Juan Cole and Jonah Goldberg continued to lob snark bombs at each other throughout the day. It's a futile exercise -- Goldberg is too thick to recognize when he's been beaten -- but it makes for fun reading. Catch up on the fun by clicking here, here, here, and here.  

 

Oh, wait, there's more ... here, here, and here. Lots of piling on.

 

This blogger calls Goldberg an "overfed, underread hack." I think that means Goldberg doesn't read enough, not that not enough people read Goldberg. Fact is, way too many people read Goldberg. He's representative of the many second-rate thinkers the Right presents to the public as "intellectuals."

 

Cough.

 

Over the past several months I've found Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment, to be the single best source of daily information about what's really going on in Iraq. And I say that not because he says what I want to hear, but because what he says, time and time again, turns out to be accurate.

 

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The Constitution can be amended, and if you try to use its protections to undermine the society which holds it dear, don’t be surprised if you’re suddenly excluded from its umbrella.

There are some misfirings of logic going on here, since Mr. du Toit says he is not opposed to disseminating the literature but rather to violent actions that the literature promotes. The First Amendment doesn't protect violent action. Otherwise, I could claim First Amendment protection for murder if I published a public notice about it first. Clearly, that's silly.

Over the years government bureaucrats have tried to censor speech made by anarchists, and communists, and the Ku Klux Klan, and various other people wanting to do harm to other people. And over the years the SCOTUS has adopted various guidelines regarding speech that promotes violent action. My understanding is that, as it stands now, speech that advocates violence cannot be prohibited "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action [Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)]."

As I interpret that, if a bunch of guys are just sittin' around, and one of 'em says, yeah, we oughtta overthrow the gubmint one o' these days, that's protected by the First Amendment. A bunch of guys outside the gates of the White House saying they've got bombs and are looking for volunteers to charge in and blow the place up would not be protected.

But I'm not a lawyer, so don't quote me.

Those of us who still care about what happened on September 11 still want a closer look at the connections between al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, the fundamentalist Wahabi sect of Islam, and the rulers of Saudi Arabia. This is a much more complicated topic than I want to get into right now, but for many years the Saudi royals have played elaborate games, simultaneously appeasing and sheltering the Wahabis and terrorists like Osama bin Laden, while pretending to be friends of America. And you don't even want to get me started on the services performed by George W. Bush and Co. to cover Saudi royal butts. But let's continue ...

It's true that speech plays a role in inflaming hate that leads to violence. Sometimes it's hard to judge where venting crosses a line and becomes inciting violence. Reasonable people can disagree. If there is literature being disseminated that urges American Muslims to commit acts of violence, that really concerns me. I was in lower Manhattan on September 11, remember. I have a daughter who lives and works in Manhattan and rides subways every day, and I can work myself into a genuine panic if I start thinking about terrorism.

But when it comes to civil liberties, the operative phrase should be equal protection under the law. Whatever guidelines are applied should be applied regardless of where the speakers fall on the political spectrum. The law should not care whether the speaker is a Muslim or a Marxist or a Klansman or a member of the Randy Weaver Chapter of the Defenders of the Second Amendment Militia. The government must not be given the power to selectively choose people who don't enjoy the protection of the Bill of Rights. 

(And yes, the Bush Administration already has taken that power and stripped American citizens of their rights under the Fifth and Sixth and several other amendments by calling them "enemy combatants," and why is it that us "big gubmint" liberals are more concerned about this that allegedly freedom-loving righties?) 

But I'm getting away from what I wanted to write about, which is the literature that concerns Mr. du Toit. And here it is, from his site:

• Reject Christianity as a valid faith: Any Muslim who believes “that churches are houses of God and that God is worshiped therein is an infidel."
• Insist that Islamic law be applied: On a range of issues, from women (who must be veiled) to apostates from Islam ("should be killed"), the Saudi publications insist on full enforcement of Shariah in America.
• See non-Muslims as the enemy: “Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law."
• See America as hostile territory: “It is forbidden for a Muslim to become a citizen of a country governed by infidels because this is a means of acquiescing to their infidelity and accepting all their erroneous ways."
• Prepare for war against America: “To be true Muslims, we must prepare and be ready for jihad in Allah’s way. It is the duty of the citizen and the government."

For the first three, how is any of that in any way different from the crap spewed out day and night by the Fundie Christian Right? Just switch the position of the words Christianity and Islam, and there you go. Either way it's odious to me, but it's protected under the First Amendment whether I like it or not.

[Update: Well, OK, maybe the Christian fundies don't openly advocate killing non-Christians. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna turn my back to 'em.]

As far as seeing America as hostile territory -- well, it is now, isn't it? I can't argue with that. But as I said, the Wahabis have been inflaming people with rhetoric like that for years, and one would have wished the Saudis had done something about it, and might still do something about it, but somehow it's an issue that isn't on anyone's front burner. Including Bush's.

Last item -- after all of Bush's saber rattling, not to mention little episodes like the destruction of Fallujah -- Mr. du Toit, what the hell do you expect?

If one were to be honest about it, one would admit that invading a Muslim country was a rather provocative and inflammatory act. Especially for half-assed reasons that change every three months.

But here's my point -- I remember, after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, President Clinton requested that people tone down the hate rhetoric that really did play a part in inflaming Timothy McVeigh. And the righties had a bleeping fit. There are still documents from the 1990s drizzled about the web expressing outrage that anyone dare suggest their hate speech was any of the gubmint's business.  

Funny how that works.

Fact is, when civil liberties are for me but not for thee, then the gubmint can take them away from any of us eventually. Why is it that righties don't get that?

Sharif Ali bin Hussein, head of the Constitutional Monarchy Party, likened the vote outcome to a "Sistani tsunami" that would shake the nation.

"Americans are in for a shock," he said, adding that one day they would realize, "We've got 150,000 troops here protecting a country that's extremely friendly to Iran, and training their troops."

The partial totals so far show the Iraqi List headed by Allawi, a secular Shiite and onetime CIA protege, trailed far behind with only 18 percent of the votes, despite an aggressive television ad campaign waged with U.S. aid. A lopsided majority of votes, 72 percent, went to the United Iraqi Alliance list, topped by a Shiite cleric who lived in Iran for many years and whose Sciri party has close ties to Iran's clerical regime. More than a third of the alliance's vote came from Baghdad, the cosmopolitan capital where Allawi had been expected to fare well.

Let’s see if Karl Rove can fix this election.

According to Friday's NYT, the religious Shiites who are backed by Iran have opened what may be an insurmountable lead over the party headed by our stooge Allawi in the votes counted so far in Iraq. Worse yet for the Bush Administration, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s forces, sensing victory, are already laying the foundation for a coalition government with the Kurds, and are bypassing Allawi.

Steve speculates that Judith Miller's good buddy Ahmed Chalabi, Iranian spy, might find a nice spot for himself in the new government. But the Bushies might find him to be a lot less friendly.

Also, it turns out that the voter turnout might have been a tad less glorious than originally reported. Says Greg Mitchell in Editor & Publisher:

For days, the press repeated, as gospel, assertions offered by an election official that 8 million Iraqis went to the polls on Sunday, an impressive 57% turnout rate. I questioned those figures as early as last Sunday, and offered the detailed analysis below on Wednesday. Finally, on Thursday night, John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins of The New York Times reported that Iraqi election officials have quietly "backtracked, saying that the 8 million estimate had been reached hastily on the basis of telephone reports from polling stations across the country and that the figure could change."

Then, in Friday's paper, Burns and Filkins noted that one election commision official was "evasive about the turnout, implying it might end up significantly lower than the initial estimate." They quoted this official, Safwat Radhid, exclaiming: "Only God Almighty knows the final turnout now." They revealed that the announcement of a turnout number, expected to be released this weekend, has been put off for a week, due to the "complex" tabulation system.

Although turnout probably was heavy in some areas, we're learning that the news coverage presented to Americans was a lot of gush and hype. Yet the righties will still whine incessantly about the liberal media.

At the same time, two Republicans certain to play a role in shaping any Social Security legislation, Representative Jim McCrery of Louisiana and Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, expressed deep reservations about Mr. Bush's idea of allowing workers to divert a portion of their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts, though for different reasons.

Mr. McCrery, the chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees Social Security, said Mr. Bush's idea of diverting payroll taxes left Republicans open to attacks that they were weakening the program from Democrats and advocates for retirees, including AARP, a powerful group whose support helped pass Medicare prescription drug legislation in 2003. ...

[Note: Josh Marshall discusses McCrery's concerns at more length.]

Ms. Snowe, a moderate Republican who serves on the Senate Finance Committee and who represents a state with a sizable elderly population, said she had "serious concerns" about the idea, and strongly favored continuing the current system in which retirees receive a guaranteed payout every month.

"It has worked exceptionally well for 70 years," she said. "I think it's in our national interest."

 

I can't tell from the news stories how significant lawsuit might be.

Attorneys from the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed a suit with German federal prosecutors last November charging that U.S. officials, including Rumsfeld, are responsible for acts of torture against detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. That is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi detainees.

Rumsfeld has maintained that the U.S. government has no policy to permit or encourage torture and that U.S. investigations of the Abu Ghraib abuses showed he was not directly responsible. ...

... The lawsuit against Rumsfeld was filed in Germany because its laws allow for the prosecution of war crimes and human rights violations across national boundaries. Because the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the case could not be filed there.

Just because a lawsuit has been filed doesn't mean the court is going to act on it. But this tells us the Bushies think the court might act on it.

 

Along these lines, be sure to read Nicholas Kristof's NY Times column from yesterday:

Two weeks ago, President Bush gave an impassioned speech to the world about the need to stand for human freedom.

But this week, administration officials are skulking in the corridors of the United Nations, trying desperately to block a prosecution of Sudanese officials for crimes against humanity.

... Mr. Bush's sympathy for Sudanese parents who are having their children tossed into bonfires shrivels next to his hostility to the organization that the U.N. wants to trust with the prosecution: the International Criminal Court. Administration officials so despise the court that they have become, in effect, the best hope of Sudanese officials seeking to avoid accountability for what Mr. Bush himself has called genocide.

Mr. Bush's worry is that if the International Criminal Court is legitimized, American officials could someday be dragged before it. The court's supporters counter that safeguards make that impossible. Reasonable people can differ about the court, but for Mr. Bush to put his ideological opposition to it over the welfare of the 10,000 people still dying every month in Darfur - that's just madness.

Yeah, it's outrageous, it's insane, it's immoral. And, for the Bushies, it's typical. Why is Kristof acting surprised?

 

(Comic relief moment: Check out this rightie blog post in which the blogger speculates that Bush will receive the Nobel Peace Prize.)

 

And the other little bomblet today was that Rummy told Larry King, in an interview to be aired tonight (I thought it was "Larry King Live"?) that twice he submitted his resignation to Bush because of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Might be interesting to check out the program.

 

1a. To protect from loss or harm; preserve: calls to conserve our national heritage in the face of bewildering change. b. To use carefully or sparingly, avoiding waste: kept the thermostat lower to conserve energy. 2. To keep (a quantity) constant through physical or chemical reactions or evolutionary changes. 3. To preserve (fruits) with sugar.

1. To maintain in safety from injury, peril, or harm; protect. 2. To keep in perfect or unaltered condition; maintain unchanged. 3. To keep or maintain intact: tried to preserve family harmony. See synonyms at defend. 4. To prepare (food) for future use, as by canning or salting. 5. To prevent (organic bodies) from decaying or spoiling. 6. To keep or protect (game or fish) for one's private hunting or fishing.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.  

But isn't conservatism about freedom? Of course everyone wants freedom, and so conservatism has no choice but to promise freedom to its subjects. In reality conservatism has meant complicated things by "freedom", and the reality of conservatism in practice has scarcely corresponded even to the contorted definitions in conservative texts.

To start with, conservatism constantly shifts in its degree of authoritarianism. Conservative rhetors, in the Wall Street Journal for example, have no difficulty claiming to be the party of freedom in one breath and attacking civil liberties in the next.

The real situation with conservatism and freedom is best understood in historical context. Conservatism constantly changes, always adapting itself to provide the minimum amount of freedom that is required to hold together a dominant coalition in the society. In Burke's day, for example, this meant an alliance between traditional social authorities and the rising business class. Although the business class has always defined its agenda in terms of something it calls "freedom", in reality conservatism from the 18th century onward has simply implied a shift from one kind of government intervention in the economy to another, quite different kind, together with a continuation of medieval models of cultural domination.

One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. ...

At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of free men to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. ...

TR's "New Nationalism" speech, delivered in 1911, made the case for modern American liberalism. Parts of it relate to issues we're still struggling with --

...The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare. ... No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so that after his day's work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life with which we surround them.

Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back, by irresponsible class actions and frivolous asbestos claims - and I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this year.

Then Bill O'Reilly struck. The Fox TV commentator went to town on the controversy, finding the usual liberal idiocy at the usual liberal college perpetrated by the usual liberal morons. Having rounded up his usual suspects, O'Reilly ended a segment about Hamilton by providing the name of the college's president, Joan Hinde Stewart, her e-mail address and the school's phone number. Then, blood dripping from his evil heart, he asked his deranged viewers to "keep your comments respectable."

The school caved. Stewart reported getting 6,000 or so messages, and I know, because I get them all the time, that many of them were vile and obscene and even threatening. But this is the true cost of free speech. It is not some rarefied principle, not some slogan, not some trivial right for professors to abuse in comfortable distance from the targets of their ideas, but the most powerful and dangerous right of them all. And because O'Reilly had, in effect, organized an Internet lynch mob, a collection of cyber-goons -- one of whom threatened to bring a gun -- the school simply junked the program. It chickened out.

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But in my lifetime, I don't think American conservatism has ever been as boldly aristocratic as it currently is: Do not ask questions. Do not expect even minimal accountability. Whatever they do is, by definition, perfect,  because they do it and they are God's chosen. L'etat c'est moi. There's no denying we've had a few embarrassing presidents in our history, but when, before this millennium, have we seen the ascending of the idiot prince to the throne? And yet they call us an elite, those of us watching the little hope and security we have -- our pensions, our access to health care, the laws that keep us from being poisoned or losing our jobs unfairly, the investment in our kids' schools -- slip away.

No, perhaps those of us watching those things happen are not considered an elite. But those of us daring to notice and complain about it are. The fundamental civic obligation (not right, obligation) in a democracy -- paying attention and speaking up -- is deemed arrogant.