Ronald Reagan, Radical Leftist Kook

As 58 percent of Americans embrace torture as the Strategy of Choice for saving their skins from somebody who might possibly (they suspect) be up to no good (you know, like Maher Arar) and scrapping a thousand years of civilization for illusory short term gains in in physical safety, Glenn Greenwald notes how The Thing that Used to be Conservatism has already radicalized itself so much that it is light years away from the guy it constantly hails as the Hero of the Golden Age:

The express policies of the right-wing Ronald Reagan — “applying the rule of law to terrorists”; delegitimizing Terrorists by treating them as “criminals”; and compelling the criminal prosecution of those who authorize torture — are now considered on the Leftist fringe. Merely advocating what Reagan explicitly adopted as his policy — “to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law against” Terrorists — is now the exclusive province of civil liberties extremists. In those rare cases when Obama does what Reagan’s policy demanded in all instances and what even Bush did at times — namely, trials and due process for accused Terrorists — he is attacked as being “Soft on Terror” by Democrats and Republicans alike. And the mere notion that we should prosecute torturers (as Reagan bound the U.S. to do) — or even hold them accountable in ways short of criminal proceedings — is now the hallmark of a Far Leftist Purist.

To paraphrase the redoubtable Mr. Reagan, I did not leave the Republican party. It left me. I believe what I always have: that the rule of law and Catholic principles of human dignity are the best weapons we have in fighting jihadi nuts. But the GOP has embraced the radical notion that we can do grave evil for a good end and start torturing people in order to keep ourselves safe. They are now every bit as consequentialist as the Left. And the irony is, the more they plump for torture (as Cheney is constantly urging they do) the more they have to condemn Reagan’s principles (or those who still hold them) as leftist extremism, America hating, etc. in order to keep up their demented charade of carrying on his legacy.