This essay first appeared in Cliterati on June 23rd; I have modified it slightly for time references and to fit the format of this blog.
It’s funny how people can be so familiar with received wisdom that it begins to sound trite and clichéd, yet at the same time they fail to internalize that wisdom. One perfect example is the famous Martin Niemöller quote which begins, “First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist…” I daresay few literate people in any Western country haven’t heard it, and most who have can clearly understand the implication of the grim litany: if we don’t speak up for the rights of minorities, even small and unpopular minorities, the precedent set by their maltreatment will be expanded by slow stages until it encompasses everyone but the rulers themselves. But it’s clear that most don’t grasp that truth fully enough to actually do anything about it; instead they say, “Oh, but surely that doesn’t apply to sex offenders, or terrorists, or illegal aliens,” or whatever other unpopular group they consider beneath basic human decency. And then the number of groups so treated, and the scope of each group, expands until…
But rather than talking about it, let’s look at a real-life example from Greece. It started early last May, with the police making a big show of rounding up sex workers and forcibly testing them for HIV:
Greek authorities announced the arrest…of 17 HIV-positive women who allegedly worked illegally as prostitutes, accusing them of intentionally causing serious bodily harm. [Their] names and photographs…were published on the Greek Police’s website, angering human rights advocates who said it was unclear whether the women were aware they had HIV…The women were among 130 women screened…Hundreds more women are likely to be screened in the next few weeks…Authorities say they are concerned about the overlap between drug use and illegal prostitution…The Athens city government said at least 315 brothels are currently operating illegally…[and] renewed its call on the government to relax strict licensing rules. Greece is the busiest transit point for illegal immigration in the European Union…
Though prostitution is legal in Greece, its strict rules result in 95% of all Greek prostitutes working illegally, as strict rules invariably do; that’s why Athens wants the rules loosened, and why persecuting sex workers is such a spectacularly bad idea. But since virtually nobody stood up for the whores, the police were encouraged to expand their campaign of terror to the larger group alluded to in the last line of that article:
Athens police are conducting abusive stops and searches and have detained tens of thousands of people in a crackdown on irregular migration…Human Rights Watch…documents frequent stops of people who appear to be foreigners, unjustified searches of their belongings, insults, and, in some cases, physical abuse. Many are detained for hours in police stations pending verification of their legal status…Between August 2012, when Operation Xenios Zeus began, and February 2013, the police forcibly took almost 85,000 foreigners to police stations to verify their immigration status. No more than 6 percent were found to be in Greece unlawfully, suggesting the police are casting an extraordinarily wide net…
Xenios Zeus was the aspect of the ancient Greek god who was the patron of hospitality; obviously Greek police have the same sort of warped sense of humor as their American counterparts. But despite the jolly good time they’re having, they’ve now reached the practical limit of the number of people they can harass this way:
A year after beginning…Xenios Zeus…Greece’s detention centers are full…and there’s no room for more…Police are now just taking the immigrants from the center and transferring them to Anavyssos, a town in East Attica, and releasing them to walk back to Athens, facing the prospect of being picked up again and taken back to the center to be released again…
The police claim to be “overwhelmed”, but perhaps they just got tired of harassing migrants and decided to pick on someone else instead:
…transgender people in Thessaloniki…are arrested and detained in the police station in daily police “sweep” operations, for at least 3-4 hours, on the pretext of…ID verification and their identification as sex workers…[those who] complained…were threatened to be sued for disrespect if they did not “comply”…all arrested transgender women who [sought] the help of Greek Transgender Support Association…were found to be innocent…the court accepted the [defense] that the…presence in a specific location does not mean that the person practices sexual work, let alone that she “harasses” the [passersby]…
Advocates have asked for the harassment to stop, but I’m sure advocates for migrants’ rights and sex worker rights have asked for the same thing. Until the majority gets it through their skulls that the police need to be reined in, the number and size of persecuted groups will only increase…and this sort of thing isn’t limited to Greece.
The problem comes in the last four words “beneath basic human decency” … where is that line? Where has that line EVER been established in all of human history? It’s as subjective as tastes in wine. Everyone THINKS their definition of “basic human decency” is the correct one – but put 100 people in a room and ask them if we are treating terrorists that we capture with basic human decency and I daresay half of them would say that we are.
All “opinions” are equally valid when the issue is subjective.
Why are we jumping the shark here so much by including rights for terrorists in the fight for sex worker rights?
It’s very hard for me to think of a single thing that could sabotage the march toward decent treatment of sex workers than casually mentioning rights for terrorists in the same breath. It’s beyond me why anyone would want to do it anyway since these terrorists, whenever they have had their way, end up buryng women accused of selling sex up to their necks in the sand and then having a salavating mob repeatedly bash their heads into hamburger meat with stones.
I like WINNING arguments and turning people to my side. Having LOST so many arguments during my days working in the political spider-web of the Navy – I can tell you that, whenever I did lose – I usually lost because I was trying to do too much at one time.
So even if you’re one of those “50%” who believe we’re treating terrorists with something less than human decency – ask yourself if the rights of a beheader are as important to you as the rights of a single mom who works hard as a sex worker to provide for her family?
The two aren’t even close to my mind. I feel a nauseating repulsion for the way we treat sex workers. Terrorists? Burn ’em for all I care. I’ll charge whatever hill you want me to for sex workers but if anyone insists that I’m charging that hill for terrorist rights too … heh, count me the fuck out.
The 50% who dislike how we treat terrorists need to stand down on the issue of terrorist “rights” – that is, if they really want to win rights for sex workers someday.
Terrorist rights are a completely separate “hill” than the one we’re trying to storm for sex workers – and lumping terrorists in with good hard working women only results in bad things for the hard working women.
Pick your battles.
Because A) They’re human, and B) The term “terrorist” is just as easy for government actors to arbitrarily apply as any other title is. Either everyone has human rights or no one does, because of the government’s twin powers of labeling and extension of precedent.
A government that has the power to mistreat ANYbody has the power to mistreat EVERYbody. And until the majority understands that, we’ll keep degenerating into police states.
I’m still confused – because, deep down, I don’t think you really want to mix human rights for “bonafide” terrorists with the fight for sex worker rights.
I think what you really want to do … is protect the rights of innocent people who are accused of being terrorists – I have no problem with this. I’m totally with you in this respect.
Now – if I’m wrong here and you’re saying that Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed’s (KSM’s) rights are as important as sex worker rights – then we have to part company on that point – and very strongly so. KSM is a bonafide terrorist, non-US citizen who was involved directly in asymetrical warfare against the people (not just the government) of the United States. This is the man who confessed to personally beheading Daniel Pearl, and apparently just for “shits and grins” …
This is the Libertarian “trap” that has kept Libertaranism from becoming a main-stream force in American politics. Every major political movement that has ever had a tangible impact puts issues in “boxes” and kicks those “boxes” down the political road one at a time. Poor Libertarians put EVERY issue into the back of a broke down pickup truck that 30 guys can’t push – no wonder we never go anywhere – you have to buy into the whole Ron Paul philosophy 100%, including his infantile foreign policy, or else you’re a heretic to Libertarianism.
You have to believe in applying the Constitution to people born, raised, and living in foreign lands who disdain it’s very existence and even fight to overthrow it – or you’re no “proper” Libertarian.
I mean … just good luck … Libertarians will be here two centuries from now – just as irrelevent as they always have been. Libertarians – “complaining” – that’s what wer’e good at. Making real improvements for human beings? Not so much. If we are going to make a difference we’re going to have to open up the tent and be smart about the issues we push.
I don’t want to get into the arguement of whether KSM’s treatment is within the bounds of “basic human decency” – let me have the guy and I’ll saw his head off with a rusty K-bar. I can kind of respect (while laughing my ass off at) others who think he should be treated more “kindly”. But – this is not the issue.
It does not matter what your opinion of his treatment is – but whether or not you REALLY want the image of KSM hanging in people’s minds as you attempt to win them over for sex worker rights. Because “winning” people is what I’m interested in doing. I have no desire to bury anyone who disagrees with sex worker rights or impress them with my mighty debating talent (even if I had such). What I’m interested in, is people saying – “You know what – you’ve convinced me – now what do we do, TOGETHER, to help these women?” That’s the real victory – taking a guy who’s “anti” and turning him “pro”. But you will not do that while whispering “terrorist rights” into his ear to confuse and alienate him.
What rights are we talking about for terrorists anyway? We’re FOR allowing sex workers to practice their trade without government interference – are we saying that terrorists should have the right to practice THEIR trade without interference? I don’t even see a remote similarity between the rights of sex workers and rights of “terrorists” – real terrorists.
Libertarians tend to group the “KSM-type” foreign born terrorists in with the domestic kind – but this is crazy. Yes, Obama DID kill an American citizen with a drone strike in Yemen who was working with AQ. That was wrong because the man was a citizen and the Constitution applied to him. However, when we look at the case of DOMESTIC terrorist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Ft Hood shooter – can someone tell me what rights of his we’ve violated? What more rights are we fighting for in this man’s case?
By the way – the evidence suggests that the IRS attempted to bully Pro-Life organizations by telling them they couldn’t exercise their 1st amendment rights and demonstrate in front of abortion clinics.
Are we fighting for their rights too? I would certainly think so and I wonder why we Libertarians are always mentioning rights for terrorists but never mention the rights of conservative groups to exercise their 1st amendment rights without harassment from the government.
Might help if we mentioned this every now and then – might provide some needed “balance” if we insist on pushing terrorist rights.
Whence comes this idea that libertarians do not speak in favor of the free speech of conservatives?
Certainly, libertarians are quite vocal in defending the rights of people accused of “terrorism,” and properly so because the government has used “terrorism” as a magic word to justify any abuse whatsoever.
But libertarians have come to the defense of conservatives when the government has harassed them. For example, here’s the Cato Institute on the IRS discrimination against Tea Party groups: http://www.cato.org/blog/whats-stake-irs-scandal .
When’s the last time you heard Libertarians mention them? It’s not just Maggie – all kinds of Lib blogs are all “lit up” for terrorist rights.
Okay well – if that’s the game – then we’re also for rights for the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party, and the North American Man-Boy Love Association … so why aren’t we bragging about this?
We’re certainly crowing about our support for terrorist rights.
Whenever a relevant issue has come up, such as IRS targeting of Tea Partiers or Homeland Security warning about conservative groups. Libertarians have never been shy on this topic.
“ACLU-EM Defends KKK’s Right to Free Speech”
“ACLU History“:
Just as libertarians have never been shy about defending conservatives’ right to association and expression, they’ve also never been shy about defending those rights for everyone, no matter how despised they are.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard said it best:
“’With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.’ … The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we’re all damaged.”
Everyone within our borders accused of every crime, no matter how heinous, needs to get a fair trial and be treated fairly before, during and after it. Everyone. No matter who, no matter what. Because every exception will be seized upon by the government, every loophole enlarged indefinitely, until everyone is affected.
Know this. Understand this. See it happening all around you. Or else we’re all doomed to exactly what we’ve created in what was once the best country on Earth.
I’m 100 percent in love with this.
It’s just that some of us out here, when the word “terrorist” is mentioned – think you are talking about AQ overseas too.
Krulac, if you aren’t willing to fight and die for those who you believe are wrong in their beliefs, then why in the hell should anyone fight and die to support your beliefs.
And don’t say you can do it all by yourself, no individual–even Bill Gates–is that powerful.
And don’t say you and your friends can do it: that begs the question of why they should fight for you if you aren’t willing to fight for them?
It is this question, taken to its logical conclusion, that undermine the very idea of libertarianism. If you protect your friends, what about your neighbors? Members of your community? State? Nation?
And which terrorists. Al Qaeda and Hezzbollah. Or do we include the right-wing militias like the Bruderschweigen that killed Alan Berg and Tim McVeigh’s militia that exploded the truck bomb at the Murrah bldg.
We have to protect everyone’s rights, in order to ensure that our rights are protected. There is no alternative.
I’m not sure what libertarians are supposed to be doing wrong here. You say:
“I think what you really want to do … is protect the rights of innocent people who are accused of being terrorists – I have no problem with this. I’m totally with you in this respect.”
In that case, where’s the daylight between you and libertarians in general? I’m unaware of any libertarians who believe individuals fairly convicted of terrorism in a court of law should be rewarded with trips to Disney World.
As long as we’re talking U.S. citizens or persons caught on American soil and suspected of terrorist acts, or intent to commit them … there is NO daylight between myself and most Libertarians.
Where the “daylight” appears is when Libertarians insist on that guys like KSM be tried in American courts. KSM is a POW – not a domestic criminal.
Human Rights Watch explains why, legally speaking, you’re wrong.
And, philosophically speaking, the government shouldn’t be able hold someone indefinitely without a fair trial. Any government that does such is a menace to a free and just society. You can’t pick and choose who deserves legal protection, and who does not, and then expect your own legal protections to remain secure.
Well, for one thing, ‘terrorist’ is a terribly imprecise and misused word. Are government death squads in South America terrorists? Why no; they’re trained by the U.S. and supported by the local government. Never mind that they show just as little respect for individual rights (perhaps less) than ‘genuine’ terrorists.
And no, it’s not about ‘protecting the rights of innocent people…’ It’s about protecting the rights of the people. Because until a trial is held, everyone is innocent, according to our Western tradition of law. Even accused terrorists.
And I think there’s a big enough conceptual gulf between ‘a contract between two consenting adults for services’ and ‘causing harm and death to others’ for people to tell the difference.
Bruce, name me one South American death squad that was trained by the U.S. for the purpose of being a death squad?
Did the U.S. government train Lee Harvey Oswald to kill JFK? Why … no, but … well the Marines did teach him to shoot a rifle and he went on to kill JFK so in a round about sick logic way – you could say the Marine Corps trained LHO to kill JFK. But in fact – that was NOT the intent of the USMC when they administered him that training.
Death squads – No Bruce, there is no covert CIA program to train death squads. We may have outfitted and trained some people – who, like LHO – went off the reservation later and decided to go “death squad” – but it was not our intent to train a bunch of rascals to go out and kill Nuns and women and making terror in the South American hillsides.
We do this kind of thing quite often – because we’re clueless idiots – like providing support to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or the Libyan rebels, or the Syrian rebels who just recently YouTube’d themselves hacking the head off a Catholic Priest.
But yes I would call “Death Squads” terrorists – and I really don’t think many Americans would have a problem with doing likewise including the current occupant of the Oval Office.
By the way – I’ve never worked for the CIA but I did spend a lot of time at a Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Afghanistan operated by the CIA. My purpose there had absolutely nothing do with them but I did meet a lot of the guys in the chow hall and when playing sports during downtime.
It really wasn’t these guy’s style to train up a bunch of “death squads” to effect their agenda. What they did – was almost more nauseating. They bought Taliban warlords with suitcases of American taxpayer money. That’s pretty much the CIA’s style these days.
Interesting that you mention the CIA; I didn’t, and that organization (pernicious though it may be) is not what I was referring to. Rather, I was referencing the School of the Americas, which is run by the DOD; not the CIA.
Now, it’s one thing to claim ‘well, yes, we trained that guy to do those things, but not to those people’ on a one-off basis. But when you train people who consistently do the same things once they return home, your claim of ‘well, we never trained them to do THAT’ rings a bit hollow.
Which follows the current policy; don’t do nasty things personally, get others to do them for you. Outsource your torture and oppression; that way, your hand remain clean. (If you can’t outsource, hide it. If you can’t hide it, claim those killed/injured were terrorists.) So, your statement that the CIA doesn’t train death squads is completely correct…but not what I was saying.
as far as the immigrants most citizens actually supported the plan because most want more than anything else for the immigrants to leave the country,because they have linked immigrants with criminality,forgetting that its the same governments fault that they have voted for now that there is no border control and have allowed more immigrants than the country could possibly feed,or that they have sighned a treaty which entails that an immigrant has to stay in the same european country that they first stepped in,entrapping them in Greece because of its geographical position.as far as the whores they never cared,how could they?the cops in Greece are the worst people i have ever had the misfortune to meet,and from what i hear its the same elsewhere as well.i am deeply saddened that while i was always proud to be from a country that tought the whole world about human rights,the virtues of justice,of democracy,culture and so many other things now i have to bow my head in shame.
Police crackdowns on sex workers and unpopular minorities is one of the oldest tricks in the governmental playbook: “Oh, the economy is in the shitter/there’s food shortages/the trains don’t run on time or anywhere close to it, but we are really cracking down on the whores/pornographers/nigras.” So, no surprise this is happening in Greece.
And ‘terrorist” is one of those terms that is very subject to mission creep. I have heard it used in political discourse about OWS protesters, members of Congress who are opposing legislation one favors, etc. Sooner or later, some feminist will identify pornographers as “sexual terrorists” if they have not already done so.
Let me get this straight. Greek police decide to treat whores like biological weapons because they might have HIV? Well brilliant (sarcasm) !
Problem is that since the risk of HIV transmission is negligible with the proper use of a condom, it is irrational for whores to allow clients to go bareback unless in a situation with nothing to lose. So all moral responsibility rests on the client if he accepts service from a whore willing to do bareback, making it despicable to arrest whores on that basis alone.
Greece is going through a dark time. This happens to all countries. Some never recover, until some other country rises in its place. Even then, the dark times can persist (think Soviet Union –> Russia).
But often, things to get better. Sometimes they get worse before they get better, and I suspect that Greece is currently in the “getting worse” stage. I do not know if things will now get better, but I hope so. And they might, you know.