokh
I generally have a lot of respect for Eugene Volokh, but he's fighting a straw man in his post on regulating guns like cars. The people who argue for this have in mind especially two ordinary car regulations they would like to see applied to guns, neither of which he mentions.
1) Registration of all cars with the government at time of sale or transfer,
2) Mandatory insurance to cover likely potential costs should you operate it in a way that causes harm.
So that would mean universal registration of firearms, as well as mandatory (and rather expensive) insurance for each and every firearm you intend to operate.
In other words, the proposal is for a much stricter regime of firearm regulation than currently common across the country -- not a lesser regime.
1) Registration of all cars with the government at time of sale or transfer,
2) Mandatory insurance to cover likely potential costs should you operate it in a way that causes harm.
So that would mean universal registration of firearms, as well as mandatory (and rather expensive) insurance for each and every firearm you intend to operate.
In other words, the proposal is for a much stricter regime of firearm regulation than currently common across the country -- not a lesser regime.
Richard Fernandez: Adapt, Survive, Profit
I thought this was an excellent piece.
One of the most salient characteristic of American culture is “can do” — its ability to find a way around obstacles placed in its path. Reuters recently reported that ice-cream shops in Venezuela are closing due to the unavailability of milk. In America the outcome may have been the invention of a source of artificial milk. Instead of closing the shops they might have reopened as artificial ice cream parlors.That seems like a strong insight. Government creates problems, but that means there's money to be made solving the problems created by government. I've been worried about automation putting people out of work, but here's a near-endless source of potential employment: developing workarounds and fixes for the idiocy that government devises.
American oil and gas companies reacted precisely in this way to government discouragement. The industry simply invented new technologies which made America the biggest oil producer in the world.
In the United States failure appears to be a profit opportunity.... Take for example the case of New York City resident Nicolas Karlson. The Affordable Care Act gave him the shaft.... So what does Karlson do? He adapts by hiring an adviser named Brett Sigler of Client Focused Advisors in New York. Brett will get him a deal somehow....
Obamacare will be great for guys like Sigler.
Innocents
Today is apparently the "Feast of Holy Innocents," meaning those children Herod had killed in his attempt to eliminate Jesus. In Le Morte D'Arthur, Malory has King Arthur repeat this infamy in an attempt to eliminate Mordred, about whom he is warned by a prophecy of Merlin's.
It is just the sort of thing, though, that the British tradition in Malory's time could not have accepted. Kings would and did ask for hostages from powerful families at times, as a guarantee of good behavior. But they treated them well and raised them so long as good behavior was assured. To have killed the hostages, not of one family but of many across the kingdom, would have brought open war from the nobility against the king. Certainly in Malory's own day the Wars of the Roses -- in which he had some part -- showed that the dignity of royalty was not unlimited if they abused their authority.
In any case today we are supposed to reflect on them, and all innocents killed for someone else's purposes, convenience, or benefit. It would seem we have quite a score of our own to admit to on this day.
THEN King Arthur let send for all the children born on May-day, begotten of lords and born of ladies; for Merlin told King Arthur that he that should destroy him should be born on May-day, wherefore he sent for them all, upon pain of death; and so there were found many lords' sons, and all were sent unto the king, and so was Mordred sent by King Lot's wife, and all were put in a ship to the sea, and some were four weeks old, and some less. And so by fortune the ship drave unto a castle, and was all to-riven, and destroyed the most part, save that Mordred was cast up, and a good man found him, and nourished him till he was fourteen year old, and then he brought him to the court, as it rehearseth afterward, toward the end of the Death of Arthur. So many lords and barons of this realm were displeased, for their children were so lost, and many put the wite on Merlin more than on Arthur; so what for dread and for love, they held their peace.I've always read this part of Malory's tale as being a reiteration of the Biblical story, and a rather implausible one. I'm not sure whether a Jewish king, with the backing of Roman soldiers, might have really carried out such an order. Perhaps the Romans would have been willing to sustain him on his throne against the outrage it would merit, as it would weaken and divide a subject population. Perhaps the kingdom was at that point so inflected by the kind of tyrannies common to that region in that time of the world that it was not out of order.
It is just the sort of thing, though, that the British tradition in Malory's time could not have accepted. Kings would and did ask for hostages from powerful families at times, as a guarantee of good behavior. But they treated them well and raised them so long as good behavior was assured. To have killed the hostages, not of one family but of many across the kingdom, would have brought open war from the nobility against the king. Certainly in Malory's own day the Wars of the Roses -- in which he had some part -- showed that the dignity of royalty was not unlimited if they abused their authority.
In any case today we are supposed to reflect on them, and all innocents killed for someone else's purposes, convenience, or benefit. It would seem we have quite a score of our own to admit to on this day.
How To Start a Fight in One Easy Step
Actually there are ten, but the first one is enough if, as a man, you follow the advice to 'confront men' about it. By the time we get to telling other men's sons how to grow up thinking about their 'male privilege,' you'll be lucky if you don't get worse than a fight.
I realize that with society structured as it is we need women to do this kind of thing. We even give female soldiers medals for it now. As well we might, given that fighting sexual harassment is now the Army's "primary mission." Why wouldn't you give out medals for the soldiers who are at the forefront of aggressively pursuing your primary mission?
Still, let's be clear about the limits of your 'male privilege.' What you're suggesting is well into the realm of female privilege. I'll listen to women talk about these things with great courtesy if they really want to discuss it. If you as a man come up to me and tell me I shouldn't prop my feet up in a chair at Starbucks because it might possibly make some woman somewhere feel uncomfortable, though, you're asking for trouble. I'd give the woman the chair I was sitting in, unasked, if chairs were short in supply. If she refused to take it, I'd stand anyway rather than sit while a woman stood. As Lewis Grizzard used to say, if I didn't do it my ancestors would come up out of the grave after me.
But if you as a man undertake to go about lecturing other men about it, that's a privilege you don't have. You'd better well know it.
I realize that with society structured as it is we need women to do this kind of thing. We even give female soldiers medals for it now. As well we might, given that fighting sexual harassment is now the Army's "primary mission." Why wouldn't you give out medals for the soldiers who are at the forefront of aggressively pursuing your primary mission?
Still, let's be clear about the limits of your 'male privilege.' What you're suggesting is well into the realm of female privilege. I'll listen to women talk about these things with great courtesy if they really want to discuss it. If you as a man come up to me and tell me I shouldn't prop my feet up in a chair at Starbucks because it might possibly make some woman somewhere feel uncomfortable, though, you're asking for trouble. I'd give the woman the chair I was sitting in, unasked, if chairs were short in supply. If she refused to take it, I'd stand anyway rather than sit while a woman stood. As Lewis Grizzard used to say, if I didn't do it my ancestors would come up out of the grave after me.
But if you as a man undertake to go about lecturing other men about it, that's a privilege you don't have. You'd better well know it.
Nullification in 2015?
Why not?
The judiciary has consistently ruled against the nullification doctrine, asserting its unique, judicial right to declare laws unconstitutional. But this executive order isn’t a law. And given its extremely shaky legal footing, it isn’t difficult to imagine a federal bench recognizing the states’ right to disregard federal orders that don’t clearly have the force of law.... It would force the Obama administration to go on offense, suing the states to enforce a law that isn’t a law. And I don’t think that case can be made.There are a couple of the old options that are back on the table in terms of restraining runaway executive power. Once the new Congress is seated, expect to hear about Letters of Marque and Reprisal as an Article I power that the President has no control over whatsoever.
The Feast of St. John the Evangelist
Thanks to a helpful application, I'm learning a bit more about the twelve-day feast that begins on Christmas day. Today is the feast of St. John, presumed to be the author of the Gospel of John and other works.
Wren Day
Also, of course, the Feast of St. Stephen, martyr of Jerusalem, and the first recorded martyr of Christianity (unless one considers Jesus a competitor).
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Part II
On Christmas Eve, the story continues.
This translation is not my favorite, but it's nice to hear the tale.
This translation is not my favorite, but it's nice to hear the tale.
Christmas Eve in Rural Georgia
The closest town to here is small enough that the Post Office doesn't deliver mail. It doesn't have a stop light, either, just a four-way stop in the middle of town. There are no extravagant displays, as the country about is rather poor, and much of the population is older as the young have chiefly had to move away to look for work.
It is small enough that the manager of the Post Office called me personally to tell me that we'd gotten a package, and I should get over there before they close to make sure we didn't miss having it for Christmas. We took her a basket with newly-potted plants, garnished with a candy cane.
It is small enough that the manager of the Post Office called me personally to tell me that we'd gotten a package, and I should get over there before they close to make sure we didn't miss having it for Christmas. We took her a basket with newly-potted plants, garnished with a candy cane.
A Christmas Story, On Christmas Adam
(So calls this night a child of an old friend of mine, because 'Adam comes before Eve.')
John Hawkins, Man of the People
You're only likely to disagree with everything or nothing he has to say.
Reminds me of something Waylon Jennings said: 'Only thing wrong with being a dinosaur is there's no future in it.'
Reminds me of something Waylon Jennings said: 'Only thing wrong with being a dinosaur is there's no future in it.'
A Much Easier (Hypothetical) Question
There's a Frenchman claiming that the US Navy shot down the Malaysian airlines Boeing 777 that went missing this year.
It's just a theory, but the argument for such a policy is much easier than the torture policy we've been discussing below. On the one hand, it's always wrong to intentionally kill the innocent. On the other hand, the people who put the innocent in a position of needing to be killed to avoid a great harm are not members of the US Navy, but members of the enemy organization that hijacked the plane for presumably terrorist purposes.
So unlike the case of torture-for-information, here we have a case that is really justified. If this was done, the harm lies on the wicked who hijacked the plane for evil reasons.
It's just a theory, but the argument for such a policy is much easier than the torture policy we've been discussing below. On the one hand, it's always wrong to intentionally kill the innocent. On the other hand, the people who put the innocent in a position of needing to be killed to avoid a great harm are not members of the US Navy, but members of the enemy organization that hijacked the plane for presumably terrorist purposes.
So unlike the case of torture-for-information, here we have a case that is really justified. If this was done, the harm lies on the wicked who hijacked the plane for evil reasons.
Getting Closer to Christmas
Not quite there yet. But a universal faith must appeal to all human modes.
Since Tex mentioned Die Hard:
Christmas in a rockabilly moment:
If you think your family is crazy...
Two days left of Advent, including today. See you at midnight tomorrow.
Since Tex mentioned Die Hard:
Christmas in a rockabilly moment:
If you think your family is crazy...
Two days left of Advent, including today. See you at midnight tomorrow.
Quandaries
A discussion at Maggie's Farm:
A Politically Correct Zen Riddle
"One civil rights group is outraged at Bowdoin College’s outrageous punishment of students who dressed up as pilgrims and American Indians for a Thanksgiving party – calling it 'cultural appropriation'"
"Attorney General Eric Holder has issued an edict, through a memorandum, that cross dressing and transsexualism [are] now protected under federal civil rights laws which were designed to protect women from sex discrimination."
So is it punishable, or protected, conduct for a male to dress up as a female Pilgrim or Indian on Thanksgiving?Seems fair. If a man can be a woman, why can't he be an Indian?
Reading Into Silence
Given the recent discussion of torture as practiced by the United States in the war on terror, Medievalists.net dug up a 2006 article called "Aquinas on Torture." It turns out, actually, that Aquinas said nothing whatsoever about the practice. It is an interesting ommission, the author argues:
So we're running right into the teeth of the problem that Aristotle is describing, and about which Aquinas was silent. But Aquinas does speak to the question of things we would consider torture in terms of correcting slaves.
I'm not sure we haven't gotten this one wrong all the way around. Some things can't be justified. If we feel we have to do it anyway, because the matter of preventing terrorist assaults is so grave, we should not think ourselves justified in doing it. We should think ourselves guilty of a sin, at least; and that's what confession is for.
Here we are faced with something that, for this writer at least, is something of an enigma. It does not appear that Aquinas approved of this practice. Nowhere does he defend it... [H]e neither defends or condemns the judicial institution of torture. The omission is curious, to say the least.... What are we to conclude? One is tempted to say that Aquinas “copped out,” that he ducked the question, perhaps because the temper of the times would not have tolerated an honest answer.There's a signal difference between the cases, which is that judicial torture is designed to compel confessions that will allow us to settle at law matters that have happened in the past; the American cases involve an attempt to prevent a harm in the future. The person under questioning may be presumed innocent, as there has been no trial: there may not even be a crime for which he might later be tried if the questioning is successful. Some of those taken and questioned were not even conspirators, but drivers or associates who may not know the significance of what they know. They might simply know something that could stop a crime, were it made known to the right people in the right hour.
The torture of witnesses, as mandated in Roman law, involves inflicting pain on persons who are, at law, innocent of any crime. In his discussion of homicide, he absolutely rejects the killing of innocent persons. In the following question, concerned with “other injuries committed against persons” he does not raise the question of mutilating, beating or incarcerating the innocent. One likes to think that for him, the question could not arise: the context is clearly that of justice. Here, as with Aristotle, there is no question of “justifying” actions otherwise reprehensible on the basis of some greater good. Punishing the innocent is quite simply unjust. Hence there can be no justification for it.
Yet he was faced with an institution which was not only practiced, but legislated, both by the Church at the highest level, and by all contemporary civil societies.
So we're running right into the teeth of the problem that Aristotle is describing, and about which Aquinas was silent. But Aquinas does speak to the question of things we would consider torture in terms of correcting slaves.
Now it is unlawful to do a person a harm, except by way of punishment in the cause of justice. Again, no man justly punishes another, except one who is subject to his jurisdiction. Therefore it is not lawful for a man to strike another, unless he have some power over the one whom he strikes. And since the child is subject to the power of the parent, and the slave to the power of his master, a parent can lawfully strike his child, and a master his slave that instruction may be enforced by correction.Then the question becomes one of whether we have proper jurisdiction to administer the correction -- as for example by explaining that it is improper to withhold information that might prevent a terrorist attack! Oddly enough, we seem to have decided that we have the right exactly where we don't have the jurisdiction: an American citizen is normally protected by the Eighth Amendment, whereas those captured in Afghanistan who are not and have never been American citizens (nor, perhaps, ever on American soil) are the ones we tend to use these techniques against.
I'm not sure we haven't gotten this one wrong all the way around. Some things can't be justified. If we feel we have to do it anyway, because the matter of preventing terrorist assaults is so grave, we should not think ourselves justified in doing it. We should think ourselves guilty of a sin, at least; and that's what confession is for.
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