Mitt’s big idea
Reacting to concern about Catholic terrorist actions in Ireland and elsewhere, Massacusetts Governor Mitt Romney today suggested wiretapping churches…
…except that in reality he recommended wiretapping mosques. (Substitute “churches” and you can see how outrageous the idea is.) Mitt is telling the world that we think Islam, not Islamic terrorists, is our enemy. Mitt’s given the terrorist propagandists a gift and we are all less safe because of it.
Blanket wiretapping of mosques would also be a huge erosion of our civil liberties: We can monitor and wiretap your faith-based conversations, so to speak, simply because you belong to one of the West’s three major religions?
Mitt, a self-proclaimined expert in homeland security, is going in entirely the wrong direction. The Globe quotes Ali Noorani, exec. dir. of the Massachusetts Immigrants and Refugee Advocacy Coalition:
”Blanket eavesdropping and blanket profiling only erodes the safety and security of our country,” Noorani said. ”People who really know what national security is and what intelligence is realize that we need to build trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities.”
I can’t wait until Mitt, a man without political integrity, is out of Massachusetts. Given his recent statements and schedule, it sounds like he can’t wait to leave either. Win win. [Tags: MittRomney security]
Categories: Uncategorized dw
No need for Catholic-baiting, David, no matter how much you may dislike Romney.
DaveD, I’m not “bashing Catholics”! I’m using wiretapping churches as an obviously intrusive, undesirable thing, and suggesting – pretty explicitly, frankly – that wiretapping mosques is just as bad. Jeez!
Dave –
I think all you need to do is look to historical precedent to see why Mitt chose mosques for his speech. You don’t see many priests or bishops (or rabbis, for that matter) pulled out of their houses of “worship” in handcuffs for coddling terrorists or spreading anti-American rhetoric. Terrorizing little kids maybe, but not plotting the overthrow of the Great Satan.
Look around the world today…I’d hazard a guess that fully two-thirds of the “hot” or low-intensity conflicts around the world involve Islamist extremists. Had we watched this crew in 2000, there might not be a big, gaping hole in lower Manhattan. Criticize the idea, not the person.
Joel
Re: historical precedent –
“The assassination provided Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Chief of Propaganda, with the excuse he needed to launch a pogrom against German Jews. Grynszpan’s attack was interpreted by Goebbels as a conspiratorial attack by “International Jewry” against the Reich.”
Joel,
Why shouldn’t Governor Romney be accountable for the content of his ideas?
Indiscriminate wire-tapping of mosques is a bad idea. Wire-tapping people against whom you’ve got a credible, judge-satisfying probable cause is a good idea, whether they’re in a mosque or not.
Romney appears to be advocating the former. That’s rabble-rousing of the bigoted sort.
Why shouldn’t one criticize that?
I’m all for Romney being held accountable for the content of his ideas–Hell; I’m for the content of his ideas.
Here’s the thing: the very rights and privileges we take for granted (due process etc.) provide the means by which those who would do us more harm hide in plain sight. It’s our Achilles Heal.
The world has changed drastically since our Founding Founders penned the Bill of Rights. We ought to be able to adapt. It’s expected of us. Taking a strict Constitutional interpretation and applying that to today’s chaos is naive and leaves us vulnerable.
Joel,
Why not go whole hog. Let’s abolish laws on wire-tapping and let the government listen in to anyone, any time, any place? And I have a place to start–your house.
Seriously. You’ve just announced that you want to join with a political figure that’s out to destroy part of the constitution. I consider that terrorism.
By the way, where do you go to church? Do you talk about this sort of thing there? With whom?
I’m Jewish, so no church for me. But let’s get back to the point; it’s well KNOWN that *some* mosques are used for anti-western jihad recruitment. It’s well KNOWN that *some* Moslem clerics are political firebrands and are forwarding anti-western views and ideology. These are facts. So why not listen to the facts and spare a couple of hundred lives the next time one of these wing nuts decides he wants seven virgins to meet him at the gates?
You consider me a terrorist (or guilty of terrorism)?? Drop the hyperbole (‘lets start at your house’) and open your eyes.
What are we talking about here? I guess it’s nothing less than profiling. OOOPS! There’s a baaaad word. Profiling; there, I said it again. Israel is a democratic country that does a lot of profiling and you know what? El Al has never had a hijacking, despite being the national air carrier for a country surrounded by enemies sworn to its destruction. We could probably learn something from the Israelis.
I think Mitt is just reminding us that the world is a scary place and that requires some unorthodox practices. He’s certainly not (and I’m certainly not) advocating for martial law—anyone with half a mind can see that.
But, we can take your moral high ground and wait until someone blows themselves up in a crowd at the mall, or we can do a little something to try and protect ourselves. Nice guys don’t always finish first.
I’m a Terrorist
NOOOOOO—not really. But that’s what some hysteric implies in the comments section of David Weinberger’s blog. He’s got an opinion about some recent statements made by Massachusetts’ Republican governor “I’m a red speck in a…
Joel,
Okay. Drop the appeals to emotion, and give me one sentence of straight talk.
Are you saying that any mosque should be bugged any time, just because someone says so?
Or are you saying that, if there’s good enough reason to convince a judge that the grounds for a wiretap exist, any building, including a mosque, should be bugged?
Adamsj,
I’ll go even further: any mosque, synagogue, church, YMCA, Webelo troop, girl scout jamboree or Avon Lady get-together should be *randomly* bugged IF there’s a history of one or more of these groups advocating for our destruction via violence and the death of innocent civilians.
OR (and even better), we zero in on the group that happens to have a *REAL* history of this. C’mon, man. It’s definitely about some mosques—don’t be so foolish to apply this broadly.
Look, which one of the above is going to give you a heads-up that they’re plotting your death? None, right? So where is this mystical “probable cause” you so badly want to hand a judge before you can prevent the mall bombing? Stop talking so dopey. Let reality sink in and quit giving terrorists such a great place to live and work.
Joel,
If you don’t care to answer the original question:
Enough evidence to convince a judge? Any evidence at all? Or just an emotionally stated argument?
(You say history. I say evidence. I say there’s a difference.)
Also, you say:
Two questions:
“…[W]e zero in on the group that happens to have a *REAL* history of this. C’mon, man. It’s definitely about some mosques-don’t be so foolish to apply this broadly.”
Modern terrorism has been much more associated with secular nationalist groups of the left and right than with the religious, Joel. Even the current spate can be said to have started with the Marxist Tamil Tigers. “Why They Do It” in a recent New York Review of Books, quotes Robert Pape’s study of the last twenty years of terrorism as determining that only a minority (a hair more than a third, 34.6 per cent) of attacks, of the suicide variety at least, were carried out by Islamist groups.
But you write like the sort of thoughtless nincompoop who believes that civil rights are an annoying ploy to protect the criminal class, any member of which a police officer can identify at a glance. As a court interpreter I see them from time to time, bursting with indignation that they have been hauled in for whatever infraction, and treated exactly like everyone else, as if they weren’t (usually) card-carrying members of the middle- or upper class.
Adamsj is trying to get you to realize that if it’s moslems today, it will be you, and I, and Adamsj tomorrow — and then it turns out that you are a Jew, the butt of every second Yahoo’s conspiracy theory, a people who have suffered from guilt by association, lack of due process, stereotyping and persecution at least as much as any. But because four years ago the government let its guard down and didn’t apply existing law, even after warning, you’re ready to visit the whole shebang on another lot.
“[Romney’s] certainly not (and I’m certainly not) advocating for martial law-anyone with half a mind can see that.”
What the hell, Joel? In wholesale wiretapping, of houses of worship no less, you seem to be be essentially saying that civil law should be remade as martial law.
“Here’s the thing: the very rights and privileges we take for granted (due process etc.) provide the means by which those who would do us more harm hide in plain sight. It’s our Achilles Heal[sic].”
That was Senator Joe McCarthy’s point, too, you might find it of some relevance that it is the language the Nazis used to explain how the Jews had subverted Germany, and so on, back into history. Humankind is facing an grave and unprecedented threat that inescapably drives us, reluctantly to be sure, to measures once thought extreme. That even a people as virtuous as ourselves is forced to contemplate such monstrous acts should be proof to anyone with eyes to see that our enemies are even worse, indeed more evil than any ever known to history.
Perhaps I should identify the last two sentences as irony, Joel, since that’s a quality you seem to find difficult to identify.
Interesting Finds
Adamsj –
I did answer your question. Obviously probable cause would be reason to tap. But I’d broaden the definition of probable cause; specific verbal and written threats, for example. Now I’ll get jumped on for squelching free speech but we already do that in the interest of public safety, don’t we? Can you scream ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater without getting in trouble? No. Can you write “I have a bomb†on a piece of paper and hand it to a stewardess on a plane without sending the plane to the nearest airport and being hauled off in handcuffs? No. Then why should some group be able to openly discuss the ins and outs of blowing up a building and killing everyone inside? I’m advocating for the evolution of some ideas that have aged more than 200 years, is all, because our system is being gamed. The means by which these people would mess with us have evolved and it’d be a good idea if we did too.
And Johne –
All that crap about me being Jewish and its influence on my opinions about one group or another is just that, crap. If I were a buggy-drivin’ Amish man I’d feel the same way, so a good deal of your argument is garbage. The only reason I identified myself as Jewish was because Adamsj asked what church I belonged to. I answered him then immediately left religion behind.
“That was Senator Joe McCarthy’s point, too, you might find it of some relevance that it is the language the Nazis used to explain how the Jews had subverted Germany, and so on, back into history. Humankind is facing an[sic] grave and unprecedented threat that inescapably drives us, reluctantly to be sure, to measures once thought extreme.â€
What’s really ironic is how you pulled two of the most paranoid and dangerous people out of history to try underscore your point. Would you really compare Mitt Romney (or me, for that matter) to Adolf Hitler and Joe McCarthy??? The difference with your examples with what we have now is that Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Hitler were insane and held power. The people attacking us and advocating for our destruction are insane and want power.
Oh, and even if just “(a hair more than a third, 34.6 per cent) of attacks, of the suicide variety at least, were carried out by Islamist groups,†then they seem to be the most effective third out there, don’t they? No doubt they’re good at what they do. How many more percentage points does that figure go up if you include the non-suicide variety of Islamist terrorist attacks?
Have a great weekend.
Joel,
I take it you’re saying that, if a mosque is run by someone who uses it to teach bomb-making classes, that’s a reason to bug the mosque, and I agree that’s legally reasonable.
Now, over here is a mosque which isn’t run by such a guy. There’s no evidence that anyone in a position of influence or authority there is engaging in such criminal activity.
What about that mosque? Is it right to bug it, or not?
I have thoughts about other things you say but I’d like to follow this line of thought for now.
That mosque would not be bugged, no. Unless there was some evidence–and i’m advocating for it to be easier to find that evidence, or probable cause–to the contrary. Then you’d bug that mosque. OR church. OR temple. The rules should apply across the board. We keep gravitating back to mosques because there’s a track record of such activity with mosques. Less so (or not at all) for other houses of worship.
It would seem that a man like Mitt is in Massachusets, because the people wanted him there. So the solution would seem to be to educate the people.
Joel, you and Romney are following some of McCarthy’s and Hitler’s logic, so I guess you will have to agree that you’re comparable to that extent. I don’t follow your argument that Islamist terrorists must be the most effective ones, since the majority of terrorists are secular — so I guess you and Romney had better get started on that list. And what tried to say, not plainly enough I’m sure, was that a lot of people probably lack the empathy to imagine themselves in the place of a group that’s deemed automatically under suspicion, or enough historical insight to know how often that suspicion spreads, lumping together larger and larger categories. But it does seem to me that a person who, if they haven’t suffered it themselves, may have had relatives or friends in that position, or who should at least have read about it happening to co-religionists in other times or places, should be able to make that leap a little more easily.
Johne –
So you’re insisting that simply because I’m Jewish, I should have more empathy for Islamist terrorists? OR, I should feel sorry for all Moslems because a percentage of them have hijacked the religion to justify barbarism?
No, Joel, johne is suggesting that Americans should protect the rights of the vast majority of American Moslems who are not terrorists or terrorist supporters.
He didn’t say you should “feel sorry” for anyone.