Miran-Duhhhhh!
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Sunday it would seek a law allowing investigators to interrogate terrorism suspects without informing them of their rights, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. flatly asserted that the defendant in the Times Square bombing attempt was trained by the Taliban in Pakistan.
via Attorney General Backs Miranda Limit for Terror Suspects – NYTimes.com.
Memo to those Tea Party activists out there who’ve been howling about those liberal wusses in the Obama Justice Department who read Faisal Shahzad his Miranda rights: congratulations. You’ve just opened the door for a major new expansion of government power.
Having followed the Tea Party around on and off for a few months now it’s been hard not to notice some of the contradictory messages emanating from the movement. You’ll hear the same people who want to abolish the EPA complaining about the slow federal response to the Gulf oil spill, or the same people who are stocking up on guns to ward off the inevitable government assault on their property cheering for beefed-up drug enforcement laws and the no-knock search warrant.
The reason I really respect the Ron Paul people is that they’re consistent on all of these things. If they don’t want the government telling you you can’t buy a gun, they also don’t want the federal government telling you not to smoke weed or patronize a prostitute. Paul understands that you can’t make appeals on general principle unless you actually believe in that principle across the board.
It seems to me that a huge problem that Americans on both sides of the aisle have is that they believe in personal freedom, but only for themselves; for the other guy they seem always to want a powerful and intrusive federal government. Red staters and blue staters are both equally guilty of this in my experience. You get conservatives asking for a federal ban on gay marriage and then in the same breath screaming that abortion should be a states-rights issue. And you get progressives who want to pass their own state-by-state medical marijuana laws clamoring for federal bans on handguns.
And… well, I’m digressing. The point is that this gesture by Eric Holder to drop to his knees and pray at the altar of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin is one of those things that both sides are going to end up seriously regretting.
For the Democrats, it will surely end up being one of the darker moments of the Obama presidency — not because it’s necessarily so terribly meaningful (at least compared to ending Too-Big-to-Fail), but because it represents a new low on the utter-lack-of-balls front. The only reason we’re even talking about this Miranda issue is because a bunch of morons on talk radio made a big fuss about it, and if our president is going to go sticking his thumbs into the constitution every time he can’t take a few days of getting reamed by a bunch of overpaid media shills whose job it is to hate him no matter what he does, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.
For the conservatives/Tea Partiers/Republicans (note that I have to make separate notations for each, since they’re not all necessarily the same people anymore), this Miranda furor is yet another one of those humorously contradictory political campaigns of the “Keep the Guv’mint off my Medicare” variety that they’re becoming known for. I’m beginning to think that if the Tea Party had a symbol, it shouldn’t be the snake from that “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, it should be a drooling yutz sticking a pencil in his own ear.
The reason for that is that the Tea Party angle on this Miranda business is that they want to strip terrorist suspects of liberal/civil rights-era protections, and they think that foregoing their Miranda rights is a good way to get there. What they don’t get is that the inevitable consequence in this sort of meddling in constitutional theory is that we’re going to carve out exceptions to constitutional applicability for certain classes of people. We’re obviously not going to repeal the 5th amendment granting protection to American citizens against self-incrimination; and if we’re not going to tinker with that basic right we all enjoy, then the only other way around it is to start tinkering with the concept of who’s a citizen and who isn’t.
We’ve already seen a more than unusually ridiculous illustration of this instinct, with all-century blowhard Joe Lieberman coming up with a wacko plan to strip terrorist suspects of their citizenship, a completely useless idea that wouldn’t speed up interrogations one whit and in fact add nothing but another layer of bureaucracy to prosecutions of terrorism cases. This is an idea that has no practical application, but has a very broad theoretical consequence.
Basically we’ve opened the door for a discussion on whether or not it makes sense to selectively suspend the constitutional rights of Americans on a case-by-case basis. I’d like to see how the Tea Party responds to this concept the next time the ATF drives a tank into the compound of some group like the Michigan Militia. Given that they’re part of a movement that is driven almost entirely by a paranoid fear of the exploding powers of government, it’s bizarre to see these people signing on for the corruption of the 5th Amendment. But then again, no one ever accused these people of being smart.
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Somewhat related– as someone who believes that “freedom” means very little without some measure of economic security for everyone, I have to say these teabaggers confuse me. Well, they don’t really confuse me because they are ALWAYS chock full of logical inconsistencies. But anyway, I was driving by a high school the other day and I had a few thoughts. First, I was happy for the students as the school year is almost out. You see, as poor as I have been at times in my life, I always consoled myself with the fact that I was not in school and did not have to ask for a damn hall pass to take a pee. I would not trade being supported by my parents for my freedom to walk from one room to another seeking permission. Teabagger types on the other hand are the first to spout things like “what sort of problem does a teenager have? Everything’s taken care of. Wait until they get in the real world.”
It is unfortunate, but I do have imaginary arguments with teabaggers in my head. Beats talking on a cell phone.
If you’re having imaginary arguments with teabaggers in your head, kindly remember to lie to them- they seem to enjoy being lied to.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hey! thanks for the tip.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m witchyou!! I am so glad I am not in the Police State education system, where they jail a kid for accidentally having something that is ZERO-TOLERANCED. Good gawd Gertie.
In response to another comment. See in context »Permission to pee Sir? Permission to breathe madame?
My Freedom is thee most precious gift and I am adamant in it’s defense.
So Eric Holder fucks up, and it’s the fault of some silly clowns on Fox TV. Your logic is so tortured, it is a joke. And I thought you had some brains, Matt. Boy was I wrong. You are just another witty ranter that will fade into oblivion just like Dennis Miller. Get your logical head outa your ass before it’s too late.
And BTW: Are you a libertarian or a godless liberal? Choose!!
What would you say is wrong with this argument?
And Dennis Miller? You have got to be kidding me!
In response to another comment. See in context »Sit down when you read this: Eric Holder is responsible for Eric Holder. He (Eric Holder) fucked up, because he (Eric Holder) is a fuck-up. It has been proven over and over again! His decisions are not the responsibility of mentally challenged people in red, white, and blue 3-cornered hats.
In response to another comment. See in context »When someone thinks it’s important that someone else is ‘godless’ – it’s a good indication that they’re crazy, and there’s really no point in replying to them.
In response to another comment. See in context »“Trying” to insult Matt Taibbi here of all places, puts you in the class with Dennis Miller.
In response to another comment. See in context »Matt is a bloody genius with balls that reach to the moon, thank you very much.
Being a Libertarian and a Godless liberal, or a Goddy liberal, either way…it sure beats being stoooopid.
Choose? He can’t have his own political beliefs without subscribing to one bankrupt ideology or the other? He has to be like you and have a political party do his thinking for him?
And what would drive Obama/Holder to capitulat eon the Miranda issue? It’s not like this decision is consitant with any of his prior ideology. Taibbi’s opinion (if he is allowed one – why does the right always leap at condemning any differing opinions while constantly moaning about how the left does not respect THEIR opinions??) that Holder/Obama are doing this out of some weird impulse to constantly court the right-wing is entirely consistant with nearly all of Obama’s decisions and actions to date.
He cares more for his opponents than his base.
In response to another comment. See in context »Which is to say this decision is not consistant with Obama’s pretty speeches, but very consistant with his Bush-lite actions.
In response to another comment. See in context »Man the puppet masters have us right where they want us. Fighting each other instead of them!
Aimlow Joe
http://www.aimlow.com
You don’t know how right you are.
Our modern political parties are being run by Randolph and Mortimer Duke. They make billions based on making us THINK we have a real choice, and chuckle at their one-dollar bets about who they can put in the White House.
In response to another comment. See in context »What an amazing analogy. Brilliant. I wish I had thought of it.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hmm, let’s see. The radio talking heads are “morons”. Eric Holder feels compelled to listen to them and do what they say. What does that make him?
A coward. Wasn’t that the point of Taibbi’s post?
In response to another comment. See in context »If the administration will seek this law, it needs to get by the legislature, no? With little else on the docket, ’tis time for wrtin and a-callin those reps. Hopefully time won’t be wasted.
Jeezus Christos….we have a Constitutional Scholar? for a President and he is waffling like a ninny in drag? What a dunce.
And Eric Holder, what kind of a pussy wuss is he? Jeeze!! Eric, you too can be replaced with a real man, you fumbling little whiny punk.
It looks like the progressives are going to have to exercise their balls and stand up and RAGE!!
The Hell with this bullsh*t.
Absolutely NOT!! are we going to fluff around with the Miranda warnings. period. Enough already.
Who do they think WE are? Dunces and dumbed down, a-l-l-l-l of us?
I don’t think so.
For sure, WE have to get up and fight like hell for our Constitution and shut these noise-makers up, everywhere.
The ignorance is so profound in this country, it is hard to believe how far down we’ve sunk in so few years.
But that doesn’t mean we accept this,not at all.
Onward and upward.
Obama’s latest fuck you to progressives: Elena Kagan (she does, of course, have the requisite Goldman Sachs work on her resume)
In response to another comment. See in context »But we have an organic garden on the white house lawn.
Instead of focusing on what is REALLY the problem here, (circumventing the Constitution) the author decides to make jokes about the Tea Party. And, somehow lumps them all in as being Ron Paul supporters. Keep thinking that narrative. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good argument.
I’m actually distinguishing them from Ron Paul supporters, if you read it correctly. What I’m saying is that these modern Tea Party types are very selective about their libertarianism. The Ron Paul types are not.
In response to another comment. See in context »Bingo.
Although, you could make the case that the “selective libertarians” are just LINO. Their behavior and arguments seem to follow the same pitfalls as the current Republicans and Democrats — that such-and-such is okay for now, because I trust the Red/Blue people to do it without screwing it up.
True libertarians (not even capitalized) would not view it through the lens of WHO is in power — rather from the realization there IS a concentration of power.
Your point was very well made — we shouldn’t look at policies based on what is done with them today or tomorrow, but from what legal doors they will open 40 and 50 years from now.
Don’t look now, but you are dangerously close to grabbing the torch that Mencken passed to O’Rourke.
In response to another comment. See in context »We are approaching a political singularity, with the Democrats looking and acting more and more like Republicans (and of course vice versa), and the angry independents on both fringes approaching unity of discontent. The GOP and Dems both support massive corporate-socialism/corporatism, while everyone who is bright enough to spot the massive corruption in DC are all starting to sound alike.
All it’s going to take is for the hard-core leftists to realize good governance is no longer possible in the current system, so any attempt at social justice will just be used as pretext for the opposite; and for the rightists to realize ‘free-market’ does NOT meet the corporatist monopolies that are the largest threat to their much vaunted freedom.
It is no longer honest to phrase these issues as right versus left, as it has become a clear case of oligarchic concentrated wealth and power versus everyone else. Quite a few of the angrier and more honest pundits are reaching towards this conclusion, including Taibbi. It’s going to be an interesting decade.
In response to another comment. See in context »Angry independents on both fringes approaching unity of discontent? You must be kidding! Do you really think that the hard-core left and the right will come together on free-market anarchy? Populism for its own sake leads nowhere.
In response to another comment. See in context »We’ll come together because we are the working class. We have nearly everything in common except for which corporatist-covering propaganda we subscribe to. The government isn’t fixing any of the economic problems which caused this crisis, so it will only repeat and grow worse over the next few years. High unemployment breeds discontent, but we have no way of producing large numbers of new jobs under the current globalist paradigm.
So you will have growing numbers of angry working class folks of various political stripes who will eventually realize all the ideology they’ve been force-fed over the years is just propaganda from the same people profiting from their misery time and again.
This isn’t and never has been a right-left conflict, it is a 30-year class war that is being disguised by empty ideology, and as people lose their high living standards, they will start to recognize that fact. “Free-market anarchy” is an abstraction – and fewer and fewer people will believe in this cult when they are faced with the reality of trying to feed their families with no jobs and no social safety-net.
I’m not talking about some kind of people’s revolution, just a putting away of childish and petty bickering to focus on what’s important, just like what happened after all of the other major financial collapses we’ve suffered through.
In response to another comment. See in context »Matt, after re-reading it, I apologize for my statement.
In response to another comment. See in context »I do however feel you don’t know enough Tea Party people. All of my like minded friends who agree with (most of) the Tea Party Movement have no problem whatsoever with the Times Square bomber getting his miranda rights. He’s a citizen, (despite the fact he may have gotten it under false pretenses) and he deserves every bit of rights that every other citizen enjoys.
How on Earth did you read that article and come away with the idea that Matt lumped tea partiers and Ron Paul supporters together?
This is the problem with Tea Partiers – no comprehension whatsoever. With this kind of insight, it’s easy to see how tea partiers can watch Fox News and not recognize the blantant way they’re being misled.
In response to another comment. See in context »“…a new low on the utter-lack-of-balls front…”
Absolutely priceless.
And utterly shameful.
“You get conservatives asking for a federal ban on gay marriage and then in the same breath screaming that abortion should be a states-rights issue. And you get progressives who want to pass their own state-by-state medical marijuana laws clamoring for federal bans on handguns.”
Yeah, those are the same because the one would use state sanction to restrict people’s freedoms and the other would expand them. But other than that. . .
I thought a crucial component of “Yes We Can”-ness was an end to the Bush-era double standard of justice, in which any invocation of the word “terror” rendered the suspect’s rights null and void. Obviously, anyone with a TV knows what the Miranda rights are, so the law would be largely symbolic. But I don’t like what it symbolizes, and why Bam doesn’t realize that he’s alienating the left while scoring no points on the right is beyond me.
“There’s no fixing what got broken here.”
-Pacino playing the 60 minutes producer who did the great “why can’t we get al jazera in the U.S.?” doc in the film “the insider.”
we’re raping and killing children in the fake but awesome war on terror and you expect honkaloid, suburban crypto-facists to worry about constitutional erosion?
btw: they (neo-liberal-cons) don’t need the terror crap to make the end run and repeal miranda altogether, it’s coming and fast. justice roberts is a big dirty harry fan and the court’s already taken the teeth out of the warnings in criminal cases. (cause the bad guy always walks on a technicality before eating the white baby right? and when will a prosecutor ever be able to get a conviction in this country anyway?)
As far as teabaggers go I think you’re giving them too much credit. again. you seem to believe deep in your heart that serious people could attach themselves to such a circus- even the non-stone racists.
That’s why I don’t watch Bill Mahr.
I’d like to see someone ask folks with nuts on their faces and “dude, where’s my white-christian nation?” posters two consecutive questions.
“Do you believe terror suspects (enemy-belligerent combatants….etc, etc.) should be afforded Miranda rights?”
and then…quickly:
“What about negroes?”
…boy the way glen miller played….those were the days!
I spent yesterday morning studying for a Criminal Investigation final with Fox in the background. The Times Square bomber was interrogated for 3-4 hours without being Mirandized under the public safety exception, after which he was read his rights. He waived his rights and continued speaking to officials.
In other words, the system worked perfectly.
Of course, that didn’t stop Chris Wallace and his Fox friends from wondering out loud why Obama is so soft on terror. But what exactly went wrong in this case? He waived his rights, like most people do. What are people so afraid of?
Oh, you have missed the point there entirely. They’ll criticize him no matter what. It’s not about being afraid, or principles or anything. It’s about finding something, anything wrong with what Obama does.
They will find fault with anything and everything he does. It’s their job.
In response to another comment. See in context »You’ve just described the majority of America. The only ideology consistent among the kool-aid drinkers both left and right is the naked pursuit of their own self-interest above all else. It is the overriding principle, every other stated belief is merely a facade to cloak it. These people can’t see two feet in front of their faces, let alone the forest for the trees. Oil spills, wars, riots, poverty, death. All invisible to these morons.
It’s people like you describe who really make me pray for the apocalypse. I got such a rush the other day when the markets tanked. “Finally,” I thought, “the ponzi scheme is ending”. But I guess thanks to the recently announced European TARP we’re going to blow up another bubble and kick the can down the road some more.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets a visceral thrill when the market tanks. I love the thought of all those rich bastards losing millions because they rigged the game wrong. Espescially since the link between the markets and the actual economy grows more tenuous every day – we’re all supposed to gnash our teeth every time the rich have a losing day at the casino, I guess.
In response to another comment. See in context »Well, the writing was really on the wall for this attitude ever since the Democratic idiots panicked and decided, rather than stand for anything, to jettison a popular plank of health care reform in a public health insurance alternative in order to try to appease idiots screaming about government takeovers and death panels who will never in a million years vote for them anyway. The modus operanti of the Democratic Party appears to me to be to kick people with brains who worked to get you elected in the teeth unceasingly in order to try to appeal to Republican fans of Rush Limbaugh in Utah or Wyoming.
Then when support for this approach understandably fails to materialize, as it inevitably will this November, the Democratic geniuses will conclude the solution is to move further right.
….and GS is getting what it wants on the supreme court, GS alumni Elena Kagan…..
Remember the good old days of GWB…..this idiot obama and his crew are making GWB look like Einstein
Practically speaking, not reading someone their Miranda rights just means you can’t use evidence obtained from those interviews in trial. For the pathfinder bomber, it sounds like they have enough evidence that they can convict him without any admissions pre-Miranda.
I don’t think this is the slippery slope to fascism.
I don’t know that this even counts as a capitulation, because Eric Holder and the DoJ doubtless are happy to increase their powers by making exceptions to the Miranda rule. It’s like demanding that your alcoholic friend have another drink with you before he drives home… “Oh, I shouldn’t. But if you insist!”
The exception also depends on not bringing terrorism suspects to trial, because cases based on suspect interrogations sans Miranda will sputter out in court and on appeal. So either it’s going to be associated with an already ongoing unconstitutional injustice (no trials for people we don’t like) or it will be rescinded as soon as it starts blowing cases for the DoJ.
In this way I think it’s definitely symptomatic of the Obama administration’s picking its battles, and it shows how bad they are at calculating which battles to avoid. For example, Obama signaled that his administration wasn’t going to give a shit about guns when he signed a bill allowing people to carry their guns around in national parks. Problem is, the signal doesn’t get through to pro-gun people, who still run around talking about how its only a matter of time before he abrogates the second amendment. In theory this Miranda bullshit takes away a Limbaugh talking point, but in reality he’ll just pull another one out of his ass.
The whining about mirandizing, the weepy pants-pissing about locking convicted terrorists in Leavenworth, and the childish hand-wringing about how dangerous it will be have the KSM trial in New York is about furthering the climate of existential fear. The GOP performs better in elections where people are confused and frightened, so they have to sell the image of terrorists as a special enemy to whom none of the rules should apply. Because if people realize that the existing police-judicial infrastructure can contain most terrorists, they might start to question why they should vote for the GOP, and why the American military is strung out all over the planet fighting terrorism.
Congratulations to the Roves and the Axelrods of the world!
You’ve managed to create a nation that can’t think beyond the limits of their bumper stickers, and CERTAINLY can’t start from a principle (ANY principle!) and derive policy and consistent direction from it.
The reason you think the Tea Party holds contradictory positions is because you don’t understand it as a movement. You seem to always try to be forcing this movement into molds you understand – like a political party with a platform of positions. This is a loose movement of millions of people who are of all different political stripes so, of course and not surpisingly if you really understand it, they hold contradictory positions on many issues.
I’m a liberal, but consider myself a Tea Party adherent because of the two issues that holds true across the entire movement – the fear about the astronomic debt we are leaving to future generations and the mounting redistribution of wealth from the lower and middle class to the vastly rich.
There are huge numbers of other issues that we all disagree on given that the movement counts conservatives, libertarians, christian fundamentalists, christian liberationists, liberals, independents etc. among its adherents. So, no – the “same” people don’t have contradictory views. Different people of different stripes who have come together around a few core common beliefs do.
I’m a liberal, but consider myself a Tea Party adherent because of the two issues that holds true across the entire movement – the fear about the astronomic debt we are leaving to future generations and the mounting redistribution of wealth from the lower and middle class to the vastly rich.
I mean this as an honest question, RunDmc: if these are really the Tea Party’s primary concerns, where were they/you during the Bush Administration?
In response to another comment. See in context »Cutting eyeholes in white sheets, silly.
In response to another comment. See in context »I was out protesting the war, writing letters to the op-ed protesting Bush’s policies left and right, including the unbelievably wasteful spending. This is another complete piece of misinformation – that no one who is part of the Tea Party was protesting Bush. They were – you just either weren’t paying attention or didn’t hear about it.
Certainly we liberals were, so your question is bizarre as concerns me.
But, there were also numerous people on the right who were too. Glenn Beck has been railing against the federal deficit and Bush’s role in creating it since 2004. Michael Savage – as right wing as they come – called Bush a neo-socialist almost from Day one. Since I listen to all points of views, I know this. Most people on the left – who (just like most on the right) – only want to listen to their own echo chamber of course believe the lie that no one in the Tea Party was angered over these serious concerns when Bush was in office.
In response to another comment. See in context »What’s a Christian Liberationist? Are they enslaved?
In response to another comment. See in context »The surest way to correct the 30 year upwards redistribution of wealth (and help reduce the deficit) is to tax the rich at pre-Reagan rates. Since the Tea in Tea Party stands for Taxed Enough Already, I see a huge contradiction.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Ive never seen a “Tax the Rich” sign floating in the sea of Obama = Hitler posters.
In response to another comment. See in context »I have not seen any evidence that Tea Partiers are concerned about the skewed distribution of wealth. I do not see them advocating for more progressive tax laws to aid the middle class. Tea Partiers seem to want to abolish taxes altogether.
In response to another comment. See in context »We’re obviously not going to repeal the 5th amendment granting protection to American citizens against self-incrimination; and if we’re not going to tinker with that basic right we all enjoy, then the only other way around it is to start tinkering with the concept of who’s a citizen and who isn’t.
Yes, Matty, but I don’t think that’s the “backfire” segue you’re looking for. The Teabaggers would love it. They’d put their Halloween-discount tricorns on their pointed heads and mumble incoherently about “sign the petition to expand the Arizona anti-brown-people law.” They’d proudly pin their new-jack ID cards (“American Born!”) right on their flannel shirts, right next to the “PALIN 2012″ buttons.
It’s fucking hopeless boy. They’ll never clue up. Ever.
On the matter of “a new low on the utter-lack-of-balls front”…. you really shouldn’t mix “utters” and “balls” in the same phrase.
BTW – What ever became of that story about Goldman Sachs’ fast trading software that was “dangerous in the wrong hands”?
Matt, our Constitution has always been held to apply to all humans, including non-citizens, within its jurisdiction, despite temporary historical exclusions such as slaves, married women, minor children, and West Coast citizens of Japanese ancestry. These are our rights: we American citizens have the right to be confident that our government is detaining the right people, and from history it seems that due process is the best way to uncover police blunders. Otherwise, confirmation bias grips the minds of law enforcement and the courts, and the true perps are left free on the street.
However, the underwear and Times Square near-bombers aren’t the true test cases for Miranda because their self-incrimination, if any, isn’t needed for conviction at trial. There’s gobs of direct evidence against those two.
Why is consistency so important– just for the sake of having it? What if every situation merits individual consideration? I don’t really see the point in applying the same ideas in every single case when every single case is different. Rigid philosophies can make for bad policy.
Consistency wouldn’t be important, except that in the case of the Tea Partiers, they constantly appeal to the doctrine to explain their positions. So for instance, they’ll call for the disbanding of the DOE and HUD because those departments aren’t “part of the enumerated powers of the government as described in the constitution.” Then they’ll turn right around and favor extrajudicial detention for American terror suspects.
If you just don’t think the Department of Energy is a good use of money, say so. We can debate that. But if you insist it should be abolished because it’s “not in the constitution,” well, then, you can’t turn around and start lobbying for other things that aren’t in the constitution.
There’s being principled, there’s being openly self-interested, and then there’s feigning principle in order to advance self-interest. I have no problem with the first two. But the third is pretty annoying.
In response to another comment. See in context »Consistency not important? “…every situation merits individual consideration?”? Let’s back up here.
The constitution mandates GOVERNMENT behaviors so that individual cases of self interest are treated with consistent principle. We call this fairness. If a monster like McVeigh can be held accountable, we have little to fear from unemployable morons who blow up their own balls and forget their housekeys after attempting to blow up NYC with firecrackers.
Fear turns mice to monsters and the Constitution to shit paper. Let’s have a ball check here before we raisin out.
In response to another comment. See in context »The issue at hand is the inconsistent application of adherence to consistency, not the importance of the concept of consistency in the application of rule of law. No one’s arguing that the law should or shouldn’t be applied consistently, they’re arguing that if your position is that the law should be applied consistently and you’re arguing from a supposedly concrete position of ideological consistency then you can’t take a shit on your ideology and break with consistency any old time you wake up on the wrong side of the militia compound.
To the lady who started this fork, consistency is an is not important depending on what you’re considering. Matt’s talking about libertarians which are a bit abstract if you haven’t spent a lot of time debating with them. Basically, like their close relatives the objectivists and probably Bolsheviks and anyone else who is heavily ideological with a codified belief system, *philosophical* libertarians revel in the internal consistency of their ideology without any care for the deviating results they see in reality, which they explain away by by emphasizing that once their ideology is applied 100% the results will be glorious. In real life, as opposed to Von Mises forums and Murray Rothbard reading circles, we all know what happens. Human society isn’t at all adherent to (much less interested in) rigid logical constructs and inevitably bends to the most recent catalyst and it will be ever thus, which is why ideologies that masturbate to their beloved house of card-like models of internal consistency are doomed to be useful idiots to people skilled in the exercise of power who predictably use them to gain power and then toss them aside like a serial killer would a dead hooker before abusing their newly attained power.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t believe the examples cited in your original commentary support the conclusion that both sides are equally guilty of acting against their principles or anything of the sort.
Distinctions matter. Current federal law prohibits the sale/use of marijuana anywhere, while guns are legal everywhere. It makes sense for progressives to desire the dispersion of regulatory control in the first instance and centralizing it in the second. Similarly, it’s sensible for conservatives to assert state’s rights regarding abortion rights because it is a settled matter of federal law, while supporting a federal prohibition on gay marriage A) already partially exists, and b) avoids tangled issues about recognition of out-of-state marriages.
Both sides would probably prefer federal law in support of their position but when that isn’t possible correctly conclude that a partial victory than none at all. That’s pragmatic, not unprincipled.
I will say that, as a practical matter, the standards for adherence to principle are far higher for conservatives then liberals because the former devoutly believe in absolutes while the latter, being relativists, loathe them. Your example in reply to Ms. Donnovan perfectly illustrates the point. But it is noticeably lacking a liberal counterpart and I believe you’d be hard pressed to come up with one. Obviously liberals can be as hypocritical as anyone else, and the Attorney General’s weasely ideas about limiting Miranda is an obvious example. But this seems to me to be different in kind — if only because he supports a modification of Miranda, not an exemption, though there are other differences.
In response to another comment. See in context »Sounds curiously like the rationale for being a giant hypocritical blowhard.
I suppose asking people to apply the same standards to everyone and everything is asking a bit too much.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Taibbi in a post brilliantly titled Miran-Duhhhhh! on the Obama administrations deeply craven suggestion that the DOJ may want to suspend [...]
Obama keeps taking the wind out of the conservative movement’s sails. It’s kind of awesome.
He’ll half-assedly pretend to care about this issue while the right gets confused about it. “If Obama can be for it, how can we?”
With their paranoia, eventually they’ll be singing, “Obama will use this law against us!!!” Law will fail, freedom will win.
And thus is how Obama wins. Every time.
We live in uncertain and frightening times and when people are scared, they want to lash out and punish those they feel are responsible. This fuels xenophobia, paranoia, and irrationality. Republicans, especially the far-Right, realized early on that this could be a useful political tool and weapon against Democrats and liberals. Think back to the 50s and the Red Scare and Commies. Communists were the Super Boogieman. According to the Republicans and the Right, they had arcane and mystical powers. They were everywhere; in the Pentagon, State Department, Hollywood, under the bed and behind your door. Now it’s Terrorists. The Constitution and our civil and criminal justice system are powerless, impotent, and inadequate to deal with them. The only solution is to Shit-Can them and go all Medieval and Jack Bauer on their collective asses whether they be U.S. citizens or foreign born.
Of course, the fringe Loonies are banging their puny Dicks on the table and leading the charge and the ever-Nutless Democrats are meekly falling in line.
For all the professed love for the Constitution, I’ve never in my 62 years seen so little faith in and support for it from either party. Instead, I see a steady jack-hammering at its foundations. I can’t help but see parallels between this country and Germany in the 30s, a seeking out of a scape-goat for all the nation’s troubles, finding The Other to blame and punish. In the military, there’s never been a weapon created that wasn’t used. If the erosion and dilutions to the Constitution and its protections can be justified against The Other, how long will it be before we all become The Other?
It’s absolutely ridiculous that we’re even having the discussion of suspending Miranda rights. The right in this country have simply gone insane. Torture? Suspension of Rights? War for no reason? NO PROBLEM!
Another conservative/Teabagger/GOP inconsistency: They crusade for a militarized border and the ejection of illegals but will hiss like dyspeptic civets when it becomes clear their deportation fantasy cannot occur minus a biometric identification system.
They revere and defend their divine Constitution for their own kind (jowly honkies)but stand mute before a president who actively approves of extrajudicial assassination of U.S. citizens (provided they roll swarthily in dishadashas) and the indefinite detention of anyone more tinted than John Boehner.
Teabaggers are the angry demographic du jour, bastard spawn of Soccer Moms and Nascar Dads. But their crazy uncle is David Duke.
These types also tend to be what I call Divine Interventionists. They want their version of God to help their team win The Big One, smite the Enemy, wreak retribution on whatever type of ungodly behavior offends them, punish gays, destroy pro-choice adherents, expect God to reach down and save them from accidents and tragedies, and help them pick the winning lottery numbers. But they are highly selective in this whole enterprise as to who and when to help and not help. They don’t want God to physically prevent them from abusing prescription drugs or illegal drugs, engaging in immoral behavior with either sex, cheat on their taxes, defraud the government, stop them from speeding or shoplifting, exploiting illegal immigrants, or — you get the idea.
In response to another comment. See in context »Righteousness is what other people should practice because they are already righteous. Yeah, uh-huh.
Matt — I wonder if you are misreading what the administration is doing here. Scott Horton is second to no-one in standing up for civil liberties, and in fact is really tough on the Obama administration regarding its treatment of detainee issues (as he should be!). He supports Holder on this Miranda thing:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/05/hbc-90007015
Horton’s point is that Miranda in practice has a “public safety” exemption that allows investigators to question suspects for some purposes before reading him his rights (checking if there’s a ticking bomb they need to know about, etc.). They just can’t use any answers they get that way to prosecute the guy. Horton has been saying that there’s never been any statute clarifying exactly what the rules are on that, and there need to be.
So he says it’s just about clarifying what has been a gray area even since the original Miranda decision, and not about rolling back rights.
I’m inclined to believe Horton on this stuff.
I’m with you on the general message, but I think you’re giving Ron Paul and his supporters too much credit here. The guy has taken alarmism to a whole new level – any government action whatsoever is seen as bastardizing some mythical libertarian constitution.
The Tea Party’s a fucked up hodgepodge of worldviews (the Democratic party looks coherent by comparison) and there’s no doubt that traditional conservatives simply appropriate some of the libertarian rhetoric when it suits their interests, but a great deal of the sky-is-falling bullshit you hear from the Tea Partiers can be traced back to Paul himself.
If you listen to Paul long enough (and read any of his writings), he is literally not on board with democracy. He makes a bullshit distinction b/t a “republic” and a “democracy” that bears little resemblance to the republicanism talked about by Madison, and then asserts than any interference with “economic freedom” is unconstitutional. Not surprisingly though, he hasn’t said shit about the AZ immigration law (how’s that for consistency?!).
I’m not saying I agree with Ron Paul. Well, I agree with him about a few specific things (auditing the Fed, for instance, the war in Iraq, etc), but mostly I don’t agree with him and especially don’t agree with his doctrinaire view of the world. What I am saying is that I respect the fact that he’s intellectually consistent and honest. I’ve interviewed a lot of disingenuous assholes in congress and he is not one of them.
In response to another comment. See in context »Thanks for the clarification. I’ve obviously never met Paul – he could be a great guy and I don’t doubt that he’s genuine (unlike many). It just seems odd to me that we on the Left seem to treat him with such deference, when he speaks of those who disagree with him as tyrants who are taking a shit on the Constitution and digging up the founders’ graves(certainly not as nice, genuine people who simply have differing opinions).
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m a big fan of Ron Paul, and I’m also quite liberal, but I don’t really feel threatened by or annoyed with his world view. His consistency is admirable, and I think he would argue that in any case where a problem arises from lack of government intervention or regulation, another form of regulation would take place. A more organic and independent regulation, aka, the free market. That is all debatable I guess, but his point is that we’ve never experienced that. The free market has never been given a chance to exist because of all the damn corporatists and maybe some of us progressives… egad!
Audit the Fed, end the wars, gay marriage for everyone.
In response to another comment. See in context »My favorite two congressmen are Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders. Each makes up his own mind and is immune to lobbying and political party coercion.
In response to another comment. See in context »Matt,
I hope you were watching CNBC just now around 4 pm eastern and just heard Maria Bartiromo suggest that people are even more supportive of off-shore drilling after seeing just how much oil is coming out of the ground. Basically she insinuates that Americans now can “see” first hand that there is a lot of oil in the Gulf Coast and before this accident people weren’t quite sure and therefore didn’t support off-shore drilling. Now with all the oil all over the place, we should be harvesting it. I imagine she thought of this smart comment after one of her coke benders this past weekend.
In response to another comment. See in context »You can’t be serious.
She shows herself to be as insensitive as she is dumb.
In response to another comment. See in context »Free Speech A Terrorist Act?
U.S. Attorney General Holder recently suggested that government be allowed to postpone giving terrorist suspects Miranda warnings.
The problem with Holder’s Miranda proposal is that government could arbitrary manipulate the timing of “Miranda warnings” to heavily favor the government to ensure certain statements made by a terrorist suspect, could be used in their prosecution. It should be noted that Attorney General Holder’s proposal to postpone Miranda warnings is all-inclusive; Holder has failed to distinguish between non-violent terrorist acts from violent terrorist acts—as a condition precedent to postponing Miranda Warnings. For example, non-violent terrorist acts” are covered in the Patriot Act to prosecute Persons that support “coercion to influence a government or intimidation to affect a civilian population.” Now consider how Holder’s proposed postponing of Miranda warnings could be used in conjunction with other laws, for example Sen. McCain’s recent introduced March 4, 2010, S.3081: The “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.”
S.3081 is so broadly written innocent anti-war protesters and Tea Party Groups might be arrested and detained just for attending demonstrations; Government would need only charge everyone attending a demonstration “materially supported hostilities” against U.S. Government or a civilian population to indefinitely detain unlawful demonstrators in military custody. Passage of S.3081 would permit U.S. Government to use “mere suspicion” to curtail an individual’s Constitutional Protections against unlawful arrest, detention and interrogation without benefit of legal counsel and trial. Under both Attorney General Holder’s proposal and Sen. McCain’s S.3081, Government would not be required to provide interrogated individuals Miranda Warnings or even an attorney: Your political opinions and statements made against U.S. Government could be used by Authorities to deem you either a terrorist or a “hostile” “Enemy Belligerent” to cause your arrest and indefinite detention.
It is important that Americans not allow Attorney General Holder to jam his new Miranda proposal though Congress before U.S. Citizens have had an opportunity to examine the potential ramifications of Holder’s proposal.
I’m not sure that I understand this whole Miranda flap. Wasn’t it instituted to help police keep from getting evidence thrown out, and not to help criminals to hide information? A citizen’s 5th amendment protections don’t begin when you are read your rights. They begin when you become a citizen. SO mirandizing or not mirandizing an American citizen terrorist doesn’t matter one bit to the terrorist’s legal protections. The NY bomber dude was a citizen no matter how much Joe Libermann or Rush Limbaugh finds it inconvenient.
If the dittoheads think that most American’s very first introduction to the right to not incriminate yourself and get a lawyer when you are arrested comes when a cop reads you your rights, they are pretty damn stupid.
“A citizen’s 5th amendment protections don’t begin when you are read your rights. They begin when you become a citizen.”
Actually, you and Matt both have this wrong. The Fifth Amendment applies to ALL “persons” within the United States, not just citizens. It is a law about what the authorities can and can’t do in this country, not about what rights citizens specifically do or do not have. Everyone in the United States has to abide by this law.
In theory, at least. In practice, of course, people are pretty willing to just toss out the parts of it that inconvenience them at any given moment….
In response to another comment. See in context »This all falls into the new logic that you can’t have ideas from more than one camp from modern talking heads. If you don’t fall into a box they get all crazy. I have a friend who is a die hard republican who actually cried when Reagan died. Yet he can’t seem to face the fact that Reagan has more in common with the modern democratic party than the republican party of today. He calls me a crazy democrat, even though I try to explain that I am independent for a reason, both parties are full of shit. Why can’t I believe in gun rights and gay rights? It seems a little silly to think one group has all the answers. I think if we all relax and stop rooting for our party like our favorite team, educate ourselves on in the issue and then decide which side to take we might actually solve a problem or two.
I am in 100% agreement with your comment (and its addendum). You really described it well. It also seems like we are pressured to have a passionate view on every issue, that one side is “liberal” and one “conservative.” But there are a bunch of issues I just don’t care about. Sorry. Pray before a high school football game or don’t, I just don’t care.
If implemented today, the tax code under Reagan with its treatment of all income (dividends and cap gains included) as regular income, would be shouted down as “socialist.”
I’ve kind of given up on voters jettisoning their teams for one-by-one issue examination. Just as with sports, people get a sense of belonging from their political teams. My theory is that it’s a substitute for religious teams (which are no longer in vogue). Karl Marx would today say, “Fox News and MSNBC are the opium of the masses.”
If I have a political party, it is the Golden Rule Party. Every major religion or philosophy has such a rule. Society has learned things run a lot more smoothly when we all agree not to stab each other in the back — even if it would be personally advantageous. Now, if only we could enforce those rules against Wall Street…
In response to another comment. See in context »To clarify my earlier point. Anybody who believes in an “ism” is fooling themselves. The problem with all of the pure forms of social order is that they skip human nature. As as species , sadly we are all deeply flawed. Greed, ego, thirst for power, etc.. prevent any of the systems from working by themselves, so why not hybridize the systems so that everyone has a chance to prosper.
Matt, you know I love you, but please no more dangling participles:
“Having followed the Tea Party around on and off for a few months now it’s been hard not to notice some of the contradictory messages emanating from the movement.”
No. No. No. FIX. THAT.
Thank you.
I don’t see a problem other than maybe an inadvertently omitted comma. If you put a comma after “now,” it’s fine, isn’t it? (But no one died and made me copy editor…)
In response to another comment. See in context »This entire discussion concerning should Miranda be used for an ambiguous subset of humans, is fucking useless and most likely a smoke screen to obfuscate (Wilderness of Mirrors) some other law embedded in the 23hr and jammed into our new interoperation of Miranda , our government has been doing what they want since the 40s though for the last 12 years the protagonists have been sloppy idiots. J Padilla a US citizen stripped of all rights including Miranda, jammed in a cell for 3 years and labeled as an enemy combatant and I imagine tortured, drugged, molded to accept any story our government needed to further the war on terror.
Prior to the Bush administration our constitution was not broken and did not need to be fixed and had worked quite well since its inception, Bush, Cheney n Yoo reinterpreted the constitution to steal our country under the guise of protecting us the terrorist, can you guess who the real terrorists are?
The democrats and republicans are currently a single party, for a time I thought a third party could save this once great country, now I envision that the country I was born and raised in is all but lost.
btw- I’m a registered independent and have been my entire life.
MrEthiopian
CHANGE THE MEME. Stop calling it the Tea Party, and start calling it the Fox Party. Because that’s what it is – a bunch of pissed off people who have been misinformed by Fox News for years, to the point where they are perceiving and interacting with an alternative reality.
I generally agree with the slippery slope argument. And I REALLY agree with the “personal freedom for me but not for you” point.
But I have to admit I’m struggling with your last line.
But then again, no one ever accused these people of being smart.
The few Tea Party blogs I follow seem to have recognized that the existing 2-party system is captured, corrupt and essentially not salvageable at this point. I’ve inferred from your previous pieces that you’d agree with them on this essential premise.
But here you seem to be arguing that until each member is a constitutional scholar and fully conversant with every nuance of the entire Universal Commercial Code that they should just sit down and shut the fuck up.
Perhaps you just put that line in there for journalistic sensationalism but it sure comes off as elitist to me.
The lack of smarts exhibited by those in the Tea Party comes from years of misinformation rammed down their throats by Fox News. That’s why I call them the Fox Party, not the Tea Party. And if you start thinking of them as the former rather than the latter, a lot of their indecipherable weirdness will start making a lot more sense to you.
Matt, I agree about the selective application of philosophical principles. Of course, this is nothing new — people have been arguing for onerous burdens on everyone who isn’t like them since we were able to talk. And if you’re looking for philosophical consistency, you best steer clear of the Roberts court. But given that Miranda rules came out of a Supreme Court decision, they can’t simply be adjusted by executive fiat. The lower courts will be obliged to strike down any regulations that do not fit within the parameters of that precedent. In light of that, perhaps this is just a cynical political calculation (ahem…Rahm, that’s your cue) based on the assumption that it WILL be overturned. That would be both alarming and tragic, but I think it’s totally plausible. And a note to Holder, Emanuel et al: just so you know, guys, these people will never vote for you no matter how many of your core beliefs you’re willing to toss out the window.
[...] Matt Taibbi nails it on the problem of partisan support for the Constitution, which we see from all comers these days: The reason I really respect the Ron Paul people is that they’re consistent on all of these things. If they don’t want the government telling you you can’t buy a gun, they also don’t want the federal government telling you not to smoke weed or patronize a prostitute. Paul understands that you can’t make appeals on general principle unless you actually believe in that principle across the board. [...]
Miranda is mischaracterized as a “right”.
The key rights, properly called such, are:
[a] to habeas: the right to force the government to put you before a court and justify detaining you;
[b] against compelled self-incrimination:
[i] by keeping silent in the face of interrogation on matters that relate to the investigation, or
[ii] by declining to testify at the trial of any criminal charge against you, without the prosecution being able to argue or the court being able to conclude that in declining you’ve provided proof of your guilt; and
[c] the right to have an attorney to help in defending against a criminal charge, including investigation into such a charge, and including the ability to get the court to appoint an attorney if you can’t afford one.
Miranda didn’t make any of those rights.
Miranda has to do with a process for determining whether evidence will be suppressed or allowed at the trial of any charge against you.
Put way simplistically, if the authorities decline or neglect to tell you of your rights to silence and an attorney, then interrogate you, they run the risk that whatever you say in that interrogation and whatever incriminating evidence they uncover from your statements, will be suppressed at trial.
I could go on: volumes and volumes of legal texts and articles, hundreds of thousands of pages and millions of words, have been devoted to the complexity of Miranda in various fact situations.
But in short: lots and lots of successful prosecutions don’t rely in any way on confessions or on what the arrested suspect says in interrogation. There’s an op-ed by an ex-NYC judge in the New York Times that seems to claim the vast majority of successful prosecutions have nothing to do with Miranda. He could be right from the perspective of the bench, because the overwhelming majority of charges result in plea bargains, in which the person charged actually has an incentive to show he spilled his guts, regardless the motive, and because pre-trial suppression hearings cut out the worst abuses of the Miranda ruling, so most cases that go onto a full contest SEEM to have no violations.
It’s not clear what Holder was talking about on the Sunday talkies. I’m guessing but I think that had to have been deliberate, as a way to maybe shut down the right wing nuts and pander to the rabbit center, without over-fueling liberal backlash.
There is in point of fact such a thing as the “public safety exception” to the Miranda rule. Forests have been wiped out and bandwidths exhausted over this exception, so I’ll put it in simpliest form: Cops stop a robbery in progress. Vic says the perp had a gun but no gun is evident. Cops right way say to perp: Where’s the f***ing gun? Tell me now or I’ll blow your f***ing head off! Perp says: Okay okay calm down; I threw over there behind the bulk Twinkies. That’s not going to be suppressed, Miranda be damned; it may work a misfortune on the perp that the cops were scaring the s**t of him to secure public safety, but that’s still an incident of the lawful motive.
If Holder is implying the government has decided to go into some serious research and development on how far to stretch the public safety exception, well then whoop-de-do what in hell do you think we pay prosecutors to advise police and direct investigations for? If it goes too far and that fact comes out at trial — a scenario that is ultimately inevitable, but sufficiently unlikely to occur on Holder’s watch — then it will get slapped down in court [or not, if the court gets further packed by President Palin].
Holder’s also been muttering something about seeking for Congress to do something to help stretch the exception. That sounds superficially improbable, because Miranda is court-made law that derives from rights embedded in the Constitution. You can always amend the Constitution I suppose — didn’t that happen with the E.R.A.? Okay that’s impractical. But if both chambers of Congress pass a bill codifying a stretch of the exception for terrorism suspects and the president signs it into law, that satisfies the “high flow” and avoids the “low ebb” test the Supreme Court set up in the Youngstown case way back in Truman’s day, so it’s possible.
But here’s the deal: no amount of comity between Congress and the administration is going to get the Supreme Court to overturn the right to maintain silence, which is the key right at work here. The dynamic that led to Miranda had an awful lot to do with safeguarding against the abuse of low information citizens and immigrants, whereas the Times Square Dips**t Bomber was maybe misinformation or malinformation but definitely not low information.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for differentiating between Tea-o-cons and Ron Paul people! Too many people lump them together and it drives me nuts.
People here saying Ron Paul’s philosophy has no merit in the so called “real world,” are simply scared for their security, a la Von Hayek. At least classical libertarians like Paul call a duck a duck. So called liberals of today can’t even admit that they advocate theft and force by the state because they don’t want to come across as immoral or mean. This is why Paul’s consistency vs. everybody else (dems, gop, linos, etc.) is refreshing.
I agree there are plenty of tea party “types” who are inconsistent in their application of libertarian principles.
However, it is completely consistent with libertarian principles to want one’s own community to have certain laws and not have those laws be imposed from 1000 miles away by an unaccountable bureaucracy. For myself, I would like to live in a community where adult human beings are allowed to ingest whatever substances they want. On the other hand, I would prefer not to have to drive the kids to school past brothels and hookers.
Does my distaste for open prostitution in my own community make me a hypocritical libertarian? I don’t think so. But seeking to impose my views on you and your community from 1000 miles away through an all-powerful central government does.
Planned Parenthood-donating Prius-lovers in Santa Monica need to let Mormons in Salt Lake be themselves and govern themselves, and vice-versa. There are mini-tyrants on both sides, they are the problem.
I see Rand Paul’s pro-forced childbirth position as pretty inconsistent with libertarianism. Additionally, I’ve heard (but not confirmed) that, as someone who derives substantial income from Medicare, his anti-government stance stops short of wanting to abolish Medicare.
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What baffles me is that no one in that white house has figured out that if you continue capitulating on core issues and behave as opposition party, you will not win any election. You frustrate your base and you lose the middle who would rather vote for true republicans instead of yellow bellied copycats. All in the attempt to garner the support of a right wing that would not vote for your policies anyway? Part of the reason why the reds lost in 06/08 was their failure to distinguish themselves from big spending liberals to their base.
I don’t agree with your example of Progressives being inconsistant on MMJ laws vs Gun laws. I think most of us would love a federal law legalizing medical mj, we have just given up on that and are settling on state laws. On gun laws, it is just common sense that it has to be federal to be effective, but in honesty, it seems we have given up on sensible gun control.