>From: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Padilla
>Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 21:13:46 -0400
>
>At 09:23 PM 6/12/2002 +0000, Justin wrote:
>
>
>>> Just becuase he was affiliated with "the enemy," how does that equal
>>>combatant? This seems like exaggerated internment, as it were.
>>
>>You want reasonble, lawful, fair? You must be a terrorist. He's a PR
>>lowlife that nobody cares about. and he's a trial balloon for doing this
>>to US citizens. Welcome to the Brave New World. You ever see Brazil by
>>Terry Guilla,?
>
>
>Justin - then how would you prevent another 9/11?
What makes you think that holding US citizens as "enemy combatants" without any evidence--because of they had any evidence they sure as hell would be happy to tell us!--will do a goddamn thing to prevent it? What makes you think that turning over our hard won liberties to Ashcroft's would-be Stasi will make us safer? It's a direct threat to you and me, as leftists, a far more direct threat than al-Qaida?
So, instead of abolishing what freedom we have, which won't help, he's what I'd do if I were President. I'd suggest an international police effort, run by the UN, to locate and prosecute individuals known to have committed terrorist crimes. I'd tell Israel to get the hell out of the West Bank and Gaza, settlements and all, or no more money. I'd come down real hard on the Saudis and the Apkistantis for supporting terrorism. I'd stop the US from committing terrorist acts itself that make us hated.
Seriously. I
>hear a lot
>of people saying that they do not mind curtailing some civil liberties to
>"fight terrorism" - and I am not quite sure how to react. For one thing, I
>do not buy the argument that courts and the legal system somehow protect us
>from the "excesses of the government." Courts are a part of the government,
>so expecting one branch of government to protect us from another branch
>does not make much sense.
Well, that's the beauty of the seperation of powers and the rule of law. The courts are part of the govt, but they don't tap your phone, arrest you and hold you incommunicado, strip you and torture you till you confess. That's the executive that does that. And, as a matter of fact, in a society where many judges and many people hold some respect for the rule of law, the courts do provide a bulwark against that sort of abuse. We have rights, won with pain and bloodshed, that we can enforce in court--the pricess is fair from perfect, blah blah. But hell, you come from Poland, you should know better than I what it's like to have none of that. So I think it makes a lot of sense.
>
>For one thing, I am not a fundamentalist, I do belive that _any_ principle
>(legal, moral, or religious) is written in stone - it is conditioned on the
>circumstances (which does not mean it can be discarded lightly).
Yah, true, though I'm pretty damn near a fundamentalist about due process, free speech, equal protection, and other fundamental rights enshired in the Bill of Rights.
If
>memory
>serves, such is the argument against gun-nuts who belive that the 2nd
>amendment gives them absolute right to own any weapon they want.
No. At least at present, the 2A just grants a collective right, not an individual right--basically a right to have a National Guard. And the rumblings to the contrary on the Court have been accompanied with clear statements that any individual right to bear arms that may be accorded--and I am not sure that it will--will be compatible with gun control, just as free speech is limited by all sorts of resaonable restrictions.
>Why is
>the 4th amendment any different?
>
Well, there's not a hell of a lot left of the 4A anyway, but what there is I wouldn't hand over to Ashcrofta nd his minions. What's wrong with insisting that people cannot be seized and places searched without probable cause? You think that you will be safer if the cops can grab dark-skinned people for no other reason than the fact that they look Arab?
>If you face an enemy who is determined to break any law or ethical
>principle to kill as many civilians as possible, what do you do to stop it?
Not the same thing. You do not throw away rights we have struggled for 800 years to win and maintain.
>
>This is a question, not sarcasm.
>
That's an answer. jks
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