Friday, December 30, 2005
The News & Record printed my letter yesterday
You can read it here, and even leave a comment about it if you feel so led. It more or less reiterates what I wrote here last week about how some people's defending of President Bush spying on Americans parallels the arguments made by a prominent German legalist that Hitler was justified in acting above the law.
3 comments:
Read the letter again: at no point did I compare Bush to Hitler. I *did* however compare those who justify his abuse of power to those who argued that Hitler's actions had moral and legal standing.
Right now we aren't at the point where Bush could be compared to Hitler. But we're darned well certainly on the road to empowering *someone* who can eventually become just as bad, if not worse. Is that Bush? I don't think so. But what he does today is going to come back and haunt us bigtime tomorrow.
So the question is: are we willing to sell out a little bit of the Constitution now, for a little bit of safety, at the risk of losing the entire rule of law in the future?
Is it hysterical to say that it's *wrong* to apologize for and defend the grabbing of more power? At what point do we draw the line and say "to here and no further"?
What gives the Bush defenders the right to be excused from this kind of comparison, if what they are doing is *exactly* what those who rushed to give Hitler a legal basis did? Even ignoring everything else that the Nazis did from 1934 onward, this is still a valid parallel to draw.
You can call me a "liberal" if you wish. I've given up on telling people that I'm *neither* conservative or liberal. If you want to peg me as anything it would be as a paleo-conservative, but even then I'm staying away from the labels.
Jeff, you're making the mistake too many others do in continuing to frame this as a "conservative versus liberal" thing. It's not that way at all, and it never really has been. That's been something to distract us from the REAL problem: more power going to the state, away from the individual.
"The greater truth is that you will find many of your kind here in the GSO Blogosphere."
I don't understand: what exactly would you say is "my kind"?
"But, I will also be watching."
Thank you. I'm glad to have readers. Even those that might disagree with me.
"You are dangerous in that you affect our children."
Yup. Just imagine what kind of effect I'm going to have on my own someday :-P
By the way, please note that at no time during our exchanges have I insulted or belittled you. I've kept things pretty polite, even though you've expressed an opinion markedly against my own. And I still haven't made any hostile moves toward you.
I'm not the kind of man who judges the character of another by his political opionions.
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