Two From Hans Bricks

The first is a reflection on how seriously we ought to take someone who says "I don't want to live like that," and it involves guns, strippers and alcohol. That's the trifecta, people.

The second is an interesting piece on whether a results-oriented approach is acceptable, as a response to a comment by Instapundit (Note: I haven't been reading Insty lately - or anyone else, for that matter - but as a libertarian I assume he's in favor of leaving Terry's feeding tube out). Hans agrees with Wuzzadem, who argues that Judge Whittimore should have given the Schiavo case de novo review, didn't do so, and so this is a failure of procedure (at the very least). On that basis, according to Hans, the growing schism in the right-wing blogosphere is actually a schism between lawyers and non-lawyers.

Well, I guess as a law student I've been called out, so I may as well respond. First of all, Hans offers some examples of results-oriented lawbreaking that I'm not sure is convincing:

"If I’m not mistaken, our approach to Iraq was a results oriented approach..Ask any democrat. They’ll tell you we broke the law."

Well yes, that's what they'll tell you, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. I have never yet seen any liberal go beyond the Michael Moore approach, whereby you call a war a "fictition" [sic] at the Oscars, without backing up the claim. If the war was illegal, what law was broken? Where can I go read that law? By what authority was that law made? These questions aren't entirely facetious, because international law is very complicated and doesn't rely on the same sources of law as, for example, the Mississippi penal code - but that complexity doesn't absolve anti-war advocates of the responsibility of at least trying to prove their case. Again, it's true that Dems will tell us that GWB broke the law, but that doesn't necessaily make it so.

[Note: I'm passing on Hans' reference to Nicaragua, because I don't know anything about it].

"We sometimes have a results oriented approach to the interogation of terrorists. Democrats will tell you we break the law."

Our approach is carefully calculated to be legal, if shady. There is no law against Jordanians torturing detainees to get information, and so the U.S. sends some detainees to Jordan and stand in the hall whistling while the detainee screams. It's certainly not ethical, but illegal? Again I ask, where can I read the law that says you can't do that? The only real question here is whether or not the ethics violation is justified - and "illegal" doesn't enter into that equation.

And finally, to the Terry Schiavo matter:

"Congress tried to give this woman a final chance at life. Glenn will tell you we broke the law."

Again, I haven't seen Instapundit's argument. But I remain singularly unconvinced that any law was broken (although I know exactly how I would argue the opposite). In my view, the only real question isn't whether Congress can do what it did, but whether it should. The limited-government conservative in me wants to stand by principle and resist all encroachments of federal power into areas traditionally governed by the states, because it is just such encroachments that got us, among other things, Roe v. Wade. In my mind, the difficult conflict arises because I want to stand by that principle of limited government, and yet I want to see someone do something to protect this innocent woman from being killed by her untrustworthy husband and a callous judiciary. If we make an exception for Terry, my law school mind wonders, what other "exceptions" will arise, and where does federal encroachment end? If I was horrified at the Clintonian disregard for the law when Elian Gonzalez was basically kidnapped by the government, there is at least some part of me that views a parallel disregard by the Congress with distaste.

It seems the split among right-wing bloggers can be alive in well even in my own head.