Nomen Nescio
Declan McCullagh writes:
I always enjoy Jonathan's essays, and this one is no exception. He properly points out the disturbing analogy that Attorney General Ashcroft seems to make (http://www.politechbot.com/p-02900.html) between criticism and treason.
What Ashcroft actually said, from the URL above, was:
We need honest, reasoned debate; not fearmongering. To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty;
my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists - for they erode
our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.
The simple fact is that Ashcroft spoke the truth. Such criticisms do erode national unity and diminish resolve. In fact, most critics would fully agree with these goals. Unity and resolve on a national level scare civil libertarians. A unified nation is a rash nation. Democracies should be thoughtful, their actions carefully considered and taken only after due deliberation. Having a thousand voices urging
different courses is far safer than a single voice which all obey.
Some claim that behind the truth of Ashcroft's words is a veiled threat. Aiding national enemies is indeed one of the definitions of treason. Yet in the larger sense such a reading is plainly absurd. No Attorney General would ever attempt to make the case that criticising government
policy is treasonous and should be forbidden. Hard as it may be for the present audience, blinded by their ideology, to see the real world for what it is, any such attempt would be political suicide.
Given this reality, there is clearly no real threat in Ashcroft's statement. Instead the critics are intentionally misreading him in order to accomplish exactly those goals he mentions: to sow disunity and weaken resolve. It is nothing more than a rhetorical trick.
Let us hold to the truth. Ashcroft is right in his characterization of
his critics' goals, and his critics are right to try to achieve those goals. It is misguided to attack Ashcroft by making the false claim that he views criticism as treason. Instead, critics should attack his
position that national unity and resolve must be preserved. This would
be a substantive debate which would enlighten the American public and raise awareness of important issues. Unfortunately the critics have descended into politically motivated mud-slinging and have deprived Americans of a valuable opportunity.
The recent advances in law enforcement made by a frightened ( for their asses and their careers ) Congress are not phantoms of lost liberty : substantial changes have been made. Ashcroft expresses his opinion that questioning the civil liberties implications of those policy changes is an attempt to "erode our national unity and diminish our resolve" as if it is a truth. He mischaracterizes the goals of his critics so that he can associate them with an extremely unpopular position. The technique being employed by John Ashcroft is to fallaciously polarize the discussion as one of Patriotism vs. Treason, Good vs. Evil with the intent of suppressing the speech of anyone who might be an impediment to his agenda. Ashcroft's approach smacks of the techniques used by the late and not-at-all-great may he rest screaming forever in flames Senator Joseph McCarthy. That is Ashcroft's rhetorical trick. Nomen's trick is to mischaracterize what people object to in what Ashcroft has said. I don't for a minute think that there is, today at least, even a veiled threat that those who openly criticize Bush and Ashcroft are likely to be accused of treason. Nomen has set up an easily torched strawman which he uses to say see, Ashcroft's critics are clearly wrong, so they're probably wrong about the administration. I'm not buying Ashcroft's tricks or Nomen's. I'll stick with the simple interpretation of the motivations and goals of those who question the actions of the Bush administration : some people see those actions of the Bush administration and John Ashcroft as Constitutionally questionable and their goal is to debate the issues and protect, in so far as it is possible given the state of the populace, everyone's liberties from enemies both foreign and domestic. Unity and resolve don't enter into it. Sometimes I think that people feel that because shameful or horrific events in our history happened so very long ago and we seem to have survived them that we must have some type of increasing immunity conferred upon us by the passing of time. I'm afraid that quite the opposite is true, that our immunity diminishes with time leaving us open to reinfection by the ideological descendents of the perpetrators of earlier outrages. Can an Attorney General be censured? Drawn and quartered? Mike http://www.webcorp.com/mccarthy/mccarthypage.htm