I think that they believe that any potential democratic president would be too wimpy to really use those powers to their harm. Have the democrats done anything in the last eight years to convince them otherwise?

New Labour is actually a Tory party in all but name. Under Tony Blair it has co-opted many of the Reagan/ Thatcher neonconservative ideologies of supply-side economics, run away privatization and aggressive, interventionists foreign policy. Blair brought New Labour out of the political wilderness and made it the ruling party for 11 years now, but in the process Labour has lost its soul and became virtually indistinguishable from the Tories. When the Tories return to power, they will adopt the same authoritarianism Davis is so alarmed about right now. John Majors , to the best of my knowledge, never repudiated publically Margaret Thatcher's authoritarianism, so his new conversion to anti-authoritarianism is somewhat suspect.

Something tells me this crowd is going to see the perils of an all powerful Government sometime around late November.

Does this mean I can add you to the list of people who think Bush will declare martial (though he'll spell it marshall) law to stay in power? As I've said to bamage, renegade iconoclast, and northwestwoods: please stop scaring me. I simply don't know if there are enough tranquilizers to calm my nerves between now and November. (Note to self: get that Italian passport rapidamente.)

Well, in a sense we're talking apples and oranges, I know, so I don't want to push the Soviet analogy farther than is justified. Perhaps it's worth pointing out, though, that the Soviets also had a gigantic military establishment, much of which wound up eating -- and drinking -- potatoes and torturing recruits in dilapidated barracks in the middle of Soviet nowhere while the bulk of its equipment sat with its wheels frozen to the ground, or rusting away at anchor in disused port facilities from Murmansk to Vladivostok.

That could never happen here, right?

Let's take the long historical view for a second. Britain's "ancient liberties" were developed to check unlimited executive power, and it all came to a head in the 17th century when they had a civil war over the "unitary executive" Charles I. Then they had another "soft" civil war in 1688 (the Glorious Revolution) that guaranteed Parliamentary supremacy. Meanwhile, on the continent France and Russia were as autocratic as ever. In England the story was about small yoemen farmers (a quirk of English ethnicity) versus feudal lords imported from France (a quirk of French ethnicity) in 1066. When the American colonists revolted in 1776, they took the lessons of 1649 and 1688 to heart in their constitution. When the French revolted in 1789 they also looked to America and Britain, but strong man tendencies of their culture produced the terror rather than a French George Washington. (The conservative reaction in England to France by Burke is still a foundational myth for American neocons, btw, because it draws on English agrarian political myth.) Jefferson said famously that the tree of freedom had to be fed by the blood of patriots every twelve years. Arendt in On Revolution makes a key observation. The reason revolution succeeded in America where it failed in France and Russia was due to the fact that there was enough land and money in America to create a broad middle class, whereas on the continent the new revolutionary governments had to solve the question of massive poverty before they could govern. (This is another way of putting the yoaman farmer myth.) Put it all together: the ancient liberties of Englishmen are rooted in agrarian myths of yoeman farmers and small gentry making up the body of Parliament. This is also the kind of polity Jefferson imagined, and his vision stuck (as opposed to Hamilton's more commerce oriented authoritarianism). That's where our freedoms come from -- equitable wealth distribution. The ideological contradictions in the American right stem from their neoliberal economics that suppress small business in favor of the corporation and their neo-authoritarianism that sees government's role as the military arm of the corporations. And if you've ever worked at one, you know corporations are all about enforcing "corporate" identity by any means necessary.

What I wrote to Salon:

To Whom it May Concern:

I have been reading Glenn Greenwald every day since he has been writing at Salon. However, today the flashing ads down the side of his column (e.g. click here to claim your free laptop) are so distracting and annoying that it is hard to focus on the text. I would like to see such glaringly offensive ads replaced.

thank you.

Thanks for reminding me, what I should have known already, that Marty Lederman's blog would have discussions on this opinion. In fact here he sums up my concern:

Most importantly, the Court strongly implies that if, as in this case, the government chooses a foreign detention facility for the very purpose of avoiding judicial review (or perhaps even if the military retains a prisoner at a battlefield locale for the same reason), the Court will not look kindly upon such efforts. As I noted below, I believe the single most important sentence in the opinion might be this one: "The test for determining the scope of [the Suspension Clause] must not be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain." The political branches will not be permitted "to govern without legal constraint" or to "have the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will."

@pmorlan

Is it possible that if Bush moved all the prisoners at Guantanamo to a location where the U.S. only has a transient possession of the facility that it would allow Bush to get around habeas?

Not meaning to cut Glenn off at all, but might I recommend Marty Lederman's post on this at Balkinization.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-does-court-say-about-two-big.html

-- GlennNYC

Call them what they are, Glenn. Godwin's Law be damned.

Seventy-odd years ago an extremist right-wing movement developed in Germany - coincidentally enough, right after Germany lost its aura of military invincibility.

It blamed Germany's woes on liberals, homosexuals, and non-germanic people living among real germans.

It was militaristic in the extreme. It launched an unprovoked war after a propaganda campaign that made it look like Poland was the aggressor.

Germany's historic allies did nothing but try to appease this new movement's leaders - but the leaders had their own plans.

They invested absolute power in their leader. They imprisoned many of their citizens without trial, as enemies of the state.

Then, they did worse.

WE never talk about them. We never compare anything or anyone to them - that's how abhorrant they are to us.

Even though greater atrocities have been committed by other states, other peoples.

I think I know why.

Because they were us.

They were white, Anglo-Saxon protestants.

Not African savages in WWII-leftover uniforms.

Not generallissimoes covered in cheap medals.

Not soulless Slavics or inscrutable orientals with moral values different from our own.

These people shared our cultural vaues, our worldview, our history. And they put people into gas chambers.

If they could do it, WE could do it. And we can't accept that.

Decades afterwards, the debate rages. How could the German people have allowed it to happen? How did "following orders" become a valid excuse?

Perhaps now Americans can answer.

Perhaps we can explain why the German people did not rush Berlin to depose their leaders, or why no one "knew about the camps".

Perhaps now the Russerts of the world can explain the self-rightous attitued held by the German camp guards, and the strident Lindsays can explain why the Gestapo was created.

Call them what they are, Glenn. It's time.