Who’s Dred Scott Now?

Everyone.

The 1857 Dred Scott decision galvanized Republicans. The party which had been founded just three years earlier and finished a distant second in 1856 was transformed by the decision.

Even its more conservative leaders, such as former Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, would later center their arguments on a repudiation of Dred Scott, even while renouncing extremists such as John Brown. It was this moderate course which won Lincoln nomination, but it was moderation founded on what southerners considered an extreme principle, the idea that black men were men and as such had inalienable
rights, just as whites did, if they were not themselves slaves.

This week sees the passage of what I believe history will call our time’s Dred Scott. It claims to be an anti-terror bill,  but what it really does is allow George W. Bush, if he wishes, to become Joe Stalin.  No habeus corpus, and plenty of torture, for anyone deemed an enemy combatant by the government — including you, including me. No more Constitutional Rights. No more Geneva Convention.

Fortunately, those heroes called the Netroots, and their allies within
the Democratic Party, are not going to take this lieing down — not
even from other Democrats. While their actions (so far) are all
rhetorical, they are marked with a passion seldom-seen. (It’s a passion I share — you should have seen the first version of this post. On second thought, you shouldn
‘t.)

The bills are (nominally) splitting the party,
into torture and anti-torture wings, based on action. Those who are
weak on this issue, however, will still be supported in the fall,
because the alternatives are worse. Just as weak candidates like
Lincoln were supported in Illinois in 1858, because Stephen Douglas was
seen as worse.

But lines are being drawn. Firm lines. Real lines. And those
Democrats who end up supporting this abomination will forever be on the
other side of history’s line.

If we become as ruthless as our enemies, if we become what they
claim we are, then it will not matter who wins the so-called Global War
on Terror. Terror will have won.

Let me conclude by amending Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech slightly:

You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you
speak of us liberal Democrats, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles,
or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing
to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "terror-loving Liberal Democrats."
In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an
unconditional condemnation of "Liberal Democrats" as the first
thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to
be an indispensable prerequisite – license, so to speak – among you
to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not,
be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite
just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and
specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or
justify.