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Comment by jvm | Hacker News Reader

> Those revolutionaries would have all been labeled terrorists today.

This is one of the huge ironies about contemporary conservatives. They practically worship the founding fathers like gods, but they would have hated many of them if they met them today, as many were godless radical liberals.

The most extreme example of this for me was when D'Souza and other republicans accused Barack Obama of being anti-colonialist [1], specifically in the context of British occupation, and they meant that in a bad way(!) Surely if nothing else, our country was founded on the principle of opposition to British colonialism.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10...

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That irony isn't specific to conservatives. Today's liberals would have hated many of the anti-government founding fathers.

That would only illustrate the same irony if the near deification of the mythologized version of the FFs by today's conservatives referred to in the grandparent post was also common in today's liberals.

The irony is in the fact that, as today's conservatives would hate many of the founding fathers for being godless radical liberals, today's liberals would hate many of them for being anti-government Tea Party extremists.

I don't think you understand where the irony comes from. Liberals don't view the founders the way conservatives do. Most of us have great respect for the founders in general, but we don't treat them as gods.

There is no irony in disagreeing with someone you never viewed as infallible.

I do understand where that irony comes from, thank you. I was pointing out the irony that conservatives would hate half the founders for being radical liberals, while liberals would hate the other half for being radical conservatives. Honestly, if one classifies themselves as either a liberal or conservative, I don't trust their judgement because they've given into a form of modern tribalism and will nearly always begin espousing double standards to strike out at other side.

Not to mention that they've yelled tyranny! at every minor administrative tweak, regulatory change or appointment for the last 6 years...

And then, when something like this comes up, that actually does threaten our rights, crickets? Not only crickets but cooperation from the least cooperative congress possibly in history? What the fuck, guys?

I don't understand singling out conservatives here. Liberals have been at least as complicit in bloating the spectrum of government power. Even worse, the majority of the media expressed practically no skeptical interest until they found out the government was spying on them.

I'm singling out conservatives because they're hypocrites.

Liberals don't trust police/military, and are ok with the welfare state. They're generally pretty consistent on this, Obama's signed off on this program, but it's been opposed by many more liberals than conservatives.

Conservatives are the opposite, as evidenced by the reaction to this. When you combine their rhetoric about "Obama's Tyranny" when it comes to marginal tax rates or healthcare reform with their complete silence about things that are actually threatening, it's pathetic.

You're even doing it yourself. 'Bloating the spectrum of government power' is obfuscatory BS. Social workers and teachers don't carry guns or listen to phone calls, yet you're trying to conflate them with the security state.

I'm telling you that singling out conservatives for being hypocrites while ignoring your "side" for being hypocrites is a form of modern tribalism. In other words, you're part of the problem of gridlock because you're too busy playing a gotcha game. This comes from spending too much time on blogs and forums specific to your team. Both sides do it, and I don't understand how one could consider themselves a member of either one and pretend that they know they chose correctly.

Liberal Democrats are hypocrites because they spent eight years bashing George W. Bush for his expanding surveillance state--and Obama specifically spoke out against it during his candidacy--yet many of those same liberal Democrats spend their time in Washington defending the current administration's policies. They hated Bush's wars and detainment policies yet say nothing about Obama's continuation of them, the drone strikes, and the general warmongering. This administration has been one long series of broken promises and defensive Democrats. Watching Nancy Pelosi attempt to differentiate between Obama's security state and Bush's security state was mind-boggling.

If you're going to respond that liberals are opposed to all this and don't consider Obama a true liberal because of it, conservatives did the same regarding George W. Bush when his poll numbers went down too. Every time there's a problem, the person in office suddenly doesn't represent you anymore, and you distance yourselves.

Bloating the spectrum of government power refers to desensitization to the growing power the government has to collect information on citizens for its own purposes, from the healthcare database to monitoring phone calls.

I can tell which "side" you're on just from the seething way you talk about the other team. If you took a step back and looked objectively, you'd see that you both come off the same way to independents and have the same transgressions and hypocrisies.

> Not to mention that they've yelled tyranny! at every minor administrative tweak, regulatory change or appointment for the last 6 years...

More like 4.5 than 6, but also for an 8 year period starting about 8 years before that, too.

How does this threaten an American citizen's rights? This is lawful under the Constitution.

Just because it's lawful under the Constitution doesn't mean that it's not threatening rights: the US Constitution isn't perfectly complete, nor indeed even perfect in what it does cover.

The term 'rights' is also a vague one, and can be split fairly easily into those which should be considered universal and those which only apply locally -- for example, I have the right to walk across the road even where there's no designated crossing point, while in the US that would be jaywalking. That's not a universal right and certainly not a constitutionally protected one, but it's a right that's been removed from US citizens (and for good reason too, in some places). On the other hand, I would say that the right to life should be universal. The US is still largely happy with the death penalty and (per an earlier story on HN) the US Government seems to think that extra-judicial killings are fine too. They are apparently lawful under the constitution, and also threaten American citizen's rights.

By labeling that citizen a "terrorist" without due process of law. The entire purpose of "due process" is to force the accuser to produce the all the necessary evidence to prove the accusation and that he (the accuser) isn't simply trying to destroy someone he doesn't like.

Is that a serious question?

First line of the article: "The Obama administration has won the latest battle in their fight to indefinitely detain US citizens and foreigners suspected of being affiliated with terrorists under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012."

Again, this law is constitutional.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld

Original link: "Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA,"

Your link: "...enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, but ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the rights of due process,"

We've got 2 issues there, 'enemy combatants' requires a bit more proof than 'suspected of terrorism', although things can be fudged like in the Bradley Manning case. Then we have the whole due process.

The 5th amendment: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The parts about the armed forces apply to military justice for troops, when wartime discipline is invoked. It's not saying that "when you're at war it all goes out the window for ordinary citizens".

Indefinitely detaining someone based on suspicion, without a requirement of due process or a way to appeal, is quite clearly unconstitutional although I hold little hope for the current Supreme Court to overturn it.

This is only constitutional because our government has said "it's legal".

Your right to free speech as an American citizen is only a right so far as the US government continues to respect that right. The Executive branch could come out tomorrow and start detaining anyone they cared to while stating that any criticism of the US Government is now a detainable offense, and it would be legal if the Judicial branch waved it's hands and said "We'll allow it."

Our rights may be "god given", but god cannot protect us from the tyranny of men.

In the Hamdi v. Rumsfeld case, the SCOTUS ruled that US citizens have the right to due process. So that ruling actually sets a precedent for this law being unconstitutional.

Men give us laws, 'God' gives us rights.

History is pretty clear that what's legal is not always what's right.

But I'm guessing you'd say in the same breath that Wade v. Roe is unconstitutional, because it disagres with your politics?

Which founding fathers were godless?

More specifically, many were deists, which was culturally equivalent to atheism at the time. Jefferson even published a version of the New Testament with all mention of God or the supernatural removed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

Thomas Paine's deism was rather too godless for a lot of people's tastes, including Theodore Roosevelt.

http://atheism.wikia.com/wiki/Thomas_Paine

Taking over a colony to appropriate its land and other resources != being principally against British colonialism.

The whole distinction between one element of a set and a whole set seems to be incomprehensible to modern liberals. E.g. the recent example of shooting an attacking black thug had been made an example of racism. Because, obviously, somebody who shoots a black person to protect his life is principally against the entire black race.

"The whole distinction between one element of a set and a whole set seems to be incomprehensible to modern liberals."

Because obviously, one person with a certain ideological bent speaks for every person with that same ideology.

By the way, you should have spoken up if you knew unequivocally that the black thug was the attacker, especially when there was absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever, besides the testimony of accused. You could have really helped your guy's case.

I've only brought up the recent events to show that it's not a singular case. The whole liberal community is engaging in this.

PS. As for your suggestion for me to speak up - luckily prosecution brought a witness who testified that TM had been attacking GZ, so no need for me to do the same.

There are people of all sorts of political leanings that realize that the state's case was extremely weak because of the lack of hard evidence. Maybe that's because it isn't a political issue. I mean, how would you frame the question, if you wanted to glean a person's political affiliation from the single issue of Zimmerman killing Martin?

This square peg of a criminal case was jammed into the round hole of a political issue when Obama made his statement about if Trayvon was his son. Since there are millions of people in this country whose stances on various issues consist singularly of the opposing view of whatever Obama's view on the issue is, George Zimmerman became a conservative hero.

So to paint overreaction and the abandonment of logic and reason as a tenet of liberalism is downright ludicrous.

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