Executive Power and 9/11

~2

How excellent !! Deniro now quotes John Yoo, the contemporary theorist of Mussolini style fascism. Undoubtedly, in his world this is "conservatism."

And he does so in defense of GWB, no less. Are we about to see a "Nixon moment" from our great Kirkean theorists (where we learn New Truths like Nixon and GWB were the "greatest Presidents since George Washington")? Stand by for more developments.

Popcorn anyone?

While the Bush Administration undertook many things that were subversive of the protection of civil liberties, I don't think that what it did is that far removed from some of the other low-lights in U.S. constitutional history. I'm thinking in particular of the actions taken by the John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt Administrations. Adams and Wilson effectively criminalized criticism of themselves and locked up a fair number of political opponents during their times in office, and Roosevelt's Administration interned thousands of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps for nothing more than being Japanese.

You know, unless my calendar is wrong, Roosevelt was more than 70 years ago (more than most of our lifetimes) Woodrow Wilson was a 100 years ago and John Adams was over 200 years ago. One might hope that there would be some improvement in the balance between tyranny and liberty in the intervening time.
But I guess that those of us (you?) who don't really expect any improvement and certainly wouldn't think of demanding improvement when there was equivalent tyranny "so recently" get what they expect.