The left and right differ only on what part of the federal government gets to decide when we are stripped of our constitutional protections. Certainly, many liberals disagree about particular policies, such as some of the provisions of the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, rendition for torture, and the manner of confinement and treatment at abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. But we are concerned here with the constitutional law claim that we the people can be treated like the enemy at all. The right insists the president can do it entirely on his own, while the left insists that he must have the blessings of Congress and/or the courts before he spies on us, interns us in military brigs or concentration camps, tortures us for information (or renders us to a foreign nation to do that) or have us tried by a hand-picked military tribunal in a show trial before having us shot (if we get a trial).
These accusations of unconstitutionality need to be tried. It's not gonna happen in a government court, and an ad hoc court wouldn't have subpoena power, but I highly recommend that somebody hire a real, impartial judge who'd do it because he was interested in the questions (interested, as in "curious", not as in 'having a financial, or political, stake in the outcome'--here's a WOD for you: disinterested is a synonym of impartial, not uninterested--what I'd like the judge to be uninterested in is political-correctness, left, right, neo-con or anarchist; i.e. I want a disinterested judge). And real attorneys for the defense and prosecution.
And, of course, real procedures for handling evidence, testimony and whatever.
LibertyBob could summon an All-Thing.
It is these last procedural protections of the Bill of Rights (along with the First and Second Amendments) that the neo-conservative government supremacists now seek to destroy to attain their dream of unrestrained, unlimited "war" power in a loosely defined war on terror; a war that will likely never end. And the loyal opposition only insists on a role for politicians and willful judges in this murder of the Bill of Rights, trusting only in the god of democracy and the high priests on the federal bench to secure our lives and liberty. Our Constitution and our Bill of Rights have been largely abandoned by both the Republicans and the Democrats.
In the short-run, I'd say he's exaggerating, but I see his point for the long-run.
War is problematic for libertarians. It's a break-down of the rules of civilization--or, for those who hate civilization to start with (yeah, I've read some of your crap, I don't see that your version of anarch will help my daughters live long, healthy, happy lives), it's a break-down of Love and Respect and an outbreak of Hate and Violence.
I'm afraid that sometimes the Lovers and Respecters have to band together to suppress the Haters and Violators. It'd be nice if governments embodied love and respect, but they never will. They should be the embodiment of rules and procedures to protect individuals who practice those values.
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