17
Dec
2014
Potpourri
==> I’ve been really enjoying Tom Woods’ show lately. Not to downplay the other guests, but make sure you catch Michael Malice on the cops and Scott Horton on the Senate torture report.
==> Speaking of the torture report, apparently Americans aren’t too worried about it. And Dick Cheney explicitly says that he would rather torture 25% innocent people rather than allow 30% guilty people return to the battlefield. Blackstone, he’s not.
==> Jeff Deist of the Mises Institute had me on to talk about recent police cases and the connection to Rothbard.
Blackstone wasn’t trying folks off the battlefield. I think even Blackstone would have a different view of people who were in armed confrontation with the nation as a whole and not merely engaged in criminal activity, though likely not Dick Cheny’s view. Torture aside, you cannot expect combatants to be mirandized and given the same rights as a citizen/criminal suspect on US soil?
JimS the report itself admits that in many cases the people who were tortured turned out to be the wrong people.
If you tell the government, “You can torture anybody you grab off the street without having to prove they did something wrong, but you gosh darn it have to promise they’re terrorists,” do you think that’s the path to liberty?
Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of reservations about torture. Personally I would consider the results suspect. In fact, I consider all information form criminals or enemy combatants suspect, no matter how it was obtained. I think I have more reservations about according guys who fly planes into buildings and engage in other war like acts rights in accordance with our constitution.
I am unaware that anyone in Gitmo came off our streets, I thought all came from Afghanistan or Iraq or 9/11. If you are referring to those who had ties to the Sept 11 incident, I have a hard time thinking of those guys as mere criminals due Miranda rights. While not an organized army in the sense of the Japanese attack on Pearl, their intention clearly was to engage in a war like act as much as their limited resources allowed. It was an organized attack and as such I think they have limited rights under US law as well as the Geneva Convention and international law.
Not condoning any illegal actions, but were someone to engage in some sort of war like act on behalf of libertinarianism, while some may laud such action, I think they must expect to suffer consequences. Same is true for Manning and Assange, even if you think their acts, though not war like, are justifiable they are technically illegal and one may suffer accordingly, at least until there is a regime change. Terrorism falls in between the cracks of treason, crime, and war. I think the Fort Hood shooting was a terrorist act, but was most likely done by one man, not an organized effort and not supported by a terrorist organization and is being handled appropriately in a court of law, but when one has the backing of a large organization that seeks to upset or destroy civil society or what passes for civil society, then you are in murky waters and can expect to be dealt with differently, perhaps should be dealt with differently.
I hear your point as to what is to stop anyone in law enforcement declaring any citizen an enemy combatant, What is to stop them from declaring a citizen a drug dealer, pedophile or anything else? Nothing, really. I do not see where this would be prevented by private law agencies or providing someone who engaged in a terrorist act civil rights. Policing the many policing agencies that already exist is difficult enough I cannot fathom a greater number of law enforcement groups.
If Dr. Bob could wave his magic wand, how would he deal with someone who engages in an act like Sept 11 or some other similar event especially if they likely had info about another attack? (No fair saying your foreign policy would be so magically wonderful that no one would ever have a beef with you and do such a thing, however true that may be).
Thanks
JimS
Why do you feel some terrorist acts deserve different treatment than others?
AS I said, Hassan seemed to be a lone wolf. His act appears to be politically and religiously motivated though not part of a large organization, hence it has the elements of a crime not a war like act. Despite that, you would not have a hard time convincing me of a one man act of war deserving of his being sent to Gitmo, though I do not know what you’d get out of him. Personally, I think the boy is a taco short of a platter.
Oh, I wouldn’t try to convince you of that at all. I find torture to be one of the most repugnant things humans do to each other.
I know nothing that could top torture in that regard.
Murder and child rape are both worse, IMO.
Well, ok it depends on the intensity of torture but torture without limits is worse than murder in my view.
And rape (doesn’t matter who) could be used as torture.
Torture can be anything but murder, right?
That is how see it.
Torturing innocent people should not be viewed as just under any circumstance.
Cheney. If he says that he prefers torturing 25% innocent people to 30% guilty people returning to the battlefield, then he should consider someone torturing him as part of the 25% as preferable. But he’s actually part of the same group as the 30%, which means Cheney getting tortured is always preferable…according to his own pronouncements.
Anyone agree that if revenge torturing Cheney were legal, he would not be as keen in torturing innocent people?
That Dick Cheney interview was positively ghoulish. Chuck Todd brings up a case of a guy the CIA froze to death that turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, and Cheney says he’s more concerned about detainees returning to the battlefield. As if freezing random innocent people to death somehow kept tattooists off the battlefield.
Well in fairness Josiah, I don’t think there are any documented cases of tattooists on the battlefield attacking US forces.
So the torture must be working then !