Please help save Geronimo from voting for Kerry

[Atahualpa]

Another Kerryphobia thread

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by notyoueither
but then... you think justice is a function of what exactly?

If it is unjust to do something to person x, is it not unjust to do the same to person y who is in the same circumstance, but who carries a different passport? Do we treat people well out of some calculated scheme to maximise our own advantage, or do we treat people well because it is the right thing to do?

Gitmo detainees don't count, they are not in the circumstances of having been detained as a visitor to the US. However, they should be given some process that will fulfill the obligation of the US to uphold some minimal measure of justice even for enemies. After Abu G, it is very difficult for many to accept that the people in Gitmo are just there pending figuring out what to do with them.

I don't think indefinate confinement without all the protections that our constitution would provide would necessarily be unjust, but I do think it would be dangerous in the extreme to allow this to be done to citizens because it allows for use of imprisonment to control political opponents which means there is no substantial barrier between a kind of popular sovereignty and despotism.

My thinking goes further than this however. Notice that I support the patriot act which allows our government a variety of methods of invading the privacy of our citizens in order to gather the kind of intelligence which I hope will allow the prevention of oklahoma city style domesitc terrorism such as that which Tim Mcveigh got away with. Nearly all of our allies also allow such freedom of gathering intelligence for their own governments at least and have not proven very shy about sharing such intelligence with their allies. This is my preferred method of countering terrorists. I see no reason to subject citizens of the UK or most of our other allies to legal process less stringent than we use for our own citizens not only becuase they would do the same for our citizens in their countries but also because those countries are doing their part as well to watch for criminal activity.

The real need that I see for the option for a less generous legal process is for dealing with aliens from countries in which our access to reliable intelligence is very poor and who would not offer a legal process equivalent to that guarenteed under our constitution to either their own or our citizens. In these cases it can't really be expected that we can be safe from terrorism by catching them when they enter illegally and then deporting them after a trial shows we weren't able to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that they were guilty of terrorism. That would simply guarentee that eventually the terrorists will successfully sneak back in and complete their terract undetected. Indefinate confinement with limited legal process seems like a preferable means for dealing with such individuals.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


So you repudiate the attempt by numerous democratic party operations to further restrict the already onerous restrictions to getting (Nader) on the ballot?

Read my reply to Shi.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by notyoueither
but then... you think justice is a function of what exactly?

If it is unjust to do something to person x, is it not unjust to do the same to person y who is in the same circumstance, but who carries a different passport? Do we treat people well out of some calculated scheme to maximise our own advantage, or do we treat people well because it is the right thing to do?

I guess I didn't properly address this part of your post. I believe in the general equality of value of all people regardless of where or to whom they were born. I don't propose differing standards for some aliens vs citizens because of a belief that the alien has less value but because the stakes are different between the treatment of the citizen and the alien.

The more critical point you make seems to be in asking whether we should guide our actions on respect for rights or on pragmatic concerns. I do not regard rights as absolute. They cannot be absolute simply because they conflict with each other at various times. The pragmatic approach is to seek the best compromise possible when rights conflict. For instance all recognize a right to live and all recognize a right to control our own bodies (as it is our most intimate and undeiable 'property') and when these seem to possibly conflict as in the abortion debate nobody suggests that one or the other right is invalid rather people seek compromises (trimester limits, procedure bans and the like) or seek to nulify the situation by denying the actual threat to the right in question (fetus doesn't yet posses the life of a person, mother already made a 'choice' to risk pregnancy, etc...). My point being that when pragmatism demands it we accept limits on our rights to protect the rights of others and vice versa. I believe that in policies relevant to public security the rights involved boil down to right to life (or safety of the public) vs right to not be confined (or right to freedom and personal liberty). I think in a perfect world right to life would always trump right to not be confined so long as the confinement was humane but I reject the application of such a standard by our government to its citizens because it's citizens then become incable of keeping it in line. However if people are confined in the interests of guarenteeing the safety of others then I insist that the thinner the evidence and the less recourse the individual has to challenge the confinement, then the less severe the conditions of the confinement ought to be. In other words I support better confinement conditions for aliens held because we can't be sure it would be safe to reliease them than for citizens imprisoned because a jury was convinced they were guilty. This is part of the reason why I belive that either conditions at gitmo must be drastically improved relative to the conditions of the average US prison or the prisoners should be removed from gitmo to a place where such superior living conditions can be offered.

Bleh, anyway the gist of all this is that no, I don't think aliens deserve differing treatment out of some notion that they are less deserving than citizens.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Straybow
As far as I'm concerned, the Dems pissed in the well with Borke (undoubtedly the single most capable and ethical jurist the world will ever see) and Thomas.

If they want to complain that the nomination process is tainted they can eat crow and admit they are to blame.

"If the Senate doesn't confirm Carswell, we're impeaching Douglas" - House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, 1971.

The nomination process for SCOTUS justices has been tainted since before Taney's time.

As for Bork's "ethics," I think I'd take Richardson and Ruckelshaus over Bork. Violating one's oath of office doesn't rate real high in my book, even if, or especially if, it is abetting a more senior official's violation of his oath of office.

[Jon Miller]

Ramo is an anarchist, so he doesn't talk sense in relation to states

Jon Miller

[Ben Kenobi]

The nomination process for SCOTUS justices has been tainted since before Taney's time.

Well, then I suppose you will be against the judicial activism exhibited by both sides, if you feel this to be the case.

[debeest]

Ben, how on earth does your supposition follow from MtG's statement? It's a complete non sequitur.

[Ramo]

Our legal system sets extremely high standards for conviction as well as often resulting in an excessively drawn out and expensive legal process involving disrupting the lives of many ordinary citizens

It's not excessive or expensive if freedom is to be valued the least bit. As for the "disruption of the lives of many ordinary citizens," their lives are disrupted far, far, far, far less than the lives of those incarcerated.

simply because tyranny of government cannot be prevented if citizens do not have the highest possible protection from injust disenfranchisement through imprisonment. This extreme standard is not necessary for aliens because the government could not entrench its power through disenfranchisment of aliens because aliens are already disenfranchised.

You seem to believe that due process rights should exist only to prevent an unpopular government from staying in power. As far as I'm concerned, that's a secondary concern. The real value of due process rights is to ensure that the number of innocent people in prison is kept to an absolute minimum. Prison is a absolutely horrible institution. It should only be used when we're reasonably certain of the guilt of the accused.

I think it would be insane to spend the millions of dollars that are spent on criminal trials and put out the hundred of citizens that are put out in a jury trial for each and every alien being detained in gitmo much less apply the assumption that each of them is innocent until proven beyond any shadow of doubt to be guilty.

Why is that insane? You do realize that not everyone detained in Gitmo is a terrorist, don't you?

The only purpose I've come up with is so that we can respect reciprical treatment from other governments for our own citizens.

The simple reason why, is common human decency.

Ramo is an anarchist, so he doesn't talk sense in relation to states

Yes, freedom from arbitrary incarceration is obviously too much to expect from states.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ramo
Yes, freedom from arbitrary incarceration is obviously too much to expect from states.

Unfortunately, people don't stand up against this enough. We can't lay the responsibility on the state, but we have to hold it accountable. They will alway tend to incarcerate people arbitrarily.

[Ramo]

Fair enough.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ramo
Fair enough.

I wish we could do more.

[Geronimo]

The degree to which we disagree on this issue may not be as great as you believe. I differ with just about everything you have said by degree only. The post I made immediately following the one you just responded to may make that even more clear for you.

Originally posted by Ramo

Our legal system sets extremely high standards for conviction as well as often resulting in an excessively drawn out and expensive legal process involving disrupting the lives of many ordinary citizens

It's not excessive or expensive if freedom is to be valued the least bit. As for the "disruption of the lives of many ordinary citizens," their lives are disrupted far, far, far, far less than the lives of those incarcerated.

I disagree where you state "if freedom is to be valued the least bit." This not an all or nothing situation. I value safety and personal freedom for all. However I understand that I can only strive to have either in degree because at times they will conflict. Would it be accurate for me to say that if security is to be valued the least bit we must always presume a suspect is guilty until proven innocent? Certainly not. We both value freedom and I daresay we both value security.

Originally posted by Ramo

simply because tyranny of government cannot be prevented if citizens do not have the highest possible protection from injust disenfranchisement through imprisonment. This extreme standard is not necessary for aliens because the government could not entrench its power through disenfranchisment of aliens because aliens are already disenfranchised.

You seem to believe that due process rights should exist only to prevent an unpopular government from staying in power. As far as I'm concerned, that's a secondary concern. The real value of due process rights is to ensure that the number of innocent people in prison is kept to an absolute minimum. Prison is a absolutely horrible institution. It should only be used when we're reasonably certain of the guilt of the accused.

The post I made after the one you were responding to made clear that I feel that the greater the likelihood an incarcerated person may be innocent the more painless should be the circumstances of their confinement. I think we both assume that likelihood of innocence of the confined correlates directly with the degree to which the legal process sought to prove in the most transparent and stringent manner possible the accused guilt. For suspects whose legal process is tilted towards an assumption of guilt rahter than innocence I would prefer an imprisonment whose conditions more closely resembled that of house arrest (so long as the possibility of escape remained very low).

You point out the horror of imprisonment, I will point out the horror of a released detainee commiting a terract. Both are bad things to be minimized.

Originally posted by Ramo

I think it would be insane to spend the millions of dollars that are spent on criminal trials and put out the hundred of citizens that are put out in a jury trial for each and every alien being detained in gitmo much less apply the assumption that each of them is innocent until proven beyond any shadow of doubt to be guilty.

Why is that insane? You do realize that not everyone detained in Gitmo is a terrorist, don't you?

Because then the terrorists could win a victory of sorts simply by snarling our legal system. They can enjoy the luxery of knowing that whether or not they are apprehended makes little difference because they are still costing us far more than themselves. That is the reason that civil disobedience can be so effective in a country that has a thorough due process. I don't want to offer the tool of civil disobedience to be abused by the terrorists.

Originally posted by Ramo

The only purpose I've come up with is so that we can respect reciprical treatment from other governments for our own citizens.

The simple reason why, is common human decency.

I think we both agree that looking out for the interests of the accused is an essential outcome of human decency.

I hope you will continue this discussion. You are making some interesting points.