[billybudd]

If that scares you, get over it.

What scares me is the attitude of Jonah Goldberg and people like him. They do not view individual rights as limits within which government may exercise force, as principles which should be applied in all circumstances because of their nature. They view individual rights as a wad of cash, something which can be spent away when it is convenient (makes you wonder by what principles they measure convenience). Goldberg heartily approves of the interventionist regulatory State and condescendingly advises us to "get over it." This scares me.
Now, as for the substantive issue, Goldberg doesn't address the question of how we know Padilla is an al Qaeda operative. That is the heart of the matter. The is precisely the point of a trial - to determine the facts of a particular case. Yet Goldberg wishes to take the President's word for it that Padilla is a "bad guy", without a trial. Whether Padilla is indeed an al Qaeda operative is irrelevant - he most likely is. What is relevant is that if we accept the premise that we don't need the judiciary to determine the facts of a case, but only the President's word, then we have essentially vested Judicial power in the Executive, thus completing the total consolidation of government branches.

[RDangerfield]

billybudd: What scares me is the attitude of Jonah Goldberg and people like him. They do not view individual rights as limits within which government may exercise force, as principles which should be applied in all circumstances because of their nature. They view individual rights as a wad of cash, something which can be spent away when it is convenient (makes you wonder by what principles they measure convenience). Goldberg heartily approves of the interventionist regulatory State and condescendingly advises us to "get over it." This scares me.

There is another thing that Jonah did not address. When President Bush backtracked from the military tribunals originally, he promised that American citizens would not be subject to them. If he has changed his mind and he believes that citizens should be interned indefinitely, he should state that clearly and the reasons for it and the legal precedents. He should then stick to it. This habit of his to try to have things both ways:

1) I will make Congress hold spending increases to four percent... unless I want to give $80 billion to corporate farmers in farm states—
2) I will send Ari Fleischer out in a press conference to insist that I believe that human activity causes global warming and have since June last year... but FreeRepublic, wink wink, I don't really mean it—

has got to end. He has 77 percent approval. If he cannot state his case and take chances now, when will he?
--Raoul