Oversea Change
Photo by DJames, from East Atlanta
I grew up in Columbus Ohio and I still consider myself a Democrat. However, I believe in limited government and individual freedom, which one would traditionally identify with Republicans. However, in my adult life the Republicans have become the party of hypocrisy and the Democrats the party of competence, and I’m happy to go with the latter. Republicans still act Conservative in word, but it action they have grown the government massively, become corrupt, had numerous (homo) sexual scandals and advocated torture and warrant-less wiretapping of people, including American citizens. The Democrats, in contrast, have restrained government, reduced the deficit, are honest and accepting of the homosexuals in our midst, and defend civil liberties. That is why I’m glad that the Democrats won the House and the Senate and why I hope the Republicans learn and reform.
Conservatism
The word has become as ideologue laden and useless as terrorism, but it used to mean something. Conservatism is, to me, a bulwark against the dangerous hubris that a government can know all and solve all. In its worst form this is Communism, where the government owns everything and everyone, but even Socialism or Democratic Socialism (as here) can be dangerous. People assume that the government call pull peace and universal education and health-care out of its ass, but it can’t do it alone. I’m not looking for God in government and I’m not looking for salvation. I think that’s unreasonable. There are some direct solutions a government can do, but I think the main job of government is to build stable institutions, not to make everything peachy. The institutions can do the heavy lifting with time.
In a lot of leftist reasoning you find this anger that things aren’t perfect, and this assumption that the government can magically set them right. Some concrete examples here are electricity, transport, water and education. The left is very good at pointing out what’s wrong, but less good at fixing it. In many cases the answer to how to fix something is ‘fix it’, as if the right government would simply know what and how to do. I simply don’t think that centralized, executive form of government works because it relies too much on the fallible reason of a person or a party. Conservative, as described by Burke et al is a call for humility and patience admist the hoarse cries for revolution that build nothing stable or good.
Some men, argued Burke, have less reason than others, and thus some men will make worse governments than others if they rely upon reason. To Burke, the proper formulation of government came not from abstractions such as “Reason,” but from time-honoured development of the state and of other important societal institutions such as the family and the Church…
However, conservatives do not reject change. As Burke wrote, “A state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation.” But they insist that further change be organic, rather than revolutionary. An attempt to modify the complex web of human interactions that form human society, for the sake of some doctrine or theory, runs the risk of running afoul of the iron law of unintended consequences. Burke advocates vigilance against the possibility of moral hazards. For conservatives, human society is something rooted and organic; to try to prune and shape it according to the plans of an ideologue is to invite unforeseen disaster.
I’ve actually found this to be a programming, design and business principle as well. You don’t want to reinvent the wheel cause most of the time you’ll fuck it up. And it takes more work. That is why I abhor revolutions that call for destroying everything that came before and taking orders from a committee or leader that claims to lead by simply knowing everything. I don’t trust them and I don’t trust their government.
Cultural Conservatism
At the same time, however, I don’t consider myself a cultural or religious conservative, though I think the American Constitution is such that you can be for gay rights, family planning, or separation of church and state with some pretty sound backing. In that aspect, also, I think I identify more closely with American Conservatisms de facto founder, Barry Goldwater.
By the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater’s libertarian views on personal issues were revealed, which he believed were part of bona fide conservatism. This put him at odds with the Reagan Administration and religious conservatives who wanted stricter government control and intervention over personal affairs, particularly regarding sex. Goldwater viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice, not intended for government intervention. In fact, his own daughter, Joanne, chose to have an abortion before her first marriage at the age of 20, and he supported her decision. He was also not against gays in the military. As a passionate defender of personal liberty, he saw the religious right’s views as an encroachment on personal privacy and individual liberties.
He advocated a common-sense conservatism which railed against ‘centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility, and regimentation without recourse (1964 Speech).’ I think most people would agree that the government and politicians are slow-moving, corruptible and not generally reliable, but many people still hold out some deep belief in their omni-potent ability to fix everything. Barry Goldwater argued against this, and laid the foundation for a body of though which simply didn’t exist before. Post New Deal, American politics was all about government programs and authority, whereas now it is dominated by the words of Conservatism.
Hypocrisy
Republicans have been quick to latch on to the ideology of Conservatism, mainly because it is solid. However, like organized religion, they have taken admirable ideals and corrupted and perverted them beyond recognition. Reagan was their posterboy, but George W. Bush has taken what was left of Conservatism and sucked the soul from it. On the most obvious points, his Department on Homeland Security and convoluted expansion of Medicare have been the biggest growth in government size, cost and bureaucracy since the New Deal (discussion via Cato Institute). He has also attacked individual freedoms by demanding warrantless wiretapping, detention of people without charges, and basically suspending habeas corpus. I read Rush Limbaugh cause people listen to him and even he is fed up,
There hasn’t been any ideology in the Republican Party, any conservatism, for at least two to maybe four years. You could argue Bush was more of an ideologue in the presidential campaign of ’04, but in looking at what happened yesterday, it wasn’t conservatism that lost. Conservatism won when it ran as a Democrat. It won in a number of places. Republicanism lost.
The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I’m going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, “Well, why have you been doing it?” Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country’s than the Democrat Party and liberalism does (rushlimbaugh.com).
What is interesting here is that he (and people) still support the Republican party on principle, despite whatever contrary and destructive actions that party might take. So Rush has and will continue to carry the partisan line and ignore the party actions. However, given absolute power (and a blank check from supporters) the Republican Party has become absolutely corrupt. 15 of the 19 representatives under investigation (wtf) are Republican. In more legal corruption of pork (including a $233 million dollar bridge to nowhere in Alaska), the Republicans added 3,407 pork barrel projects to bills, compared to 47 by Democrats in 1994.
Even on the Cultural Conservatism issue, the Republicans have skeletons (literally) piling out of the closet. There are thousands of openly gay people in the Republican party (which is fine), yet the party has resorted to demonizing them and implying that gay marriage leads to sex with animals and all manner of ills. Meanwhile, the news looks like the party is collectively in the closet. You’ve got Pagefuckergate, beating up wives, prostitutes, and the fall of a prominent evangelical after paying for gay sex and crystal meth. All in all Wonkette called it the Cocktober Surprise. Makes you long for an old-fashioned heterosexual blowjob scandal.
The Republican use of gay-baiting to gain votes is repulsive, but what I was most simply perplexed by is their tolerance of hypocrisy and lies simply because people were Republican. The most audacious argument comes from David Frum, former speech writer for George W. In this is his talking about Ted Haggard, former leader of 30 million evangelicals who was recently caught paying for gay sex and crystal meth for the last 3 years. It’s terrible for his family and him and I hope he recovers, but Frum’s bizarro argument is this:
Consider the hypothetical case of two men. Both are inclined toward homosexuality. Both from time to time hire the services of male prostitutes. Both have occasionally succumbed to drug abuse. One of them marries, raises a family, preaches Christian principles, and tries generally to encourage people to lead stable lives. The other publicly reveals his homosexuality, vilifies traditional moral principles, and urges the legalization of drugs and prostitution.
Which man is leading the more moral life? It seems to me that the answer is the first one. Instead of suggesting that his bad acts overwhelm his good ones, could it not be said that the good influence of his preaching at least mitigates the bad effect of his misconduct? Instead of regarding hypocrisy as the ultimate sin, could it not be regarded as a kind of virtue – or at least as a mitigation of his offense? (National Review)
To which I say, wtf. Does hypocrisy run so deep that it’s become a Republican value?
Redemption
Now, in a turnaround almost as strange as the party of Lincoln becoming modern Republicans, the Democrats are the party of responsible Conservatism. The party that started Vietnam is now the voice of reason on Iraq and the party of the New Deal is the party that reformed welfare. The Clinton years stand out as a bastion of reduced spending, balanced budget, individual rights, international support, and general not-suckiness. The extreme leftist anti-business, anti-globalization wing is still there, but the Democrats as a whole are now dominated by moderates like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, etc. This is not to say that there isn’t a significant liberal aspect to the Democrats, but they at least reduce spending, restrain government growth and and preserve civil liberties, whatever they say. Countless Conservative commentators have supported the Dems, or turned away from Republicans, Andrew Sullivan being the most prominent (and intellectual honest IMHO). This is not to say the Democrats are the conservative party, they sound a lot of liberal talking points. When it comes to action, however, they are the party that a Conservative should support. And did, it seems.
To close, here are some words from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Speech at the Republican Convention.
Now, certainly, simple honesty is not too much to demand of men in government. We find it in most. Republicans demand it from everyone. They demand it from everyone no matter how exalted or protected his position might be…
Now, we Republicans see all this as more, much more, than the rest: of mere political differences or mere political mistakes. We see this as the result of a fundamentally and absolutely wrong view of man, his nature and his destiny. Those who seek to live your lives for you, to take your liberties in return for relieving you of yours, those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for divine will, and this Nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.
Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.
Fellow Republicans, it is the cause of Republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. It is the cause of Republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people. And, so help us God, that is exactly what a Republican president will do with the help of a Republican Congress.
They only words I would add are ‘with a Democratic Congress.’ Congrats Dems. Good luck in 2008.
I grew up in Columbus Ohio and I still consider myself a Democrat.
And do you still consider yourself an American?
I still love America. However, of all countries I guess I choose Sri Lanka. I consider myself Sri Lankan. In its own way that identity can include my mixed up nationality.
anonymous wrote to sittingnut
Why should anyone believe anything you say, since a few month back you were predicting a GOP victory?
STUPID NUT!
wonder who the anon is? :-)
why hide?
That is a false and lazy accusation. I didn’t write that comment and it would be entirely out of character. Plus I was asleep.
I don’t comment anonymously, and that doesn’t fit my commenting MO at all. If you wanted you could probably compare my IP to that commenter. If I wanted to call you stupid I’d do it to your face, and I don’t actually bear you any ill will.
If you wanted you could probably compare my IP to that commenter
i in fact did that.
I just checked my recent comment IP addresses and they are 222.165.183.222, 222.165.179.188, 222.165.173.82, 222.165.179.116, 222.165.176.253, meaning that they’re rotating within the 222.165 range, seemingly at random. Going by IP address alone is an irresponsible accusation.
If I had a comment on your article I’d make it myself. I guess you’ll just have to take my word on it. I don’t generally write comments with obvious errors or use all caps, and I never comment anonymously. I’m actually on of the few people online who uses my real name, for better or worse. Sorry about your trolls, but it’s got nothing to do with me.
the anon commenter using ip address 220.247.251.239 was still loading pages of my blog at 13:32:05 on 12th. you were identifiably using the same ip address at 13:32:28. just 23 seconds later , just before posting the 2nd comment here. (times taken from the same source)
is it possible that slt allocated connections with the same ip address to two sri lankan blog commenters commenting on blog threads about us elections within 1 minute ? yes.
there are other theoretical possibilities too. for instance, is it possible for two computers to use the same connection at the same time? yes. is it possible for two ppl to use the same computer and the connection within a minute ? yes. is it possible to two personalities to inhabit the same skin? hmmmm…. imo no. but some will believe that too. esp filmmakers and novelists. and they will find the statement “I was asleep” interesting :-)
yes coincidences happen. sl is a small place. ppl with internet connections are even smaller , sl blogosphere is tiny. (ok i know “fewer ppl, more coincidences” isn’t quite correct, bt lets assume sl is full of coincidences ). for all i know ppl may be sharing lot of things activities, connections, computers …
did i make positive accusation? no. did i make an implied accusation when i asked “wonder who the anon is?why hide?”? arguably yes.
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btw the comment itself while crude, does make a valid point . i did make what some will call a”stupid prediction” some months ago at the bottom of a comment about electability of unp, in another blog. i am intrigued that some ‘anon’ will remember my comment on such a topic for such a time.
How do you even get my IP address? I get them off the comments people leave, and I haven’t left a comment on your site for ages. My IP for the second comment above was (222.165.173.82). In fact, all my IPs are in the 222.165 range. I guess you’re watching your logs and you saw 220.247 accessing something, but I don’t get how you tie that to me. It’s a pedantic point anyways, as someone has already admitted to the comment. A gentlemen might apologize for wasting this thread.
I am the anon who made the crude comment calling SN stupid. I’m generally not crude, but I’ve had past disagreements with SN and he was as crude to me (refer the arguments between him and me in his blog), that’s what prompted my crudeness to him. He has called me stupid too, so I couldn’t resist a chance to return the favor. I tried, but I couldn’t resist it.
I remembered the comment he made at Dean’s blog because as soon as I read it, it stood out as something that was obviously wrong. There is a list of past opinion polls on the 2006 congressional election at polling report. All but 1 of those past opinion polls (from September 2005 onwards) showed a lead by the Democratic party. Most of those gave a double digit lead to the democrats. That being the case, I thought it was incredibly naive that someone like SN, who is mostly a political blogger and who ought to know better, would make a prediction that the GOP will win the US mid term congressional elections.
The links in my previous comment don’t seem to be working so here they are -
The argument between me and SN -
The opinion polls for the US mid term-
I am also the same person who made the first comment on this thread. (shane) After insulting SN, I was browsing a little and then I came to this site to check whether Indi had answered the question I asked. When I viewed this page at around half an hour past noon on Sunday, I saw that Indi had answered the question just two or three minutes ago. I thought to myself wow, Indi is online right now. All this happened around half past noon, not around 13.30 as SN says.
So SN might have seen my IP over here. I was loading this page at about the same time Indi had made comment 2. He probably overlooked Indi’s IP and didn’t realize that there were at least 2 Sri Lankan connections simultaneously accessing this site while Indi made the second comment. My guess is that on that basis he erroneously concluded that it was Indi who made the anonymous comment calling him stupid.
I’ve also made some comments about SN’s grammar at moju, and about his claim that Indi was bad with facts using the name “standingnut”. Using the same name I made a comment at Dean’s blog where SN had originally made the prediction that the Republicans will win the US mid terms. I also made another cruder comment on SN’s blog saying that only someone with one third of a normal sized brain will make such a prediction. Aside from those instances, I haven’t communicated with or about SN after the 32 comment long argument between him and me.
thank you, and that took awhile. This is a waste of a thread over paranoia, but I do generally comment under my own name, and my word is usually good on such simple things
seal/standingnut/shane … anon?
good to know you keep track of comments (and names you supposedly take) to minute words and details :-) what will be next? ‘paranoid’? unfortunately your description of your browsing on 12th does not hold, if you are the anon commenter.
and don’t get carried away about what and how i ‘concluded’. “2 Sri Lankan connections simultaneously accessing this site”?! there are probably several ppl here at any one time. that was not a factor. time was converted to same zone though from same source, i hate it when i have to explain abc .
as i said there are various theoretical ‘possibilities’, bt only that.
since i don’t want to get into 32 (thanks for counting! ) comment long thread about ‘such simple things’ i will stop now.
as i said there are various theoretical ‘possibilities’, bt only that
You did mention other theoretical possibilities. But you ridiculed those theoretical possibilities soon after having mentioned them.
And you did admit that it was an “implied allegation.†Reading your first comment here, anybody would conclude that you are alleging that Indi had made the comment that I made. Don’t make feeble attempts to deny that because it’ll just make you look foolish.
That my description of my browsing on the 12′th doesn’t hold is just an empty claim without anything back it up.
um, was that an apology? Thanks anyways
15 of the 19 representatives under investigation (wtf) are Republican. In more legal corruption of pork (including a $233 million dollar bridge to nowhere in Alaska), the Republicans added 3,407 pork barrel projects to bills, compared to 47 by Democrats in 1994.
Is that surprising? It reflects the fact that the republicans are the ones in power rather than anything else. The ruling party members are the ones who get a chance to be corrupt. It’s unlikely that this difference was caused by Democrats being honest babies. If you think that the Democrats are inherently less corrupt than the republican’s just look at what happened to their ideological cousins (the Liberals of Canada) across the border and the scandals that plagues them before being voted out. Or else just wait a few years and see what happens! (Though to really see it, the Democrats would have to be in power of both Congress and the White House for a few years, which isn’t yet the case.)
The Clinton years stand out as a bastion of reduced spending, balanced budget, individual rights, international support
President Clinton was fortunate to have been restrained by congress when he tried to expand the scope of government. He had a republican congress for most of his presidency. He increased taxes during the his first 2 years and would have done during later years too if the Republicans didn’t gain control of congress after that. His tax decreases and welfare reform were compromises that were reached with congressional Republicans. President Clinton should be given for being pragmatic enough to reach such compromises though. The Republicans that president Clinton had to deal with really were fiscal conservatives, unlike the present republican leadership. To Clinton’s credit he did consistently favor free trade. That’s something president Bush failed to do, starting with the issue of steel tariffs. Unfortunately free trade has lost support massively among Democrats since the Clinton years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/05/AR2005070501345_pf.html
that should be –
President Clinton should be given credit for being pragmatic enough to reach such compromises though.
that should be –
President Clinton should be given credit for being pragmatic enough to reach such compromises though.
It’s true that some policies of the Bush administration are reprehensible. Specially the concept of “extraordinary renditionâ€. If something is too dirty to be done by yourself, it doesn’t become okay just because it outsourced. And the fact that they are open about not doing this to American citizens but targeting citizens of other countries, even countries such as their next door neighbor Canada is just plain absurd. How would American’s like it if some other country (say Canada) just kidnaps an American citizen they suspect of being a terrorist and send him to Syria to be tortured and then justify it saying it’s okay because it wasn’t a Canadian citizen?
Bush is mistaken on how to go about fighting terror. But the democrats don’t have a policy on it either. Aside from Bush hatred. The problem of terrorism isn’t going to go away. The Democrats will have to deal with it now that they are in control of the US congress and they’ll have to deal with it even more if they capture the White House. Eventually they’ll probably use torture too. While torture is distasteful, captured terrorists who have valuable information cannot be allowed to remain silent when the lives of possibly thousands of innocent people are at stake. But there has to be some kind of judicial oversight to minimize the possibility that innocent non terrorists aren’t tortured by mistake.
In fact, there is evidence that the policy of “extrodinary rendition†began during the Clinton administration. This is what the ACLU website (anything but a right wing organization) has to say on it -
Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency, together with other U.S. government agencies, has utilized an intelligence-gathering program involving the transfer of foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism to detention and interrogation in countries where — in the CIA’s view — federal and international legal safeguards do not apply. Suspects are detained and interrogated either by U.S. personnel at U.S.-run detention facilities outside U.S. sovereign territory or, alternatively, are handed over to the custody of foreign agents for interrogation. In both instances, interrogation methods are employed that do not comport with federal and internationally recognized standards. This program is commonly known as “extraordinary rendition.”
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22203res20051206.html
Your mostly right about the fact that many Republican’s are hypocritical when it comes to Homosexuality. That is unfortunately inevitable given the rise of the religious right in America. Religious fundamentalists make up a large part of the US electorate, and the Republican’s are unfortunately, the ones cashing in on that trend.
Under President Bush, they’ve also abandoned the concept of fiscal conservatism. Tax cuts alone will not do much good if government spending increases continuously. That has happened under president Bush as fast or faster than under president Clinton.
So it’s good that the Republican’s lost. That’ll hopefully help the Republican’s do some soul searching and hopefully rediscover fiscal conservatism. Also the fact that the Dems control congress will mean that the stupid marriage amendment to their constitution will be held at bay for at least a few years.
But don’t expect the Democrats to become free traders or fiscal conservatives. Their idea of fiscal responsibility is to increase taxes to balance the budget, not to decrease government expenditure. And don’t expect that mushy liberalism will hold the answer the the problem of Al Quada type terrorism. That’ll require a radically new approach and neither the Dems nor the GOP have an answer at the moment.
it i curios how some assume things positively.
I will answer the questions:
um, was that an apology?no, not even a implied one
How do you even get my IP address?…..
is that difficult?:-) i stand by what i said.
someone has already admitted to the comment
‘someone’/anon who has a habit of lying, among other ‘interesting’ attributes, if he is the same ‘seal ‘ as the one in the link to my blog he provided, has in fact admitted to the comment. so? :-)
A gentlemen might apologize for wasting this thread.
:-) if only !
some thread!
this post was written on Friday, November 10th, 2006.(don’t tell me that is not true too !) there was 2 comments about your identity before i wrote on 12th. that is not surprising bc this post is nothing but a summary. and showing of preference after event.
your blog has some great threads but this was not one. don’t blame me for that too.
He should have apologized for having made a false allegation, not for wasting the thread.
But I doubt he has the maturity to understand that there is no shame in apologizing and that it is the honorable thing to do in this case.
When someone makes an allegation, he should provide enough evidence to sustain it. The only place Sittingnut could have looked for the IP of anybody visiting this site is the statcounter account of this site. (And anybody who is web savvy will know that.) By the mere fact that he saw my IP here at the same time that Indi was making a comment he had concluded that it was Indi that called him stupid in his blog. And he had made that allegation public. Obviously he doesn’t have the capacity to realize that coincidences can happen either, ever!
His claim that I had lied is completely bogus. It’s a conclusion that was formed by the same weakness that prompted him to publicly accuse Indi of making an anonymous comment on his blog calling him stupid. He jumps to conclusions.
I know that very few (if any!) who read this will be interested in going through that thread. So I’ll explain it in brief.
A lot of people that I come across, don’t have the maturity to admit a mistake or to apologize even when it is very clear that they’ve made an error. I am different. If I make a mistake, I promptly admit it and apologize. I am a bit proud of that trait. I am not saying I am better than others in general. (And I am absolutely not proud of wasting time taking part in a useless 32 comment argument with him.) But being prepared to apologize when a transgression is pointed out was a positive trait I think I have and I am/have been a bit “vein†about that.
While it sounds like me just praising myself, the above explanation was necessary to show that sittingnut’s claim that I lied is bogus.
I had apologized to him for having misinterpreted something he wrote in his post and having said that he had made a mistake. (And that’s much less serious than making a false allegation as he has done here and yet refuses to apologize for)
True to form, sittingnut tried to use the fact that I had admitted a mistake and apologized for it against me. (Apparently not knowing that there is no shame in apologizing for a mistake.)
When he did that, I wrote the following response -
me : And unlike many people I am not ashamed or defensive to admit mistakes when I make them.
This had to do with me being proud of my preparedness to admit a mistake, not anything else. But Sittingnut misinterpreted the above sentence as me claiming that he had made a mistake and wrote -
Sittingnut : btw you are yet to successfully point out any errors in my post. so there is no question of my admitting any mistakes.
How he made such a misinterpretation is beyond me because I had already apologized for having said that he had made an error. Why would I be saying he made a mistake just after apologizing for having said that he made a mistake? !!!
I clarified to him that I didn’t have him in mind when I said “unlike many peopleâ€. It’s a simple misinterpretation that should have ended with my clarification, but true to form, he refused to accept my clarification and claimed that I am lying. When Sittingnut jumps to a conclusion, he sticks to it no matter what and never lets go of it.
It may appear that I reviving an issue in the argument between me and Sittingnut. I have no interest on reviving anything discussed there and doing so is distasteful. But unfortunately it was necessary because Sittingnut is questioning my credibility when I say that I am the one who called him stupid. That I had lied is merely a conclusion Sittingnut made and stubbornly clings to, it’s not a fact.
“It’s true that some policies of the Bush administration are reprehensible. Specially the concept of “extraordinary renditionâ€. If something is too dirty to be done by yourself, it doesn’t become okay just because it outsourced. ”
Seal, I doubt the reason for outsourcing is because the Bush administration thinks it’s “too dirty”. It’s more a case of the administration not wanting to be found liable in the future. American citizens are quite likely to sue or bring other charges, and are far more likely to have their cases heard, than would those of foreigners.
David,
In political discourse these kinds of policies are and have been justified by conservatives on the basis that they don’t apply to citizens. I was focusing more on the public justification of the policy than on the motivation of the Bush administration.
I fail to see how a citizen terrorist is better than a non citizen terrorist. If anything a citizen terrorist is worse because he is also a traitor. And I fail to see how a non citizen who is mistakenly accused of terrorism is less innocent than a citizen who is mistakenly accused of terrorism. The issue of citizenship is not and should not be relevant in the war against terror.
“The issue of citizenship is not and should not be relevant in the war against terror”
Quite so, Seal. I’m not saying that the US policy of placing Americans in a separate category to non-US terrorists is correct, just that it’s a fact. We’ve seen this policy quite clearly in recent years. John Walker Lindh got a proper trial and was sentenced to a prison term, unlike the hundreds of Afghan and Arab Talibs who went to Guantanamo. The US is happy to see Milosovic and the Rwandan war criminals appear in the Hague, but are unwilling to recognise the court for fear that it’ll be used on US citizens. There are other examples.
“I think if the government isn’t capable of justifying torture explicitly in the name of the fight against terrorism they have no basis for justifying extraordinary rendition which is nothing but the outsourcing of torture. ”
Apples & oranges, Seal. The Bush administration probably sees no connection between a need to publicly justify what they do and the need for the act itself. Bush & co took the US into a war under false pretences, so why change that strategy now?
Bottom line — NO American administration is going to attempt to justify its human rights abuses. It cannot. The people won’t stand for it in the long run. Additionally, the US won’t run the risk of then having its citizens legitimately tortured. So what are the alternatives? We’re seeing those alternatives.
David,
That the policy of extraordinary rendition is motivated by legal concerns is probably true. But again I was thinking of the public justification of the policy.
I think if the government isn’t capable of justifying torture explicitly in the name of the fight against terrorism they have no basis for justifying extraordinary rendition which is nothing but the outsourcing of torture.
Oh dear God….