Marable weighs in

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Sat Nov 10 22:08:48 PST 2001



>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
> >
> > As the house liberal, I take exception to this snipe against
>liberalism.
> > Liberalism brought us the Rights of Man, the Bill of Rights and the
> > Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendents, due process, civil rights, and
>equal
> > protection. It opposes arbitrary killings or arbitarry deprivations
>of any
> > sort.
>=========
>Ok so did 9-11 and the current legislative agenda build liberalism's
>coffin? Or are they just shooting legal buckshot into the body politic
>to see how much of it will stick after it winds it's way through the
>jurisprudential factory? I know lot's of people in Seattle who have no
>due process right now.
>
>

Your point? The USA Patriot Act is an insult and an attack on liberalism. And if you reject the liberal commitment to due process, what will you oppose arbitrary detention with? We liberals oppose USAPA in the name of liberal values. You opposeit in the name of what?

As for your puerile idea that lawe is just a bunch of philosophical abstractions backed up with guns, what are you trying to say? Austin and Hobbes articulated a sophisticated defense of law as enforceable commands, which, however, is untenable--see Hart's devasting attack in The Concept of Law. But I think your reductionsim is supposedto be dismissive of law. That's foolish. We need enforceable rules for social conduct, or are you suggesting that society should not require those who make promises of a certain sort, e,g., to pay when you do something for them, to keep those promises? Should we just cluck disapprovingly when the authorities kill and steal, or should we be able to call on--ultimately--guns to stop stop them?

jks

_________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list