I know a lot of people think I'm exaggerating for rhetorical effect when I argue that some conservatives are "against fair trials" or due process. But I'm really not. I'm just describing what the mainstream of the modern Republican Party has come to stand for. Just ask Mike Potemra, writing over at National Review (via Kevin Drum):
Coincidentally, I have over the past couple of months been watching DVDs of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show I missed completely in its run of 1987 to 1994; and I confess myself amazed that so many conservatives are fond of it. Its messages are unabashedly liberal ones of the early post-Cold War era – peace, tolerance, due process, progress (as opposed to skepticism about human perfectibility).
Two things: One, this is startlingly honest, two, I love that a party that preaches "personal responsibility" for the most vulnerable in society can use "skepticism about human perfectibility" as a reason to dodge something as essential to democracy as due process. The rule of law -- it's just too hard to adhere to!
As for "tolerance" and "peace" -- these things interfere with the quest for national greatness, which can only be achieved through ethnic, gender and religious hegemony and with ceaseless wars of choice.
-- A. Serwer
