The Doughy Pantload gets a drubbing
Jan. 16th, 2006 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockGlenn Greenwald's
If you can stomach it, let’s review this, because it really illustrates what is going on in our country. Constitutional safeguards guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are nothing more than what Jonah calls "procedural niceties." While it would be nice and all if the Constitution were adhered to, "plain moral common sense" means that it’s actually unnecessary, even undesirable, to be restricted by such things.
After all, we’re dealing here with people whom the State says it suspects, but has not yet proven, are "drug dealers." With those people (and, of course, with "suspected terrorists"), anything goes, even before a trial and without any due process of any kind. All of this can be done strictly on the Government's say-so, even if the Constitutional "niceties" which exist to prohibit such behavior haven’t been complied with. "It may be wrong," spits out Jonah, but we should do it anyway, because these people deserve it.
Isn’t it exactly this depraved thinking which lies at the heart of almost every current controversy we have? The whole point of the Bill of Rights – really, its principal function – is to prevent the Government from punishing those whom the Government claims (but has not yet proven in a court of law) are bad people deserving of punishment. That’s why there is a sequence mandated by the Constitution before rights can be abridged and punishment inflicted – first, charge someone with a crime, then give them the right to defend themselves along with other protections of due process, and then convict them. Only then are they considered criminals whose rights can be abridged.
What people like Jonah Goldberg stupidly refer to as these "procedural niceties" happen to be the only things which distinguish our country from every two-bit dictatorship around. If the Government has the power to simply decree American citizens to be criminals -- or terrorists -- without bothering to prove it in accordance with "procedural niceties," then the Government has the power of tyranny. It means the Government can act against whatever citizens it wants without limits, strictly on the Government’s say-so. That’s why we have a Constitution - to impose those limits and to prevent the Government from exercising exactly this power. That is so obvious. It’s basic civics. It’s something we learn in the sixth grade.
[...]
Thanks to the ceaseless fear-mongering of this Administration, we are becoming – excuse the grotesque imagery -- a Nation of Jonah Goldbergs, scared and lazy creatures who sit around believing that the Government is justified – even obligated – to act literally without constraint against the Bad People, the ones who are deemed to be Bad not pursuant to any "procedural niceties" but simply by the unchecked decree of the Government. These Jonah Goldbergs love to talk tough. But they are repulsively coddled and effete, whining about every perceived petty injustice which affects them but breezily endorsing the most limitless abuses of others, as long as the "others" seem sufficiently demonized and far enough away.
[...]
Such individuals want more than anything for the Government to protect them, and in exchange, are willing and even eager to give the Government unlimited power to act against those citizens whom the Government says are bad and dangerous people. It is a mindset of great cowardice which is devoid of any principles other than fear and petty selfishness. And it really is the antithesis of everything which gave birth to the United States.
Thus, the Government can and should throw Jose Padilla in a military prison without a trial and without a lawyer because George Bush has decreed that he is bad. The Government can and should eavesdrop without warrants or oversight on American citizens because it assures us it's only doing it to those people who George Bush believes are bad. The Government can and should strip search children, even without the warrants required by the Constitution, because it’s only doing it to the people who are bad. And the Government can and should break whatever laws it wants to break in order to act against those people who George Bush says are bad.
It is truly nauseating to watch the basic principles of our country, which have preserved both liberty and stability with unprecedented brilliance over the last 200 years, be inexorably whittled away and treated like petty nuisances by the depraved Jonah Goldbergs among us. It is a mindset based on a truly toxic brew of glib self-absorption, sickly laziness and profound ignorance, and it is being easily manipulated by an Administration which is demanding -- and acquiring -- more and more power in exchange for coddling and protecting the little Jonah Goldbergs of the world.
[and later in comments]
The way in which they shed each and every one of their alleged principles the minute they got control of the Govenrment - and then even more so once George Bush began scaring them and promising to protect them - is really one of the most reprehensible displays of intellectual dishonesty I think I've ever seen.
And everyone who has pointed out that the minute they no longer control the Federal Government, they will revert right back to their prior position, is absolutely right. Only then, it will probably be too late. Excessive government power is a genie that does not get put back into the bottle, at least not without major upheaval.
[later still in comments a GOP troll comes on to whine about how hard it is to be a white male 'cause of all those minorities getting uppity and taking away some of his privileges, commentor Bruce Garrett brilliantly responds]
It was put to you that women and gays and minorities are fighting for equal rights, and you sniffed that's only how it is sold.
Now...never mind that you had just said previously that it wasn't how it was being sold. What you're saying there, clearly, sickeningly, is that a struggle for equal rights is never about equal rights. You're saying that a struggle for equal rights always morphs into a grab for ...uhmm...special rights (sound familiar?). So in order to keep your own rights intact, you have to oppose the struggle of women and gays and other minorities for equality, because such a struggle is never what it seems, and must always lead to your own rights being diminished or lost.
And that's what you think, isn't it? Better to keep some people second class citizens, then risk loosing your own status. When women fight for their rights, they're fighting to take away rights from you. When gays fight for their rights, they're fighting to take rights away from you. That's how you can look at a fight for women's rights, and gay rights, and minority rights, and ask how you can have those rights too, if you're neither a woman, or gay or a minority. It isn't about these groups gaining their rights, but about them gaining something over you. Human rights, by this reckoning, are a zero sum game. A struggle for equality is never what it seems. Any gains one group makes, must come out of your skin.
So you have to oppose equality, because as you said it's never really about equality. That's only how it's sold. That's always how it's sold. There is, by your reckoning, no such thing as a struggle for equal rights. At least not when it comes to certain groups of people: women, gays, minorities.
And to get to this point, you pretty much have to throw away any concept of principle. It doesn't matter how just the cause is, because somewhere in the fold there may be people who are only using it to advance their devious agendas. Those people have to be opposed. Even if it means turning a deaf ear to injustice.
Because after all, the only rights that really matter...are yours. Now take a look at yourself in the bathroom mirror and see the face of your enemy, the one who is only interested in his own agenda at the expense of the rights of other Americans, staring back at you.
If you can stomach it, let’s review this, because it really illustrates what is going on in our country. Constitutional safeguards guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are nothing more than what Jonah calls "procedural niceties." While it would be nice and all if the Constitution were adhered to, "plain moral common sense" means that it’s actually unnecessary, even undesirable, to be restricted by such things.
After all, we’re dealing here with people whom the State says it suspects, but has not yet proven, are "drug dealers." With those people (and, of course, with "suspected terrorists"), anything goes, even before a trial and without any due process of any kind. All of this can be done strictly on the Government's say-so, even if the Constitutional "niceties" which exist to prohibit such behavior haven’t been complied with. "It may be wrong," spits out Jonah, but we should do it anyway, because these people deserve it.
Isn’t it exactly this depraved thinking which lies at the heart of almost every current controversy we have? The whole point of the Bill of Rights – really, its principal function – is to prevent the Government from punishing those whom the Government claims (but has not yet proven in a court of law) are bad people deserving of punishment. That’s why there is a sequence mandated by the Constitution before rights can be abridged and punishment inflicted – first, charge someone with a crime, then give them the right to defend themselves along with other protections of due process, and then convict them. Only then are they considered criminals whose rights can be abridged.
What people like Jonah Goldberg stupidly refer to as these "procedural niceties" happen to be the only things which distinguish our country from every two-bit dictatorship around. If the Government has the power to simply decree American citizens to be criminals -- or terrorists -- without bothering to prove it in accordance with "procedural niceties," then the Government has the power of tyranny. It means the Government can act against whatever citizens it wants without limits, strictly on the Government’s say-so. That’s why we have a Constitution - to impose those limits and to prevent the Government from exercising exactly this power. That is so obvious. It’s basic civics. It’s something we learn in the sixth grade.
[...]
Thanks to the ceaseless fear-mongering of this Administration, we are becoming – excuse the grotesque imagery -- a Nation of Jonah Goldbergs, scared and lazy creatures who sit around believing that the Government is justified – even obligated – to act literally without constraint against the Bad People, the ones who are deemed to be Bad not pursuant to any "procedural niceties" but simply by the unchecked decree of the Government. These Jonah Goldbergs love to talk tough. But they are repulsively coddled and effete, whining about every perceived petty injustice which affects them but breezily endorsing the most limitless abuses of others, as long as the "others" seem sufficiently demonized and far enough away.
[...]
Such individuals want more than anything for the Government to protect them, and in exchange, are willing and even eager to give the Government unlimited power to act against those citizens whom the Government says are bad and dangerous people. It is a mindset of great cowardice which is devoid of any principles other than fear and petty selfishness. And it really is the antithesis of everything which gave birth to the United States.
Thus, the Government can and should throw Jose Padilla in a military prison without a trial and without a lawyer because George Bush has decreed that he is bad. The Government can and should eavesdrop without warrants or oversight on American citizens because it assures us it's only doing it to those people who George Bush believes are bad. The Government can and should strip search children, even without the warrants required by the Constitution, because it’s only doing it to the people who are bad. And the Government can and should break whatever laws it wants to break in order to act against those people who George Bush says are bad.
It is truly nauseating to watch the basic principles of our country, which have preserved both liberty and stability with unprecedented brilliance over the last 200 years, be inexorably whittled away and treated like petty nuisances by the depraved Jonah Goldbergs among us. It is a mindset based on a truly toxic brew of glib self-absorption, sickly laziness and profound ignorance, and it is being easily manipulated by an Administration which is demanding -- and acquiring -- more and more power in exchange for coddling and protecting the little Jonah Goldbergs of the world.
[and later in comments]
The way in which they shed each and every one of their alleged principles the minute they got control of the Govenrment - and then even more so once George Bush began scaring them and promising to protect them - is really one of the most reprehensible displays of intellectual dishonesty I think I've ever seen.
And everyone who has pointed out that the minute they no longer control the Federal Government, they will revert right back to their prior position, is absolutely right. Only then, it will probably be too late. Excessive government power is a genie that does not get put back into the bottle, at least not without major upheaval.
[later still in comments a GOP troll comes on to whine about how hard it is to be a white male 'cause of all those minorities getting uppity and taking away some of his privileges, commentor Bruce Garrett brilliantly responds]
It was put to you that women and gays and minorities are fighting for equal rights, and you sniffed that's only how it is sold.
Now...never mind that you had just said previously that it wasn't how it was being sold. What you're saying there, clearly, sickeningly, is that a struggle for equal rights is never about equal rights. You're saying that a struggle for equal rights always morphs into a grab for ...uhmm...special rights (sound familiar?). So in order to keep your own rights intact, you have to oppose the struggle of women and gays and other minorities for equality, because such a struggle is never what it seems, and must always lead to your own rights being diminished or lost.
And that's what you think, isn't it? Better to keep some people second class citizens, then risk loosing your own status. When women fight for their rights, they're fighting to take away rights from you. When gays fight for their rights, they're fighting to take rights away from you. That's how you can look at a fight for women's rights, and gay rights, and minority rights, and ask how you can have those rights too, if you're neither a woman, or gay or a minority. It isn't about these groups gaining their rights, but about them gaining something over you. Human rights, by this reckoning, are a zero sum game. A struggle for equality is never what it seems. Any gains one group makes, must come out of your skin.
So you have to oppose equality, because as you said it's never really about equality. That's only how it's sold. That's always how it's sold. There is, by your reckoning, no such thing as a struggle for equal rights. At least not when it comes to certain groups of people: women, gays, minorities.
And to get to this point, you pretty much have to throw away any concept of principle. It doesn't matter how just the cause is, because somewhere in the fold there may be people who are only using it to advance their devious agendas. Those people have to be opposed. Even if it means turning a deaf ear to injustice.
Because after all, the only rights that really matter...are yours. Now take a look at yourself in the bathroom mirror and see the face of your enemy, the one who is only interested in his own agenda at the expense of the rights of other Americans, staring back at you.
