digamma.net - notes

The joy of reading lots of political commentary is finding that one writer who said exactly what you’ve been thinking forever but just couldn’t put into words. This post by Glenn Greenwald (via Eschaton) is really fantastic. Read the whole thing, but just for the lazy readers, here’s a taste:

In his little item, Jonah was talking about – and, of course, defending – the strip searching of the 10-year-old girl in the case where Judge Alito ruled that the search warrant issued to the Police authorized searching of the girl. Jonah then went further - much further – and defended all strip-searching of all children, even without a warrant, whenever the Police thinks the kids’ parents are “drug dealers"….

There is, of course, a great irony that self-styled “conservatives” like Jonah constantly rail against the evils of disregarding the mandates of the law in order to achieve some desirable outcome. That’s the whole “judicial activism” shtick – that these judges are evil and undemocratic because they want to exceed the law in order to achieve the outcome they like. And yet their entire world-view has come to be based on the premise that transgressions of any and all types of laws – from FISA to anti-torture laws to Constitutional guarantees of due process – are perfectly justifiable as long as they are in pursuit of some desirable outcome, usually fighting the “terrorists,” but other results they like can justify these lawless transgressions as well….

The conservative arguments against such disregard for the law were and are absolutely right. There just aren’t any conservatives who agree anymore.

But I disagree with Glenn Greenwald’s conclusion:

Thanks to the ceaseless fear-mongering of this Administration, we are becoming – excuse the grotesque imagery – a Nation of Jonah Goldbergs, scared and lazy creatures who sit around believing that the Government is justified – even obligated – to act literally without constraint against the Bad People, the ones who are deemed to be Bad not pursuant to any “procedural niceties” but simply by the unchecked decree of the Government. These Jonah Goldbergs love to talk tough. But they are repulsively coddled and effete, whining about every perceived petty injustice which affects them but breezily endorsing the most limitless abuses of others, as long as the “others” seem sufficiently demonized and far enough away.

On the contrary, I like to think that we are a nation of people who, one by one, are realizing they are not Jonah Goldbergs.