A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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June 24, 2005Comments
Senator Levin (D-MI) proposed yesterday at a Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing what I thought was an excellent compromise that would serve to allay both American and Muslim fears that we would remain in Iraq indefinitely and yet put pressure on the Iraqis that they need to step up to the plate all without giving the insurgents a timetable. Here is the link Levin: U.S. should issue ultimatum to Iraq What do you think? I thought the ideas William linked to a few days back were better formed. Biden's speech, while long, was worth reading and the idea were substantive and on the right track. I felt like they were a better and more well-thought follow up to the same impulse that informs Levins comments, the impulse to suppor Iraq and also assure them we aren't staying forever. But I don't think it makes very good sense AT ALL to add to the pressure of creating a constitution. It's far too important as an enduring foundation to encourage rushing and messy compromise. Terrorist insurgents have been working hard to prevent pragmatically-minded Sunnis from joining in the constitutional process, which is a crucial goal that the interim government and our forces are trying to foster. I think putting a deadline on it would give encouragement to those fighting against the formation of a new legitimate government based on cooperation among kurds, shi'ites, sunnis, etc. I think we should quietly help foster the drafting of the constitution, in a timely fashion, but without a deadline. And then we should lean towards strongly backing it even if it falls well short of ours. That's an important step there, to show that we rally are fostering democracy in the sense of letting the poeple reps determine what Iraq's looks like. Then we should foster the establishment of institutions and processes (elections, commisions, councils, judiciary,etc) based on the constitution. As these begin to take form, THAT will bw the time to talk about the scaling back of our involvement. I expect that to happen roundabout when SH's trial begins to be publicized. It's bound to have a galvanizing nationalistic effect on Iraqis, a great thing for a new government. I am coming to think of SH's trial as politically akin to the bringing out of your queen onto the middle of the board in chess. Timing is everything. Posted by: bk at June 24, 2005 12:06 PMI absolutely could not help myself in placing a Firesign Theatre reference directly over a Monty Python reference yesterday. Posted by: Tully at June 24, 2005 01:29 PMbk: do you have the link to Biden's speech referenced above? Sorry I misssed it. Posted by: kreiz at June 24, 2005 02:34 PMTully: In the next world, your ex-parrot is on its own. Posted by: David Fleck at June 24, 2005 02:37 PMDavid--he'll probably sit in a tree and learn to play the flute. Posted by: Tully at June 24, 2005 02:58 PMUpdated '08 odds: Clinton 49.2 Allen 19.6 Dem 51.5 Thanks, Tully. Appreciated. Posted by: kreiz at June 24, 2005 03:21 PMThursday's Non Sequitur comic on Intelligent Design gave me a good chuckle. Posted by: bk at June 24, 2005 03:22 PMSecond try... Pick me!! pick me!! Posted by: Ryan at June 24, 2005 03:40 PMRyan...I like that...lol. It's been a busy day here...finally having some time to see what's going on in the world. Can I just say how much Tom Cruise annoys me? As I stated the other day, I have no problem with celebrities giving their point of view, but this is just beyond the pale. Not only has Cruise chosen his desired faith, but he wants to force it on the rest of us. Here's a freak without any medical training who has somehow deemed himself important enough to dismiss an entire medical specialty. If only we could just see the world through Tom's eyes... IMHO, he's no different than Falwell or Robertson...he actually may be a little scarier. He actually wants to take away prescriptions...lol. What a freak. Posted by: AR at June 24, 2005 03:56 PMThat's what happens to someone who is constantly surrounded by people who kiss his ass and give him some form of artistic license to act in a way that would be considerd inappropriate for the rest of us regular folks. It's a random walk that takes him futher and further out of bounds. Posted by: WHQ at June 24, 2005 04:01 PMI'm tempted to add my own Monty Python reference: "Well, it's not supposed to make sense, it's RELIGION!" But I can't...because that line comes from "Nuns On The Run". But look on the bright side: at least Cruise didn't inflict "Battlefield Earth" on the unsuspecting public. Posted by: Blue Jean at June 24, 2005 04:24 PMI just picked a fight with Prof. Lawrence Tribe over substantive due process, and the ludicrous thus-mandated antonym, "procedural due process", which immediately reminds me of one of those Starbucks bottled coffee drinks which is now available - displaying the full scope of absurdity - in "coffee" flavor. That's right, you can now purchase "coffee flavored coffee", while enjoying your rights to "procedural due process". Reality simply isn't as difficult to deal with as the merchants of such mind-bogglingly surreal terminology would have us believe. However, having said this, Larry Tribe is one of the smartest and most eloquent Constitutional Theorists alive today, and his book American Constitutional Law is so deeply-enshrined in American law school culture - so I may live to regret this. ;) Posted by: Simon at June 24, 2005 05:33 PMSimon, You must be a 1L. They always try to argue with the dictionary. And the dictionary always wins. If you’re lucky Tribe will ignore you. Actually, the point was to underline how ridiculous substantive due process is as a doctrine, not as a part of the lexicon. Posted by: Simon at June 24, 2005 10:28 PMHow so? Posted by: Alf at June 24, 2005 10:38 PMI just found a new poll about Gitmo. Only 20% of Americans (and 30% of Democrats) believe that the prisoners there are being mistreated vs. 36% who think they get better than they deserve and 34% who find the treatment about right. Link http://rasmussenreports.com/2005/Gitmo.htm Yet there are still people in the Democratic Party (and on this blog) who think Gitmo is going to be the killer ap for 2006/2008. This is why it is tough for me to stay with the Democratic Party. You try to map out a reasonable, centrist strategy and the ‘activists’ just want to rant about bullshit like this. I think you doth protest too much if you claim to be unfamiliar with the arguments against substantive due process. That it is utterly irreconcilable with the existence of a written constitution, that it is a fundamental contraduction in terms, and - much like the "living constitution" theory in service of which its utility is invariably employed - that it is ultimately standardless excuse for judicial activism. Quite simply, it is the battering ram with which the Court has attempted to excise those provisions of the Constitution of which it does not approve, and create - from torturously wrung-out "penumbras", from "the evolving standards of decency", from international law, and from thin air, when nothing else is readily available - those which it wishes were present therein. The story is told of the elderly judge who, looking back over a long career, observes with satisfaction that "when I was young, I probably let stand some convictions that should have been overturned, and when I was old, I probably set aside some that should have stood; so overall, justice was done." I sometimes think that is an appropriate analog to this Court's constitutional jurisprudence, which alternately creates rights that the Constitution does not contain and denies rights that it does. Compare Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) (right to abortion does exist), with Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990) (right to be confronted with witnesses, U.S. Const.Amdt. 6, does not)However, in any instance, I do not think it is the burden of those of us who see through the intent of substantive due process to explain why it is flawed; rather, I think it is the burden of those who advocate it to explain precisely why Dred Scott, Lochner, Adair, Adkins and so on were correctly decided. It remains a source of perpetual bemusement to me that those who support the doctrine manage not only to do so without breaking down into fits of laughter, but still further, manage to avoid hysterics while innocently plastering a "I don't understand why anyone would question this" look over their faces any time a person has the temerity to wonder how one can reconcile the two fundamentally polar concepts of "substantive rights" and "procedural rights" into one bastardized tautology. Posted by: Simon at June 25, 2005 12:24 AM Incidentally, I agree with Alf r.e. Gitmo, to the extent of its impact on the electoral process. Whatever the merits or demerits of that process - I tend to be on the side of those who are concerned that we are in danger of losing our humanity in that place, and I nearly spat coffee all over my monitor when Olympia Snowe voted to conform Alberto Gonzales - I wish luck to anyone who thinks that an election can be won by pursuading the electorate that America is being too harsh on the terrorists. I believe there is a reason that Rep. Kucinich is a joke in most circles, and I don't think it's because he's wrong about free trade. I think that, as much as anything, it represents the other party's desparation to latch on to any coagulent that it can find, after losing an election they had thought unlosable, in which their principle unifying force was a visceral distaste for a candidate they will never face again. It seems to me that the democrats are adrift for want of an idea why they keep losing elections, what they stand for, and how they must (or even, whether, to whit the answer is absolutely in the affirmative) they should change in order to bring them back into line with mainstream America. Posted by: Simon at June 25, 2005 12:38 AMAs an addenda, I don't think our friends on the other side of the aisle should dispair. I also think that democrats should draw comfort from the fact that all majorities eventually develop arrogance and hubris; they lose the intellectual initiative and rest ever-more comfortably on their laurels, relying in the end on sheer, brute-force incumbency. The bad news for the dems is that it took the GOP over twenty years to translate the dems' arrogance, hubris and loss of the intellectual initiative into a working majority in the House of Representatives, so while it's not as if it's all over for the party, there's certainly a mountain to climb. And I'm sorry, but I make no apologies for thinking that Chairman Dean isn't half the man that Governor Dean was. Posted by: Simon at June 25, 2005 12:49 AMI'm not sure that the American people should look to popularity polls to decide issues of morality and ethics, such as how and why Gitmo is being used as a high-tech concentration camp. Instead I think Americans would be smart to look rather to the source that Thomas Jefferson did when he cited inherent and inalienable rights that each and every human being has. Posted by: Kevin at June 25, 2005 12:51 AMJust finished watching "A Few Good Men". Funny how the meaning of a phrase changes so much based on context. When I hear a Marine Colonel in a post 9/11 world defend his decision to order harsh treatment at Guantanimo and that furthermore, we "can't handle (that) truth", it just sounds a whole lot different from when I first heard it in a movie theater some 13 years ago. Posted by: c3 at June 25, 2005 02:36 AMA very good reason to subscribe to salon.com.
BTW, when you read the news about medical personnel advising the interrogators at Gitmo did you think about Joseph Mengele? Posted by: Marcus at June 25, 2005 05:34 AMNo, I didn't, because they're not even remotely comparable. Mike Godwin was soooo right. Posted by: Tully at June 25, 2005 08:40 AMMike Godwin is just rhetorical cover. Quite frankly if the meme fits, wear it. Any doctor who violates their oath and is involved in torture should be tossed out of medicine for good. Tossed in prison for a few years for good measure too.
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
Mike Godwin is just rhetorical cover. Quite frankly if the meme fits, wear it. Marcus, we realize that YOU are completely unable to distinguish between the military's use of psychologists in maximizing the effectiveness of legal interrogation techniques on terrorists, and the actions of a Nazi sadist who sorted the arriving trains at the death camps for those who he would use for in vivo medical experimentation and those who went immediately to the gas chambers, who tried to change the eye colors of children by injecting dyes into their eyeballs, then dissected them alive to see why things didn't go as he liked. The rest of us are able to distinguish between the two, however much we may disapprove of the former. And for the thread above, there's a perfect example of what centrism is. Perspective. And what the extremes are--a total lack thereof. Posted by: Tully at June 25, 2005 03:55 PMSimon, My point was like it or not “procedural due process” is an entrenched legal concept. I understand that there is opposition to the idea but it is not going away. Thus the “fighting with the dictionary” remark. It needs to be fought at every turn, on any level possible, though, because it is a road to ruin. I occaisionally comment on a law student's blog, and he posted something about foreign law. When I posted saying how it was irrelevant, and explaining why, he first demurred, saying that originalism was a separate argument, and when I explained why it absolutely was the same argument, I got the very strong impression that it had never ocurred to him that maybe it really isn't relevant. I worry that law students are going into college and being moulded into good little living constitutionalists; they are told relentlesssly that the constitution has no fixed meaning, that it does not mean what it meant when it was adopted (except where the second amendment is concerned, at which point, liberals turn into quasi-originalists to demonstrate that the text doesn't mean what it so obviously says in as many words), that the constitution is a living, breathing document - and that consequentially, if they're very good, when they grow up, they can be judges and get to decide what the Constitution of the United States of America ought to say, and their opinion will be the law of the land. It's a tremendously seductive doctrine. Sadly, those happy few who reject that self-aggrandizing fiction, leave for private practise, while those who most take it to heart, stay to indoctrinate the next generation. We thought that we had driven pencils through this monster's heart when Lochner was repudiated - repudiated, but not overruled, however - which is testament to its seductive ability to morph and survive. It declares that the only difference between what the law does say and what it should say is fidelity to the actual text. And it must be beaten back at every turn. As I've said before, if the constitition and its guarantees can mean anything, it actually means nothing. Posted by: Simon at June 26, 2005 03:12 PMYikes! I guess it's a really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good thing that the idea of a living constitution absolutely, positively, without denial does NOT imply that the constitution means anything you want it to mean. So Simon, every time you tout your clever tag line, I'll be here to call it BS. Again. And again. And again. Posted by: bk at June 27, 2005 02:40 PMFeel free to explain why it's BS. If the meaning of the text is not fixed, tell me what possible brake there is on the ability of five Living Constitution Justices to change the Constitution. Do you really think tht the Living Constitution can only create rights? Think back mere days to Kelo v. New London. Think back scant years to Maryland v. Craig. The Living Constitution can take rights away, too. The guarantees of the constitution are only meaningfull if they cannot be taken away. I mean, you can say that it's bullshit to say that "if the constitution can mean anything, it means nothing" (which is obviously true, prima facie), and you can say that the living constitution doesn't allow for the constitution to mean anything, but how do you then explain Kelo, or Craig, or Roper, or innumerable other cases when the court has deviated from the text to alternatively eliminate rights which are in the constitution, and created rights which are not? How do you explain the frustrated dissents of the Living Constitutionalists in Apprendi, Blakely and Booker, dissents which resonate with palpable frustration at their inability to pair down the constitutional right to a jury trial? I posed twelve problems with the Living Constitution in the wikipedia stub I wrote (I apologize; I had intended to e-mail you about this, and I have not); what are the good answers to those problems? I'm interested, do explain. Posted by: Simon at June 27, 2005 08:28 PMTell you what Tully, next time you're tied up for 24 hours and covered in your own urine and shit (as described by the FBI witnesses here, and the FOIA docs here) or broken to the point where you tear all your hair out (what little you might have left) think about how good of a time you're having. This little gem from 5/6/04 titled I'm trying to figure out what these redacted techniques are. Perhaps it's endless hours of Lawrence Welk reruns or even worse, episodes of My Mother the Car. Then again it could be that they were forced to witness the pairing of steak tartare with a light zinfandel. Gosh it must be fun being a detainee. Posted by: marcus at June 28, 2005 03:36 AMThey force them to read your posts, Marcus. Posted by: Tully at June 28, 2005 11:35 AM |
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