[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
A lot of people who voted for Obama probably thought he would be different from his predecessor on the whole kidnapping-people-and-taking-them-to-other-countries-to-be-tortured thing.
Turns out, not so much. (Conical hat tip to Stephan Kinsella.)
Yes he can!
Tomorrow I’m off to my old hometown (well, one of my old hometowns) San Diego to chair a panel at the 2009 conference of the International Society for Military Ethics (program here). Back Monday.
In the meantime, read this great argument for anarchism. (The author doesn’t intend it as an argument for anarchism – quite the contrary – but his modus tollens is my modus ponens. Briefly, he argues that if it were permissible/obligatory for soldiers to disobey commands in an unjust war, then it would also – absurdly – be permissible/obligatory for jailers to release prisoners unjustly detained, etc. Um, okay.)
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
One reason power corrupts is that it puts people in a position to choose options with which they would ordinarily never be faced. Our new President has just passed a significant milestone on the road to hell, one that he would be unlikely to have passed in ordinary life: he is now a murderer. (Conical hat tip to Manuel Lora and Lew Rockwell.)
I recall a line from that terrific late-80s tv series Wiseguy: “What good is a man who loves his own children but murders someone else’s?”
And while I’m on the subject of great lines from Wiseguy here’s another, from when Sonny (the mobster) finds out that Vinnie (his erstwhile right-hand man) is a federal agent:
Sonny: What do you get out of this, Vinnie, huh? I want to know. What do you get out of this – another pin on your lapel? an upgrade on your pension? Why are you trying to destroy me, man?
Vinnie: It comes with your territory, Sonny. You want a recitation? How about drugs killing kids, and fraud destroying pensions?
Sonny: Oh my god, oh my god. Who do you think you’re working for, man? You want to talk drugs? Let’s talk Agent Orange. Let’s talk LSD. Those are just two of the progressive efforts made on behalf of your friendly employer, Uncle Sam. Want to talk fraud? Let’s talk fraud. Why don’t you try explaining to a farmer why the federal guarantee loans are being recalled? Yeah, you’re the mob – you’re the mob in this room, Vinnie. I’m just your average entrepreneur.
Guest Blog by Jennifer McKitrick
[cross-posted at JenMc’s Blog]
What’s the rationale for denying the claim that someone from the Bush administration is liable to criminal prosecution?
I tried telling that to the judge when I was in traffic court: “That speeding I did – that’s in the past. The important thing is that I will obey the speed limit in the future.” It didn’t fly.
But what if it’s someone’s policy to break the law? It’s not their disagreeing with you that’s criminal – it’s the crime that they committed.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. I told the judge in traffic court that I didn’t know that going 60 mph on that particular stretch of road was illegal, but that didn’t work either.
Oh! The lawyers said it was OK! Why didn’t you say so? So, if I hire a lawyer to tell me that speeding is legal, I can drive as fast as I want?! Yippee!
It seems to me that the laws that protect people from being tortured should be at least as strong as the laws that protect people from my driving too fast.
And it seems to me, if something is against the law now, and the reasons it is against the law were in play at time t, then that thing was against the law at time t.
So, are there any reasons that make water boarding against the law now that weren’t in play in the last several years?
A different administrative “policy”?
What was that I heard, once upon a time, about a separation of legislative and executive branches…? If Obama’s policies can deem water boarding to be against the law when it was previously not a punishable offense, then it would seem that they would be justified in not having those policies if that were their prerogative.
Lucky for us, they’re nice guys.
Let’s hope so, since they seem to basically agree with the Bush administration about the executive being above the law.
It reminds me of when my co-worker opined that our boss was a very judgmental person. When I told her that he didn’t seem that way to me, she said “Well, it’s not obvious, since most of his judgments are positive.”
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Stuff of mine that’s newly online:
Aristotle’s Conception of Freedom [Review of Metaphysics 49.4, June 1996]
Aristotle’s Egalitarian Utopia: The Polis kat’ eukhēn [M. H. Hansen, ed, The Imaginary Polis: Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 7, 2005]
A Florentine in Baghdad: Codevilla on the War on Terror [Reason Papers 28, Spring 2006]
Review of Hilary Putnam’s Collapse of the Fact-Value Dichotomy [Reason Papers 28, Spring 2006]
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