I agree with you but due to the state of (teachings, or lack there of) our primary and secondary public school systems many probably think: "But if a majority think they should be locked up forever without trial then that's democracy and the goal we're striving for right?! We win!"
EDIT: It seems the emphasis is a bit heavy on democracy and too little on liberty. The minority that needs the most protection is the individual.
The emphasis is heavy on democracy because that's the basis of our society. Rule by the majority. Rights are narrow exceptions to that general rule. That's why the bulk of the constitution talks about implementing the democracy, not rights.
Your comment is actually a rather good example of the grandparent's complaint.
The 9th Amendment (which is essentially redundant in that it would be true even if it didn't exist), states that 'The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'
The point is, Rights are not exceptions. It is the removal of a right that is the exception. In other words, you have the right to do anything unless it is made illegal, not the other way around.
That's not at all what the 9th amendment means. The 9th amendment says that the enumeration of rights in the constitution is not exhaustive. That is to say, it acknowledges that there are sources of rights besides the Constitution. These rights are those that exist from long standing practice in the English tradition. It does not mean that all rights exist unless specifically limited. You have to trace the right to some other source--you cannot simply assume the fact of its existence.
Moreover, while it's true you can do what you want unless it's made illegal, the interesting question is instead: what can the majority make illegal? That's is the situation where majority consensus is the rule, and rights are the exception. In a democracy, the majority can legislate however it wants, limited only by certain acknowledged individual rights.
In our democracy, we have two layers of legislatures, state and federal. The state legislatures inherited the sovereignty of the English King, and the constitution did not disturb that arrangement except in that the states delegated certain of that sovereignty to the federal government. But at the time of the founding, the power of the state legislatures was almost unbounded. They were not even limited by the rights in the Bill of Rights, which weren't applied to the states consistently until the 20th century (incorporated via the civil war amendments). Even now, the state governments are emphatically not ones of enumerated powers. The majority can do whatever it wants, limited only by federal law, or state or federal rights.
At the federal level, within the broad enumerated powers of the government, the majority can do what it wants, limited only by federal rights. Again, the rule is majoritarian control. Rights are a limited backstop to that general rule.
If anything, American education focuses too much on rights and not enough on democracy. K-12 curriculums tend not to cover any state constitutional law. They focus on enumerated powers and the Bill of Rights. But in doing so they paint a misleading picture of the Constitutional scheme. A scheme in which, as originally conceived, nothing would've prevented states from making it illegal to have sex with the lights on or outside of marriage or to use birth control or any of the other "moral" legislation that was very widespread at the time of the founding. I don't think expansion of rights of individuals has been a bad trend away from the original constitutional scheme, but it's misleading to paint the trend as pointing in the other direction. That characterization is simply a libertarian rewriting of history.
> Totalitarianism" loses all meaning if you apply it to states that imprison foreigners captured in war.
Many of the detainees weren't "captured in war" in any meaningful sense, they were civilian noncombatants sold to US forces by various local militias during the occupation of Afghanistan; but its correct that that's more a symptom of the US being a global empire and than of the metropolitan system of government within that empire being totalitarian.
The Taliban side didn't follow any kind of war laws. What legal protection does the POWs of Guantanamo really have?
For instance, afaik POWs from lawful sides in conflicts can be kept until the conflicts are over. The Afghan war is still raging, arguably. And the Guantanamo conditions are hardly much worse than the horrid US prison system.
I have seen this subject discussed, but never in a serious way. E.g. please don't write that they should be treated as civilians or something, the point of the Geneva conventions etc was to give POWs some protection, it is just stupid to then argue that to ignore those laws would give better protection.
(And I have no idea how many of the people at Guantanamo are innocent, as dragonwriter claims to know. The people making claims on that subject aren't exactly to be trusted if they really would know!)
Sigh, I guess I deserve downvotes for the stupidity of asking a tricky legal question on newsYC which doesn't have to do with startups. :-)
Two wrongs does not make one right ... arguments like "they started" may be heard in a kindergartens playground but I think it's reasonable to hold USA to higher standards than that.
And as for the conditions at Guantanamo, I hope that "enhanced interrogation techniques", water boarding and similar, isn't used all that frequently in the US penal system.
Your point is that democratic countries should behave better than the international treaties they sign, even if it will result in dead citizens of those countries.
And you compare with children, to give "weight" to your argument? Sigh...
Feel free to call me an idealist, but I do think that the base foundation for a democracy such as a fair trail before imprisonment and non-use of torture should extend not only to citizens but to all people.
The point with democracies is that they take input from their citizens, or the leadership will get kicked out. The point with terrorism is to scare people, mainly in democracies.
If the terrorists succeed in scaring voters enough, then the politicians will throw out the law book and all other concerns (see Germany, UK, Spain, Israel, USA, etc) because they want to get reelected above anything else... What you ask for go against the central interests of the involved parties.
I might also note that your moral world view is based on living inside a society with a state violence monopoly, in a democracy. If you go outside that, the attitude is ... well, read up on clan societies yourself. A typical example is when Israel did one sided peace gestures -- it was taken as signs of weakness and attacks increased (leaving south Libanon and Gaza).
tl;dr: You're not naive, you just don't think. This is HackerNews, please start.
