The Heller case should be released next week, probably Monday, and you can be sure that Cato will have something to say about it. So, for the facts of the case, as well as Bob Levy's statement as soon as the decision comes down, please go here.
Thanks!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Brutalizing English for Political Gain
My head nearly exploded this morning when I read this opening paragraph of a WSJ editorial:
I've ranted against "anti-antiterror" before, although it still infuriates me to no end. If the WSJ is going to be that way, they should just call people like me pro-terrorist or communist or whatever other ridiculous smear they can think of for properly comprehending the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If they did that, they could limit their offensiveness to their own ideas without butchering the language to mask the absurdity of their implication.
Secondly, domestic intelligence gathering is not a tool of war. Indeed, it is a criminal justice issue and thus properly relegated to the judicial oversight of the FISA court. Under this twisted logic that conflates a policy talking-point (i.e. "War on Terror") with a conflict between military or paramilitary forces (i.e., war), one could easily argue for discarding Constitutional rights in the "War on Drugs" or even the "War on Poverty"--and they have.
Calling something a "war" as a political tactic does not make it so. Such language is simply a political trick to convince the public that the government can strip individuals rights for the sake of some greater good during a national emergency, that may or may not be as dangerous as advertised.
More on the political chicanery of the ubiquitous war metaphor can be found in my friend Gene Healy's book Cult of the Presidency. Buy it here.
The best news about yesterday's White House-Democrat deal on overseas eavesdropping is that the ACLU and the anti-antiterror Internet mob are apoplectic. This can only be good for U.S. national security. Too bad the compromise also comes at the cost of a further erosion of Presidential war powers."Anti-antiterror?" "War powers?"
I've ranted against "anti-antiterror" before, although it still infuriates me to no end. If the WSJ is going to be that way, they should just call people like me pro-terrorist or communist or whatever other ridiculous smear they can think of for properly comprehending the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If they did that, they could limit their offensiveness to their own ideas without butchering the language to mask the absurdity of their implication.
Secondly, domestic intelligence gathering is not a tool of war. Indeed, it is a criminal justice issue and thus properly relegated to the judicial oversight of the FISA court. Under this twisted logic that conflates a policy talking-point (i.e. "War on Terror") with a conflict between military or paramilitary forces (i.e., war), one could easily argue for discarding Constitutional rights in the "War on Drugs" or even the "War on Poverty"--and they have.
Calling something a "war" as a political tactic does not make it so. Such language is simply a political trick to convince the public that the government can strip individuals rights for the sake of some greater good during a national emergency, that may or may not be as dangerous as advertised.
More on the political chicanery of the ubiquitous war metaphor can be found in my friend Gene Healy's book Cult of the Presidency. Buy it here.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
More Suthun Hehatige
From Wonkette:
Oh, Texas Republicans, you are always so funny. Here is a fun button worn by everyone at the Texas GOP convention. When not making hilarious rape jokes, Texas Republicans like to make jokes about ambitious coloreds.How many more months am I going to keep finding obnoxious shit like this while simultaneously hearing about nonsensical "post-racialism"????
Thursday, June 12, 2008
My Take on Boumediene
Ok. While I should be going home to clean my apartment, the temptation is just too great to write this now.
As I mentioned before, the opinion is over 130 pages. I'm not about to hash through it bit by bit, but I will address Scalia's dissent, already being fully embraced by the Right.
From the beginning, our beloved "Nino" distorts the entire concept of the case. Several times throughout his venomous dissent, he refers to the "war" against "radical Islamists" and various attacks the U.S. has suffered at the hands of Muslims: the Khobar Towers attack in Dharan, the embassy attacks at Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, the USS Cole and...the Marine barracks in Lebanon? (For my younger readers, that was an attack near the beginning of the Reagan administration.) Er, one of these things is not like the others...
Conflated responsibility for attacks aside, the fact is that the "War on Terror" is a war on an abstraction--it is a policy catch-phrase that, outside of an actual battlefield, serves only as rhetoric and a rationalization for the growth of the security state and reckless foreign policy. Not dissimilarly, it is no more a "war" than the war on illicit commodities, also known as the "War on Drugs." Certainly, there are tangible and substantial costs of blood and treasure for the victims and perpetrators of both of these "wars"--but neither is a war in any real sense.
9/11 wasn't an act of war--it was a heinous crime. 20 men, mostly Saudis, stole airplanes and murdered over 3,000 people. The Right has been all-too-quick to assign war powers to a president and Congress when, in fact, most of the acts they site are of a criminal nature. A "war on terror" would have to include a war on the Timothy McVeighs of the world, whom--by virtue of citizenship--are afforded constitutional protections and given trials. But this case doesn't even involve proper trials; it concerns whether or not foreign citizens--not to be confused with POWs--may challenge their incarceration in federal courts. Boumediene is one of several men who were imprisoned in Bosnia, by Bosnian authorities, held without charge, and then released for lack of evidence. After their release, they were picked up by Bosnian officials and transferred into U.S. custody--six years ago.
These men were not captured on the battlefield. These men were not, as far as anyone can tell, caught in the middle of some dastardly plot against the United States. Indeed, there is no evidence that, even if they are criminals, they had any intention of doing harm to the United States whatsoever. How they (legally speaking) came into the custody of the U.S. Military is quite a mystery to me. And, due to the legal black hole they found themselves in, as neither U.S. citizens or proper POWs (protected by the Geneva Conventions), they had no sufficient legal recourse to challenge their detentions.
Those whom have not followed this case closely may not be aware that Boumediene v. Bush had actually been denied certiorari before it was granted. (background here.) The testimony of a high-ranking military lawyer, Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, has been speculated to have changed the mind of Justice Anthony Kennedy to grant cert, as he testified that the CSRTs were, for all intents and purposes, worthless--thus nullifying the substantive and procedural due process the CSRTs were designed to provide.(I'll find the link later. kind of in a hurry at the moment.) Abraham link here.
The Right is howling as if this is the end to military justice as we know it. In reality, the Boumediene decision safeguards the rights of people whom have been held (and in several cases, tortured) for years without any sort of legal justification as to why...and thus rebukes the attempts of the government to overstep its prerogative yet again. I'm all for being tough on terrorists, but not at the expense of a cornerstone of personal liberty by an over-reaching collusive alliance of the Legislative and Executive branches of the federal government.
Way to go, SCOTUS.
As I mentioned before, the opinion is over 130 pages. I'm not about to hash through it bit by bit, but I will address Scalia's dissent, already being fully embraced by the Right.
From the beginning, our beloved "Nino" distorts the entire concept of the case. Several times throughout his venomous dissent, he refers to the "war" against "radical Islamists" and various attacks the U.S. has suffered at the hands of Muslims: the Khobar Towers attack in Dharan, the embassy attacks at Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, the USS Cole and...the Marine barracks in Lebanon? (For my younger readers, that was an attack near the beginning of the Reagan administration.) Er, one of these things is not like the others...
Conflated responsibility for attacks aside, the fact is that the "War on Terror" is a war on an abstraction--it is a policy catch-phrase that, outside of an actual battlefield, serves only as rhetoric and a rationalization for the growth of the security state and reckless foreign policy. Not dissimilarly, it is no more a "war" than the war on illicit commodities, also known as the "War on Drugs." Certainly, there are tangible and substantial costs of blood and treasure for the victims and perpetrators of both of these "wars"--but neither is a war in any real sense.
9/11 wasn't an act of war--it was a heinous crime. 20 men, mostly Saudis, stole airplanes and murdered over 3,000 people. The Right has been all-too-quick to assign war powers to a president and Congress when, in fact, most of the acts they site are of a criminal nature. A "war on terror" would have to include a war on the Timothy McVeighs of the world, whom--by virtue of citizenship--are afforded constitutional protections and given trials. But this case doesn't even involve proper trials; it concerns whether or not foreign citizens--not to be confused with POWs--may challenge their incarceration in federal courts. Boumediene is one of several men who were imprisoned in Bosnia, by Bosnian authorities, held without charge, and then released for lack of evidence. After their release, they were picked up by Bosnian officials and transferred into U.S. custody--six years ago.
These men were not captured on the battlefield. These men were not, as far as anyone can tell, caught in the middle of some dastardly plot against the United States. Indeed, there is no evidence that, even if they are criminals, they had any intention of doing harm to the United States whatsoever. How they (legally speaking) came into the custody of the U.S. Military is quite a mystery to me. And, due to the legal black hole they found themselves in, as neither U.S. citizens or proper POWs (protected by the Geneva Conventions), they had no sufficient legal recourse to challenge their detentions.
Those whom have not followed this case closely may not be aware that Boumediene v. Bush had actually been denied certiorari before it was granted. (background here.) The testimony of a high-ranking military lawyer, Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, has been speculated to have changed the mind of Justice Anthony Kennedy to grant cert, as he testified that the CSRTs were, for all intents and purposes, worthless--thus nullifying the substantive and procedural due process the CSRTs were designed to provide.
The Right is howling as if this is the end to military justice as we know it. In reality, the Boumediene decision safeguards the rights of people whom have been held (and in several cases, tortured) for years without any sort of legal justification as to why...and thus rebukes the attempts of the government to overstep its prerogative yet again. I'm all for being tough on terrorists, but not at the expense of a cornerstone of personal liberty by an over-reaching collusive alliance of the Legislative and Executive branches of the federal government.
Way to go, SCOTUS.
Boumediene v. Bush: The Result
In what is undoubtedly a victory for freedom, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision granting habeas rights to detainees at Guantanamo.
I'm reading the a 130+ page decision right now, but it looks good so far. I'll write more after I've read it fully, but it seems that the legal black hole the administration created for detainees has been effectively destroyed...and that is a very good thing.
Best quote so far:
I'm reading the a 130+ page decision right now, but it looks good so far. I'll write more after I've read it fully, but it seems that the legal black hole the administration created for detainees has been effectively destroyed...and that is a very good thing.
Best quote so far:
In considering both the procedural and substantive standards used to impose detention to prevent acts of terrorism, the courts must accord proper deference to the political branches. However, security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom's first principles, chief among them being freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Hatethought?
So, while I am not the movie fan I used to be--basically because I lack the free time to go see them these days-- I wanted to go see Adam Sandler's Don't Mess with the Zohan. Sure, it's bound to be juvenile and silly--that's kind of his thing. But one reviewer over at WaPo doesn't seem amused:
And before you ask "What if he was doing that to black people? Would you still be as forgiving?," I'll give you two words: Soul Plane.
Without debating the merits of the film or Sandler's value as an "artist," he is clearly a satirical absurdist. The preview shows an array of ridiculously impossible feats (and feet) that only highlights the unreality of the film's setting. This isn't a movie promoting hatred in any way--save, perhaps, for the sheer banality of Hollywood film making.
So, Mr. Stephen Hunter, lighten up. Just because you don't find someone funny, it is irresponsible to accuse him of 'hate'--and even more so make up the word "hatethought" to express it.
In the world according to Adam, Arabs are childish, violent, stupid; Israelis are aggressive, mendacious, oversexed; white Americans are gun-crazed, violent rednecks or smarmy aristocratic businessmen/gangsters; post-menopausal women are riven with lust. And all this hatethought is expressed in support of a political argument that's no more sophisticated than "Can't we just all get along?"I haven't yet seen the movie--and it very well may suck--but this little diatribe isn't about to stop me from seeing it. Anyone who has ever seen a Sandler film knows that the characters are always exaggerated, stereotypical, and crude. That's what makes them funny.
And before you ask "What if he was doing that to black people? Would you still be as forgiving?," I'll give you two words: Soul Plane.
Without debating the merits of the film or Sandler's value as an "artist," he is clearly a satirical absurdist. The preview shows an array of ridiculously impossible feats (and feet) that only highlights the unreality of the film's setting. This isn't a movie promoting hatred in any way--save, perhaps, for the sheer banality of Hollywood film making.
So, Mr. Stephen Hunter, lighten up. Just because you don't find someone funny, it is irresponsible to accuse him of 'hate'--and even more so make up the word "hatethought" to express it.
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