So TorgoX quotes someone saying, "No [US] conservative has questioned whether the Executive Branch has the power to make an enemies list of suspects, without warrants, charges, proof, judges, juries, or convictions, and deny fundamental constitutional rights to the people on that list."
That's simply a lie. If nothing else, I am a U.S. conservative, and I question it, and many of my conservative friends and colleagues do, as well. Methinks someone doesn't really know what someone is talking about.
Now, no reasonably intelligent person questions the right of the executive to make lists, even of enemies. Anyone can make a list. What you do with that list is something else, and I don't know any U.S. conservative who does believe that it is acceptable to deny any Constitutional rights to anyone without due process. And even if you can find some, fine, but those are the exceptions, not the rules.
Of course, the person who said that also said that being restricted from travelling is a violation of his First Amendment right to speak, so we're not dealing with a legal scholar here. I have a lot of sympathy for people who don't want IDs, and also for the idea that we should have photo IDs required for certain things like voting. I like to think we can maybe come up with a compromise. Maybe make people who don't want a photo ID jump through extra hoops to validate their identity. I dunno.
On a different note, as to what TorgoX said about the 11th Commandment: he, too, has no idea what he is talking about when he speaks of it as the "highest belief" of U.S. conservatives.
In Washington, you cannot get help from the state Republican party unless you agree to the 11th Commandment. It's in the bylaws. Last year, for the first time, someone refused: a challenger to the frontrunner for the nomination to the U.S. Senate. As a result, he was not even allowed to speak at the state convention. It was put to a floor vote at convention, because we can overturn the rulings of the party at convention, by a rules change. The vote failed, but -- if memory serves -- 30-40 percent voted in favor of modifying the rules.
He, a political science professor -- and, FWIW, the far more conservative of the two candidates -- had a simple argument: he could not highlight the differences between he and the frontrunner without being critical. Duh. And while no one has ever been fined for violating the 11th Commandment by the state party, he could not in good conscience agree to it and then violate it, especially knowing he would violate it at the time of signing.
I agree, the 11th Commandment sucks. Last night the chairman of the state party told some people that they are looking at modifying that part of the bylaws, in some way. There's a lot of dissatisfaction in the party about it. There's something to be said for party unity, but there is surely a middle ground.
Re:The Peons
pudge on 2005-03-30T21:15:57
I believe the intent was to communicate that none of the vaunted political leaders question it
That's false too. Many Republicans have spoken out against provisions of the PATRIOT Act that they suspect might violate civil rights. Many conservative political leaders spoke out against the handling of the Padilla case, for example.
Re:The Peons
link on 2005-03-30T21:33:53
Any leaders I would have heard of?Re:The Peons
pudge on 2005-03-30T22:14:32
Sure. John McCain has been very vocal in this regard. Some say he's a moderate, but he certainly falls down on conservative sides a ton more than liberal sides of issues.
And heck, look at Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, where -- by any standard conservative -- justices Rehnquist and Scalia said the federal government could not hold a U.S. citizen indefinitely without access to the courts to challenge his status as an enemy combatant.
There are others, but those are some of the most prominent.
That said, again, I don't think he was talking about conservative political leaders. The context was a letter someone wrote to someone who is not a political leader, saying "conservatives won't question it, will you?" But either way is fine; there's plenty of people who are leaders.
The context was ID cards, and here it is a bit problematic, because the author, John Gilmore, was begging the question: there is nothing in the legislation for national ID cards, or for the practice of use of IDs or lists of them, that constitutes a de facto violation of Constitutional rights. He claims that his First Amendment right to free speech was violated, but that is specious: it can only be true if the *purpose* of the travel restriction were to restrict his right to speak.
That's why I went to the Hamdi and Padilla cases, because those are obvious violations of Constitutional rights we can point to as the direct result of official policy, unlike ID cards.
Re:the 11'th commandment
pudge on 2005-03-30T21:54:51
No... it is "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican."
