Palin on Justice

[beamjockey]

I heard Governor Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention last night.

At one point, she listed contrasts between Senator McCain and "our opponent."

Victory in Iraq is finally in sight ... he wants to forfeit.

Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay ... he wants to meet them without preconditions.

And then she said:

Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights.

This was met with cheers from the assembled Republicans.

I was disturbed.

Is Gov. Palin opposed to reading criminals their rights? Is McCain?

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

See, they'd say that by calling terrorists "criminals" you're not being serious about The War On Terror. It's a neat trick that Bush has been using for eight years--terrorists aren't criminals but our enemies in a war, so criminal procedures don't apply, and furthermore it's a special kind of war where people we capture don't deserve to be treated as POWs either. Amazingly, things work out exactly so that captors can do whatever they want to detainees.

The subtext is that the basic rights of the accused are not a universal human birthright but something that you have to earn by being in a deserving class of people. Since a major point of the protections of the accused is to make sure innocent people don't get punished, it's strangely self-annihilating logic. Terrorists are so bad that they don't deserve a reasonable effort to find out whether they are actually terrorists or not!

It's a good rule of thumb that when somebody argues against the rights of terrorism suspects with an argument that would apply equally well to depriving common criminal suspects of their rights, something funny is going on. But post-9/11 this funny business has been hard to attack. I'm hoping that period is gradually coming to an end, but I'm not sure if it has.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised this surprised you. Reading criminals their rights has long been seen by some law and order types as coddling criminals.

Plus, the Bush administration has made it clear that they feel the only way to deal with terrorists is as a war, rather than as law enforcement, then there is no reason to read them Miranda anyway. Also, since al Qaida is not made up of American citizens, the Constitution doesn't apply to them.

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

I think it has been well established that anyone who has been accused of being a terrorist no longer has any rights. :/

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Terrorism is one of the (many) crimes that are so heinous that even innocence is no excuse.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights.

This was met with cheers from the assembled Republicans.

I was disturbed.

I missed that one but as others have said, it doesn't surprise me. Guliani was mocking the Dems for not using the phrase "Islamic terrorists" because it might be politically incorrect phrasing. He questioned whether the Dems didn't want to offend terrorists with the phrase, completely ignoring the possibility of Muslims being offended at having their religion constantly linked to terrorists. On a different part of the speech, he had the crowd chanting "Drill baby drill" (in reference to off-shore drilling).

Only disturbed? I was disgusted.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

One of the things that has disturbed me for years is that the GOP line runs far too close to the idea that if you're accused, you must be guilty. It's a close cousin to "if you're innnocent, you have nothing to hide", and a near twin to the way they say "Card Carrying Member of The ACLU" as if there was something wrong about defending the Constitution.

[billroper]

The specific point being addressed had to do with chatter around the recent Supreme Court decisions on military tribunals. No one objects (as far as I know) to reading criminals their rights, but there's some (minor) question now as to what sort of treatment is appropriate in a war zone.

It might be worth reading the decision and the dissents if you're actually interested in the issue. (I did.)

[hradzka.livejournal.com]

My impression was that she was expressing opposition to funneling prisoners of war into the criminal justice system. You don't have to think that the Miranda ruling was a mistake to think that, say, extending those protections to terrorists picked up on the battlefield is a bad idea.

(Of course, as David Simon points out in his book HOMICIDE, it's downright amazing how many people get read their Miranda rights, acknowledge they understand them, and proceed to tell the cops everything anyway.)

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I think they're opposed to Mirandizing terrorists.