How can people not understand these most basic ideas?

Lack of education, perhaps? America does rank pretty low in primary education these days.

Residual cultural trauma from 9/11? Equally plausible, albeit embarrassing to admit some Americans are so immature.

Failure of critical thinking? Likely related to educational shortcomings.

An subconscious inferiority complex manifest as an aggressively uncompromising mindset that embrace simplified absolutes as a coping mechanism for dealing with ambiguity?

A sad commentary when people can't comprehend how far wrong they've gone. You almost feel sorry for them when they get chopped up in the abattior they helped build.

Of course what the right has and is seeking to do with this is to conflate "protect" with "shield"; to pretend that the protection which habeas ensures against executive (or monarchal) abuse, is actually a shield which suspected terrorists/criminals can hide behind. Their framing of this issue seeks not just to equate detention with guilt, but also to debase the entire notion of habeas, to diminish it from a determinative mechanism for seeking justice, to merely an enabling safeguard for the guilty.

Everyone held at Gitmo will be affected by the application of habeas, and they will be protected by it in the sense that they will have the opportunity to defend themselves in court, but they won't be shielded by it unless you believe that the entirety of our legal system is too weak to determine guilt or innocence. And that's exactly the point, isn't it? There's one side in this argument that thinks a fair determination of guilt or innocence is a priviledge to be granted or denied by an executive or monarch (authoritarian) and the other side (democratic) that believes it is an inherent right, without which democracy and justice are impossible.

Why not try the true middle course rather than indulge in untrue absolutes? - Shooter 242

Pooter, you’re always speaking out of your "true middle" - that orifice between your left cheek and your right cheek.

Mr. Timberman makes the important point that it is icumbent upon those who are making a charge, to provide the evidence for doing so. The idea that you can prove you did not do something is not based in logic. You can not prove a negative.

It is still astonishing that no one has pointed this out in terms of Sadam and the missing WMD. How could he prove that he does not have WMD anyway? This was a classic set up, for they set him a task that could not be accomplished. Any first year philosophy student could have told them that. Are the people in the MSM really that stupid, or do they have there own pro-war agenda?

"Was that directed at myself or Professor Yoo?"

Yoo not You.

for banning all immigrants from everywhere. Yoo proves it's impossible to make them comprehend the simplest and most basic concepts of the Constitution, no matter how well you educate them or how early you start.

And shout-out to GG

My comments begin @ 28:15

Didn't get to finish my comment, and DR allowed only a rebuttal from the Bush shill, but c'est la vie

http://wamu.org/audio/dr/08/06/r1080617-20527.asx

or click sig for linky

N/T

I bet he's on McCain's short list for the Supreme Court.

In the movie The Pianist (and I'll add a spoiler alert) in the waining days of the war as Russian forces are sieging Warsaw, the central character played by Adrian Brody (for those unfamiliar, a Polish Jew) is discovered by a German officer. In a surprising display of humanity the officer gives Brody his coat and feeds and hides him until he is forced to retreat. The officer is captured by the Russians and begs for help, but is never found. The man on whom the character is based spent the rest of his life in secret Soviet work camps, something that serves as a reminder of the cruel tyranny of the Soviet Union.

And now, we Americans are doing the same. We are disappearing people, and imprisoning them, and respectable people like a Berkeley law professor and 4 Supreme Court Justices tell us that unless the government can do this freely, our freedom and lives are in jeopardy. It is disgusting beyond measure.

[Glenn, from the post]: While supporters of unlimited executive power incessantly claim that the War on Terror can't be waged based on the premise that Terrorists are like criminals, many of the detainee apprehensions are identical to how accused criminals are captured, since -- unlike actual wars of the past -- they involve snatching people up while engaged in completely innocent activities and in civilian settings, not on battlefields while engaged in combat.

... but they were wearing civilian clothes!!! And that -- being 'out of uniform' -- makes them "illegal enemy combatants", spies, saboteurs, or worse....

Say, did you notice David Savage's article in the L.A. Times today? Link to the article and my comments at my blog; click my sig for the link.

Cheers,

Professor Yoo is entitled to academic freedom, but he is still subject to a code of conduct.

I wonder if publishing material which he knows as a matter of fact is untrue could be a violation of his code of conduct.

1) REGARDING THE "BATTLEFIELD" FALSEHOOD

Unless and until the illegitimacy of the so-called "war on terror" is addressed, who or what is to say that plucking a German citizen off the streets while vacationing in Macedonia isn't (the same as) being captured while fighting against the US in the war on terror? After all, this is a different kind of war.

This is only a falsehood if one rejects that this is a "different kind of war". It's only a falsehood if the illegitimacy of the so-called "war on terror" is established.

Otherwise, Yoo is every bit as correct as Glenn.

In this war, an Somalia killed by a missile while out for a stroll with his family or a vacationing Canadian intercepted while making a plane connection and "rendered" to Syria are both just unfortunate enemy combatants in this great big battlefield the rest of us like to call earth.

2) REGARDING THE "AL QAEDA" FALSEHOOD

Please correct me if my reasoning is wrong, but if habeas is extended per the US Supreme Court ruling, won't the government simply have to establish that the prisoner is an "enemy combatant" (that is, establish that the reason for the detainment is because he or she is an enemy combatant with evidence that "proves" this to be the case)? Or has the legitimacy of that designation been struck down?

I may be mistaken in my understanding, but I see this to be much the same issue as with regards to the first falsehood - unless the legitimacy of the authority to designate someone as an "enemy combatant" is addressed - an enemy combatant essentially being anyone the president so deems - the real falsehood is the expectation that habeas provides any meaningful procedural protection to those plucked off the streets and out of their homes.

However, if may enhance the efficacy of the method for dealing with enemy combatants in Somalia and Pakistan - no habeas protection against a missile launched by pressing a button in Las Vegas.