Rick Shenkman @ HNN turns out attention to this quote from George Washington:
| If there were good grounds to suspect that the proscribed and banished characters were engaged in a conspiracy against the Constitution of the People's choice, to seize them even in an irregular manner, might be justified upon the ground of expediency, or self preservation; but after they were secured and amenable to the Laws to condemn them without a hearing; and consign them to punishment more rigorous perhaps than death is the summit of despotism. [December 4, 1797.] |
Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan directs us to this from Churchill
| "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whther Nazi or Communist." |
And alongside the weight of history, from today, Digby:
| People like Pat Roberts make that fatuous argument all the time. They always say we only capture the "worst of the worst" whom soldiers and CIA agents KNOW beforehand have information that they stubbornly refuse to share (unless we make him sit on an exhaust pipe causing softball size blisters on their backside.) We don't need to apply any rules or laws because they deserve whatever they get. Of course, we don't torture and wouldn't dream of it and we always follow the constitution. But when we do it's only because they are the worst of the worst.
Once again I'm drawn to ponder why we have all this pesky due process here at home if it is possible to know before hand that someone is undoubtedly guilty so whatever punishment they are premptively given is only what they deserve. In the US, we have cops and prosecutors who investigate in scrupulous detail before somebody is tried. We go through a whole lot of gyrations weighing the evidence and making arguments according to laws that have been made to ensure we come as close an approximation of the truth as we can find. We do this because it turns out that sometimes all those cops and prosecutors make mistakes or are corrupt or are anxious to catch a fearsome killer so they get the wrong man. It's quite cumbersome, but civilization determined some time ago that not only are torture and cruel and unusual punishment wrong --- and it has been millenia since anyone has argued that condoning the torture, punishment or imprisonment of an innocent man is anything but immoral. Yet, that is essentially what this argument does. It must condone the imprisonment and torture of innocent people. It is impossible that we are always capturing only the worst of the worst. In fact, we know that we aren't. Unless Senator Roberts is even dumber than he sounds, he has decided that torturing the occasional innocent person is just collateral damage. The military code of justice, the Geneva conventions and the army code of conduct have all been designed to keep some sort of due process alive even in wartime so that we don't descend into depravity and chaos. They are designed to keep us moored to the idea of justice and morality in the midst of violence. It makes it possible for us to explain what we are doing -- to ourselves and others. |
Our nation was founded on the principle of limited executive power and on limited federal power. Those ideas were quite literally the bedrock upon which this republic was built. The Bill of Rights? Guarantees against encroachment by the federal authority. Separation of powers? Guarantees against encroachment by the executive. What part of that history do these so called "conservatives" not understand? Why is this so hard for them to see?
The right to due process, to a fair trial, against self-incrimination, and every other one of our judicial rights and institutions exist in no small part as a check against the government. In the land our founding fathers left behind the rule of the monarch was absolute. Should the crown decide you were a threat to the land, his rule, or his subjects, should he decide you were among the "worst of the worst," there was no recourse. There was nowhere to turn. Detention or perhpas even death were your fate. So let it be written, so let it be done.
Unreasonable search and seizure? Cruel and unusual punishment? Where do today's conservatives think these ideas came from? And why do they think they were first so necessary?
Our revolution stood in direct opposition to these practices. In DIRECT opposition. We are walking away from that history, from that heritage. To defend our republic they are surrendering its most cherished ideals.
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