NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/talk/politics/misc/65202

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-23 | 8.6 KB

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Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!charnel!psgrain!m2xenix!mtek!bud
From: [e-mail] (Bud Hovell)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism,alt.politics.usa.misc
Subject: Re: What is United States of America like?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 23 Dec 92 04:02:57 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Distribution: usa
Organization: MTEK International, Inc.
Lines: 141

[e-mail] (MMMMM...ESSENCE OF GELFLING) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]                                 writes...
>>That Noriega had engaged in drug trafficking, though de facto "head
>>of state" (but only by de jure contravention of recent elections),
>>was cause for prosecution by the USG. And a charge subsequently con-
>>firmed in court to the satisfaction of most disinterested observers).
>>
>He was tried under OUR laws. Don't you think it's a little bit wrong
>to kidnap someone to OUR country and try them under OUR laws when they
>aern't a citizen of OUR country and don't want to be in OUR country?
>Check the 11th Amendment.

"Wrong"? That is a moral -- not a legal -- judgement. Either argue one
or the other, but don't confuse the two. They lie adjacent only by
rare accident, as any lawyer will be happy to explain to you in vivid
terms and with as many lurid examples as you may be willing to endure
in a single sitting.

And it is *not* a requirement the law of *any* country extend only
to the limit of its geographical borders, unless it chooses to do so
in the legislation provided. Or that the law of a sovereign nation
be sanctioned by international law (except to the extent that inter-
national law is moot on most topics covered by national laws).

If you are asking me if I believe there is a moral defense for having
put the cuffs on this villain -- yes. Certainly I do not find it
"morally" reprehensible by comparison to, say, multiple attempts by
Bobby Kennedy to have Castro snuffed, as emerging evidence seems to
suggest. Nor the threat by Roosevelt (no, the other one) to kill the
head of the Barbary Pirates if he failed to deliver American citizens
whose constitutional rights under US law had been violated by kid-
napping and demands for ransom). Nor the threat to lives of citizens
of Iran who might be taken in Carter's attempt to rescue American
citizens who were kidnapped in contravention of every law on the
books in this country and international agreements of long standing
(and signed by Iran) regarding the sanctity of embassies. Nor when
the Israelis busted Idi Amin's little paradise.

Did you find equally objectionable the abduction under Israeli law of
dear old Eichmann? And are you under the delusion that the protections
of our Constitution extend to everyone in the world -- even those who
have abrogated the laws of their own countries (in the case of Noriega)
or international law (in the case of Mr. Khadafi, about whom there can
remain no reasonable doubt that he directly supported groups having the
declared intent of bombing airliners, or that this nasty habit seemed
to suddenly die off right after we dumped some 500-pounders on his
pious abode)?

There are some very bloody characters about in the world, a few of
them (believe it or not) persons not American citizens, nor enjoying
otherwise the protections of the U.S. Constitution -- persons certainly
failing in broad measure to allow others any such freedoms to enjoy,
either. Some become intolerable to a degree thought worthwhile to
pursue in the national interest. Others we tolerate, either because
they aren't yet rabid enough to risk troops, or aren't easily dis-
lodged even by force (Cf. Somalia and Bosnia for examples of each).
Competent governments are able to distinguish the difference.

If you wish to be concerned about the erosion of rights in this country,
that is a laudable pursuit. But tuck away any notions that running a
government is pretty -- *especially* a democracy. If you doubt this,
spend a little time watching CSPAN, which presents such an ugly picture
of what government is like that the Senate (it is rumored) is presently
considering taking themselves off the air to protect us all from this
daily violence to sanity itself, and (by the way) again insulate them-
selves from any of the scathing criticism they so richly earn at every
available opportunity. If you wish to be exposed to the actual final
venality of posturing mankind in a way that is in no way hypothetical,
watch your Congress. It is not difficult to understand how one member
nearly clubbed another to death on the House floor during the last
century. And had the good taste to use a silver-knobbed oak cane, if
memory serves. (One sometimes almost wishes some modern members might
be delivered the same sobbering treatment in hope they might be cured
of obsessive silliness conducted at boorish length and astonishing
taxpayer expense.)

>The press was so strongly controlled that we may never know the

Many of us would agree that the press in the country is strongly
controlled. We might disagree about the source of that control under
ordinary circumstances. And we would *certainly* disagree about
whether persons unable to tell the difference between a howitzer
and a latrine should be allowed to race about at will in the middle
of the action.......as in the recent example of lighting up the
beach during the dawn landing in Somalia, about which even the
press itself has expressed moderate (of course) exclamations of
concern. With any luck, the military will never again allow the
unleashed yuppies to come within eyesight of anything of critical
importance until its all over. At the close of the Gulf War, the
press went whining around about the fact they couldn't get access
to whatever it was they thought everyone (including the other side)
wanted to know. Then spent at least a month after that in round-
table discussions (journalists only, of course) trying to figure
out how the vast majority of the public thought that barring them
was just dandy, thank you. (They mostly concluded that the public
was stupid, thus confirming openly a judgement they usually only
deliver by subtle word-choice, gesture, and tone.)

If you are so concerned about the press being controlled, then set
up your own press and go for it. That is the *limit* of the consti-
tutional right extended to citizens. There is no guarantee that
news won't be turned into an international business, nor that the
reporting will be fair or foul. Don't ask the Constitution to meet
your standards -- it didn't have them in mind when created, and
still does not. Your individual standards, within those broad
guarantees, are yours to pursue. And for others, if they choose,
to wholely ignore. Neither condition is a proof that press freedom
has been abrogated. Rather the opposite. And by comparison to *any*
other democracy you may choose to name, past or present, the press
in this country is limited by nothing but its own continuing incom-
petence and self-congratulatory indulgence. I challenge you to cite
one country that grants the press greater right to pursue -- and
even persecute -- anyone or anything it damn well pleases, no matter
how silly, irrelevant, or perverse, and with no need for regard of
anyone or anything that may haplessly wander into the path of what-
ever madness prevails to send it hurtling headlong to meet the next
deadline.

>whole story. For instance, did you know that in the early hours of
>the invasion we surrounded a poor neighborhood of Panama City and
>leveled it without ever alerting the inhabitants beforehand?

Shit happens. Regrettable, but true. The neighborhood you are
referring to was, if I recall, the one that contained the main
headquarters of the Panamanian National Guard Headquarters, and
giving notice might have been considered a bit indescrete when
wishing to preserve the element of surprise. You may wish to
recall that, at the time, the press expressed sour amazement
that citizens even of that neighborhood were of the majority
opinion that the short-term risk of death from inadvertent fire
by U.S. troops was a lesser evil than was the certainty of death
under the continuing rule of Noriega's local (in that neighbor-
hood) street thugs armed to the teeth. But then, the press is
controlled, so whatever was reported about this was probably a
military coverup, etc. etc. etc.
--
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