What? NOT Sentence First, Verdict Afterwards?
Mr. Gary Farber on the telecoms and amnesty:
After such a full and public investigation, decisions can be made as to the proper course of justice, but obviously it’s impossible for those decisions to be properly made without investigation and disclosure.
It occurs to me that the rush to telecom amnesty before any investigation perfectly mirrors the rush to perpetual confinement of terror “suspects” without any legal proceedings worthy of the name. The overarching principle is that guilt and innocence exist prior to conduct – they’re the names of teams, not descriptions of culpability for behavior. If the Captain picks you for Team Innocence, you’re golden, unless he kicks you off for some reason. (See Qwest, CEO of.) If he doesn’t, you’re on Team Guilty.
NOTE: The Gary Farber holiday pledge drive continues.
Comment by Dave W. —
December 16, 2007 @ 9:43 am
9/11 commission.
Trackback by stevenberg.net —
December 16, 2007 @ 10:28 am
What? NOT Sentence First, Verdict Afterwards?…
It occurs to me that the rush to telecom amnesty before any investigation
perfectly mirrors the rush to perpetual confinement of terror ‘suspects’
without any legal proceedings worthy of the name. The overarching principle
is that …
Comment by Avram —
December 16, 2007 @ 2:48 pm
It’s the old Calvinist doctrine of Unconditional Election.
Comment by Thoreau —
December 16, 2007 @ 3:27 pm
Money quote: ” If the companies only had Hispanic names, the whole “no amnesty” thing would be so much clearer for a few.”
Comment by Eric —
December 17, 2007 @ 1:35 am
I think this is closely related to the attitude toward torture described by Kevin Drum’s “conservative correspondent’ in this post. Apparently, for many conservatives, the question of whether an action is right or wrong hinges on the actor’s motive rather than the action itself. Personally, I think that a moral code based on motives is no moral code at all, as it gives its holder license to do pretty much anything they want while denying that license to all others, but apparently my opinion is not widely held.