Offering constructive criticism to the social cripples in our midst since early 2005.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Much as the right to free speech does not let you say just anything, no one has ever thought that a "right to life" is violated if, e.g., someone kills you in self-defense.

So what you're saying is that whatever rights the alleged enemy combatants enjoy (derived from whatever source, divine or philosophical), they have not done (or been adequately proven to have done) something that justifies taking away their rights.

The ground is quickly getting murky here.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
So what you're saying is that whatever rights the alleged enemy combatants enjoy (derived from whatever source, divine or philosophical), they have not done (or been adequately proven to have done) something that justifies taking away their rights.

The ground is quickly getting murky here.

I'm trying to say that no matter what you do, you don't lose the right not to be tortured.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm trying to say that no matter what you do, you don't lose the right not to be tortured.

so it's more inalienable than death?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
so it's more inalienable than death?

As I was trying to say to Spanky, I don't think that you have a right not to be killed in self-defense. So, no.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
As I was trying to say to Spanky, I don't think that you have a right not to be killed in self-defense. So, no.

I'm talking about the death penalty, which is government imposed. Self-defense, at least, generally, is not. But the government can, in certain circumstances, limit or take away certain rights. (Unless you want to define the rights not to include certain unreasonable exercises of them.)

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
As I was trying to say to Spanky, I don't think that you have a right not to be killed in self-defense. So, no.

Under what circumstances do I get to throw you in a prison for the rest of your life. Or looking at it another way, when do I not have the right to not be thrown in prison for the rest of my life.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I'm talking about the death penalty, which is government imposed. Self-defense, at least, generally, is not. But the government can, in certain circumstances, limit or take away certain rights. (Unless you want to define the rights not to include certain unreasonable exercises of them.)

In some sense, the government can take away your right to liberty by imprisoning you, but I don't think people see that as a violation of your rights because it's understood that the right to liberty is limited in this way. So I think we're talking about the contours of the rights, not whether they can be taken away or not.

But then there's the right to vote, which you lose if you commit a felony. So, I don't know.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

This is a story I don't know anything about, but if there's anything to it, it's some pretty hairy stuff:

AUTISM, ABC, AND ROBERT KENNEDY. Rolling Stone and Salon have a blockbuster piece by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the conspiracy to cover up links between the mercury-based vaccine additive thimerosal and the uptick in autism rates in children born between 1989 and 2003.

Based on documents he obtained from a secret meeting convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and attended by representatives from the FDA and all the major vaccine manufacturers, Kennedy reports on how a core group of scientists, pharmaceutical companies, and politicians have tried to keep the public misinformed on the science behind thimersoal research:

• The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines – thimerosal – appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. “I was actually stunned by what I saw,” Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants – in one case, within hours of birth – the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

But it gets worse. As the parents of autistic children began suing vaccine manufacturers, their allies on the Hill, most notably Dr. Bill Frist, rose to defend the pharmaceutical industry from these meddlesome parents.

• Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the government’s vaccine-related documents – including the Simpsonwood transcripts – and shield Eli Lilly, the developer of thimerosal, from subpoenas. In 2002, the day after Frist quietly slipped a rider known as the “Eli Lilly Protection Act” into a homeland security bill, the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought 5,000 copies of his book on bioterrorism. The measure was repealed by Congress in 2003 – but earlier this year, Frist slipped another provision into an anti-terrorism bill that would deny compensation to children suffering from vaccine-related brain disorders.

The bill to which Kennedy refers is the “Protecting America From the War on Terror Act 2005,” introduced by Judd Gregg in January and cosponsored by Frist. As I reported back in February, this industry-friendly bill also contains provisions (collectively known as BioShield II) that would shield vaccine manufacturers who make bioterror countermeasures from punitive lawsuits. This despite the fact that, as with the questions surrounding autism and thimerosal, the government has had an awfully hard time owning up to the fact that the anthrax vaccine poses a health risk to those forced to take it.

While Kennedy’s piece is interesting on its own, so too is the burgeoning controversy surrounding its publication. According to a source very close to the story, ABC News -- which had exclusive rights to the piece -- was ready to run with it on 20/20 on Wednesday, and Nightline and Good Morning America on Thursday. According to my source, all three pieces were ready to air but were killed at the last minute by someone at the highest level of ABC News. My source speculates that someone from the CDC may have warned ABC News that the story would cause a panic, with parents en masse refusing their infant’s inoculations and causing a resurgence of childhood diseases.

Now, according to the Huffington Post, ABC seems to have reversed themselves and will run the story. I'm told the Associated Press will have an article out on Monday, as well. Hopefully the content of Kennedy's investigation won't get lost in the emerging media story. The CDC does not come off looking like fair arbiters of scientific research, to say the least, and it's hard to see their actions as anything but a massive cover-up.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Sen. Dick Durbin (D - Ill.) has also engaged, recently, in reprehensible political granstanding and hyperbole over Gitmo.

He is probably also a bad politician -- in that what he has done cannot possibly help the Party.

That said, its good to see the fire still burns on the lunatic fringe. Shows that the Dems aren't beaten down into quiet acceptance of minority status, and is one of many good signs for us in 2006 and 2008.

S_A_M

Are you among the "us"?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Interesting -- "who they are" is a given (i.e., you just know they are terrorists), but the treatment is merely "alleged".

Interesting that you did not post my second paragraph where I voiced concerns for the process. Do you work for Reuters?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
In some sense, the government can take away your right to liberty by imprisoning you, but I don't think people see that as a violation of your rights because it's understood that the right to liberty is limited in this way. So I think we're talking about the contours of the rights, not whether they can be taken away or not.

But then there's the right to vote, which you lose if you commit a felony. So, I don't know.

So, in principle the right to be free from bodily harm from the government is not without limits, and thus we're left to debate in what circumstances that right is more limited. Perhaps being an enemy combatant is one.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Anyway, I would be very surprised if club thinks that an individual's basic rights -- to be free of torture or to possess property -- turn on citizenship.

I've never backed torture for torture's sake. What I have said is that I would not put a prohibition on torture, because in some instances I think it's necessary.

ETA: I don't think individual rights are based on citizenship, but I do think Constitutional rights are (or should be)

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
In some sense, the government can take away your right to liberty by imprisoning you, but I don't think people see that as a violation of your rights because it's understood that the right to liberty is limited in this way. So I think we're talking about the contours of the rights, not whether they can be taken away or not.

But then there's the right to vote, which you lose if you commit a felony. So, I don't know.

This was started because I said:

However, I know I am a naive irrational moron, but I believe in the above statement. However, most of these occupants at Gitmo have been trampling on other peoples rights (most particularly their right to life) and thus they have sacrificed their own rights.

And then you said:

Think about the word "inalienable."

You were implying that by being inalienable they could not be taken away. I responded that they could not be transferred but taken away by the government.

I think it is clear that when you infringe on other peoples rights sometimes the government takes away yours. That is what our criminal justice system does, and that is what is happening at Gitmo.

I would also posit that if you have information that could save the lives of innocent people (or if not revealed innocent people will die) the government can take away your right not to be tortured.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
So, in principle the right to be free from bodily harm from the government is not without limits, and thus we're left to debate in what circumstances that right is more limited. Perhaps being an enemy combatant is one.

We got here from sebby's suggestion that non-citizens lack the rights that citizens possess. You don't seem to be arguing that anymore; it's not clear to me whether club is, since the distinction he's drawing between individual and constitutional rights is opaque to me.*

From a Burkean perspective, the idea that it was OK for the government to torture people -- citizen or combatant -- would have been pretty loopy, I think. This "enemy combatant" business appears to be made up to get around the Geneva Convention, but I have seen it argued pretty convincingly that the categories in the Geneva Convention were meant to cover the waterfront, not to carve out an exception for soldiers of an unrecognized state. (And if you're talking about the people fighting for the Taliban, that was the government of Afghanistan, so permitting torture of them simply because our State Department opted not to recognize the government seems unprincipled at best, and probably the sort of rationalization of torture that the Geneva Convention was out to put an end to.)

* Unless he's talking about the individual right to own a gun and the constitutional collective right to bear arms? Surely not.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
So, in principle the right to be free from bodily harm from the government is not without limits, and thus we're left to debate in what circumstances that right is more limited. Perhaps being an enemy combatant is one.

Being an enemy combatant, or being someone the government thinks might be an enemy combatant, or so they say, but there's no evidence anyone else can see? It does seem sort of "send them to the gulag"-ish. I mean, if you are a traitor and an enemy of the state, that would be another reason to limit someone's rights. It's the lack of process and evidence. And the keeping them in weird geo. places purely BECAUSE of the lack of process in those places.

In other words, this whole line of discussion isn't advancing what I thought the issue we were discussing is -- non-bad people being tortured and held indefinitely in a prison.