Glenn Beck more sane than Lieberman/McCain

More moments of bedwetting craziness from the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism.

So they catch Faisal whathisface and take him into custody. The guy’s a naturalized citizen. They treat him, as they treated Timothy McVeigh, as a criminal.

Not good enough says Lieberman. We need to strip him (and “suspected terrorists”) of citizenship. McCain concurs. Why? Well, because… you know. Citizenship… protects you from… you know… what Lieberman wants to… you know *do* to the guy. Not torture, of course. We don’t torture. But there are things it’s much harder to… do to people when they are citizens. Just ask Maher Arar.

Why this particular class of criminal is to be stripped of citizenship while Charles Manson, Bernie Madoff Son of Sam and the daughter of the guy who flew his plane into the IRS office are to remain citizens is unclear. What is not unclear is that for all their boasting about courage and clear-eyed understanding of the Real World, the elders of the Thing that Used to be Conservatism are panicky bedwetters who are willing to shred the Constitution because they lack the confidence that it can function anymore to keep them safe. Either that, or they are simply politicians pandering to the element in their base that believes this and making empty gestures in that direction. Charity constrains one to hope the latter, though it’s a pretty bleak charity.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this bedwetting panic, One Voice stood for sanity and something like calm:

I didn’t catch Beck’s broadcast because I had to do my nails. The Old World Swine was unhappy with it because, according to him, Beck was talking about human rights (asw distinct from civil rights) being “granted by the Constitution”. Till I know better, I will give Beck the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant civil and not human rights.

However, I will note that many a torture defender in my comboxes *has* argued that foreigners can be tortured by these United States if they happen to not have the human rights “granted” by the Constitution or the Geneva Convention or what not. Anybody who makes this argument is, in fact, rejecting not only the American conception of human rights (able summarized by JFK’s Inaugural as the central issue contested in the struggle between the Free West and the Commies):

And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe–the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

but the Catholic Church understanding of human rights as well. Our human rights come, not from the state but from the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God.

One of the many disastrous ideas embraced by the Thing That Used to be Conservatism (captained by rather a number of people who used to be Commies and Trotksyites) is the notion that, on second thought, human rights *are* given by the generosity of the State and not by the hand of God. And so we are informed that terrorists or (just as often) “suspected terrorists” have “forfeited their humanity” and may therefore be tortured by Caesar, who has to power to rescind human rights when it suits him since he is the grantor and guarantor of those rights. If you are a non-state actor and Caesar suspects you might be up to something, he can torture you because your rights come from the Constitution or Geneva, not from God.

That’s why we now live in a country where the President of the United States declares that he can, without arrest, evidence, trial, or sentencing kill any person on earth he declares to be an enemy of the state. And police state enthusiasts on the right like Andy McCarthy are four square in favor of it. We have sold our manhood cheap and called ourselves “courageous realists” as we did it.