Winter’s Haven

As reported by the New York Times, a federal appeals court handed down a ruling which flatly rejects the Bush administration’s assumed right to designate people as “enemy combatants” and imprison them on that basis. It’s about time.

I’m very happy that the courts have finally condemned this flagrant violation of the rule of law. I think we should all take a moment to reflect on the fact that it’s a bunch of judges who are protecting us from arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention. Of the three branches of government in America, the judiciary is by far the least accountable. The politicians whom we directly elect have done remarkably little to protect us from the abuse of government power. In an article at The Nation (a leftist magazine), John Nichols lamented that the only people in Congress who have shown any serious interest in protecting us from being unlawfully spied upon, imprisoned, and tortured by the government are a handful of none-too-influential Republicans; none of the leading Democratic presidential candidates seem to dislike the prospect of inheriting these extra-legal powers from Bush.

I see two possible explanations for this strange state of affairs:

1. The political system which puts representatives into office is broken, and elected representatives are not significantly constrained by the desires of their constituents.
2. Those three judges who handed down today’s ruling aren’t so much saving us from the State, as they are saving us from each other.

I really wish (1) were true, rather than (2). With a little knowledge of voting theory, it would be possible to fix (1), at least in principle. Unfortunately, I just don’t see much evidence to suggest that our representive democracy is that broken. And (2) is just scary.

This entry was posted 2007-Jun-11 and is filed under Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.