Perhaps those on the right who talk about the Founders so much should consider this quote from the great pamphleteer for independence and liberty, Thomas Paine:
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Or, to put it more bluntly, the end does not justify the means.
H/T: Glenn Greenwald
August 25th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
1. What makes you think he was talking about torture?
2. Since no one has been tortured, it has no application to any present discussion.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Thanks for the cool quote!
Nice blog. I follow 300 people on Twitter, and your post happened to come up when I was surfing through the latest Twitter posts.
I, too, used to be a libertarian-leaning constitutionalist until I realized that if you held the Constitution and Declaration of Independence in front of you for protection, a tyrant’s bullet would zoom right through them and kill you (Mao said power comes from the barrel of a gun). With the help of such as Jesus, JRR Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, etc, I came to understand that Power Over is inherently evil and inevitably corrupting, exists only to grow itself, and is its own means and end. At that point I stopped believing and trusting in the delusional stupid-human pecking order best know by the popular euphemism “government”. At that point I started moving toward Anarcho-Christianity, which is where I seem to have settled in, along with free speech absolutism.
I’m a Drupal newbie, but give me another year, and my website will have more content.
Kudos again on your blog. I bookmarked it and will add it to my links section.
p.s. A lawyer, huh?! As a nonbar pro se, I won 634 FS 1265, the longest nonbar pro se decision of which I am aware. Have you ever read and compared the truth of Hepburn v. Griswold, 75 U.S. (8 Wallace) 606 (Feb 7, 1870)
to the revisionist-history lies of the Grant-packed majorities in Legal Tender Cases (Knox v. Lee, Parker v. Davis), 79 U.S. (12 Wallace) 457 (1870) and Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 421 (1884)? Have you ever read the 2-page flyer that poor old Charles Schenck (Schenck v. U.S. , 249 U.S. 47 (1919)) was imprisoned for? There’s a PDF file of it at Wikipedia under Schenck v. United States.
I became fascinated by the U.S. Supremes (and started studying their decisions) when I found out they are just as capable of lying through their teeth as anybody else! Being a libertarian, no doubt you must be thrilled by Kelo et al. v. City of New London et al., No. 04-108. Argued February 22, 2005–Decided June 23, 2005.
Ain’t the internet grand?! Thomas Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Sam Adams, Paine, Henry and the boys would have had an absolute blast!
This grew too long. (Sorry!)
All the best!
August 26th, 2009 at 6:11 am
James,
Since we already know that even the guidelines that the Bush Administration set down were violated, yes, it was torture, yes, it was illegal, and yes, it was wrong.
And, by the way, there’s still no evidence that any of this “enhanced interrogation” actually worked.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Not Torture? Oh, that’s right, the Republican talking heads are substituting the phrase, “enhanced interrogation” rather than to say torture. They are also saying, “Socialist” when they really want to say, “Nigger.”
Republicans never actually say what they mean anymore. It is just as well, since they clearly have nothing of merit to say, anyway.
The unfortunate truth, is that many of those who remain with the shrinking Republican Party actually condone torture, as long as it is being applied to others. Men who still treasure liberty and our Constitution should take a long hard look at those who are staying with the Republicans. Those still with the Party leadership are all too quick to see that others are imprisoned, tortured or executed; and they care little about details having to do with actual guilt or innocence.
We still have American citizens who were locked away under Bush. These are nothing more than political prisoners. Republicans love to wave the flag and talk about “limited government” but they don’t give a damn about justice, as long as it is someone else getting locked away, tortured or executed.