October 9, 2006
From the desk of Jane Galt:Radley Balko takes me to task . . .
. . . for saying economic freedoms matter more than civil liberties.
I think I've been misunderstood. I wasn't saying that they don't matter, or even that they don't matter more than economic liberty. I was responding to Democrats who say that we shouldn't care about economic freedoms at all because of what Bush is doing or that we should somehow align ourselves over the long term with the Democrats because the Democrats care about the only liberties that really matter.
Obviously, I am disgusted enough by what Bush is doing, on both economic and non-economic fronts, that I am raring to vote out his enablers in Congress. But I still care about economic freedoms. I care about Kelo, and IRS abuses, and arresting Rush Limbaugh for taking big wads of cash out of his bank account. Forgive me while I maunder a little about how I care about these things.
Much of the horror of what the Bush administration is that you can lock up someone with a half-assed terror plot against the US government, deprive him of his liberty, and refuse to try him. But in some ways, that is the same horror of tax laws, cash laws, eminent domain: if you don't obey, the government will send men with guns to seize your person and lock you in the pokey. In many ways, detaining suspected terrorists without trial is more horrifying because the sacred thing about the American system is the process . . . the government can't just lock you up because it feels like it. That protects us from stupid, malicious, or merely mistaken prosecutors.
But on the other hand, the economic stuff is more horrifying, because at least I agree that terrorism is a crime. Taking cash out of your bank account is not in any moral sense a crime. Nor is having a house where some developer would like to build a shopping mall. Or owning a tree where a woodpecker likes to nest. The fact that people can be put in jail for these non-crimes horrifies me to the depth of my soul.
(I am in favour of protecting endangered species . . . but if we want the collective benefit of having 'em, then we should man up and pay the cost collectively, too.)
I don't think the government should be able to do many of the things the Bush administration wants it to be able to do. That too, horrifies me to the depths of my soul.
I'm not sure I'm making much sense here. But I'll plow on anyway.
I think that a lot of libertarians think that the next step is a police state. And that's not necessarily, or even probably, true. Governments in Europe have quite a lot more freedom to spy on and detain their citizens, and they manage not to have police states. Democratic traditions and social constraints . . . especially ones as longstanding as ours . . . do matter a lot, even where the legal traditions do not provide as firm a check as we would like on state power. Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about these things. We should, because they're wrong. But the arguments against them have to stand on their own, not on the premise that if we permit the Bush administration to waterboard suspected terrorists, in a few short years the Thought Police will be knocking at our doors in the middle of the night. We could do these things, and they could be used against a tiny fraction of the population, most of whom are not citizens, and it could go no further. Britain pulled all sorts of unsavoury legal manoeuvres against the IRA, and it didn't spread to terrorising journalists.
I'm having trouble writing this because it sounds like I'm saying that warrantless wiretaps don't matter. They do matter, a lot. But they matter because they are bad in principle, not because it is at all likely that if we allow them, the Bush administration, or any successive administration, will shortly start making inconvenient persons "disappear".
To take an example I've been harping on recently, there are all sorts of appalling violations of power by local police and prosecutors, as Radley Balko has recently exposed with his superb work on the Cory Maye case. Many prisoners endure such brutalization that if I had to choose between going to a high-security prison and being interrogated by the Bush administration's favoured methods, I'd pick the waterboarding. This is a stain on our national honour, an outrage, an abomination. But does it mean that our society is not worth living in? Are we not free? Have we no liberty? Do we live in a police state because some peoples' liberties are thusly threatened? Are we close to a police state? Were we under the Democrats, when such abuses were equally likely to occur?
The other problem with the Democrats is that not all of their liberties abuses are economic. My understanding is that many of the abuses of the WOT result from expanding the Clinton's innovations in the execrable War on Drugs to terror suspects. It was, after all, the Clinton administration that sent tanks and SWAT teams in to deal with what were, at least allegedly, child custody disputes. Likewise, the innovations pushed by Democrats to shake more tax revenue out of the rich . . . like retroactive prosecution, special opaque courts for tax cases, spying on people's cash flows, asset seizure laws, and so forth . . . strike me as major civil liberties violations by any standard, which have trickled down the food chain quite rapidly. Democrats are pushing card check, which strikes me as a license for union organisers to terrorise uncooperative workers. They favour "hate crimes" legislation, which is the closest thing to a thought crime our society has. I could go on, but you're already asleep, aren't you?
My biggest worry is that the Bush administration is basically responding to two things:
1) The incentives of the office There are huge penalties for failure. People who spend all their time thinking about a problem (whether it be economics professors on demographics, or CIA analysts on terror groups) tend to lose a sense of proportion about the importance of the problem. And knowing that there are bad people doing bad things, that you can't legally catch, is unbelievably frustrating. Plus, you're trying to get power for you, and you know you won't abuse it . . .
2) The political will of the American people. They want progress on terrorism. They aren't particularly worried about civil liberties, because most people don't care if the NSA listens to them complaining about their mother-in-law. They are prepared to slaughter any politician at the polls who happens to be in charge when a terrorist attack happens.
If these things, rather than ideology, dominate the Republican response, then the Democrats won't be any better in power. Hell, they won't even give us a carbon tax, which they totally could if they actually cared about the environment, and also if they didn't care about getting re-elected, the bastards.
I'm still voting Democrat, because hey, they couldn't be worse. But that doesn't mean I think they'd be better. The only reason I'm voting at all, really, is that one has to do something.
Posted by Jane Galt at October 9, 2006 12:14 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>The Democrats couldn't be worse? The Democrats couldn't be worse?
*Shakes head*
Posted by: Mark on October 9, 2006 1:38 PMI think it would be more accurate to say that divided government couldn't be worse.
Posted by: asg on October 9, 2006 1:53 PMI recall reading somewhere the interesting chain of logic:
I must do something.
This is something.
Therefore, I must do it.
Jane,
From my perspective Jane, what you seem to be insufficiently concerned about (and this shown through in some of your posts on the torture bill), is the extent to which some of this stuff threatens the whole ball of wax - i.e., a representative democracy. Then all of the other stuff falls as well.
The torture bill, unless limited by the courts, really does allow (in practice, given the lack of reviewability and oversight) for the executive to not just misuse the powers that it now has, but to use them particularly against political opponents.
Now as you have made clear in this and other posts, you don't happene to belive that such possibility is particularly likely. But what hasn't been clear to me is why you are so confident. Set aside for a moment the question of whether Bush and his administration are capable of such misuse; I think they are, but I know you don't. Why isn't it concievable to you that some future administration won't do so?
If you have stated your reasons for being so sure that the act won't be misused in this particular way, I've missed it. I'd be happy to hear it. I wish I could be as optimistic.
Posted by: Larry M on October 9, 2006 2:41 PMI find myself (unsurprisingly) agreeing with you both. Which only leads me to the conclusion that no matter who wins in November (or 2008), it won't be very good for the rest of us.
Posted by: Brian Moore on October 9, 2006 3:12 PMI am horrrified by the examples you give in your post. I believe they all stem from a common world view that the government at whatever level is the solution to every problem.
The result is that instead of our every thought and deed being judged and governed by God and his Angels, we are judged and governed by the President and his Congress. The difference being that unlike God and his Angel many of our Presidents and Congressmen have been dishonest, deceitful, unethical, cheating, self-serving, greedy, lazy, murderous perverts - i.e. politicians.
Is there a quick fix? Yes! Make the federal government real, real small. This can be done by cutting off its revenues. Revenues can be cut off by either raising taxes very, very high (as in North Korea) or by eliminating them altogether.
Second, because we already have all the laws we are ever going to need, we don't need experienced lawmakers; so we can set term limits to one term. (lots of luck on this one).
Third, bring back state's rights and divide up the big states so that no state has a population greater than 5 million. This step will make it possible for ordinary citizens to control their state government. And it will transfer most of the federal powers back to the states. Then, if you don't like the way a state is governed, you can vote with your feet.
If a state violates its citizen's rights, there is still a federal government which can set things right. But if the federal government is the evil doer, there is no higher power to which one may appeal.
In every country where there are no property rights for ordinary people, there are no civil rights for ordinary people. Whereever ordinary people have property rights they also have civil rights. This observations suggest the two types of rights are linked and that only property rights can give birth to civil rights. Just as it is possible to have children without mothers to give them birth, so is it possible to have civil rights without property rights.
The frustration that comes from having to choose between repulicans and democrats comes from having to choose between two diliberately vague and misleading messages which contain buzz words but no meaning. What we have is no democracy - it is a form of oligarchy with a nonviolent ritual for removing oligarchs.
Posted by: sol vason on October 9, 2006 3:29 PMHello Jane. I have been invoked by both Radley Balko and McQ in the discussion of your position, and I wish to make clear what I do and do not believe. You write this:
I'm having trouble writing this because it sounds like I'm saying that warrantless wiretaps don't matter. They do matter, a lot. But they matter because they are bad in principle, not because it is at all likely that if we allow them, the Bush administration, or any successive administration, will shortly start making inconvenient persons "disappear".
As I document here, it is not the warrantless surveillance that is the greatest threat there -- tho it is a threat. If you parse The Military Commission Act (TMCA), just recently passed, there is every reason to believe that citizens can, in fact, now be "disappeared."
I loathed the Clinton Administration's DoJ and Janet Reno. But there is no getting around the fact that it is mostly *Democrats* who *now* have been willing to speak out against warrantless surveillance and who vote against TMCA (except for a handful of Republicans, including a *real* libertarian, Ron Paul).
As you say, one must do something. Putting the Dems in control of at least the House, and speaking out loudly against Republican attempts to depict them as "soft on terror" when they advocate for not abandoning our Constitution, is the only thing one can do.
You mention Kelo. All over the 'net, I saw lefties denouncing that decsion when it was handed down. Including at Daily Kos. And some of my Republican friends defended that monstrosity (I blieve Ann Althouse thought it not so bad or wrong). These divisions are not as neat or simple, ideologically, as they used to be. When I took Property class in law school some 15 years ago, the lefties were all on my side in finding the infamous Poletown case outrageous. (I argued against the Michigan court's decision in a moot court replay.)
All I know is Bush has been a disaster, and I, who once, if I voted, overwhelmingly voted GOP, plan on going for a straight Dem ticket in a month. Not because I love Democrats, but because I love my country and they are the only hope against a GOP Gone Wild.
Posted by: Mona on October 9, 2006 3:40 PM
The torture bill, unless limited by the courts, really does allow (in practice, given the lack of reviewability and oversight) for the executive to not just misuse the powers that it now has, but to use them particularly against political opponents.
It would be awfully difficult for them to do considering that there is no “torture bill.”
Jane,
I'm a Republican (although I have voted for Democrats in some capacity in the past) and I'm telling you to vote for whomever you want. You don't need to justify your vote to anyone. You are smart enough to know what is right and what is wrong.
Posted by: Paul on October 9, 2006 4:59 PMThe MSM has called Bush a disaster, but anybody who believes it is pretty myopic.
Including our usually wonderful hostess here.
On the economy, the New Jobs figure was just revised upward; unemployment very low, wages going up, inflation (excluding housing and energy) quite low.
When inflation includes housing, it means the 68% (record high) of US homeowners all became wealthier.
Tax cuts are hugely important to a free and prosperous America -- but Dems want to increase taxes (though not courageous enough to favor carbon or gas taxes).
On foreign policy: 600 000 murdered S. Vietnames allies says Dems could be worse. A LOT worse.
Dems really do hate Bush so much they would be willing to cut and run in Iraq so as to show an Iraq failure, and prove correct those who "always said" it would be a failure.
All America has to do is WAIT; stay and wait in Iraq, for the young Iraqi democracy to decide it's worth fighting against the terrorists. The tribes in Al-Anbar (?) fighting Al Qaeda mean a slow, or perhaps medium fast, end to the big AQ threat.
Yeah, Bush is for civil unions, not gay marriage. He's also against late term abortions; you know, where they suck out the brains of the unwanted human "fetus". But such disgusting pro-choice operations still occur. Real big police state Bush has going here...
In fact, the Reps could be a LOT worse, and still be much better than the terrible Dems.
Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad on October 9, 2006 5:01 PMA nice, thought-provoking post, but I'm having difficulty being as easily 'horrified' as you are. Most of things strike me as 'bothersome', only a few (prolonged detetion without due process, for example) go beyond into Haunted Mansion territory. At least for me.
Posted by: anony-mouse on October 9, 2006 6:08 PMYou guys, including Jane, are thinking wrong. A vote for the Democrats, no matter whether a "protest vote" or not, is a public statement that you think their policies are better. Period. Drop the pretentious excuses.
Vote for something you favor, or don't vote at all.
Posted by: anonymous on October 9, 2006 6:12 PMNote: I have a terrible case of Clinton fatigue, however if your going to talk about democrats and civil liberties you have to talk about clinton's record since that was the last time the democrats controlled any branch of government.
Radley Balko apparently missed out on the "stroke of the pen law of the land, pretty cool" comment that came out of the Clinton whitehouse. He also missed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that clinton signed into law. Many people complain about the banking portions of the patriot act but don't realize it is just a re-tread of the know your customer regulations proposed by the FDIC when democrats last controlled the white house. Solveig Singleton of Cato testified on the act here
The bigger government is the more it is going to step on civil liberties period end of story. Republicans have been a disaster at restraining government. During this disaster of increasing government size the chief complaints of the democrats has been that the republicans have not been making government big enough or tax rates high enough.
Expecting the democrats to be better overall on civil liberties is nothing less then wishful thinking and the patriot act provides a great example of this. With the exception of one democrat they all voted for the patriot act when they thought it was in their political interest to do so.
Posted by: TJIT on October 9, 2006 7:38 PM
OK kids, let's read the 'torture' bill carefully. Go look up S.3930 and look at the version that passed the Senate and wen to the president.
Now look at Chapter 47A, Section 948c 'Person's subject to military commissions'. There you will find:
'Any alien unlawful enemy combatant is subject to trial by military commission under this chapter'
What, you migh ask, makes one an 'alien unlawful enemy combatant' and thus subject to military commisions? Well, you can go look at Chapter47A, Section 948a 'Definitions' and find that:
'(3) ALIEN- The term `alien' means a person who is not a citizen of the United States.'
which means that definitionally an 'alien unlawful combatant' is not a US Citizen.
There may be a lot of things wrong with the Military Commision Act of 2006, but it does not make it at all possible to 'disappear' US Citizens.
Posted by: quadrupole on October 9, 2006 7:39 PMRadley does a great job with his writing on civil liberties and it is much appreciated.
I am just getting fatigued at this reflex many people have that the democrats have got to be better on civil liberties.
David Boaz of Cato has some more commentary on civil liberties during the clinton adminstration here.
Some choice comments from Boaz column
-----------------------------------------------
"Clinton has spent eight years in the White House, giving us "don't ask, don't tell," the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, and a doubling of marijuana arrests."
"American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen wrote recently in the book The Rule of Law in the Wake of Clinton that "a single essay cannot do justice to the injustices that the Clinton administration has perpetrated through its far-ranging assaults on free speech and privacy.""
"Anthony Lewis of the New York Times said, "Bill Clinton has the worst civil liberties record of any president in at least 60 years" -- that is, worse than Lewis's old enemy Richard Nixon. Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice went further, saying that no other American president "has done so much damage to constitutional liberties as Bill Clinton.""
"It should be noted that the president has reversed none of the policies that exercise his critics. Gays are still being discharged from the armed services at a record rate. Marijuana users are still being arrested at a record rate. The administration has not stopped trying to censor the Internet and wiretap our e-mail. Federal databases contain and exchange more information about us every year. So his recent civil liberties rhetoric is just that -- rhetoric."
----------------------------------------------
All of this was going on before there were any major terror attacks within the US. If that was what we had in that environment I shudder to think how much of an assault on civil liberties we would have seen from the if they had been in power after September 11 scale attack.
Posted by: TJIT on October 9, 2006 7:55 PMI'm still voting Democrat, because hey, they couldn't be worse.
[insert "loser music" from The Price Is Right here: wuh-WAH-wuh-WUH...WAAAAAAAH!]
Posted by: RMc on October 9, 2006 8:00 PMThere is no doubt the US political system is pretty broken. The lack of competetive congressional races is a symptom of this. The root cause is gerrymandering and incumbent protection regulation and free speech suppression (also known as campaign finance reform).
Fixing the problem requires action at the party primary level and I think the Club for Growth provides a good model for this. They channel funding to financially conservative candidates in primary races and they have had some good success doing this. Tom Cogburn who has been a stalwart on fiscal responsibility was one of the candidates supported by them when they first started.
If we want good government lifetime incumbency has to end.
Government eventually winds up torturing and killing its citizens because government is totalitarian in nature. But the government today in the US is not that bad when compared to many other governments worldwide, or even previous governments in the US. The Alien and Sedition acts, Lincoln's suspension of habeaus corpus, the Palmer raids, and the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII all serve to demonstrate the totalitarian bent of the US government.
Posted by: shamus on October 9, 2006 8:35 PMQuestion for Jane:
I understand the argument that “divided government” might lead to a reduction or a reduction in the rate of growth of discretionary spending*, however as you and others have pointed out the real problem with federal spending is in entitlement programs – particularly Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. I see at least three problems with your argument for divided government as it applies to the issue of entitlement reform
First, as I see it we are under a time crunch to get some reforms in these programs before the baby boom generation starts to retire. Once we have some 70 million people on these programs, it’s going to be darn near impossible to enact any sort of meaningful reform and the longer we wait, the more expensive it will be to fix. In which case “gridlock” is only going to make the problem that much more expensive to fix.
Second, we have had prior experiences with divided government and entitlement reforms. The first was in the 1980’s with Social Security when we had a GOP President and Senate and a Democrat House. The result was that we got no personal retirement accounts (although granted the idea was fairly new at the time) and we got a huge increase in FICA with a slight increase in the retirement age. The other was with Medicare Part D when the Democrats – while no longer having control of the Senate but having enough votes to threaten a filibuster – fought against attempts to introduce means-testing to the program and attempts to target the drug benefit to only the neediest of seniors. The rest was that Medicare Part D went from about $300 Billion over 10 years to $749 Billion and even then Democrats wanted a $900 Billion alternative. I think that the lessons from that is that any entitlement reform in which Democrats are able to exert influence (either by controlling one House or having enough votes to derail it in the Senate) is going to include higher taxes and no means-testing or market-based reforms (although there is some competition in Medicare Part D and attempts to oppose de facto price controls were stopped).
Finally as I and several other posters have repeatedly pointed out (and I have yet to see a proponent of “divided government” address rather than avoid or evade this issue and I hope you’re the exception) that a defeat for Republicans is unlikely to be seen by them that they aren’t “conservative enough” (on spending, entitlements, etc.) but rather will be seen as “evidence” that the public wants whatever it is that Democrats want. We saw it in 2000 when Republicans saw their electoral losses as proof that the public didn’t want “Gingrich Republicans” who “shut down the federal government” and responded with a presidential candidate who wanted to expand the role of the federal government in education and supported a Medicare drug benefit in the name of “compassionate conservatism.” IMO given the way that Democrats have demonized any attempt at Social Security reform (to the extent to trying to throw out Senator Lieberman for merely having the temerity to actually talk to Republicans about finding a solution much less endorsing one) and that the House of Representatives (which has been far better on this issue than the Senate) is seen as the more vulnerable House, an electoral victory for them will be more likely than not be seen as proof that entitlements are a problem that is too politically viable to touch and put it off (again) until the problem is right on our doorstep.
Given the importance of the issue of entitlement reform and that Republicans have been at least working on this issue and that neither gridlock, nor divided government, nor the election of a party that is decidedly anti-reform will be conducive to a solution, I find it baffling that any serious libertarian/conservative would continue endorsing this idea.
* I do not agree with this argument because the explosion in non-defense/non-homeland security spending actually occurred when we had “divided government” during Bush 43’s first term (Tom Harkin’s Farm Bill, Ted Kennedy’s education bill, etc.). Prior to that all discretionary spending was increasing at slightly under the rate of inflation and after the GOP regained control of the Senate, the rate of increase has slowed.
Jane Galt said:
"... They are prepared to slaughter any politician at the polls who happens to be in charge when a terrorist attack happens."
Really? Bush and Giuliani don't seem to have suffered politically.
Posted by: James B. Shearer on October 10, 2006 12:19 AM"because hey, they couldn't be worse."
Oh, yes they can, and they could be a lot worse. Waco, anyone?
Posted by: AllenS on October 10, 2006 5:24 AMFinally as I and several other posters have repeatedly pointed out (and I have yet to see a proponent of “divided government” address rather than avoid or evade this issue and I hope you’re the exception) that a defeat for Republicans is unlikely to be seen by them that they aren’t “conservative enough” (on spending, entitlements, etc.) but rather will be seen as “evidence” that the public wants whatever it is that Democrats want. We saw it in 2000 when Republicans saw their electoral losses as proof that the public didn’t want “Gingrich Republicans” who “shut down the federal government” and responded with a presidential candidate who wanted to expand the role of the federal government in education and supported a Medicare drug benefit in the name of “compassionate conservatism.”
You want it addressed? Fine. Very simple: what you ignore is that in 1998, voters DID want more government, and in 2006, they don't.
The problem here is you seem to think that politicians blindly look at a number -- the number of votes cast on election day -- to form their views and strategies. They're not smart, but they're a little more sophisticated than that. They do plenty of polling, focus groups, etc. They can tell the difference between "People voted Democratic because they were disgusted with Republican corruption and incompetence" and "People voted Democratic because they wanted Democratic policies."
Posted by: David Nieporent on October 10, 2006 6:03 AMIf you're a resident alien and if Jack Bauer or whoever thinks you're a bad guy, you can be arrested, held indefinitely without legal or consular representation, and subject to the kind of interrogation I associate with the Inquisition, the Gestapo, and the KGB. Reading Jane's posts and some of the above comments makes me realize how little some of us value our liberty. In a Pogo cartoon I read during a similar low point in American life, one of the characters says "We have met the enemy and he is us." How true this is, and how sad.
Posted by: stanleyj on October 10, 2006 6:19 AMI am sorry, Jane, but you are wrong. At least in Germany, we already have a thought police! You might see at no major thing, that everything remotely resembling a NAZI symbol, outfit or ideology is forbidden BY LAW.
Let me just recount a small event that didn't get mentioned in mainstream media (as so often):
A group of Anarchists (nothing what you'd call Nazi-sympathizers, more libertarian) of the APPD (Anarchistic-Pogo Party of Deutschland) had rented a barbeque ground to make a party. While they partied, they made the mistake to cry their sarcastic party slogan: "Fick Heil" (F*ck Heil).
Of course, a "concerned" wanderer understood "Sieg Heil" and called the police. The police not only arrested ALL of them, even though they said and showed that their symbols had nothing to do with the Neo-Nazis. They even tried to bargain that one of the police officers guarded their equipment while they had to go to the police station.
At the police station, one of the Anarchists asked why they were arrested. They didn't get an answer, until he threatened to sue the police men. Then they answered, that threatening a police man is a crime for which one can be arrested for a long time.
They pulled no charges and had to release all of the arrested people later. Of course, they didn't hold their promise to guard the equipment.
In a statement later that day, the police justified their actions, thus:
There was a high probability for Neo-Nazi propaganda and a meeting on private grounds.
Well, now and again, you don't think that there is a police state in Germany, but you also don't live here. To be a libertarian is even highly dangerous, because the German law doesn't regard us to be any better than a common Neo-Nazi. Actually, many of our demands (more liberty) towards the state of Germany, are UNCONSTITUTIONAL. So, here we go, until non we had luck, but how long?
The example I cited, was only one of many small actions, but they are growing (as the amount of "propaganda-crimes" is growing). And then there is the BPJM (Ministry for the control of youth-endangering Media) and the GEZ (Toll Collect for National Television- and Radio-Programs), using NAZI-methods to control the people.
This part of the Nazi-regime is already there, the only thing that is missing is the Gestapo and a Führer.
Gideon: The point is that one end of the warrantless wiretap may be in the US - and that thanks to "outsourcing" this might include far more than citizens and non-citizens in the USA knowingly calling overseas and receiving overseas call. If you call for tech support on your computer, your call is almost certainly relayed to India, but it now goes far beyond that. Many other companies have moved the phone and internet part of their customer service overseas. Even your conversation with a very bad audio system in the McDonald's drive-through lane might be relayed to an order taker in India.
Are you sure that when you call your bank or credit card company, you're talking to an American? I'm not, and while I'm not doing anything criminal, those conversations are private! This bill says that the government doesn't even have to have a reason to listen in.
Posted by: markm on October 10, 2006 8:07 AMI'm a naturalized citizen and grew up in the US as a resident alien. You are seriously mistaken if you think resident aliens had the same absolute rights as citizens; never true. We used to have to fill out annual reports to the INS about our whereabouts and activities!
Perhaps it recognizes the legal position of resident aliens--we haven't foresworn our other-nation loyalties and titles of nobility until we actually become naturalized citizens. No oaths of loyalty to the USA is extracted of resident aliens. No FBI background check is done until a person applies for citizenship. Resident aliens are entirely unscreened.
Now the INS isn't even screening immigrants using the new interagency terrorist suspect database. Recently, one was awarded resident alien status and he was on the database. Apparently INS didn't even check it, when there was every reason to do so. Does this make you feel safer?
Posted by: kentuckyliz on October 10, 2006 8:14 AMThreats to economic liberties are in general a greater threat to freedom than a government power to "make you disappear". If the government can arbitrarily take your property and bar you from working at your profession, they can make you and your family starve. It's a more subtle threat than waterboarding and concentration camps, but just as effective, and it is much less likely to lead to public outcry. It's much easier to first take away economic freedoms - and then the government can intimidate most of those likely to protest when they start arresting enemies of the state.
Hence, the observation that there are countries with property rights and economic freedom but much lacking in human rights (Singapore and Hong Kong, for instance), but in countries where economic rights have been compromised, the human rights soon start to go also. E.g., Germany has never had a completely free market, nor has it ever really had free speech. In the UK socialistic infringements on economic rights were followed by the effective loss of the right to self defense (except for those who can fight off a criminal gang with their bare hands), and recently by infringements on freedom of speech. Or in the USA, first we allowed massive regulation of business, then the various rights violations of the drug war (which is mainly a war upon an unpopular business) and politically correct speech codes, and now we have the McCain-Feingold incumbent protection act, the Orwellian phrase "free speech zones", and serious discussion of allowing torture. The difference is that in the USA, there's still a chance of reversing the process - because there's still a strong belief in economic rights.
Posted by: markm on October 10, 2006 8:31 AMWhat is the alternative proposed for the so-called "warrantless wiretap"? That any enemy agent who successfully infiltrates the US is home free? That the US Govt cannot listen in on his/her overseas communications in an effort to detect and identify himn/her? People who insist on the sacredness of "private" communicatins like this simply do not believe that the US has any important enemies.
By the way, why should there be a greater expectation of privacy when you broadcast your voice over thousands of miles than there is when you shout across the street? The expectation of privacy in public communications is an artificial "right." If you want your commuhnications to be private, you may have to suffer some inconvenience.
Anyway, if the evil Republicans are as bad as you think, the "laws" you pass to restrain them won't have any effect. They CAN monitor you, therefore they WILL. Unless you really believe that they are law-abiding, of course, in which case, where is the problem?
Posted by: rafinlay on October 10, 2006 10:01 AMVote for a democrat?? Never!!
But,other then some local elcetions, I haven't voted for a Republican either. And probably never will.
It doesn't matter which of the two major parties you vote for, both march us further along the path of tyranny and absolutism.
Posted by: jeff on October 10, 2006 10:35 AMIf you're a resident alien and if Jack Bauer or whoever thinks you're a bad guy, you can be arrested, held indefinitely without legal or consular representation, and subject to the kind of interrogation I associate with the Inquisition, the Gestapo, and the KGB.
You know, frankly I don't give two toots about resident aliens' rights. I don't understand the concept anyway. I have a friend from Norway who married an American citizen and is a resident alien and has been for twenty years. They divorced 15 years ago. She has no interest in being an American citizen; her heart and loyalty lie with her homeland, Norway. She stays here because her children are here and because she can make a lot more money here than she can in Norway. I resent that. Apparently we aren't good enough for her.
I see no need for this status of "resident alien". Either you are here to become a citizen, in which case you should go through a brief period of background checks and so on, and then become a citizen - giving up your previous citizenship in the process - or you should get out. Tourist? Fine, come visit us for a few months. On a student or business exchange program? Fine, come visit us for a few months or even a year. But to settle into "resident alien" status where you enjoy all of our benefits without the responsibilities and loyalties of citizenship? B.S.! Dual citizenship and resident alien programs show that we don't expect enough of these people who come to live here. If they can't commit themselves to being citizens of the US, and ONLY citizens of the US, they can get the hell out.
Posted by: Mark on October 10, 2006 11:06 AMTo clarify another nit, "warrantless domestic spying" is a misleading phrase.
The only wiretaps without a judge's approval are on international communications such as calls coming from overseas, like from Pakistan. For these the intercept point is outside the United States, such as a cable tap in the Atlantic or a satellite tap. These taps are not domestic any more than an airline flight from New York to Baghdad is 'domestic'.
For FISA taps (in which both parties can be in the United States), a judge has to approve it and issue a court order. The judge technically does not issue a warrant since it is for national security - not for criminal prosecution - but the legal effect is the same.
"Warrantless domestic spying" is spin created by the media to mislead the public as to what is really going on.
Posted by: Gideon on October 10, 2006 2:10 PMThe torture bill, unless limited by the courts, really does allow (in practice, given the lack of reviewability and oversight) for the executive to not just misuse the powers that it now has, but to use them particularly against political opponents.
Let's grant, for the sake of argument, that the bill really does allow that.
The thing is -- if it is actually *used* for that, Bush will be impeached, removed from office, and then tried in court and convicted. Because the simple fact of the matter is that neither the American people, nor the Democratic Party, nor the Republican party would stand for anything of the kind.
So no, there isn't a risk. The violation, if there is one, is merely one of principle -- and it is a principle which has been violated many times during previous wars.
Posted by: Dan on October 10, 2006 3:24 PMWhy do I suspect that Jane's recently ex boyfriend was a staunch Republican?
And you think the Democrats are more attuned to "civil liberties"? Girl, the only choice they'll let you make is whether to kill your unborn.
Think they'll let you choose what medications you as an educated adult think wise to self-administer? Think they'll let you invest your own savings toward your eventual retirement? Think they'll understand and act against the threats posed by Islamofacists?
Think again, dear girl.
Posted by: Norman Rogers on October 10, 2006 5:41 PMIf you know your medieval history (and if you don't, shame on you!) then you would know that economic libertaries have been the drivers for civil liberties.
As creation or adoption of inventions such as the water wheel, horse collar and three field crop rotation made the medieval world more prosperous, there was an increasing demand for various craft goods. This was also true because of supply-side improvements in various activities such as fulling cloth for textiles.
Early craftsman banded into cities for common defense agains the nobility. Many medieval societies had rules that serfs who spent a year and a day in a city became free. In german: Stadt aire macht frie (sp?) - city air makes you free. The wealth of merchants and artisans was often perceived of as a threat to nobility - but it was also a potential source of wealth as towns would prefer to buy their freedom rather than fight for it. But if it came to war, cities could hold their own.
Ironically, these free medieval cities were called communes.
Eventually, tax competition set in. Nobles created towns and granted robust priveledges to artisans and merchants who settled there, for they needed the wealth that commerce and trade created. If they were really lucky, serfs from a neighboring barony would migrate to this new town, enriching them while weakening their neighbor.
Posted by: Justin on October 12, 2006 4:17 PMHi Jane,
"Warrantless wiretaps" are a bad thing. Not many who would disagree with you on that.
"Warrantless wiretaps of Americans (or, at least, people on American soil) who are talking with al Qaeda supporters overseas"?
Yawn. Wake me up with you have something I should be concerned about.
We are at war. War sucks. War leads to outrages on our civil liberties.
Therefore we need to end the war as soon as possible. Because that's the only way we can get the outrages to end.
So, do you want to surrender to the Islamists? Since you're a worthwhile and decent human being, I'm going to guess the answer is "no".
So you want to win the war, as quickly as possible. Great. So do I (at least partially because I, too, hate the civil rights costs of this war).
Now, is the national Democrat Party run by people who want to see the US win the "War on Terror" as quickly as possible?
No, it is not. It's run, and supported, by people who have been doing their best to sabotage the US in the fight.
If you care about what fighting the war is doing to civil liberties, you can not reasonably vote for Democrats.
Now, if you've got a RINO like Chaffee on the ballot, one who doesn't really care about seeing the US win, by all means, vote for the Democrat. But if you've got a Republican who wants to win, and a Democrat who, whatever his or her personal beliefs, is going to be voting for a "leadership" that doesn't want to win, the choice is easy.
If you care about civil liberties, you vote for the Republican.
Posted by: Greg D on October 13, 2006 11:41 AM