Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.

[nancylebov]

McCain and Leiberman have proposed a bill which allows for indefinite detention of American citizens at the president's whim.

Niemöller [1] is not mocked.

The whole point of "enemy combatant" was to put people outside the law, so that the government could do whatever it pleased to them. The law isn't an absolutely reliable protection, but it's a good bit better than nothing.

It was obvious to me that there was no reason for American government lawlessness to be limited to people who aren't American citizens.

I don't take the abuse of non-Americans lightly. A good bit of the anger in this post is for the Americans who thought indefinite detention without charge could only happen to someone else.

SEC. 5. DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF UNPRIVILEGED ENEMY BELLIGERENTS.

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

Information about the bill from Glenn Greenwald, from an article at The Huffington Post which I found out about it because Steve Barnes was interested in the people from the French Television show who weren't willing to give big electric shocks.

I'm feeling let down by my friendslist. What happened to the glory days when every frightening thing the government was doing was urgent news? Teapartyers behaving like assholes is not a substitute.

Perhaps I'm being unfair-- I don't follow facebook or twitter, and lj's been kind of quiet lately. Has anyone else heard about this monstrous bill?

Anyway, here are the sponsors of the bill:
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]

Scott Brown [R-MA]

Saxby Chambliss [R-GA]

James Inhofe [R-OK]

George LeMieux [R-FL]

Joseph Lieberman [I-CT]

Jefferson Sessions [R-AL]

John Thune [R-SD]

David Vitter [R-LA]

Roger Wicker [R-MS]

More, more, more. Did Obama really authorize INTERPOL to operate independently in the US, without regard for the bill of rights.


[1] First they came for the..... and when they finally came for me, there was no one to speak up.

Comments

[avram]

When GW Bush accepted the Republican nomination, his speech included passages on privatizing Social Security, local school control, abolishing the "death tax", and general tax reduction, and he sneered at the Democrats as "the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt". Tax cuts were a constant refrain of his campaign and early presidency. Just like Reagan before him, he talked the small government talk, but walked the big government walk.

And whining about the word "teabagger" isn't legitimate debate either. People of my political persuasion have had invective heaped on our heads for decades. Now that we've finally got our hands on an epithet that stings, we're suddenly supposed to disarm?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

It isn't obvious to me that epithets are a useful sort of weapon.

It's interesting (if true) that "Teabagger" (which I'd say is almost contentless-- I guess it has an implication of triviality) has more effect than "Rethuglican". In a sane world, (which I grant we aren't living in), being called a thug would be much worse.

And in the spirit of the fact-checking you usually do here..... What do you mean by "whining"?

Complaining about insults isn't debate-- it's meta-debate.

[avram]

Epithets have worked pretty well for the right these past few decades, to the point that many liberals are so afraid of being called liberals that they've started calling themselves "progressives" instead.

By whining, I mean complaining about a sleight, but also that the complaint lacks dignity.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Epithets have worked well for the right to get dominance, but is it the kind of victory you want?

What's a dignified way of complaining about an insult?

[avram]

A political victory built upon no deed worse than verbally insulting one's opponents would be the most ethical political victory in human history.

I'll have to think more about the dignity thing. Partly, it's not just that the manner of whswhs's complaint is undignified, but that the degree of offense he or she is taking at so minor a sleight is ridiculous.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I suggest that the conservative use of insult has made conservatives less intelligent and more vicious.

If I'm right, there's a cost to insult as a major tactic. The interesting question is whether it's possible to win without insults, and also whether it's possible to win without stupid insults.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Yes, you certainly are. When you are arguing with contemptible idiots who use abusive epithets, and you conduct yourself in a civilized manner, arguing the issues, the evidence, and the logic, they are committing ad hominem and proving that their position has no merit. When you hurl abusive epithets back at them, you are joining them in being contemptible idiots.

And your argument about Bush's position is really beside the point. Yes, Bush claimed to be an advocate of small government, and lied. And Obama ran as an advocate of restoring the Constitutional guarantees of civil liberties that Bush had trampled underfoot, and lied. Politicians are mostly cynical liars. But that would not justify claiming that all the people on the left who voted for Obama in protest against Republican abuses cared about nothing but achieving a left-wing seizure of power; nor does it justify claiming that all the Tea Party attendees who talk about old-style small government conservatism care about nothing but putting the right-wing scum back in power. In each case, what you have is people who honestly believe in something and politicians who are trying to exploit that belief by lying. The lies are parasitic on the genuine belief.

Now, if you want to say that strict adherence to the Constitution, small government, and fiscal conservatism are honestly bad positions . . . well, that is a possible political view, and could be argued for. But calling people who hold it "teabaggers" is not an argument. And "he started it" is not a justification.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

cared about nothing but achieving a left-wing seizure of power
Is there necessarily such a thing as a left wing, breathed into existence by the need for a conceptual opposite to the right, or can we finally let right flow free as a signifier, allowing it simply to act as an umbrella term for people who would restrict our freedoms? I haven't been able to distinguish anything recognisable as a left wing in US politics since I arrived in 1997.

I think there is a proper place for epithets in politics; ridicule is an acceptable and useful political tool - perhaps the only one left - for placing those ridiculed beyond the pale of debate. I'm trying to think of a good term of ridicule for McCain et al and their astonishingly tyrannical goals. Something with the grace and power of "underpants bomber." But I'm still too angry to be able to summon the funny, and Victor Hugo's "nocturnal strangler of liberty" really isn't twitter-ready.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

If you want to define "left" and "right" in terms of attitudes to freedom, you are going to need an unequivocal definition of what "freedom" is. For example, if I vote for low taxes that will not support a social safety net, is that a denial of the freedom of poor people, or is it an affirmation of my own freedom to the secure enjoyment of my own income and property? Different people have different opinions. Back when I was first getting involved in politics, a friend of mine described his political spectrum, with communism at the extreme left, followed successively by fascism, the welfare state, capitalism under constitutional government, and anarchism at the extreme right—the metric being that "right" meant "pro-freedom" and "left" meant "anti-freedom." I thought that was oversimple in the same way that I now think your equation of "left" with "pro-freedom" is oversimple.

"Left" and "right" do not have uniform meanings in different cultures. In terms of the American political spectrum, people like Obama and Pelosi are left; people like Palin are right. And neither one has much to do with freedom, to my mind.

As to placing people beyond the pale of debate, remember that there is ultimately only one alternative to reasoned debate, and that is killing people. I think every step away from dealing with people by mutual homicide or mutual coercion is a good thing.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Also, the parties in the US are huge coalitions, and it's unsurprising if they both have pro and anti liberty aspects.

I don't think there's nothing but reasoned debate and killing-- people can throw insults at each other for a long time without it coming to murder.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I'll cordially disagree that our only options are reasoned debate and killing: I'm a firm believer in both liberating/Rabelaisian and oppressive/institutionalising laughter, as well as framing of all kinds - I rather think that in the US today debate as we remember it has been largely replaced by such framings, which is the worse for us.

I'm with you on your analysis of freedom, treating it as an abstract concept or Platonic ideal. For the time being, however, I'm restricting myself to the kinds of freedoms outlined in the bill of rights and the expectation that ordinary citizens of the US need not fear arbitrary detainment from a government that acts on them like a predator - freedoms that have been abrogated over the past decade and that this bill sets about formally dismantling. In using "right" to mean "restriction of freedoms," well, it occurs to me that the sponsors of this bill are identified as right wing within US politics and I'm drawing a rather lazy comparison with what have traditionally been termed right wing movements in Europe - when I was growing up to declare yourself "right wing" was to identify yourself with racists, ultra-nationalists and believers in autocratic leaders, so it was a useful term of insult. I understand the term may have a different meaning in the US, although I think I still detect a certain correlation.

In the end, though, neither "left" nor "right" are important to me as labels; I would just as happily merely call McCain et al "would-be tyrants." I think the framing of politics on a left-right axis is misleading and leads to poor habits of thought: it suggests that for whatever strange coalition of ideas that exists in one place, there should be a counterbalancing opposite coalition which serves to legitimise it.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

McCain may have been a would-be tyrant when he was running, but it isn't likely he'll run again, so maybe he's just a tyrant facilitator.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

all that, and I still didn't finish...

...so I'm sorry that I made any allusion to the left or right, and I will cease to talk about the bill in such terms. I think left-right language gets in the way when you look at developments, like this bill, that openly threaten civil liberties. Such language places the bill in a frame that stresses a political continuum capable of stretching to fit whatever strange ideas come up, capable of endowing those ideas with a ready-made constituency, of absorbing it into the already-existing coalitions of interests and generating a phantom reverse version of itself, which can be imagined to exist in the other camp (which, I think, is what the spectre of socialism is today in US politics: a kind of uncanny thought-form generated out of the nightmares of the business press, rather than any actual movement).

I think the bill should be framed instead as a political rupture - from the constitution, from past norms, from American ideals. Perhaps it could be explained as part of a latent tendency - that old quote about giving up freedom for present security sounds nicely neurotic. Perhaps it can be framed as a childish, uncontrolled impulse, like the "nanny state" used to describe Thatcher's, and later Blair's, Britain. Perhaps the accusation that it's unpatriotic could actually be given some legs. The most effective means of all for fighting it would be to link it somehow to pederastry. That would give it the kind of legitimacy it deserves.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

absorbing them... phantom reverse version of themselves (the ideas).
Sorry, I really must proofread more carefully. I'm off balance because of this business.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

that should be "fly free as a signifier," even if it does evoke Julie Andrews.

I'm intrigued by "teabagger," BTW: back when John Waters used the term "teabagging" I thought it was pretty rare. I understand it became widely known through some online multiplayer videogames that allowed the PC to squat (defensively/to take advantage of cover?) and therefore accidentally allowed for a form of avatar-positional commentary. Has this meaning now penetrated the political mainstream? Will we see Representatives talking about being in each others' bases, or bringing down TPKs on their policy proposals?
cf. "snorkeling."

[avram]

Until recently, it was a fairly obscure sexual term. At a Feb 27 2009 Tea Party protest, one guy had a sign that said "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You". Then the organizers of a Tax Day protest asked participants to mail tea bags to Obama, exhorting them to "Tea Bag the Fools in DC". And it kind of snowballed from there.

I can't help but wonder if some of the fury displayed at the term stems from latent homophobia.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

...so is there a contingent that doesn't get the sexual connotation - are we in the territory of "bite me" being used on Disney channel? Or is it out there in the public but unacknowledged - a kind of public speech version of don't ask, don't tell?

[avram]

First, by referring to people as "contemptible idiots", you are yourself engaging in the very behavior that you are claiming invalidates one's position. If you're correct, you have just undermined your own argument.

Fortunately for you, however, you're incorrect. An ad hominem insult does not invalidate one's entire argument. An argument usually consists of multiple points. Imagine someone saying, for example, "Two plus two equals four. Also, you're a doody-head." The second sentence of that argument is a worthless and immature ad hominem, but the first sentence remains true regardless.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The reason I try to avoid using insults is that I think insults make it harder for them to pay attention to anything but the insult.

[avram]

Which is why it remains useful as a tactic.

I think insults should not be a habit, used thoughtlessly. But they're useful for distracting the other guy, or getting your own team revved up.

And also, sometimes you've just gotta vent.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

* If I had said, "this group of people are contemptible idiots and therefore their arguments are wrong," that would have been ad hominem. What I said was, "the arguments of this group of people are fallacious and therefore wrong, and relying on that method of argument makes them contemptible idiots." In other words, the judgment "contemptible idiot" was a conclusion, and not the basis on which some other conclusion was reached.

* Your example is totally irrelevant, because it does not contain any argument whatsoever. It contains two statements, neither of which is presented as a reason for believing the other.

* Tactically, if you were engaged in debate, and you resulted in insults or ad hominem arguments, and the other side didn't know how to cope with them, you might "win" the confrontation. But if I were listening, you would do nothing to convince me that your opponent was wrong, nor to persuade me to adopt your position, because you would not have offered a reasoned argument. Indeed, if anything, I would conclude that you were not interested in establishing the truth, but only in winning by fair means or foul, which would decrease your credibility in my eyes.

* And besides, your opponent might be onto your tricks, and then you would be pwned like T. H. Huxley pwned the bishop.

* In any case, I was originally commenting to nancylebov, whom I took to be engaged not in debate or political point scoring but in reflective conversation. My point, which she took with good grace, was that the use of a hostile epithet for an entire political movement did not strike me as serving her basic purpose, nor give me a good impression of her. Given her response, I will credit her with its being no more than a momentary lapse in civility; I am less prepared to credit you with the same.

[avram]

You said, up above: "When you are arguing with contemptible idiots who use abusive epithets, and you conduct yourself in a civilized manner, arguing the issues, the evidence, and the logic, they are committing ad hominem and proving that their position has no merit." You didn't specify that the ad hominem had to be a structural part of the argument, with other claims resting logically upon the ad hominem claim. You instead said that the use of an insult constitutes ad hominem, and invalidates the position of the person using the insult. Your words are right there; re-read them for yourself.

(Actually, you specified that one party is using insults, while the other is not. This leaves open the possibility that things might be different if both parties are being insulting. I don't expect you to actually make that argument.)

So now you're shifting the goalposts, saying that insults only invalidate an argument if they are used as the logical basis for claims. Fine, I agree with that. But it's not what you said upthread.

As for as your reply to my tactical argument goes, let me point out that you were the one who used the insulting phrase "contemptible idiots". And while you addressed it directly to no party present, and wrapped it in a hypothetical, it was obvious that you meant it as a moral judgment aimed in my general direction, given the context. You don't have the moral high ground here.

[avram]

Going back to the original point, I know some people in the Tea Party demographic -- white, educated, middle-class, right-wing. Most of them express sympathy with socially conservative policies at some point, but they almost always dress up their opinions in the language of small government and/or Constitutionalism, even when what they're actually arguing for would require an expansion of government power, or a violation of Constitutional principles.

I expect that there are a handful of honest libertarians mixed in with the Tea Partiers, but that the bulk of them are the same old right wing.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

If you tell them their preferred policy would lead to an expansion of government power, what do they say?

[avram]

It varies. Often they just change the subject.