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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Why liberal opposition to the security state will fail. The reason why no real opposition exists to the ever expanding federal security state is because liberals are cringing cowards when it comes to 9/11. There are rules about 9/11 that all "serious" pundits must follow or else they risk being resigned to the "truther" bin and blacklisted forever from "mainstream" media. There are actually not many rules. Really just one when you get right down to it. And that rule can be summed up as follows and it is strictly enforced: "The 9/11 suspects are guilty and the government narrative of that day is beyond question." Beyond that and you are in dangerous territory. Gore Vidal skirted this territory and quickly pulled back, even in his dotage, before he went over the precipice. Of course this strictly enforced line limits the opposition to the domestic security state that we have seen grow exponentially in the last ten years. The whole idea of opposition to unlimited government power is that governments lie and fall into the control of cabals and self serving oligarchies who use the power of the state to pursue their own ends. This idea is central to American identity itself, if there is even such a thing. Western culture and especially Anglo American culture used to be steeped in such views of government. Such attitudes towards government are at the foundation of the Constitution. The reason why we didn't give our government the power to torture people into confessions and setup elaborate wire tapping programs or give them the power to arrest anyone they want without the slightest application of due process is because - well- governments lie about such things. In a "free" country we simply don't accept the government at its word when they call someone a "traitor" for example. We make them prove it. This is so fundamental I feel sick having to explain this. But when it comes to 9/11 no one who gets face time or big print space is allowed to so much as express a miniscule of doubt as to the government's 9/11 storyline or even so much as express the possibility that those that government accuses for this crime may be innocent. The government is to be believed automatically or else you are a "truther." So instead of arguing that we should oppose torture and all other manner of government abuses when it comes to the treatment of the 9/11 suspects and how their trials are conducted liberals have almost all universally shied away from challenging these abuses from most important and fundamental angle- that of abuse of government power. They refuse to even suggest the government might be lying. So what we end up with as "opposition" to the ever growing security state in this country is lame and ultimately self defeating arguments about how torture doesn't work or how this or that wire tapping program is "counter productive." All the liberal "arguments" against the power grabs of the feds are "process" arguments. They accept at face value the "good faith" of the government in torturing and killing people deemed "terrorists"- when the first line of attack should be the question "Is the government lying?" They have ceded half the battle field already to the advancers of tyranny. See- a government that tortures people usually does so because they fear the truth and have something to hide. A government like the US government that kidnaps and tortures "suspects" for ten years in dungeons and is STILL afraid of holding public trials for such men is still afforded the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the "guilt" of these men! Here we are ten years later after 9/11 and liberals are talking about how torture isn't "effective"? Huh? How utterly lame is that sort of opposition? They talk about how broader wire tapping is "counter productive"? Oh, wow. How inspiring! The first line of opposition to the policies that have been brought about in the wake of the 9/11 attacks should be "prove it". But what passes for liberals in this country refuse to do that. They give the government a pass on this and even gleefully sling the "truther" slur at anyone who doesn't toe the Beltway line on 9/11. As long as liberals and civil liberties advocates refuse to acknowledge that the US government, in regard to the 9/11 "suspects", is acting like a government that has something to hide then there may as well be no opposition at all. I am not a "truther" myself by the way. The government should be shamed into the most open processes for the "suspects" possible by constant calls for them to prove their stories and narratives in open courts because that is who the hell we are! What we are all supposed to believe when it comes to governments making criminal claims agains people! We don't believe them automatically! But when it comes to 9/11- any expression of distrust towards the government is given no quarter. And that is why liberal civil liberties advocates may as well be reich wingers in the end. Liberals fear the loss of legitimacy of the Federal government more than they do a police state and that is why they will never be an effective opposition to such abuses of power.
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#1. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#0)
(Edited)
Chris is dead on in this one. I would like to ask him, since he writes that he's not a truther, who then does he think orchestrated 9/11. Have you ever read anything he's written on that?
No, I haven't. I do not know what his take on it is.
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