I can’t tell you how horrified I was reading about the torturous isolation and mistreatment of Jose Padilla in the New York Times yesterday. It was on a gut level, palpable. We, the United States of America did this - and to one of our own citizens. It isn’t what America is supposed to be about - it isn’t “American.” Permitting this treatment of an American citizen by the American government means that no American is safe from our government, none of us has any rights that amount to anything. Nearly as bad, others properly suggest that Jose Padilla’s treatment isn’t justifiable under any standard. Our government, the Bush Administration, flagrantly and illegally abused and violated an American citizen for nothing.
I have heard people who called themselves “conservative” rail against nihilism in academia. It is no longer academic. It is Bush Administration policy. Why do we not hear more of these “conservative” voices now?
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