A John Bircher Suggests a Left-Right Anti-Bush Alliance
Uh....well...um...there's this.
I have to say, I'm too baffled and wary to have anything to say about this. So I won't try.
One interesting thing in this piece, though, is his account of how the horrifying republican push for a constitutional convention back in the late '80's and early '90's was defeated. I'm not sure he's right about how it was licked, but thank God it was.
Jesus, how had I forgotten about that? The very thought used to make my blood run cold... Imagine Jesse Helms, Bill Bennett and the early Newt Gingrich re-writing the American constitution...it's like a prospectus for a disaster movie or something.
(Via Metafilter)
Uh....well...um...there's this.
I have to say, I'm too baffled and wary to have anything to say about this. So I won't try.
One interesting thing in this piece, though, is his account of how the horrifying republican push for a constitutional convention back in the late '80's and early '90's was defeated. I'm not sure he's right about how it was licked, but thank God it was.
Jesus, how had I forgotten about that? The very thought used to make my blood run cold... Imagine Jesse Helms, Bill Bennett and the early Newt Gingrich re-writing the American constitution...it's like a prospectus for a disaster movie or something.
(Via Metafilter)
posted by Winston Smith at
8:16 PM
4 Comments:
As a matter of historical record, it was when Wm F. Buckley pushed the Birchers out of the conservative movement that it became a viable national political philosophy. If ultraconservative has any currency at all, it's for these guys, not, say, Bush.
"The issues the Right and Left are already working together on are related to the Constitution: (1) Exposing the Bush administration's policy to eliminate the right to trial, as in the case of Jose Padilla, (2) Stopping the Bush practice and advocacy of torture, (3) Ending the administration's unnecessary Iraq War, (4) Eliminating unconstitutional, warrantless wiretapping, and the most objectionable parts of the PATRIOT Act, (5) Stopping multilateral trade agreements such as CAFTA, renewal of the WTO, and the upcoming Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)."
1) Poor Jose is the only such case. How do you solve a problem like Padilla? ;-)
2) He doesn't. Torture is torture. "Tantamount to torture" isn't torture.
3) I am not ready to abandon the Iraqi people to the savages. We are already doing that to the Sudanese.
4)The wiretapping isn't unconstitutional until the courts say it is, and they are reluctant to intrude, based on much precedent. As for the PATRIOT Act, you'll have to elect a new congress, many Democrats included.
5) Ah, the turtle-WTO crowd. Protectionism. Anti-corporatism, whatever. The leftover left joins the revanchist right. Fine, give it a whack.
It should make you uneasy to be on the same side as the cementheads of the John Birch Society. But go for it. Conservatives beat them back once, and I'm sure they can do it again.
Yeah, it *would* make me nervous. But what this guy says is that he finds himself in agreement with Moveon and AirAmerica...two groups that I disagree with a good bit--though by no means all--of the time.
1. Padilla's not the only case. There are similar cases at Gitmo.
2. A. He does, of course; and on a separate note: B. "Tantamount to torture" is, probably, torture.
3. I'm with ya there, brother.
4. Actually, something can be illegal before the courts rule that it is. Re: getting new Democrats, too: I'm all for it. Some vertibrates this time, please. But it's the Republicans that lead us into badness...the Dems just wimpily followed along. So they're a *bit* less reprehensible...
5. Yeah, all that crap. (Though anti-corporatism is becoming rather tempting...)
Anyway, it IS worrisome that the Birchers want to jump on board...but remember: EVERYBODY in the whole world hates Bush except for about 30% of Americans--partisan Republicans almost to a man. So you're going to get some losers in the other 95% of humanity...
Still, gives one pause.
Which, of course, is why I posted it.
I apologize if this is overly cranky. But:
1) This appears to be based on a rather idiosyncratic interpretation of what the "problem like Padilla" is; I can see how you're getting rid of all the Gitmo detainees, but I really don't understand how you distinguish al-Marri. And the Padilla "problem" isn't itself solved, to the extent that the administration reserves the right to yank him out of the criminal process again if it feels like it.
2) I think you either don't understand what the word "tantamount" means or what the word "torture" means. Seriously. If conduct is equivalent to torture, that means at a minimum it's causing severe and prolonged mental or physical suffering. You could be implying that the conduct at issue wasn't done under color of law, but such claims would only be tenable in some kind of bizarre alternate universe. And as long as we're trying to nail down what "tantamount" means, the concept of "ius cogens" should probably be looked at too.
Really, I have no clue what your argument is here. Are you just looking at the ICRC Gitmo report? The ICRC doesn't go everywhere, first of all. Do you think we're not waterboarding KSM? Maybe we're not right this minute waterboarding him, but we sure as hell have done it, and the administration sure as hell reserves the right to do it again, law be damned. Second, that ICRC report actually did find that the Gitmo regime was torture, not just "tantamount" to it. Because that's what "tantamount" means in this context.
3) I agree.
4) Lots of things can be unconstitutional before the courts say they are. There are some unconstitutional things which the courts will never say are unconstitutional. As your comment seems to imply, many of these things are in the national security field, where the courts will decline to exercise jurisdiction. But this doesn't make them any less unconstitutional. Your argument is formally identical with the claim that it's not stealing if there are no cops around to catch you and put you in jail. That's kind of a bad argument.
You could argue that until the courts have ruled, reasonable people can disagree on the constitutionality of the NSA program (which is just barely posible, in my opinion, which probably doesn't count for very much, and also that of at least one person I know who was very inclined to think the program was constitutional but was dismayed to find that the law doesn't actually say what the administration says it says), and that therefore since the president thinks it's constitutional, he's not bound to listen to the contrary opinions of others. But your initial formulation is kind of ridiculous.
5) I agree.
And, for the record, I am no fan of the John Birch Society, but it is worth pointing out that the arch-conservative approach to things is often significantly more "liberal" than where the administration is at. Look at Scalia's Hamdi dissent if you want an example. Not that I'm saying Scalia's an arch-conservative John Bircher. Just that if you're an originalist or a Burkean, some of the stuff the administration's been up to should legitimately creep you out.
Well, I'm not in that habit of characterizing someone else's arguments, but since you've already taken the liberty, let me just say that the nature of your objections is sophistic. The definition of "torture" is tortured; "constitutional" is for all practical purposes whatever 5 SC votes says it is.
But we agreed on 2 out of 5, which ain't bad. Yes, I like Scalia very much. The Hamdi dissent, with which I was not familiar, is excellent. If we had 9 Scalias, I wouldn't be so flip and skeptical about the efficacy of the constitution these days.
Is waterboarding torture? I say no, and if waterboarding KSM saved one life or one limb, I'm all for it. I don't think twisting somebody's arm is torture; breaking it is. Waterboarding isn't almost drowning someone or hooking up electrodes to his balls. (Although for a cowardly mass murderer like KSM, the latter thought is tempting, and not entirely objectionable.)
I have some thoughts on polls over on my groupblog. As always, y'all are invited to bring the pain. The responses today are atypical; usually we're a hotbed of dissent. Be polite, but don't be shy.
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