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Aswad -> RE: Early Morning Chaos in Boston (4/19/2013 8:43:48 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
I have a problem with this whole, not reading him his rights thing. The right to refuse to incriminate himself doesn't come off a little card in the cop's pocket. It comes from the Bill of Rights, and this murderous little shit is a citizen of these United States. If he says, no, he will not answer questions while in police custody, and wants a lawyer, the foundational principles of our nation demand that we respect that right.
I emphatically agree. It's one of the few things we did right up here in the aftermath of the Oslo/Utøya attacks: sticking to due process, every step of the way. If that stuff only matters with people you like, it doesn't matter at all, and we may as well skip it and thus at least rid ourselves of hypocrisy. The reason why we put it on paper is to make sure it's clear to everyone where the line is, for cases like these, when we're sorely tempted to cross said line.
A classic example is when people want freedom of speech, but only for the speech they approve of. Freedom of speech is made for Holocaust deniers, people that advocate sex with minors, racists, misogynists, misandrists, and every other kind of offensive bastard that has nonsense to spew. And yes- hell, yes- it's made for jihadists. It's not for you and me. It's not for the stuff we can say in polite company without wrinkling noses or raising brows. It's for what we can't say without it. And amid all that garbage, we will find, on occasion, that one Martin Luther King, Jr., or the Ghandi, or the Jesus, or the Krishnamurti, or whathaveyou, those grains of gold that make it worthwhile to sift through all the mud in search of our future, our next great leap forward.
The rights that are accorded suspects, criminals, etc., are for the benefit of the one guy that gets nailed unjustly, for the benefit of our collective mental, emotional and spiritual health as human beings in recognizing humanity in others (lest we repeat their faults, the ones that tempt us to disregard their humanity or, in this case, their citizenry).
If we disregard that, we're animals, and no better than the bombers in the scheme of things.
In a military context, whatever Code you abide by is what distinguishes you as a soldier from a common, armed thug. In a civilian context, similar things hold. Any Code we adhere to only when it's easy, convenient, expedient, agreeable or otherwise within the realm of what any reasonable adult can be expected to follow it, is simply "the Code of what I was going to do anyway", and thus worse than worthless. There are exceptions, but those have to do with shortcomings of a Code, not willful disregard for its content founded on the outcome being distasteful or made on the spur of the moment.
So, yeah, I applaud what you say, agree with it enthusiastically, and probably best keep quiet as to what I think of the failure to respect the suspect's rights.
quote:
I think Lindsay Graham is right. The solution is not exercise some lawyerized exception to the 5th Amendment, but to classify him as an enemy combatent, at least until we can clearly establish otherwise. Then fill the water pitcher as needed, until we are certain some cousin or comrade isn't still out there, with more pressure cookers.
Which is why I'm not hugging you. But, hey, one out of two.
Really, you don't need to incentivize him to implicate the uncle that disavowed him; you need solid research and investigation that leads to facts. Right now, you have a suspect that seems a probable candidate for the bombings. It's a while off from "beyond reasonable doubt" yet, and that means he's still a citizen in every regard, which in turn means that it's time to get on with due process. That's what it's there for: to make sure the State doesn't accidentally get in the business of executing unpopular citizens, like in past witchhunts.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
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