Undue Burden
Undue Burden - It’s not like Eugene Volokh thinks much of me, either, but I’ve always considered his specialty to be showy moral handwringing on the way to siding with Power anyway. The further you get from standard Republican issues like guns and university speech codes, the more likely he is to arrive, with exquisite regret, at the conclusion that the State, particularly when helmed by George W. Bush, must have its way. Now he has spun out a lengthy imprecation against the Supreme Court’s recent detainee ruling on the grounds that our enemies may use our freedoms against us. This is bog-standard Republican authoritarianism, Kaye Grogan but in well-turned prose. It is fitting that a man who, hypothetically you understand, came out as reluctantly pro-torture, has to torture so many elements of his nightmare scenario into place (”It’s like World War II! Only not against governments! But the enemies have generals! And we have allies, but they can’t hold their own prisoners! Just like World War II! Even though that WAS against governments! And 50,000 prisoners surrender en masse! Even though we’re fighting an insurgency! They do it just to fuck with us!”)
As Gene Healy has said, there’s nothing like a war to separate the men from the boys ideologically. The “pro-liberty” Volokh has been a purveyor of fear for years now. Fear is not so manly, and not so good a ground in which to nourish liberty. I hope Volokh enjoys his federal judgeship. I hope we don’t mind it so much.
For a more considered response see Crooked Timber. For funnier, see the Medium Lobster. Even - gasp! - Brad DeLong has gone funny.
