Brad Sallows said:
I can argue "ethically correct" in circles with anyone in the classroom or on a bulletin board; there isn't really much ambiguity.
In the real world, though, I am prepared to shred "ethically correct" a little to preserve the basic essence of what we have. It is irrevocably untrue that by "behaving like them" we become "no better than them". Climb down in the gutter, fight the necessary fight, climb back out. It's that easy.
The people in question have sworn to abrogate freedoms somewhat more fundamental than any civil rights brought into being and granted by government. I find my interest in dancing around the head of pin to serve their interests diminishes with each passing year of this horsesh!t.
It's not serving *their* interests. Their interests being served are purely incidental. The interests being served by preserving the rule of law are those of everyone; anyone whoa t any point in time may find themselves run afoul of the state in some form, whether in an illegal manner or not. We cannot predict who will be in power in 10 or 15 or 20 years, and what sorts of laws they may pass. We can't predict what issues may arise that any one of us here might take exception to in a manner that runs afoul of those laws.
The very purpose of confronting breaches of due process and principle in the most extreme cases are to prevent the incremental creeping of state power through the appeal to exceptionality. Rights, freedoms, principles and liberty are not intended to be defended in depth; you don't trade space for time. Our constitutional structure establishes a strict perimeter within which are our own rights as citizens, and without which is the power of the state. Allowing ourselves to legislate our own freedoms away is bad enough; where there are clear violations of the constitutional system of rights that we as citizens have negotiated as our contract with the state through the constitutional process, things are not right.
It is always wrong to simply ignore such breaches just because we don't like that guy. How many here, for instance, have stood up and vociferously castigated the human rights tribunals, even when the subjects of their impositions on expression were real pieces of work like Marc Lemire? People who we would never shake hands with or invite into our home, yet their rights matter because every time the state fails to uphold them we are *all* at hazard of that creeping authority.
In the case of Khadr, any normalization of the abandonment of due process out of mere expediency is dangerous. There is absolutely nothing the state is achieving that could not be achieved through perfectly legitimate and legal means if the facts of the case justify it. We have an excellent national security system, as does the U.S.. Both states are capable of protecting themselves with resort to powers existent under law and within the bounds of constitutional guarantees of rights. If there is a clear gap there, such as in the al-Awlaki case, the answer is to solve that problem through proper legislative process, not merely ignore the law because it's inconvenient in this instance.
