Tag: freedoms

Uh, progress?

Glenn Greenwald takes an even dimmer view of the Awlaki “kill first, charge later” move:

It would actually be progress if the Obama administration were considering bringing charges against Awlaki in lieu of killing him without due process. But there’s no indication that’s so.

Worth noting for the tl;dr set: Awlaki is a US citizen, has been sentenced to death without actually being charged with anything, and is only “suspected” of inflammatory sermons…which are probably protected speech anyway. May God bless America!

Uh, progress?

The Obama administration is considering filing the first criminal charges against radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in case the CIA fails to kill him and he is captured alive in Yemen.

Matt Apuzzo, writing for the Associated Press.
Nothing defines America more than these core Constitution protections: Kill first, then charge. Thank God the Founders had the foresight to put that in writing once and for all; truly a boon for citizens living some 225 years later.
Yet, one would assume, a poll of Tea Partiers and other Strict Constructionists would be broadly supportive of this kind of nonsense and would wonder after the squeamishness of questioning it at all.

Douthat: asked and answered

ross douthat:

Would Friedersdorf and others really like to live in a world where the two-thirds of Americans who oppose the [Park 51] project just had their sentiments ignored, because of the bigotry woven into the anti-mosque cause?

tom socca:

Is this a rhetorical question? Here’s one in return: how do you get onto the New York Times op-ed page without a sixth-grade civics education? Would I like to live somewhere where people are allowed to practice their religion, even when two-thirds of the general public would deny them that right if they could? Hell, yes, I would, Ross Douthat. That place is called America. Love it or leave it.

Asked and answered auto-reblog.

(via abbyjean)

I understand the impulse to find another location for the mosque and community center. I understand the pain of those who are motivated by loss too terrible to contemplate. And there are people of every faith – including, perhaps, some in this room – who are hoping that a compromise will end the debate.
But it won’t. The question will then become, how big should the ‘no-mosque zone’ around the World Trade Center be? There is already a mosque four blocks away. Should it too, be moved?
This is a test of our commitment to American values. We must have the courage of our convictions. We must do what is right, not what is easy. And we must put our faith in the freedoms that have sustained our great country for more than 200 years.

Michael Bloomberg, far and away the best voice on this non-mosque not located at Ground Zero.
Why should a former Republican who is a mayor (albeit of a very large city and the city in question) be absolutely crushing what should be the utterly obvious Democratic position here? And why is it that the Democrats are not absolutely trampling themselves to get out in front of (or at the very least alongside of) Bloomberg, a recently Republican mayor? This is why they fail.

The central question raised by this controversy is the same one raised by countless similar controversies throughout American history: whether the irrational fears and prejudices of the majority should be honored and validated or emphatically confronted.

Glenn Greenwald nailing it. Also worth checking out for Dean’s more nuanced explanation of himself.
If only we had a rhetorically skilled President that could go out there and make a powerful case for this. Of course, a growing fraction of Americans think he’s a Muslim. Probably better to wait until September 2012 to start pushing back on that too.