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Comment by griffinmahon | Hacker News Reader

Inserting "bipartisan" into the conversation is moot. This issue -- torture -- is one of authority and the moral beliefs of society.

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Which means the issue is a systemic one, based on the morality of the political class? If so, then I agree.

Unfortunately for America there seems to be no hope on the horizon. All classes of societal are facing moral degradation. Whether it's the poor and their gang/crime issues, the middle class with their consumerism/ignorance issues, or the upper class for their greed/lack of empathy.

Obviously this can be generalized amongst most nations, but I think it's evidently more prevalent in America.

More prevalent in America than where? Russia, China, Burma, the UK?

Well the best in class of developed countries. The US does have the largest military, political hegemony, economic hegemony, and a huge amount of cultural influence compared to other sovereigns.

With that in mind the standard I have is high (top in class of developed countries for certain statistical measures) when you think about these social, cultural and economic dominances reverberate throughout the entire world.

You haven't explained why you think the decay is somehow worse in America. Only that if it was worse it would be influential.

i believe GP mentioned bipartisanship to point out that its unlikely either a D or R administration would actively try to rectify the situation because there's no political gain and there's likely political loss.

Exactly, Bush and Clinton can't raise funds for the new generation if they are political liabilities.

Ah, I see. In that case, bipartisanship here is still moot.[1]

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym

No, this issue is not "non-partisan". Both sides support covering up the tracks of the ancien regimes of their successive dynsastys. A Clinton will be running again in 2016. So its best to bury this if you are a Dem, not to try to pin it on Bush (whom everyone already has their minds made up), because that will backfire, when the two sides look more alike than not.

it's not obvious that "bipartisan" and "nonpartisan" are always auto-antonyms. it may often be the case in practice, but there are are other parties for voters to choose from. for that reason, it's not a universal anto-antonym like say, flammable / inflammable.

To clarify, I was commenting on the fact that introducing the notion of bipartisanship to the discussion was moot (unworthy of talk) in the sense that issues like this should transcend Left/Right ideology and moot (worthy of talk) in that it's an interesting phenomenon to me that someone immediately commented on parties, as though the American system has very deeply ingrained this sense of parties that there is no alternative to.

Your point about the words though is even more intriguing (I love words!) and I had actually never thought about the two together like that -- I don't often see "nonpartisan" -- to the extent that for a second I thought what you were saying didn't make any sense.

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