Who’s kidding whom?

After all, the Founding Fathers fought a revolution to ensure that in a time of war, which can last as long as a president says it does, a chief executive has the right to detain whomever he wants, for as long as he wishes, with no recourse to habeas corpus,

And this doesn’t sound like democracy at all.

I’ve posted this before here at The Carpetbagger (and I’m sure that my well-read compatriots here are well aware of its virtue), but I thought it to be apropos to this discussion especially:

“… What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises. …”

-Abraham Lincoln

Danny…. Obviously, because we’re denying Gitmo prisoners the right to vote!

Danny, if you assault the rule of law as an institution, you assault democracy, because you need the rule of law to have a democracy.

If some whacko Navy SEAL can decide that he and his friends want to frame people who are not pro-life by arresting them on the pretense that they are terrorists, and the SEALs are able to get away with it because they have a process available to them that circumvents review of their actions in a court, then that intimidates people from holding and expressing a point of view about a much debated, litigated, and legislated-on issue of public policy.

The same thing happends when its any other executive officers or officials, or soldiers, who are given the freedom to act without these protections coming into play where history has determined they should. Another example is the attorney scandal- the US attorneys were ordered to pursue flimsy invrstigations against Democrats up for reelection, right around the day of the election. So that’s an assault on democracy by unreviewed executive action, just like this is.

What kind of fucked up mindset would split hairs over the semantics of “democracy”???? An Authoritarin Fascist would.

Rule of the people. By ignoring the rule of a democraticaly elected law, you are assaulting “democracy”

Danny, this ain’t about splitting hairs, unless we are splitting the ones one your head…but I think your lobotomy already acheived that.

Just a thought on the semantics of one of the words SnowJob used… At what point can we say that someone is no longer being “detained”, but that they are being “imprisoned”?

“Detained” is when you get stuck in an elevator, or maybe when a suspect is being questioned prior to being charged or released. Five years without a trial is not being “detained” its being shoved down a black hole.

I retract my original question now that I see that I may have misunderstood what was being asked.

Of course at this point, what I see is that a reporter asked if a democracy that creates this form of injustice and unfairness undercuts “arguments in favor of democracy worldwide”, and Mr. Snow didn’t answer the question. He answered the question of whether the actions the administration is taking in Guantanamo are an assault on democracy, or undemocratic.

Actually he didn’t answer either question. He ignored the reporter’s question and asked one of his own, thereby implying that he disagreed with questioning whether the actions are undemocratic while failing to give any answer at all to the question of whether democratic actions that result in Guantanamo undercut arguments in favor of democracy.

CB attempted to answer Mr. Snow’s question (and mine) and most of the comments here have also attempted to answer Mr. Snow’s question. I’m still not sure that a satisfactory answer has been found for Mr. Snow’s question of whether or not the actions are an assault on democracy (undemocratic).

Goldilocks,

“Just because you don’t like someone or think they’re a ‘baddy’, doesn’t give you the right to exterminate them, which indefinite detention without trial amounts to.”
I never said anything about who does or doesn’t have the right to exterminate someone, nor under what circumstances one might have such a right. The question isn’t what rights our personal sense of morality gives us, but rather a question of assaulting democracy, which in this case most of us in this discussion have taken to mean an action that goes against the principals of democracy.

” laws have been enacted that clearly contradict and undermine the meaning and intention of the Constitution”
Under our system of government, rights are created, protected, limited, altered, or destroyed every time a new law or constitutional amendment is created. I don’t see that our system of government has ever had a concept of an eternal, unalterable right. So if the elected officials see fit to create laws and act within the bounds of those laws and the framework of the constitution, then there is nothing undemocratic about it. If they act outside those laws or the bounds of the constitution, then the action is illegal, and the individuals responsible should be held responsible for their actions in a court of law. While illeagal and reprehesible, I still don’t see how it has anything to do with assaulting democracy.

“The narrow meaning of ‘democracy’ is a system of government by the whole population through elected representatives.”
Really? Sounds more like a Representative Democracy, how does Direct Democracy fit into your “narrow meaning”?.

“The broader meaning implies that the rights and freedoms of the individuals constituting that population are sufficiently safeguarded to allow them to fairly and equally participate in the elective process. These safeguards include protection against arbitrary incarceration without trial and due process. Democracy without such safeguards is a sham and a contradiction in terms. You absolutely cannot have one without the other.”
Ok, now we’re starting to get somewhere. We now have a definition of democracy we can work with. I’m not certain that I agree with the definition, but I’m not certain that I disagree with it either. In the end it doesn’t matter, because using your definition, the situation the reporter asked about is NOT undemocratic, because the detainees, prisoners, black hole residents, or whatever else you want to call them, are not members of the population of the United States of America. Therefore, using your definition, there is nothing “undemocratic” about any rights that are refused to them.

“What you’re concerned with, Danny, is a situation in which a duly elected government enacts laws that undermine the democratic process by which they attained power. That, of course, is a very serious and undesirable situation, which is why you have a Constitution and a tripartite structure of government.”

Ok, I’m trying to understand this. How do the actions at Guantanamo “undermine the democratic process by which they attained power”? We are still talking about whether or not actions at Guantanamo “go against the principals of democracy”, right?

“The present-day situation is alarming because: “
I whole heartedly agree. The situation is alarming, but the fact that the actions of the administration as a whole are alarming does not necessarily mean that Guantanamo situation is undemocratic.

“a question mark exists over the validity of the current administration’s elected status”
Ok, I’ll agree that there certainly was question as to the validity of the administration’s elected status in 2000, but I think things were far less questionable in 2004. For those who have chosen to question the elected status of the administration in 2004, I can only point out that a rather overwhelming majority of the population accepts the validity of of the elected status as of 2004, and that overwhelming acceptance to a certain extent adds validity to the result. If we can’t agree on the validity of the current administration’s elected status, then everything else becomes meaningless, since what we are left with is a coup d’etat and not a democracy at all. Of course whether or not a question mark exists as you suggest, the point remains that such a question mark has nothing at all to do with the question of if/how democracy is being assaulted by the “indefinite holding of this many prisoners under these circumstances”.

“every arm of government is being infiltrated with political operatives of dubious persuasion”
While this may well be true, it has nothing at all to do with the question of if/how democracy is being assaulted by the “indefinite holding of this many prisoners under these circumstances”.

“laws have been enacted that clearly contradict and undermine the meaning and intention of the Constitution”
According to you and many others, this is true. According to Bush, his administration, and his supporters, this is not true. As I understand it, according to the Constitution the judicial branch gets to decide who’s right, and since that same Constitution and our laws give the President the right to appoint judges, he wins this argument so far. Of course impeachment and removal from office are options the Senate and Representatives have, but so far nothing has been accomplished there either. So at this point it seems that democracy has still not been assaulted. Democracy is what set up the opportunity for this to take place.

“speech and conduct has been used to mislead and obstruct the deliberative and decision-making processes of government”
Now I’m pretty sure this is a looooong standing tradition in American Politics and in our form of Representative Democracy. There doesn’t seem to be anything undemocratic about this at all. I would be highly surprised to find out that this didn’t occur during the writing of the Constitution itself.

“existing laws and treaties have been violated for religious, financial and political gain”
Bad? I’d probably agree with that. Undemocratic? I haven’t heard a good explanation yet as to why.

“statutory procedures of oversight and investigation are being obstructed and evaded.”
Again nothing undemocratic about this. If taken too far, it can be illegal, in which case trial, or impeachment are in order, but I still don’t see how that makes any of it undemocratic.

“With such a litany of assault on the democratic foundation of your country, Danny, I would not be too cocky about splitting hairs over semantic nuance.”
Ok, you don’t have to be, but the question was raised about whether or not “to deny prisoners due process and decide that habeas corpus no longer matters is an assault on democracy.”, and while I don’t disagree that this administration has done a lot wrong and that suspending habeas corpus and detaining prisoners indefinitely without trial is an AWFUL idea, the answers given by CB and most of the posters in the comment thread have indicated that Mr. Snow is kidding himself and the rest of us if he thinks it isn’t an assault on democracy. Awful, bad, evil, wrong, shameful? Yes. Undemocratic? Still haven’t heard a good explanation as to why.

“Either you love your country, its history, institutions, government and foundations, or you’re a fascist pig.”
Be careful, replace “fascist pig” with “terrorist”, and you’d sound just like Bush and his supporters. One does not need to hate their country, its history, institutions, government and foundations to disagree with other citizens on matters of opinion nor to discuss or debate that facts around a question they are trying to answer.

“You should make up your mind and come clean. You may wake up one day and find it’s too late to have a choice. — And don’t assume you’ll always be sitting on the safe side of the divide.”
I’ll never make up my mind. I have deep internal drive to question everything, and try to see all sides of every issue. Can’t help it, and if it hasn’t changed yet, it isn’t going to. I’ll certainly come clean. What in particular would you like me to come clean about? Not sure what divide we are talking about now, but I’ll do my best to find the safe side, maybe I’ll see you there, maybe I won’t.

comment #12…WRONG…
The citizens chose Bush/Cheney along with the Senators, and Representatives, and as such they have chosen to give support to the governments actions until removed from their positions (either through elections or impeachment/removal from office).

Representatives elected don’t necessarily do or follow the wishes of their electorate and can avoid being “removed” from office long past the damage they do. There is the spirit of the law or of Democracy and then there is what actually happens when the spirit is twisted by corruption or incompetence or political power mongering. Forget what ought to be and look at what is being done and it’s easy to see there is no justification for it by our American principles of democracy. We are torturing people whose names we are not allowed to know, for reasons that don’t list specifics and done by anonymous personnel. What could be more corrupt or wrong than this?

BTW…a mob has never been a democracy…ever. If you think about it the reasons this is true is self-evident.

Driving 1mile over the speed limit is not an assault on democracy it is merely breaking the law. What is being dealt with here is an assault on the very foundations on which our democracy is built. The right of Habeas Corpus, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the denial of these are the assault on our democracy not just breaking the law. These are the very freedoms we fight and die for and the principles by which we operate in the world.
The military commissions act, torture and detention without due process have brought nothing but shame to our nation. Nothing good has come from it and our methods should be abolished just as slavery was abolished.
We have a small group operating outside of our system with government sanction which is proving to be our great hypocrisy..
It belittles the conversation to distract the arguments with mental masturbation thoughts like…”all breaking of the law is an assault on our Democracy”.
Swan and terraformer have the focus exactly right on just what is really happening, what actually is.

I think that Danny’s argument is useful for pointing out some of our assumptions on the meaning of Democracy.

When the neo-con’s were arguing that creating a democracy in Iraq would make us safer, the thought that continued to go through my mind was “not if their democracy elects people who make laws and policies that are opposed to ours.” Iran is a democracy after all, Ahmadinejad didn’t fall from the heavens into their presidency.

While BushCo does flout our republic and rule of law, our constitution, our tradition of civil liberties and worldwide human rights, it doesn’t actually detract from the idea of the whole population of a country voting for their rulers. Making the term democracy a stand in for all of those other ideas is a dangerous short-hand. The type of oversimplification that BushCo has used time and again to reduce thought to a minimum (per NewSpeak).

Snow is splitting hairs, being deliberately obtuse to avoid addressing how radically un-American their behavior has been. Given that we declared that all men are endowed by their creator with an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that no one should be deprived of these things without due process, there is no doubt that BushCo’s actions are contrary to our stated founding beliefs.

Where BushCO does go against our democracy as we have defined it, is by going against the will of Congress. In our representative democracy Congress represents the people and the president is merely elected to carry out the administration of those laws enacted by congress. Bush’s signing statements fly in the face of that principal part of our democracy in that way.

With all of the nonsense that has been perpetrated by BushCo one can easily be overwhelmed by what and where we are to be outraged. But it is a useful exercise to keep reminding ourselves of the details and the distinctions.

Just a quick (related) aside.

If anyone REALLY WANTS TO BE OUTRAGED AT AN ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY within the borders of the U.S. . . .

Take a moment to think about being subject to all the laws of this land, and being stripped of your right to vote for any Senator or for a Representative with voting rights. Now think about being a U.S. citizen living in a location within the borders of this country along with 550,000 other residents in the eight largest Metropolitan Area of the U.S. Furthermore, give the Congress for which you don’t have a vote direct jurisdiction over this location. Require the citizens of this location (none of which have any voting representation in Congress) to pay all federal taxes.

If you like the sound of that and don’t think it is undemocratic. . . move to Washington D.C.

Now there is something I can agree is a true assault on democracy, nad self-evidently undemocratic.

“Although it wasn’t me that wrote the SEAL example…”

I apologize for the mis-quote. I see that it was Swan who offered that example.

As an excuse, I offer that with all this cutting and pasting back and forth to a text editor to try and maintain a conversation with multiple people at once, without losing my comment to the great TCR bit bucket with the dreaded “try again”, I tried to combine my responses to the two of you since I noticed both responses at the same time. In doing so, some of the text pasted seems to have gotten out of order.

Again my apologies on the mis-quote, though the point is still valid. The argument you both were putting forth seems to be that it is an assault on democracy because it is illegal.

Danny, your stamina and perseverance are commendable. You are more fastidious than most of us here usually are. It would be a long, long story to unravel all the points and wordings you quibble, not unjustifiably, about.

The main and recurrent point that you are asserting is that:

Indefinite detention without charge, trial, representation or due process, however cruel, reprehensible and abhorrent, is not an assault on democracy.

Let’s call this “The Assertion”.

It doesn’t seem to matter what any of us here say, you are still persuaded of the validity of your (and Snowjob’s) assertion. It may be that none of us have yet hit the mark. Or it may be that you are so deeply entrenched in your conviction that you remain essentially unreachable. On the assumption of the former being the case, let me have another shot.

First, let’s prepare the playing field.
Is there anything — and you must tell us this, or the whole debate is meaningless — that you would consider an assault on democracy? If there is nothing that you could specify as an assault on democracy, then you have wasted our time and yours, and you should leave and desist from being a nuisance.

I consider any law or action that knowingly impedes or discourages any member of the electorate from recording his or her vote easily and securely, as an assault against democracy. Hopefully you, Danny, will have no quibble with that.

I consider democracy not to be a privilege but a right shared by all members of humanity, whether or not, at any particular time, any particular member is living in a location where that right can be exercised. I sense that you, Danny, are on the verge of quibbling about rights versus privilege. Don’t. If you do, you lose me.

Democracy is more than just a system of government. It is a principle, and it is an aspiration. It has to be created and it has to be maintained. It has to be understood and it has to be appreciated. If any one of these aspects of the principle of democracy is deficient or denied, then democracy is wounded. It has been assaulted, impaired and diminished.

You made a point someway back that because (some of) the detainees are not members of the population of the United States of America, their detention, illegal though you acknowledge it is, is not an assault on democracy. Your point is invalid because democracy is not the exclusive property of the United States of America. Their democratic right as human beings has been assaulted — hence, democracy has been assaulted.

You know, I don’t know what your motivation here is, Danny, but, unless you’re some kind of heartless neocon mischief-maker, you should give the quibbling a rest. Some acts are so despicable and inhuman they merit no debate or special dispensation. They are loathsome, criminal and unspeakable by any standards in any circumstances. When your government stoops to such abhorrent depths you have only one recourse: vehement, raucous opposition. I hope I am not mistaken in that that is the contribution you are preparing yourself to make in the defense of your democratic right and freedom.

“Please keep your vandalism and graffiti elsewhere. “
I see no vandalism nor graffiti. I am engaged in what I consider to be a valid discussion on the merits of the cliams of CB and other comment posters that “to deny prisoners due process and decide that habeas corpus no longer matters is an assault on democracy.” It has been stated here by commentors and CB as obvious and self-evident without a convincing explanation as to why. My hope it that by way of conversation either a valid supporting argument will be found, or it will become clear that the assuption is invalid and Mr. Snow is correct in his implication that this is not an assault on democracy.

“Danny, I think it is obvious that the reporter was not referring to. . . .”
What the reporter was refering to is irrelevant. As I pointed out in my post number 14, the reporter never stated anything about an assault on democracy, nor that any of the behavior was undemocratic. It seems more likely that the reporter was suggesting that “If democracy can bring about such injustice and unfair treatment, then is democracy the best way to go about organizing a government?”.

“some technical definition of democracy in which mob-violence like the Salem Witch Trials or that Twilight Zone episode where aliens land on Elm Street, USA, is included.”
My point in mentioning “mob-rule” which I suppose needed better explanation was that rule-of-law is an aspect of one form of Democracy, had the question been one of whether to deny prisoners due process and decide that habeas corpus no longer matters is an assault on rule-of-law, or an assult on the common man’s concept of what is good or right, I’d probably be agreeing with all of you.

“The only kind of democracy most modern people are interested in having, of course, is a democracy where people are protected against wanton violence, such as arbitrary arrests, are protected against by the rule of law.”
Ok, so if I agree with you that most modern people are interested in having a democracy where their government is constrained from from aribitrary arresting its own citizens, will you agree with me that a significant number of modern people throughout the world are perfectly content with a democracy that protects them from non-citizens by arbitrarily arresting those non-citizens that the government thinks might be planning harm?

“I don’t take your point about the Wikipedia page you found very well. Everyone else on my side of the argument is arguing for better, not worse, democracy. You seem to be arguing that since there are some really shitty democracies out there, or some governments that some person calls democracies that are actually really horrible, that it doesn’t matter if democracy is bad. I just don’t see what the Wikipedia page has to do with anything or how you answer the point that arbitrary detention harms democracy.”
Perhaps you didn’t notice, I started that paragraph with the phrase “As an aside”. If you did notice, then perhaps you didn’t realize that I used this phrase to indicate that the map had nothing to do with the current conversation. I found it interesting, and surprising how many governments considered themselves to be democratic. I came across the map while trying to get a better understanding of the term democracy so I could understand why CB thought that “to deny prisoners due process and decide that habeas corpus no longer matters is an assault on democracy.” I thought others from either side of the discussion might also find it interesting so I shared it. It has no bearing on the conversation at hand and was only offered as an interesting graphic related to the conversation by nature of both being about democracy.

“As you can see from re-reading my comments, I did not argue at all that the detentions were technically illegal or that just because they were illegal they necessarily harms democracy.”

“Instead, I wrote about the larger context of the institution of rule of law. I would never argue that disobeying any one particular law in the abstract has anything to do necessarily with respect for democracy or harming democracy. A legislature could pass a law making it illegal to give medical aid to a sick Jew, and that would not make it an assault on democracy to disobey that law. Rather, the concept of arbitrary detention and an unaccountable executive are what are affronts to rule of law and democracy”
Ok, now I am truly confused. Perhaps there is a distinction between the institution of rule of law, and the abstract concept of obeying the law that I don’t understand. My understanding of the institution of the rule of law, as you call it, is that the laws apply equally to all citizens regardless of their position, wealth, or status. This would indicate that any disobeying of the law by any individual is an affront to the rule of law if the entity that disobeys the law is not held responsible for their disobedeince. As such, using your disgusting example, if a law were passed by the legislature, signed by the President, and upheld by the courts as constitutional, making it “illegal to give medical aid to a sick Jew”, then disobeying that law and not being held responsible for that disobedience would most certainly be an assault on the institution of rule of law, and by your reasoning that would make it an assault on democracy. Perhaps there is some other description for the institution of rule of law that I am forgetting about?

“You failed to answer that point with your mischaracterization of my argument and your clumsy attempts to confuse the point.”
I disagree, I made no attempts to confuse the point, I am trying to clarify the point and better understand it. I appologize if my attempt mischaracterized your argument. I thought I understood what your argument was. However, I’m now not certain what your argument is. The closest I can come up with is:

There is this thing called the institution of rule of law, and democracy is an integral part of the rule of law, so if you break a law that I don’t want you to break, and you aren’t held accountable then it is an assault on the rule of law and therefore an assault on democracy. On the other hand if you break a law that I don’t think is a good law and aren’t held accountable then it isn’t an assault on the rule of law because rule of law doesn’t apply if I don’t want it to and therefore it isn’t an assault on democracy.

I suspect this isn’t a very good summary of your argument, and is probably a mischaracterization as well, the problem is that with what you’ve given me to work with this is how it is coming across.

All of this is rather unimportant to the discussion at hand because these aren’t American citizens we’re talking about here, so they aren’t covered by them same laws. The Bush administration claims that the decisions they have made are within the bounds of the rule of law that covers Enemy Combatants, and neither the Judicial branch nor the Legislative branch have seen fit to reverse that decision. In the limited cases where they have, the Bush administration has submitted to the new rules as defined. If the decisions are not within the bounds of the laws and Consitution as they currently stand then it is up to the Legislative branch to impeach and remove from office. If they fail to do so then, using your reasoning, either the Bush administration has done nothing illegal with regards to this discussion, or the Legislative Branch is assaulting democracy by failing to uphold the institution of rule of law. Either way to deny prisoners due process and decide that habeas corpus no longer matters is not the assault on democracy, although it is certainly disgusting.

I see no vandalism nor graffiti

Oh, please.

the reporter never stated anything about an assault on democracy,

Ok, the reporter started to make a point about due process. Snow took the defensive and claimed that denying the protections at issue, whether you call them due process or not, is not an assault on democracy. I challenged him on that and made and argument. But it’s besides the point that the reporter didn’t say it. Mob rule has nothing to do with the debate over whether alleged terrorists captured by the military should be given the minimum protections that detainees are usually given in a law-enforcement context such as review by a judge of why they’re being held.

I’m not going to read everything else you wrote because it looks like you’re trying to make my arguments sound confused and playing around with your bad faith arguing / internet hooliganism is a waste of time. I see you make the point that the detainees are not all US citizens, but all your doing is ignoring the question of what rights non-citizens should or shouldn’t have, if they don’t have the same rights as us- by merely pointing out that they don’t have the same rights in a US court, you’re saying nothing about why they shouldn’t have these particular rights in this particular context. Again my argument on the other side would be that this tends to lead to the denial of those rights to Americans.

You sound like you’re arguing for replacing our system of government with karate-obsessed-guy-ocracy, or whatever you’d call arbitrary liberty-ending decision-making power given to guys whose qualifications for their jobs include doing a certain amount of sit-ups in a certain amount of time, shooting accurately, swimming far, and other similar qualifications. If they can make these decisions, then I guess every asshole karate-obsessed Republican who hangs out at Hooters every week is qualified to make all these decisions for everyone else, too.

“Danny, your stamina and perseverance are commendable. You are more fastidious than most of us here usually are. It would be a long, long story to unravel all the points and wordings you quibble, not unjustifiably, about.”
I take that as a complement and thank you.

“The main and recurrent point that you are asserting is that:

Indefinite detention without charge, trial, representation or due process, however cruel, reprehensible and abhorrent, is not an assault on democracy.”

Close. Probably close enough. The only slight alteration I maight make to “The Assertion” is the addition of the words “of non-citizens”. Making the assertion:
“Indefinite detention without charge, trial, representation or due process of non-citizens, however cruel, reprehensible and abhorrent, is not an assault on democracy.”
I’m not sure that it changes the argument, but it helps to indicate what Mr. Snow attempted to imply, and CB attempted to deny.

“It doesn’t seem to matter what any of us here say, you are still persuaded of the validity of your assertion.”
So far this is true, nobody has provided an explanation that holds up to analysis of the facts unless I am misunderstanding someone’s position.

“It may be that none of us have yet hit the mark. Or it may be that you are so deeply entrenched in your conviction that you remain essentially unreachable.”
There is one other possibility that you failed to consider. The possibility that I am correct, and that the commentors on the other side of the discussion are so deeply entrenched in their conviction that they remain essentially unreachable. There are regular readers/commentors of TCR who if necessary would probably be willing to vouch for me that I am never so deeply entrenched in any conviction that I am essentially unreachable by well reasoned debate. I suspect that such vouching is unnecessary, but please let me know I am mistaken in that suspicion

“Is there anything — and you must tell us this, or the whole debate is meaningless — that you would consider an assault on democracy? If there is nothing that you could specify as an assault on democracy, then you have wasted our time and yours, and you should leave and desist from being a nuisance.”
“I suppose a case could be made that denying the prisoners the right to vote “undercuts the President’s arguments in favor of democracy worldwide”- Danny #10.
“The aside I mentioned regarding U.S. Citizens being required to pay federal taxes, and being under the direct jurisdiction of Congress without having any voting representation in Congress” – Danny #27

Perhaps to come to any sort of agreement here we first need to agree on the meaning of the word Democracy. It has been equated with many things in this comment thread that it isn’t typically equated with. If we can’t agree on a definition, we certainly can’t agree on whether it has been assaulted.

“I consider any law or action that knowingly impedes or discourages any member of the electorate from recording his or her vote easily and securely, as an assault against democracy. Hopefully you, Danny, will have no quibble with that.”
I won’t quibble, but I suppose if I wanted to, I could ask how you define “member of the electorate”. For the sake of this discussion I’ll accept your explanation as sufficient.

“I consider democracy not to be a privilege but a right shared by all members of humanity, whether or not, at any particular time, any particular member is living in a location where that right can be exercised. I sense that you, Danny, are on the verge of quibbling about rights versus privilege. Don’t. If you do, you lose me.”
Nope, not going to quibble about rights versus privilege, wasn’t even going to. I was however going to question your definition of democracy, and as I stated a moment ago, perhaps that is where we fail to come to a shared opinion. In particular, I consider democracy as one way of organizing a government. There are others, and not everyone wants to live in a government organized by way of democracy. We Americans tend to believe that while flawed, there is currently no better way to organize a government, but that is largely a product of our education and environment. Perhaps we are right, perhaps we aren’t. I’ll agree for the sake of this argument that everyone has a right to try and change the government they live under to a form of democracy, though they may fail and may die for the attempt.

“Democracy is more than just a system of government. It is a principle, and it is an aspiration.”
Again this is probably where our understanding of the concept differs, but so far that doesn’t seem to get in the way of understanding the point you are making.

“It has to be created and it has to be maintained. It has to be understood and it has to be appreciated. If any one of these aspects of the principle of democracy is deficient or denied, then democracy is wounded. It has been assaulted, impaired and diminished.”
Created, maintained, understood, and appreciated. Those are the measures we will agree to use to decide if there has been an assault on democracy?

“You made a point someway back that because (some of) the detainees are not members of the population of the United States of America, their detention, illegal though you acknowledge it is, is not an assault on democracy.”
I looked back for where I made that comment. I’ve said a lot so I probably looked past it, but I didn’t see it. Anyhow assuming that I made that point. . . .

“Your point is invalid because democracy is not the exclusive property of the United States of America. Their democratic right as human beings has been assaulted — hence, democracy has been assaulted.”
So using your definition of democracy, and your requirements for assaulting it. . . .
The indefinite detention without trial of the Enemy Combatants and the elimination of habeas corpus has:
impeded or discouraged their right shared by all of humanity wether or not at any particular time any particular member is living in a location where that right can be excercised by creating, maintaining, understanding, and appreciating it?

This being a right that was impeded and discouraged long before they were detained, and a right that by your definition they share even while it can’t be excercised (ie. while detained at Guantanamo), and furthermore a right that is defined as an aspiration. So they can no longer have the aspiration that they didn’t have now that they are in a new location that makes no rules about aspirations? Sorry, you lost me on that one.

“You know, I don’t know what your motivation here is, Danny, but, unless you’re some kind of heartless neocon mischief-maker”
Again, I state that I am in no way a heartless neocon mischief-maker, and I have most certainly been reading TCR far longer than you have. In those instances where I agree with CB I generally don’t bother commenting. There is rarely a need for another “me too” comment. When I disagree, I speak up. My motivation is to point out to CB and his commentors his mistake or to correct my understanding of the issue, whichever is supported by the facts.

“you should give the quibbling a rest.”
Discouraging debate and free exchange of ideas? By your definition that almost sounds like an assault on democracy.

“Some acts are so despicable and inhuman they merit no debate or special dispensation. They are loathsome, criminal and unspeakable by any standards in any circumstances. When your government stoops to such abhorrent depths you have only one recourse: vehement, raucous opposition. I hope I am not mistaken in that that is the contribution you are preparing yourself to make in the defense of your democratic right and freedom.”
As I have done frequently throughout the discussion of this topic. I most wholeheartedly agree. No special dispensation, loathsome, criminal, abhorrent! (not sure about unspeakable, avoinding speaking about bad things tends to make them worse not better).

But undemocratic? An assault on democracy? It seems that the problem is that your school taught you a different definition of democracy.

Danny — can’t remember at which post, there were so many — the matter of DC representation is *moving*. Finally. Better late than never…

I know I get carried away and a bit harsh with my words.

It’s unfair to say that Danny’s arguments and resilience here has served no useful purpose. Through his perseverance he has provoked us into a really useful examination of what democracy is.

So, Danny, “Thanks”, and the above is a compliment.

Sorry Swan,

I just realized that I forgot to get back to your comments when I got home. Twas a late night and I wanted to spend some time with my family before bed.

“Ok, the reporter started to make a point about due process. Snow took the defensive and claimed that denying the protections at issue, whether you call them due process or not, is not an assault on democracy. I challenged him on that and made and argument.”
It may seem like I’m overly concerned with keeping the focus on the exact frame of what we are discussing, but that seems to be the best way to keep the conversation from slowly changing over time until eventually we ar dscussing a completely different topic. We are in agreement as to what was said by whom and what is being discussed.

“But it’s besides the point that the reporter didn’t say it. Mob rule has nothing to do with the debate over whether alleged terrorists captured by the military should be given the minimum protections that detainees are usually given in a law-enforcement context such as review by a judge of why they’re being held.”
And yet here we begin to stray away from the topic at hand. In particular, this is most certainly and absolutely NOT a “debate over whether alleged terrorists captured by the military should be given the minimum protections that detainees are usually given in a law-enforcement context such as a review by a judge of why they are being held.” I have agreed over and over that the rights to habeas corpus and protections against indefinite detention without charge are ABSOLUTELY something they should have. I have agreed that is is wrong to withold that right and protection. However, given what I thought was a reasonable understanding of the concept of democracy, I did not agree that it is an assault on democracy, nor did I agree that it was undemocratic.

Now Goldilocks has offered a different concept of what democracy is. If you feel that his description is accurate as stated “that anyone who has abandoned the tenet of loving care and respect for any other human being anywhere on earth no matter who they are or what they’ve done has abused and assaulted democracy, because the concept of loving care and respect for every human being is the most basic tenet upon which the principal of democracy is built. Furthermore, that the measure you use of whether someone has abandoned the tenet of loving care and respect is if they are willing to entertain an idea that Goldilocks feels is horrible and demeaning.” then I agree with you that your concept of democracy has probably been assaulted. What we are left with is not a disagreement on whether democracy has been assaulted, but rather a disagreement on what democracy is, and we won’t come to an agreement on that issue in this forum. It simply isn’t condusive to such a discussion.

“I see you make the point that the detainees are not all US citizens, but all your doing is ignoring the question of what rights non-citizens should or shouldn’t have”
Nope, I’m pointing out that depending on your definition of democracy, the non-citizens may not be participants in the democratic process in the first place. I believe that this was mostly pointed out in response to someone making a point that a democracy requires that the participants right to participate be protected, and failing to protect that right is an assault on democracy as it prevents a defining part of the democratic process.

“if they don’t have the same rights as us- by merely pointing out that they don’t have the same rights in a US court, you’re saying nothing about why they shouldn’t have these particular rights in this particular context.”
The reason I’m saying nothing about why they shouldn’t have these rights is because, like you, I believe they should have these rights. I just don’t think that the removal of these rights was/is an assault on democracy as I understand the term.

“Again my argument on the other side would be that this tends to lead to the denial of those rights to Americans.”
It may, it may not. If it does, it may be done democratically, or it may be done through an assault on democracy. Not sure how that applies to the conversation at hand. Note that I am again trying to keep the discussion focussed on the point CB made and keep it from straying to what is “right” or what is “possible”.

“we hold these truths to be self-evident”…
Truth is to be a simple thing, we, as adults, know right from wrong.”

Some do, some don’t. Some seem to think that name calling and personal threats are “adult” and “right” others see such things as “childish” and “wrong”. I don’t really see how either applies to the conversation at hand about assaulting democracy or undemocratic actions.

“What are you attempting to acheive by this? You are drowning the original point. Overwhelming the argument with minutia. Is that your goal??”
No, I’m pretty certain I have done a prety good job of keeping to the original point. Several people (yourself included) have attempted multiple times to change the point, or drown it in unrelated minutia, but I’ve been pretty clear in what I am trying to achieve. In particular:

“to get clarification if something isn’t understood, or to point out where CB’s analysis differs from my own. This is exactly what I have done here. I felt that CB’s analysis differed from mine, and figured that a discussion in the comments section might either help others see what CB missed, or might help me understand what I missed.”

“I still stand by my original, yet unsophisticated comments,(#11) that you are splitting hairs, and your level of obsession with this minutia smacks of mental illness, or voluntary cerebral modification.”
I’ll keep your expert opinion of my mental state in mind. I’m relatively certain that you are mistaken in this analysis, but if my mental state is sufficiently hampered, I may not be capable of seeing what seems obvious to you.

“I am a layman. A common citizen.”
As am I. Although, I’m not sure what this has to do with the current conversation.

“I am a revolutionary. I am not going to let my country and fellow citizens suffer at the hands of fools.”
Sounds like a very noble chioce to me.

“I am paul Revere, warning the people, I am Sam Adams, throwing tea overboard.”
Um, obviously you are speaking figuratively. Otherwise, I might be more concerned about your mental state than mine.

“If this is not “civilized” enough for you, I am sorry.”
Apology accepted.

“We are a Democratic Republic, and we have do have to live with our representatives for their terms, but the Constituion also allows for removal of the most inept, before they do any further damage.
Have arrived at a time when in our Nations history when citizens again, must rise against tyranny??” This it does through a process that begins with impeachment. Hence, my point that there has been no assault on democracy.

” Lets’ not bury the definition of what is truly at stake here under a mountain of babble and minutia.”
I think we are just having a discusion about a point that CB made that I disagreed with. With regards to that discussion, what exactly is truly at stake?
Either way I’ll continue to avoid babble and minutia, because I desire to understand where and why my opinion and those of CB and the other commentors differ.