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Bedwetters

zuzu

Tom Tomorrow’s new strip is dead on about conservative bedwetters. I hear over and over from (mostly) conservatives that we need to quash dissent, that 9/11 changed everything, that the terrorists are coming to get us, that spying on US citizens without a warrant is justified to keep us safe.

They’re pissing themselves with fear. But what are they afraid of?

I think they’re afraid of freedom — their own, but more specifically, everyone else’s.

The pro-life bedwetters are afraid that women might exercise their freedom to choose and choose differently than the pro-lifers want them to. So they try to intimidate, harass, threaten or shame women into making the choices they want women to make. And if that doesn’t work, they use the courts and the legislatures to restrict the choices available.

The security bedwetters are afraid that there are terrorists under the bed — so they think that restricting civil liberties on the off chance that domestic spying uncovers a plot to bomb Peoria, it will all be worth it. These are the people who think that it’s A-OK to torture prisoners, or hold them in CIA-run gulags, or spy on our own citizens.

The censorship bedwetters are afraid that other people will use their freedom of speech to say things that the bedwetters don’t like. So they try to shout down critics of the Administration or the military, or cry treason, or indulge in eliminationist rhetoric. I particularly find it amusing when they seek to silence criticism of the military on the grounds that the military is fighting for our freedoms. But what good is the right to free speech if you can’t exercise it?

The bedwetters are looking to the Administration to protect them and prevent them from having to exercise their own freedom to make decisions and take responsibility for them. And the Administration has encouraged exactly that mindset, by raising the specter of 9/11 repeatedly, of justifying wholesale violations of civil liberties on the grounds of security, and by playing the tough-guy-who’ll-protect-you role.

But it’s all been theater. Domestic surveillance hasn’t made us safer, nor has the Iraq war, nor torturing prisoners. Abstinence education and restricting abortion hasn’t made abortion go away. Suppressing dissent hasn’t made the military stronger or the war go better.

Freedom can be a little scary, but it’s a damn sight better than the alternative.

Posted in War

68 thoughts on Bedwetters

  2. Suppression of dissent?

    This is suppression of dissent.

    I have never seen a more healthy and vigorous culture of dissent than that currently active in the United States. People are free to dissent vociferously with the policy of the government, and to work to change that government. The web is full of activist sites (mostly loudly complaining that they’re being silenced by the fascists.) Books that are recommended by the declared enemy of our civilization shoot onto the best-seller lists; #3 in nonfiction, #11 overall, as of this writing. (Hint: if dissent were being suppressed, that book would be banned, not pulling in big sales.)

    Zuzu, I’ve lived in a police state. I know what suppression of dissent looks like. These lefty claims about the police state boot clamping on their necks would come across as a lot less nutjobbish if there were, you know, some actual police boots involved, instead of sweet book deals and the acclaim of the Hollywood crowd. The people being “oppressed” are people spending their summers camping in the tribal regions of Pakistan and soliciting Internet help to make bombs – folks colloquially known to us simplisme Americans as “the enemy”.

    This is play-acting and lets-feel-subjugated wish fulfillment. You guys wish that Bush was a fascist tyrant, instead of a harried democrat trying to fight a shadowy war under trying circumstances, because then you would be heroic martrys for the Cause, instead of peripheral intellectuals irked because the barista keeps forgetting to add the damn cream. Your “dissent” is the dissent of the teenager being told that dad’s layoff means they need to get a summer job, or give up their car – this is FASCISM, man, you guys are DICTATORS!

    Which, OK, you’re entitled to your opinion. But in your heart of hearts, you know the grownups aren’t going to take you seriously.

  3. Tom Tomorrow’s new strip is dead on

    Words that do not belong together in the English language.

    While conservatives are quashing dissent, can we at least quash crappy, unthinkingly left-wing cartoons like this one?

    The security bedwetters are afraid that bad things will happen if we let the terrorists strike again

    Like… people dying? Lots of people dying? You realize that is what happens if we let the terrorists strike again? Sure, you can argue about whether or not secret CIA prisons, torture, or domestic spying is the way to stop them, but it doesn’t seem fair to argue that they’re afraid of nothing at all.

    So they try to shout down critics of the Administration or the military, or cry treason, or indulge in eliminationist rhetoric.

    Shouting someone down does not equal censorship. Nor does crying treason. Eliminationist rhetoric, as I understand it, is not something that’s seriously considered by the “average conservative,” as cited in Tomorrow’s ridiculous comic. Liberals and conservatives alike LOVE to say they’re being censored. But you know what? You’re not. Breathe deeply.

    The pro-life bedwetters are afraid that women might exercise their freedom to choose and choose differently than the pro-lifers want them to.

    I think–and I may be wrong on this one–that pro-lifers aren’t afraid of women “[exercising] their freedom to choose,” but rather, they’re afraid of what they understand to be millions of unecessary deaths every year. Again, you can debate about whether or not their belief is true–probably futile, but you can–but you can’t really fairly say that they’re afraid of nothing.

    I’m sure all Tomorrow’s readers were tickled pink at the idea that their ideological opponents are a bunch of quaking bedwetters. But it’s just name-calling. It’s no different from a conservative calling liberals a bunch of dirty hippies. It may be fun, but it’s not “dead on” about anything.

    Oh, and welcome to the blog, Zuzu. Good to have you.

  4. Robert, I’m with ya. My Friend Leonard is doing incalulable damage to our civilization.

    In the meantime, I agree with zuzu that torture, secret prisons, and unwarranted surveilance are bad. Would that the grown ups would all agree.

  5. Tom Tomorrow’s new strip is dead on

    Words that do not belong together in the English language.

    Le Comique Strip du Tom Tomorrow est mort on.

    Better?

    Sure, you can argue about whether or not secret CIA prisons, torture, or domestic spying is the way to stop them, but it doesn’t seem fair to argue that they’re afraid of nothing at all.

    It’s not that there is no cause for fear, it’s that the fear is disproportionate to the threat, and used to justify actions that are way over the top and much more damaging than the threat itself.

  6. Zuzu, I’ve lived in a police state.

    Robert, I didn’t know you’ve stayed in New Jersey. Huh, how about that…

  7. …I’m sorry. Did zuzu say we were living in a police state? Did Tom Tomorrow?

    The point he made that she agreed with was this: many conservatives are happy to conflate dissent with treason, and happy to equate violation with security. While we are not currently living with oppressive state policies–at least not on a level that Robert would find objectionable–the ones they advocate are most definitely oppressive. Their speech, like everyone else’s, deserves to be protected. Their values, however, are inimical to civil liberties. The administration exploits short-sighted paranoia, and has been doing so ever since September 11th, in many cases in order to pass laws that do compromise civil liberties.

    Like… people dying? Lots of people dying? You realize that is what happens if we let the terrorists strike again? Sure, you can argue about whether or not secret CIA prisons, torture, or domestic spying is the way to stop them, but it doesn’t seem fair to argue that they’re afraid of nothing at all.

    You’re illustrating the point being made yourself. No one disputes that terrorism is a threat, or that our country should protect itself from terrorists. That’s not controversial. Zuzu doesn’t like terrorism. Tom Tomorrow doesn’t like terrorism. No one likes terrorism.

    The problem is that we’re dealing with a disproportionate fear of terrorist attacks. It’s leading people to be extremely careless about other dangers, like damaging due process and the rule of law. It’s making people extremely incurious about actual risk/benefit analyses for anti-terrorist measures. And the level of fear is so high that anyone who looks askance at hysteria is treated as though they don’t care about terrorist threats at all.

    Shouting someone down does not equal censorship. Nor does crying treason. Eliminationist rhetoric, as I understand it, is not something that’s seriously considered by the “average conservative,” as cited in Tomorrow’s ridiculous comic. Liberals and conservatives alike LOVE to say they’re being censored. But you know what? You’re not. Breathe deeply.

    Yes, but shouting people down as treasonous when they do things like criticize administration policies does not exactly foster free speech. Nor does it assist in the kind of exchange that free speech is supposed to support. Censorship, in pure terms, cannot generally be undertaken by anyone but the state. That doesn’t mean that private citizens can’t create an extremely hostile environment for any competing view, or that you can’t infer support for censorship from hostility to free speech.

    I think–and I may be wrong on this one–that pro-lifers aren’t afraid of women “[exercising] their freedom to choose,” but rather, they’re afraid of what they understand to be millions of unecessary deaths every year. Again, you can debate about whether or not their belief is true–probably futile, but you can–but you can’t really fairly say that they’re afraid of nothing.

    This would be a much more sensible inference if abortion bans actually prevented those “deaths.”

  8. The security bedwetters are afraid that bad things will happen if we let the terrorists strike again
    Like… people dying? Lots of people dying? You realize that is what happens if we let the terrorists strike again?

    Fair enough. Post edited to better reflect the point I was trying to make, which Piny just said better than I did.

    I live in New York City. I worked two blocks from the WTC when it came down, and I made several trips inside the frozen zone to retrieve files. I know what it’s like to watch the department assistant open the mail with a mask and latex gloves because of the anthrax attacks in Midtown. I know what it’s like to have the ashes of dead people on your teeth.

    I also know very well that if there’s another large-scale attack, it’s very likely going to happen to New York again. But people around here are not living in terror, because we know that you can’t tell when it’s going to happen, so there’s no use getting scared, because otherwise you’d be paralyzed. And then you have the James Lilekses of the world, who sit in the Midwest and quake in fear over the specter of a terrorist attack — all the while supporting the guy who hasn’t bothered to get the guy who attacked us in the first place.

    Robert, suppression of dissent happens on a continuum. Just because Cuba is at one end of it does not mean that anything less extreme does not fall into the same category. Piny said it very well.

  9. Le Comique Strip du Tom Tomorrow est mort on.

    Alas, I don’t think the idiom translates.

    Zuzu doesn’t like terrorism. Tom Tomorrow doesn’t like terrorism. No one likes terrorism.

    You know, I didn’t think anyone did before, but now we’re entering Doth-Protest-Too-Much territory. Be that as it may:

    The problem is that we’re dealing with a disproportionate fear of terrorist attacks. It’s leading people to be extremely careless about other dangers, like damaging due process and the rule of law.

    Okay. I grant you that damaging due process and the rule of law are bad. But the argument being made here is that no one could reasonably think that the possibility of being exploded on the subway or trapped in a collapsing high-rise is worse than domestic security measures which are not any worse than what we readily submit to when we let our government prosecute the War on Drugs. People that feel this way are tagged “bedwetters.” I don’t think that’s a useful point to make in a debate.

  10. Okay. I grant you that damaging due process and the rule of law are bad. But the argument being made here is that no one could reasonably think that the possibility of being exploded on the subway or trapped in a collapsing high-rise is worse than domestic security measures which are not any worse than what we readily submit to when we let our government prosecute the War on Drugs. People that feel this way are tagged “bedwetters.” I don’t think that’s a useful point to make in a debate.

    You know, progressives in general tend not to be terribly happy with those rationalizations, either.

    That having been said, that’s not what’s being said at all. The argument being made here is this: it is not reasonable to believe that any decrease in the risk of being blown up on the subway or trapped in a collapsing high-rise, no matter how minor or unproven, is worth submitting to domestic security measures that violate civil liberties. That is paranoia: when you’re so terrified that any protection, no matter how small or specious, is valuable enough to make you totally incurious about its costs. Not to edge into Sam Waterson territory here, but it’s imperative that we question tradeoffs that seem either irrational or unconsidered. It’s not possible to talk about safety otherwise.

  11. Robert, I agree that we are not living in a police state. However, there is a move afoot in this administration to create the legal groundwork for one. If the government can detain people indefinitely on secret evidence; listen to their conversations without judicial oversight; and ship them to secret facilities or foreign nations with the understanding that they will be tortured, then the executive branch has at its disposal all the tools of a police state, and our protection against it is merely the hope that they choose not to use it.

  12. I am a libertarian. I am constitutionally predisposed to take seriously arguments that warn of impending lost liberties – and I do note with some alarm that the war against Islamic fundamentalism does make it necessary to skate close to the edge – and sometimes people have fallen over that edge. It therefore says something that the claims of impending fascist theocracy coming from the broadly left-wing side of the aisle are not compelling, indeed, are not interesting.

    Piny’s statement is significant:

    …shouting people down as treasonous when they do things like criticize administration policies does not exactly foster free speech…[Censorship is the province of the state but] That doesn’t mean that private citizens can’t create an extremely hostile environment for any competing view.

    So the issue is not that your views are being suppressed by the state. The issue is that the views of the anti-war left are considered wrong, in some cases contemptible, by many of your fellow citizens – who are, in essence, exerting their right to say “you suck”.

    The contempt and disdain for the other side of the argument being displayed by Tom Tomorrow’s cartoon, and Zuzu’s name-calling editorial echoing it (“No, you suck!”), is exactly the type of silencing and attempted intimidation that Piny is decrying – just coming from a different set of people. So the issue is that it should be us in the majority! It should be our group namecalling that has the most effectiveness. It’s not fair!!

    This is neither a compelling nor a principled argument. It certainly fails to engage my sense of justice.

  13. piny,

    Yes, but shouting people down as treasonous when they do things like criticize administration policies does not exactly foster free speech. Nor does it assist in the kind of exchange that free speech is supposed to support.

    I’ll certainly agree that this is quite a common characteristic of those on the Right and I think it needs to be confronted head on and squashed, just like we need to kill the favored perception on the Left that they are more enlightened and sophisticated than the bumpkins on the Right not to mention the Left’s erroneous perception that they are, on average, more educated than their counterparts on the Right. Dealing in these self-affirming, but delusional, propositions only serves to bolster group identity and results in complete misunderstanding of the reasoned positions held by the two poles of the political spectrum.

    Zuzu,

    But it’s all been theater. Domestic surveillance hasn’t made us safer, nor has the Iraq war, nor torturing prisoners. Abstinence education and restricting abortion hasn’t made abortion go away. Suppressing dissent hasn’t made the military stronger or the war go better.

    I hope you’re trying to find a voice and exercising your skill at caricature otherwise I fear that you really see the world this way. I don’t necessarily defend the policies you lay out but I certainly would entertain the notion that they aren’t mere theater. For instance, I think it quite plausible that the Iraq War has drawn all of the nutcases from the Middle-East into one theater and concentrated the carnage onto our armed forces rather than onto our domestic population. Further, the Iraqi insurgency and the resulting rising tide of Iraqi victims has disillusioned many on the goals and tactics of Al-Queda. Is this an unalloyed good? Of course not, but it’s also not strictly theater.

    As for domestic surveillance, we can’t really say what the outcomes of that have been. We do know that the domestic surveillance was initiated on contact numbers gleened from computers owned by Al-Queda terrorists. We don’t yet know what that program has morphed into, but as a starting point, it’s certainly not unreasonable to assume that the likelihood of furthering our intel would be enhanced by surveilling the domestic contacts of known terrorists.

    Piny gets it exactly right with this statement:

    The problem is that we’re dealing with a disproportionate fear of terrorist attacks. It’s leading people to be extremely careless about other dangers, like damaging due process and the rule of law. It’s making people extremely incurious about actual risk/benefit analyses for anti-terrorist measures. And the level of fear is so high that anyone who looks askance at hysteria is treated as though they don’t care about terrorist threats at all.

    Generally, we don’t find that one side has a monopoly on reason and thoughtfulness and that the other side is wholly unprincipled and capricious.Far more interesting to me is to read a reasoned attack on why you think the Right’s rationales for policy formulation and implementation are misguided rather than to read another cartoon attack which ascribes the most nonsensical motivations to your opponent. There is a lot of substance that can be brought to bear in an attack on the Right’s policies, but to say that it is all theater is completely lacking in substance. Tell me where the line on domestic surveillance should be drawn in light of the world situation we face today. Tell me why the Bush Administration is wrong and what you propose as a better alternative.

    Now of course, if you’re writing for an audience that appreciates empty rhetoric and sees the world in black and white, then your points will be well received by that audience.

  14. So the issue is not that your views are being suppressed by the state. The issue is that the views of the anti-war left are considered wrong, in some cases contemptible, by many of your fellow citizens – who are, in essence, exerting their right to say “you suck”.

    Wow. You really don’t see any appreciable difference between, “You’re an idiot!” and “You’re a traitor!”

  15. Robert, the fact that lefty folks’ arguments about government power do not draw your support is susceptible to multiple interpretations. Maybe we’re nowhere near a real abuse of power, of maybe you’re blinking in your stated libertarian vigilence for some reason.

    On your account, Robert, what powers must a government claim before it is attempting to arrogate to itself the powers of a police state?

  16. Wow. You really don’t see any appreciable difference between, “You’re an idiot!” and “You’re a traitor!”

    I don’t, and I’d throw “You’re a racist!” in there too. The anti-PC warriors who get called racist or sexist like to claim that they’re being censored too. They aren’t, whether the accusations are reasonable or not. And neither is anyone who some right-wing pundit calls a traitor.

  17. I don’t, and I’d throw “You’re a racist!” in there too. The anti-PC warriors who get called racist or sexist like to claim that they’re being censored too. They aren’t, whether the accusations are reasonable or not. And neither is anyone who some right-wing pundit calls a traitor.

    It’s not censorship. It’s hostility to free speech and a qualitatively different understanding of the exercise of that right. Idiots are idiots. Racists are racists. Traitors are criminals, and they deserve to be shot. Treason is not protected but outlawed, and is not supported by the same rationale that is used to support freedom of speech. So once you call someone a traitor for saying something, you’re saying that their speech damages this country and does not deserve protection.

  18. Oh, also: while baseball-bat rhetoric may not constitute censorship, it’s not at all unreasonable that advocating beating the shit out of people for saying certain things counts as advocating censorship.

  19. Characterizing someone’s speech as traitorous is no more accusing them of treason than calling someone’s speech an attack on [African-Americans, women, gays] is literally claiming that their speech should be prosecuted under assault laws. And trying to stop criticism of the military by arguing that they’re fighting for our freedoms doesn’t even rise to the level of calling someone a traitor. At worst, it’s calling them ungrateful.

    Advocating violence against unpopular speakers is in a totally different category, of course.

  20. Piny:
    You really don’t see any appreciable difference between, “You’re an idiot!” and “You’re a traitor!”

    As words coming out of private citizens’ mouths, no, I don’t. They’re being thrown as rhetorical firebombs consistent with the values of the bomb-throwers. To the archetypical leftist, for whom intellectual coherence is the sine qua non (“is there a peer-reviewed study that proves that?”) calling someone an idiot is the ultimate personal cut. To our protean right-winger, who identifies the nation-state as a locus for good and decency in a troubled world, undermining an opponent’s commitment to that shared polity is the rhetorical F-bomb.

    the15th has this one pretty much right. This “OUR overheated rhetoric is just chat, while yours undermines FREEDOM AND DECENCY” theme you’re trying to develop is transparently crap. Hot air is hot air.

    You stupid traitor. (Got you with BOTH BARRELS!)

    Thomas:
    On your account, Robert, what powers must a government claim before it is attempting to arrogate to itself the powers of a police state?

    That’s a good question, but I can’t really answer it. The truth is that all states have the implicit powers of the police state; the only question is, how many hoops do they have to jump through to claim those powers, and how much crap will they have to put up with to keep doing so. That factor, plus the cultural values of the citizenry, are what determines whether a state will go that route. No state without the implicit ability to be a fascist badass can long survive – other peple who are willing to be fascist badasses will come along and take over. See the Mensheviks.

    FDR didn’t have any problem rounding up one hell of a lot of Japanese-Americans and locking them in camps, in other words. The question isn’t whether the state can do it – they all can do it. That’s the peril of the state, and a good reason to keep a state permanently starved of resources. The danger of war is that in order to effectively prosecute it, we have little choice but to give the executive considerable leeway.

  21. Robert, when you say that we have enough freedom, thank you very much, you don’t sound all that fond of freedom as you claim you are.

    Bed-wetters. Pathetic.

  22. Robert, are you arguing that Japanese internment was a necessary display of “facist badass”-ness in order to prevent us from being overrun by an even worse fascist bad ass?

  24. I don’t necessarily defend the policies you lay out but I certainly would entertain the notion that they aren’t mere theater. For instance, I think it quite plausible that the Iraq War has drawn all of the nutcases from the Middle-East into one theater and concentrated the carnage onto our armed forces rather than onto our domestic population.

    Oh. Yay. The flypaper strategy. That worked out well for Spain and England, our allies in the GWOT. As someone who lives in a target city, that makes me feel really, really safe.

    Except not.

    Further, the Iraqi insurgency and the resulting rising tide of Iraqi victims has disillusioned many on the goals and tactics of Al-Queda. Is this an unalloyed good? Of course not, but it’s also not strictly theater.

    I’m sorry, did you miss the latest Osama Bin Laden tape?

  25. just like we need to kill the favored perception on the Left that they are more enlightened and sophisticated than the bumpkins on the Right not to mention the Left’s erroneous perception that they are, on average, more educated than their counterparts on the Right

    What I think we need to kill is the notion that people on the Left are terrifically elitist and think they’re much smarter and better educated and bla bla bla bla than the common working folk in the Right. Thing is, few people on the Left believe this. Lots of people on the Right do.

    Don’t confuse an O’Reilly strawman with reality.

  26. Robert certainly thinks that the Left is all latte liberals, with his references to Starbucks. I suppose he’d be interested to know that Starbucks was in Colorado long before it hit the Northeast.

  27. Japenese internment bad. Glad we agree. You can never be too sure these days, unfortunately.

    I’m unsatisfied with your endorsement of “considerable leeway” because it can be so easily construed to mean it’s ok to throw ethnic groups in camps. Still, I respect your willingness to say that you don’t have a good answer.

  28. As someone who lives in a target city, that makes me feel really, really safe. Except not.

    I’m sorry, but weren’t you characterizing people who desired to feel safe as “bedwetters” earlier today?

    Tex – It might be necessary to throw ethnic groups in camps. (What if 75% of Japanese-Americans really had been fanatically loyal to the Emperor and willing to suicide-bomb defense installations?) But it’s not very likely, not with our demographic mix and with the nature of the people who move here. It’s certainly not called for in the present circumstance; those hostile to the United States are a tiny element, fairly easy to identify without the need for gross impositions on the civil rights of the remainder of the citizenry. (There are only, what, 300 Democrats in Congress? Rimshot.)

    I do, however, support punitive measures against the despicable Inuit. Walrus-clubbing bastards!

  29. zuzu

    nothing like a lot of strawbedwetters there.

    sheesh, don’t let, like, actual facts stand in the way of a orgasmic rant

    The whining of the obnoxious neighbor waxing nasty about the city cops being all nazi and stormtrooper for giving him a ticket for parking in the handicapped parking space…

    then is the victim of a home invasion robbery from the local gangbangers ….

    Yeah…let’s hear some more about all the stuff the “bedwetters” are “making up”

  30. I’m sorry, but weren’t you characterizing people who desired to feel safe as “bedwetters” earlier today

    Robert, dear, see, I have a *reasonable* fear of terrorist action, based on historical activity. I don’t live in a suburb of Minneapolis and quake in my boots about terrorists in Target or at the cheese counter.

    My city has already been hit. Has yours? My city is likely to be hit again. Is yours?

    No? So piss off.

    Darleen, what are you talking about?

  31. I’m sorry, but weren’t you characterizing people who desired to feel safe as “bedwetters” earlier today?

    Robert, because you’re a tad sensitive about the plastic sheeting on your bed doesn’t mean you have to pretend that zuzu isn’t making jokes when you know damn well she is.

  32. zuzu

    This rambling about “bedwetters” is reminiscent of people who sneer at, and try to sabetoge the police.

    Until THEY are mugged.

    Just like certain celebrities on an anti-gun toot, until it’s found out that they hire armed guards for themselves.

    The cluelessness is only outdone by the hypocrisy.

  34. Darleen, you may or may not be interested to learn that I spent two years defending the NYPD in civil rights cases.

    I know cops personally, many of whom lost friends and colleagues on 9/11. So don’t you dare say that I sneer at or try to sabotage the police.

    I have a very good idea of what the cops can and cannot do under the Constitution, and I get very disappointed when the cops, or the government in general, throws off the whole framework of Constitutional accountability. That is hardly sabotage — that’s making sure the cops do their jobs correctly.

    Could you please elaborate on your comment that “The cluelessness is only outdone by the hypocrisy?” Is that directed to me or your “certain celebrities on an anti-gun toot?”

  35. My city has already been hit. Has yours? My city is likely to be hit again. Is yours?

    I live in New York too, zuzu, and I was also here on 9/11. That doesn’t give me, or you, a special trump card to play in the debate over the reasonable response to terrorism, so put away your absurd claims about whose fear of terror is more “reasonable.”

  36. Jon, if you think that someone who has not and very likely will not be affected by terrorism should be able to dictate to those who have been and probably will in the future be affected by terrorism, then perhaps you should re-examine your concept of reality.

    I do, in fact, think that I have special experience in the response to terrorism, which amounts to not having to succumb to the irrational fear of people like Lileks who live a thousand or so miles away from a likely strike zone that terrorists are under the bed.

    If you want to accept that you should live your life in abject fear, more power to ya. I’m not gonna do it. But I’m also not going to listen to the “9/11 changed everything!” crowd who would have me cowering and agreeing to every reduction in civil liberties that comes down the pike.

  37. Tex

    ~~Which of your civil liberties have “been restricted” because of “non-existent” terrorists “under the bed”? Be specific.
    ~~The use of the term “wiretapping” which is NOT what the NSA intell gathering is.
    ~~The idea that all “pro-lifers” operate in bad faith – that their motivation is specifically and exclusively “anti-woman”.
    ~~That criticism is the equivalent of censorship (which is especially ironic given the recent orchestrated hate&vulgarity attacks against Chris Matthews and Deborah Howell from the Left).
    ~~The howling irony of accusing people who look to the government to protect them from foreign and domestic attack…which is the legitimate function of government made by people who believe the government MUST provide everything else for them, from clothing to food to shelter to medical care — absolving them from ALL responsibility of their own life AND do it on their neighbor’s dime.

    The elitist and smarmy tag of “bedwetters” tossed out by the biggest purveyors of juvenile nannystatism is alternately amusing and infuriating.

    And I blame many of MY generation (baby boomer) for a lot of it. Never before has there been a more arrogant and self-indulgent generation, a generation that has fought tooth and nail not to grow up. What have we wrought? A generation dedicated to nihilistic hedonism. If it feels good, do it.

    If it takes more than 20 minutes to solve a problem, or more sweat than a lunch-hour circuit training .. well, then, drop it.

    Don’t ever take what others write seriously. Just Blame America(tm), then pour another glass of chablis and figure out which of your friends to cuckold.

  38. Zuzu

    Any gangbangers in your neighborhood?

    If not, then I guess you are forever precluded from having any opinion on ’em, eh?

    JAYsus on a Pony.

  39. Jon, if you think that someone who has not and very likely will not be affected by terrorism should be able to dictate to those who have been and probably will in the future be affected by terrorism, then perhaps you should re-examine your concept of reality.

    So, under this line of reasoning, should I be able to dictate” anti-terror policy to someone from, say, Vermont? Or Oregon? After all, it would appear that I meet more of your criteria for being “affected by terrorism” than anyone living in either of those blue states.

    Or maybe it would make more sense to admit that the tenability of one’s position on anti-terror tactics has nothing to do with one’s geographic location.

    If you want to accept that you should live your life in abject fear, more power to ya. I’m not gonna do it. But I’m also not going to listen to the “9/11 changed everything!” crowd who would have me cowering and agreeing to every reduction in civil liberties that comes down the pike.

    I don’t think anyone should “live their lives in abject fear.” On the contrary, one of my favorite Biblical passages is Psalms 23:4. As to agreeing to numerous civil liberties reductions, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I certainly don’t think that if the NSA is monitoring bin Laden’s phone calls that they’re required to hang up if he calls America- if that’s what you’re getting at.

  41. Any gangbangers in your neighborhood?

    If not, then I guess you are forever precluded from having any opinion on ‘em, eh?

    JAYsus on a Pony.

    I have tagging from the Crips in my ‘hood. “Fuck the Bloods” is quite common on overpasses nearby.

    Is that enough street cred for you?

    And what street gang does OBL belong to?

  42. Zuzu

    Ok. So does that mean someone in a NON-gang neighborhood is disallowed from any opinion on gangs?

    Re: OBL…look at my link. A “gang” that makes even the Crips small time.

    My eldest daughter is a paramedic in one of the meanest gangbanger territories east of South Central. She gets threatened on a regular basis while trying to save the life of gangsters who have been beaten or shot. She walks through projects on the way to a call and listens to being called “white bitch” because she wears a uniform.

    But I guess no one, NO ONE ELSE can have an opinion on her situation unless they are right there with her, correct? Isn’t that what you’ve been saying?

  43. Darleen, someone in a non-gang neighborhood has no business telling someone who lives in a gang neighborhood how to react to gangs. They can have whatever the heck opinion they want on gangs, but they shouldn’t expect people who’ve actually lived in gang neighborhoods to agree with them. And they have no right to be insulated from criticism of their opinions from people who’ve lived through the experience.

    And I do know that I’ve been told over and over by people who don’t live in cities hit by terrorism that I should be feeling that “9/11 Changed Everything” and that I should support any and all adventures of the Bush administration. Sorry, no.

  44. Oh. Yay. The flypaper strategy. That worked out well for Spain and England, our allies in the GWO

    So, let me get this straight. On a clear sunny September day 5 years ago there is a monstrous terrorist attack on our country. We could point to no clear provocation or motivation that spurred on the terrorists. In response, we attacked Afghanistan, and if we had stopped there, then you’re of the opinion that all the Muslim nutcases would have been satisfied and not attempted to attack the US.

    So it’s sheer theater to propose that those nutcases would not have simply let their hatred of the West dissipate. Is that right? Give them a free pass on the WTC attacks and then they’d leave us alone?

    Good luck making that case.

    did you miss the latest Osama Bin Laden tape?

    No. Did you? It wasn’t speaking to the issue of how popular OBL is in Iraq and in some other regions of the Muslim world where the many Muslim victims of insurgent tactics are having a serious deleterious effect on OBL’s popularity.

    Thing is, few people on the Left believe this.

    Huh? What water is to life, this is to Liberals. This is the lifeblood of liberal self-perception. Take a random walk through through the comments of liberal/feminists blogs and count how many responses don’t presuppose that liberals aren’t more aware, more sophisticated, more cultured, more intellectually superior to conservatives. I’d be surprised if you found more than 5% of comments that weren’t premised on such a view of liberalism.

  45. You feel what you feel regardless.

    But don’t pretend that other people feel their lives have been changed by 9/11 AND that the reality that 9/11 spoke to doesn’t exist.

    You may want to stay in Kansas, but loads of us stopped living there several years ago.

  46. This rambling about “bedwetters” is reminiscent of people who sneer at, and try to sabetoge the police.

    Until THEY are mugged.

    That would make sense if you bedwetters actually did anything useful to combat terrorism ever.

  47. But I guess no one, NO ONE ELSE can have an opinion on her situation unless they are right there with her, correct? Isn’t that what you’ve been saying?

    Actually, according to the pants-pissing logic of the right, the less the threat, the better the “assessment” of what it is. Not that this is anything new–the level of fear about “gangs” goes up in proportion to how far the white person squawking lives from anything resembling the neighborhoods that supposedly stalked day and night by “gangs”.

    When I moved from El Paso, where we actually had gangs, to Alpine, where we did not, the level of hysteria about gangs shot up tenfold. It was weird–gang bangers were like these inhuman monsters to the people in Alpine but in El Paso, they were just kids like the rest of us. Same kind of disconnect, seems to me.

  48. When I moved from El Paso, where we actually had gangs, to Alpine, where we did not, the level of hysteria about gangs shot up tenfold

    Interesting dynamic you’re positing here. I’m not quite certain I buy into it but it sure reminds me of the William Bennett incident where Slate’s William Saletan took him to task for implying that one could predict a child’s criminal propensity based on the current behavior of their parents and this while Saletan lives in a Washington D.C. suburb that has an African American population of only 2.7%. Surely, when he bought his house he wasn’t making any prediction about the environment his children would face in school and the peer groups that they would form by relying on observations about their parents.

    So, if I’ve coorectly interpreted your hypothesis the liberal analogue would be that the level of sanctimoniousness and

  49. Take a random walk through through the comments of liberal/feminists blogs and count how many responses don’t presuppose that liberals aren’t more aware, more sophisticated, more cultured, more intellectually superior to conservatives. I’d be surprised if you found more than 5% of comments that weren’t premised on such a view of liberalism.

    Uh, no. Nice try, though.

    Here’s a hint: believing your viewpoint is right and the other person’s is wrong does not make you some elitist bogeyman. It just means, gasp, that you think your position is better!

    Stop being elitist, Tangoman! Your disagreeing with me and insisting that I’m wrong is a blatant indication that you believe yourself to be more cultured and better read than I! Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I haven’t read plenty of liberal/feminist blogs, and can’t judge on my own what opinions lie in the comments? You’re not better than me!

  50. Tangoman, before you go throwing accusations of racism at Saletan, consider the possibility that he simply purchased a home in the best school district he could afford based on its performance placing children in four-year colleges, or some other criteria, rather than a prediction about crime and violence.

  51. then pour another glass of chablis and figure out which of your friends to cuckold.

    “Cuckold”? Who actually talks like this?

  52. And really, Chet, liberals don’t cuckold people, because it’s all one big latte-drinking, Chablis-sipping, wife-swapping orgy in the blue states.

  53. Robert, you said:

    The truth is that all states have the implicit powers of the police state; the only question is, how many hoops do they have to jump through to claim those powers, and how much crap will they have to put up with to keep doing so. That factor, plus the cultural values of the citizenry, are what determines whether a state will go that route.

    So, if the government starts skipping hoops, shouldn’t you be screaming?
    If the government may have skipped some hoops and the media don’t seem to be making them put up with much crap about it, shoudn’t you be screaming?
    Or do you see the government going around procedural safeguards and think, “well, the terrible power of the state is not pointed at me, and I don’t like the people it is pointed at, so I guess it’s no cause for concern”?

  54. Thomas,

    consider the possibility that he simply purchased a home in the best school district he could afford based on its performance placing children in four-year colleges,

    I think that’s exactly what he did but this action is completely predicated on his making an assumption about young kids now, or even kids not yet born, and the behavior, demeanor and aptitude they’ll have in the future.

    It’s not the school that insures student success but the students themselves. The biggest predictor of a child’s academic success, if you exclude the student’s IQ, is the level of education possessed by the student’s mother.

    Saletan is judging kids not yet born by the characteristics of their parents. Exact same principle that he castigated Bennett for with only minor fiddling on probabilities with respect to education and crime.

  55. amaz0n,

    Here’s a hint: believing your viewpoint is right and the other person’s is wrong does not make you some elitist bogeyman.

    Thanks for the hint. I agree with you, but note that I’m not arguing that what is evident among liberal commentary is that Liberals are arguing that their positions are superior and better reasoned, but that what is evident in the commentary is that Liberals are presuming that they are in possession of personal characteristics that too few conservatives share.

  56. This has been an interesting string of comments. I would like to briefly address the trade off for civil liberties and manner of death. I don’t understand why civil liberties must be compromised for terrorism as opposed to drunk driving, or global warming trends, or teen suicide. What about diabetes or heart disease. Terrorism barely is a drop in the bucket for death in this country. I think more people are struck by lightning. In this manner it is strictly fear that drives the desire to allow civil liberties to be eliminated to sleep better at night. And it is a fear that is larger than the threat posed. It’s fun for the left to call it bedwetting because there is so much machismo on the right. The idea that the left is soft on national defense has long been the rallying cry politically for the right. It’s just funny when it actually appears that the right is just more scared. I mean give me liberty or give me death is something to admire in the land of tough talk. Take away my liberties but please just protect me…not so great. Anyway, I just wanted to chime in. Oh, a couple other things…to the guy or gal who said the Iraq war strategy of placing soldiers randomly in the Middle East to attract terrorists so we don’t get attacked here…you cannot be serious. That is the equivalent of sacrificing virgins to appease the gods. When is it your turn to be bait? And Darleen, what in the world are you smoking. In one thread you take a slightly political debate and end up in a wine guzzling orgy. I have nothing more to say about that other than thanks for the images.

  57. Thomas, we haven’t been skipping hoops. The powers being exercised are the normal war-fighting powers; collection of sigint, detention of enemy combatants, etc. There’s some grey areas being cast because some of the enemy soldiers are also American citizens, but that’s unique only in its scope – look up the treatment of the German saboteurs – some of whom were long-time US residents and one of whom was, I think, a citizen – who landed in New Jersey and Florida during World War II.

  58. Looks like the new PATRIOT Act as set forth in the House bill would provide for a uniformed police force that answers to the president.

    House Report 109-333 – USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005

    SEC. 605. THE UNIFORMED DIVISION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE.

    (a) In General- Chapter 203 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 3056 the following:

    `Sec. 3056A. Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service Uniformed Division

    `(a) There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the `United States Secret Service Uniformed Division’. Subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security, the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division shall perform such duties as the Director, United States Secret Service, may prescribe in connection with the protection of the following:
    …
    `(b)(1) Under the direction of the Director of the Secret Service, members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division are authorized to–

    `(A) carry firearms;

    `(B) make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony; and

    `(C) perform such other functions and duties as are authorized by law.

    `(2) Members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division shall possess privileges and powers similar to those of the members of the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia….

    Tell me that’s not an ominous development.

  59. Sounds like they’re adding a uni division to take some of the load off the FBI, which has traditionally handled federal cop duties but which isn’t really all that well suited to the role. What’s ominous about it, Zuzu?

    (Although if the privileges and powers bequeathed by the analogy to the DC cops are a guide, I suppose this could be worrisome for proprietors of donut stands and titty bars in DC, who will see the demand for freebies skyrocket.)

  60. Robert, we grabbed a U.S. citizen off a civilian flight and held him incommunicado, claiming that nobody but the President had authority over his confinement. As to the treatment of saboteurs in WWII, we cut some corners then, too. However, with a uniformed enemy in the field and a foreign government to get a surrender from, we knew it would end and we knew that we would know when it was over. Bush admits that we can’t “win it.” I don’t think he’s predicting that we’ll lose, either, but that we’ll be in this conflict for the forseeable future: decades! Now, in WWII, which was four years for us, we committed one of the great atrocities in American history, interning our own citizens because of their national origin. In a war lasting decades that cannot formally end, what depths will we sink to?

  61. Further, Robert, if you think that past wartime bad behavior is the standard, you’re setting the bar awfully low. We’ve previously suspended the writ of habeas corpus and interned Americans because of their national origin; we’ve even spread communicable diseases on purpose and we’ve certainly summarily executed combattants and even civilians in the field. Are you saying that even if we were doing all of those things now, it would not make you think that the state was out of control? If that is what you’re saying, then what would make you think the state is out of control? Exactly what do they have to do to make you worry?

  62. Exactly what do they have to do to make you worry?

    Intern American citizens because of their national origin and spreading contagious diseases (although that was the British, not the US, as I recall).

    Summary executions of combatants and civilians in the field isn’t necessarily problematic; exigencies of war. There’s a long tradition of partially or completing suspending habeas corpus in time of national emergency, which this qualifies as. That we are holding incommunicado a guy who had been trying to hook up with Al Qaeda to build radioactive WMDs bothers me not a whit. I assume that they didn’t summarily execute him on the theory that he might have information that will lead us to other cells.

  63. Surveilling and infiltrating non-violent protest groups okay by you? Arresting Michael Moore and holding him in the naval brig until after the next election, and the grounds that his anti-American message is undermining the war?

    Nothing worries you until they commit the kind of atrocity that goes down in history as a black mark on a nation, I see. Quite a standard.

  64. Sounds like they’re adding a uni division to take some of the load off the FBI, which has traditionally handled federal cop duties but which isn’t really all that well suited to the role. What’s ominous about it, Zuzu?

    First, you misunderstand the purpose of the FBI. They serve an investigative function, not an order function. They’re detectives, not riot cops or a security force.

    What’s ominous about this, if you look at the full text of the proposed statute of which I provided excerpts, is that the new uniformed secret service would be given rather nebulous duties not limited to the traditional function of the Secret Service, which is to provide security for certain government officials and foreign officials. The new service would be under the discretion of DHS, which means essentially that it would serve at the direction of the president. Since the statute would allow the president to deploy them at need, that essentially gives the president a private security force.

    You know, for a libertarian, you seem pretty sanguine about the expansion of police powers.

  65. Surveilling and infiltrating non-violent protest groups okay by you?

    Yes, for reasons that are obvious to a mango. Know how I’d smuggle a nuclear bomb into Houston? In a crate marked “relief supplies” coordinated through my dummy non-violent humanitarian group, or in a bus full of obviously harmless hippie morons coordinated through my dummy non-violent peace group.

    Look into the history of the Soviet and Nazi use of useful idiots, then decide whether keeping tabs on such groups and watching for foreign subversion of them is a good idea or not.

    Arresting Michael Moore and holding him in the naval brig until after the next election, and the grounds that his anti-American message is undermining the war?

    Which hasn’t happened, so I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up.

    Oh wait, I am sure – because the things that have actually happened aren’t disturbing like this would be.

    Nothing worries you until they commit the kind of atrocity that goes down in history as a black mark on a nation, I see.

    Yeah, shocking – I’m not going to get concerned about crimes against freedom until they’re actually crimes against freedom.

    Zuzu:
    You know, for a libertarian, you seem pretty sanguine about the expansion of police powers.

    What police power is being expanded? The executive is and always has been free to organize the entities it uses to exercise its legitimately held police power as it sees fit. This does not appear to be an expansion; it appears to be a reorganization.

    Imagine my shock and dismay that the entity tasked with protecting the national territory against terrorist subversion might actually have, you know, COPS. With nebulous duties! Oh, and that answer to the private direction of the President!

    I wasn’t worried before – when the President had sole control of a military of three million people, 10,000 nuclear warheads, and ten different federal police agencies with enough collective legal powers to make John Gotti cry like the new fish at Nolube State Penitentiary – but now that he might have some uniformed rent-a-cops who are allowed to arrest people while wearing a different badge than all the other people working for him who are allowed to arrest people, democracy is finished.

    Finished, I say!

  66. Why a police force answerable only to the executive when we have an army, Robert?

    And would you like it if President Hillary Clinton were warrantlessly tapping your phone lines on the ground that you were a useful idiot?

  67. Why a police force answerable only to the executive when we have an army, Robert?

    The army is busy.

    If I were calling Al-Qaeda operatives in Morocco, damn right President Clinton (our most uncompromising wartime President, doncha know) better be tapping those operatives’ communications.

    Not that she’d stand a chance; she’ll be stabbed in the back by you squishes at the convention.

  68. If I were calling Al-Qaeda operatives in Morocco, damn right President Clinton (our most uncompromising wartime President, doncha know) better be tapping those operatives’ communications.

    What if you weren’t, though? Since that’s the situation we’re discussing. Wiretaps on persons completely uninvolved in terror activities.

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