Individual rights during wartime

[meegannie]

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/TheNote_Mar19.html

"The government has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday."

"'The Constitution just sets minimums,' Scalia said after a speech at John Carroll University in suburban Cleveland. 'Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.'"

"Scalia, one of the court's most conservative judges, was responding to a question about the Justice Department's pursuit of terrorism suspects and whether their rights are being violated."

"Scalia did not discuss what rights he believed are constitutionally protected, but said that in wartime, one can expect "'the protections will be ratcheted right down to the constitutional minimum. I won't let it go beyond the constitutional minimum.'"

 

[Gickies Gageeze]

lol.

 

[Lilly]

suspension of individual rights isn't unique to this war.

suspension of habeus corpus in the civil war, espionage, alien, and sedition acts for wwi.


eugh...it doesn't make it right...but...yeah...i think that's all i have to say.

 

[elfyx]

It happened in the past, is happening as we speak, and will happen in the future. This, of course, doesn't make it right, but we live in a world in which many governments, people, and organisations would dearly love to take "advantage" of such a "legal" "circumnagivation" of the Constitution. The sacred term 'Sovereign American' no longer seems to apply.

It is why every year since the Reagan Administration, every President has renewed the National Declaration of Emergency; essentially and legally giving it war powers, and through other legal means- the eventual ability to suspend the constitution altogether.

It is why FEMA was enacted, and specifically why it is exempt from any and all laws that don't specifically mention it by name.

Orwell wasn't the first who noted, of course, that the most effective way to control a population is through fear of a clear, immediate, and persistant enemy. Now, we are constantly told the War of Terrorism will not be short, in fact, will probably never end. Throw in some Patriot I & II, which turns the definition of "terrorism" into a grossly nebulized term. "Terrorism" is the new catch-all crime, as outlined in these acts, and to which all the world, including Americans, are made into potential enemies.

The population is continually fed hyped-up propaganda by The Ministry of Truth to hate Orwell's iconographic enemy (muslim extremists, axis-of-evil states, etc..) with a passion. In Orwell's vision, people watch video screens en masse. In today's reality, it's simply the televsion. Nonetheless, the Hegelian Dialectic is just the same, and is in full swing as we speak. I wouldn't want to lead any of you astray with any doublethink, though.

War is Peace,
elfyx

 

[meegannie]

doubleplusgood post.

 

[pub crawler]

Orwell wasn't the first who noted, of course, that the most effective way to control a population is through fear of a clear, immediate, and persistant enemy. Now, we are constantly told the War of Terrorism will not be short, in fact, will probably never end. Throw in some Patriot I & II, which turns the definition of "terrorism" into a grossly nebulized term. "Terrorism" is the new catch-all crime, as outlined in these acts, and to which all the world, including Americans, are made into potential enemies.


War is Peace,
elfyx

Brilliantly articulated, elfyx.

 

[melon]

Scalia is an asshole. I wouldn't call him a "judge" in the slightest; just an appointed partisan bigot. Therein lies the flaw of the Supreme Court, though. "Law" is irrelevant--only the opinion of the judges.

Orwell's writings, while being initially anti-communist in nature, is, in broader terms, a fear of modernism--and the extremist offshoots of totalitarianism. I fear that we are slowly backsliding into modernism again, as predicted by postmodern philosophy upon its death. In that case, get ready for a whole new can of worms that we thought we had closed after World War II.

Melon

 

[sulawesigirl4]

melon, do you really think that post-modernism is boomeranging back into modernism already? I think that most of the world is still operating under modernist assumptions and is just maybe starting to catch up to post-modernism. it will be interesting to see what happens, nonetheless.