August 12, 2005
NEVERMIND:
Britain arrests 10 Muslims who preached hate (Al Webb, August 12, 2005, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
The crackdown on "preachers of hate" promised by Prime Minister Tony Blair began in earnest yesterday with the arrests of 10 foreign-born Muslims, including al Qaeda's purported ambassador, followed by an announcement that Britain would attempt to deport them.
The tough new policy generally goes beyond what has been done in the United States on the deportation of terrorists.
Now that they've become Oceania maybe they'll stop calling Gitmo a Gulag?
MORE:
No liberties are lost when rules hurt the bad guys (Charles Krauthammer, , August 12th, 2005, NY Daily News)
In 1977, when a bunch of neo-Nazis decided to march through Skokie, a suburb of Chicago heavily populated with Holocaust survivors, there was controversy as to whether they should be allowed. I thought they should. Why? Because neo-Nazis are utterly powerless.Posted by Orrin Judd at August 12, 2005 12:00 AMHad they not been - had they been a party on the rise, as in late-1920s Germany - I would have been for not only banning the march, but for practically every measure of harassment and persecution from deportation to imprisonment. A tolerant society has an obligation to be tolerant. Except to those so intolerant that they themselves would abolish tolerance.
Call it situational libertarianism: Liberties should be as unlimited as possible - unless and until there arises a real threat to the open society. Neo-Nazis are pathetic losers. Why curtail civil liberties to stop them? But when a real threat - such as jihadism - arises, a liberal democratic society must deploy every resource, including the repressive powers of the state, to deter and defeat those who would abolish liberal democracy.
Civil libertarians go crazy when you make this argument. Beware the slippery slope, they warn. You start with a snoop in a library and you end up with Big Brother in your living room.
The problem with this argument is that it is refuted by American history. There is no slippery slope, only a shifting line between liberty and security that responds to existential threats.
Situational government, I like it.
Posted by: Perry at August 12, 2005 9:45 AM"The problem with this argument is that it is refuted by American history. There is no slippery slope, only a shifting line between liberty and security that responds to existential threats."
Krauthammer makes a very good point. Slippery slope arguments are often tempting, but should always be treated with caution.
Posted by: Brit at August 12, 2005 10:10 AMSlippery slope argumnents should certainly refer to history. There's little reason to believe temporary limitations on civil liberties in an established democracy pose a general threat.
Posted by: oj at August 12, 2005 10:38 AMHowever, it's important everyone knows what the conditions will be when those powers are revoked. Past wars were easy to do this with as when peace was made, the threat was over. Since there is no easy definition now, the powers that be need to articulate those conditions - something that American public understands while also being an effective criteria for ending the threat. It will take some imagination.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at August 12, 2005 11:31 AM