Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 19, 2001 at 08:59:08AM -0800, Brian D Williams wrote:
> >
> > >Stop brow-beating yourself and start worrying about the effect
> > >dealing with barbarians is going to have on _our_ core values.
> > >Speaking as a hard- core liberal, I'm more worried about detention
> > >without judicial review and military tribunals getting a toe-hold
> > >in the west than I am about western values teaching the poor
> > >tribesmen how to read and write.
> >
> > While no one is proposing these things for citizens, I agree that
> > this will require watching.
>
> That does not make any difference to me. I am not a US citizen;
> if those proposals are adopted I will cease my occasional habit
> of visiting friends in your country and spending my money enhancing
> your balance of trade (via tourism).
>
> I mean, would *you* want to visit a European state where the
> government had passed regulations saying that basically you
> relinquished all rights to due process of law by entering their
> borders, and if they felt like it they could have you arrested,
> tried by a military tribunal, and executed on the spot with no
> appeal?
If I were attempting to overthrow that government or even merely trying
to engage in a propaganda war to destroy the hypothetical high trust
society of that hypothetical european country, I would expect such
measures as a matter of course. My revolutionary cabal's plans may even
*require* that such measures be enacted, on the theory that they would
engender mistrust and resentment enough to engender further support from
the "useful idiots" in that part of the local intelligentsia who engage
in arguments of moral equivilancy in order to shround their lack of
responsibility as citizens.
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