Let me try to understand the positions taken in this thread:
- vampsoul - you are against AG Holder's decision to stop reading Miranda rights to suspected terrorists?
- Maximus - you want terrorists to continue to be read their Miranda rights?
I would think that "law and order" conservatives would applaud a decision to treat suspected terrorists as enemy combatants, and not giving them a right to remain silent would be something they favor.
In this particular case, Holder states that the suspect did indeed keep talking AFTER he was read his rights, but he (Holder) wants to explore the possibility of NOT reading those rights to suspected terrorists in the future, possibly getting more info about other activities.
If that's the case, I support the AG 100% - everyone suspected of terrorist crimes should be held as a prisoner of war/enemy combatant and should be deprived of a Miranda warning. Let's get as much info from them as possible, interrogate them non-stop without a lawyer, sleep-deprive, whatever it takes to save additional American lives.
Thank you for making the distinction between conservatives and "law and order conservatives." The latter are pseudo-conservatives, which is to say they are not really conservatives at all. Rather they are reactionaries who believe in the primacy of the state and its agents, and not the primacy of laws.
I'm sure someone will soon trot out the old Ben Franklin axiom, which posits that those who seek to gain security by trading essential liberties deserve neither. Hackneyed though it may be, the quote does present us with some insight into the thoughts of the "founding fathers" on this subject--those same founding fathers whom the reactionary "law and order conservatives" claim to admire so much.
Such reactionary views are evidence of a disturbing political wind across the landscape of American public ideals. We live in a nation which has enjoyed a rich history of novel freedoms. Our abilities to exercise those freedoms are based on inalienable principles of the law: legal rights, due process, reasonable doubt, and equal protection, to name but a few. We suddenly find ourselves faced with the prospect of allowing the government, and its agents of enforcement across various bureaus, to dole out or deny rights to American citizens as they see fit based on the suspicion of a terrorist act, or complicity to commit such an act.
The pseudo-conservatives love this idea, as they wave their flags and pump their fists, touting their love of country and their dedication to "protecting American lives." In their fervor, though, they show a carefully hidden disdain for the application of rights to all citizens. The Constitution (however inconvenient we may find this to be) affords the due process of law to all citizens. The sociopathic nature of terrorist acts suspected to have been commited by American citizens does not disabuse those citizens of their constitutional right to equal protection under the law, including the right to remain silent.
Central to the argument, especially since it was started with such vigor following 9/11, has been the "protection of American lives." As the great anti-Soviet dissident Solzhenitsyn told us, "it is in the nature of the human being to seek a
justification for his actions." The protection of the people, and thereby the protection of the country, has been the argument of totalitarian regimes throughout the last two centuries in their quest to quiet concerns about the rights they denied. Do we, as a nation, seek to use their arguments as the cornerstone of a new domestic policy?
Eventually, someone may say "If it worked so well against terrorist suspects, why not deny Miranda rights to those suspected of murder and arson and rape? Those crimes are instruments of fear and coercion, are they not? Our evidentiary capabilities are so good now that we have little cause to worry that we might have the wrong man, so it is only to our advantage to deny them the chance to remain silent about a crime of which they are so assuredly guilty." What will you say when that question is asked? How will we draw the line? Terrorism is simply a matter of semantics, the fear of which is an amazing tool for those who seek power. Solzhenitsyn also warned us: "Oh, how hard it is to part with power! This, one
has to understand!"
Do you want to live in a country where we give government agents--human beings capable of all manner of unscrupulous and prejudicial behavior just as you and I are--the power to deny equal protection under the law to those whom they deem to be a significant threat? I don't, and I think after a few moments' thought, most of you wouldn't either.
And torture, well, that is simply the logical extension of the denial of legal rights--the denial of human rights. Again, Aleksandr Isayevich has a word of warning for us: "violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man, who has once proclaimed violence as his method, is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."
Think long and hard about who you want protecting the rights of American citizens: the Constitution, or agents of law enforcement.