"if our own standards fall, it will serve to recruit terrorists more effectively than their own propaganda could ever hope to. . . . " - former Tory Prime Minister John Major

That is an incredibly powerful sentiment that Barack Obama and supporters of Democracy and civil liberties should be echoing!

It needs to be repeated over and over that squandering our civil liberties not only is an extremely useful recruiting tool that emboldens Al Qaeda much more than any propaganda they may create, but it is, in itself, a clear victory for Al Qaeda!

All this nonsense about "if we leave Iraq it will embolden the terrorists" is laughable when we consider the devastating victory Al Qaeda has already won - right here on American soil - by eviscerating our country's laws and due process.

Glenn, while I appreciate and accept the difference between our home grown authoritarians and the current crop of British conservatives defending some civili liberties, you would do well to remember that these same folks sang a different tune when the threat was the IRA and they were in power (Major's claims notwithstanding.)

Internment without trial, beaten confessions, torture, jury-less trials, reversed burdens of proof, internal exile, shoot-to-kill policies, extrajudicial death sentences, illegal cooperation between the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries were all part and parcel of the British approach to the Troubles for decades under both Labour and Conservative governments.

The Birmingham Six were held for 16 years, the Maguire Seven and Guilford Four all spent more than a decade in jail. Except of course for Guiseppe Conlon, a completely innocent man who did nothing but go from one part of the UK to another to assist in the defense of his equally innocent son and was imprisoned for it, where he died.

Once the genie was let out of the bag to fight the Irish "terrorists", the powers were turned against all sorts of "internal enemies" by the Thatcher governemt: strikiing unions, anti-poll tax demonstrators, anti-nuke demonstrators, etc. See: Freedom under Thatcher: Civil Liberties in Modern Britain. By K. D. Ewing and C. A. Gearty (1990)

To be fair to Major, he played an heroic and under-recognized role in bringing the Troubles to an end, but let's not hold up British conservatives as anything other than what they are: politicians angling to get back into power. It might be better to see them as we see our own politicians who take position A when their guy is in power and position B when the other guy is. I have no faith whatsoever that if the Tories were in power, they wouldn't have done the same thing if they thought they could make political hay out of it.

http://lieberman.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=299086

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 12, 2008

Contact: Marshall Wittmann

Lieberman Statement on Supreme Court Detainee Ruling

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) today issued the following statement in response to the Supreme Court ruling granting terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay the right to sue in federal court:

“Under our system of separation of powers, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of whether a statute is Constitutional. I respect the Supreme Court’s role, but I strongly disagree with its decision today. Enemies of the United States committed to attacking America and killing Americans who have been captured on the battlefield and designated alien enemy combatants are entitled to the protections afforded by the Geneva Convention, not the Constitution. The Supreme Court’s decision changes that and does so in a way that will only increase the burdens and responsibilities placed on our brave men and women in the military. The Supreme Court’s decision fails, in a dramatic way, to appreciate that we are at war and that our enemies are relentless in their pursuit of our destruction. Let us not forget that at least 30 prisoners that have been released have already returned to the battlefield.

“I regret the outcome of the majority’s opinion and I hope that our country is not rendered less safe as a result. To the extent there are opportunities to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to change the outcome of the Court’s decision, I promise to do so.”

Harry Reid:

SEN. HARRY REID: First of all, Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman is my friend, and he is a good Democrat, votes with us on everything, except the war. So Joe Lieberman is easy to work with.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/reid_12-21.html

Except the war. But the war is universal--even extending to the Supreme Court. Lieberman is in direct opposition to the party's nominal head, Sen. Obama. Lieberman should be dealt with by the party, and Reid should be replaced by someone willing to move the senate aggressively.

Otherwise, this senate--a Democratic senate--is going to block Obama's work--regardless of how many seats may be picked up. The senate is just a mess.

(reposted)

The current Republican party has nothing to do with traditional conservative political theory but is nothing more than a mindless expression of its leaders' authoritarian personality defects. They managed to get so extreme in large part because 1) the Democratic opposition has been weak for the last 30 years and 2) the MSM has abdicated its watchdog responsibility when it comes to Republicans (but not Democrats).

Starting with Reagan the Republican activists found that there were no checks on what they said or did. The result was a political bidding war within the Republican party to see who could outdo the other with increasingly extreme rhetoric unfounded in any principle or any empirical policy basis. Since there was nothing to stop anyone from upping the ante, we are where we are today.

American right-wing authoritarians differ from "conservatives" in an apparent need for a feeling of omnipotence by proxy.

A government/chief executive with whom the RWA identifies with should have unfettered power, which by extension, empowers the RWA with feelings of omnipotent power by proxy.

Conversely, any check on that government/chief executive's power is a direct affront to the RWA's sense of empowerment and must be zealously opposed.

How crazy are the RWAs? During the "Night of the Long Knives," SA men who had been rounded-up and were being executed by firing squad actually gave the stiff-arm salute and a "Heil Hitler" as they were being shot.