[Richard Posner, at it again. High time to shut down the U of Chicago for retooling.]
September 19, 2006 Books of The Times
A Jurist's Argument for Bending the Constitution
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
... The Bush administration's assertion that the war on terror is a new kind of war requiring new rules and a new equation between liberty and security is vehemently echoed by Richard A. Posner's alarming new book, "Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency."
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He argues that "it would be odd if the framers of the Constitution had cared more about every provision of the Bill of Rights than about national and personal survival."
CB: I think that at the time the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written, the British posed a greater threat to national survival than "invisible enemies" or Islam pose a threat to national survival today.
Then down through U.S. history, there have been several alleged threats to national survival, as when Mexico "invaded" in the early 1800's or the alleged threat during the Cold War from "the Russians and Cubans and Chinese coming". Oh , and "Remember the Maine and Pearl Harbor". Now the Mexicans are "invading" again.
In the great "America as Victim" mythology, our history is largely "Times of National Emergency", so Posner's reported argumentation seems a basis for a permanently "bent" Constitution ?