Friday
It takes a train to cry
I sometimes think that law professor Noah Feldman who writes for the Times Magazine is not the same person as law professor Noah Feldman who taught me in my Church & State class.
I have a number of issues with the linked article, but only raise one here. Noah writes, “The debate between inward-looking conservatives and outward-looking liberals has recently taken a turn toward the shrill. Liberal lawyers do not simply accuse their conservative counterparts of denigrating the rule of law; they accuse them of violating it themselves.” In support, he quotes someone accusing John Yoo of being a war criminal. This is fucking absurd and Feldman should be ashamed, I liked him as a professor and literally find this enraging. John Yoo, and maybe one or two other lawyers with the Office of Legal Counsel (William Haynes, Jay Bybee) have been accused of being war criminals because of their roles in crafting extraordinarily shoddy legal opinions which authorized the war crime of torture, not because they have an “inward-looking” view of the Constitution. Maybe the accusation that they are war criminals is wrong, and it's an accusation not be thrown around lightly, but it's simply a joke and an insult to his readers and any conservative legal thinkers who don't think their views entail the legality of torture, to suggest that they've been accused of war crimes merely because of conservative views on international law.
|
I have a number of issues with the linked article, but only raise one here. Noah writes, “The debate between inward-looking conservatives and outward-looking liberals has recently taken a turn toward the shrill. Liberal lawyers do not simply accuse their conservative counterparts of denigrating the rule of law; they accuse them of violating it themselves.” In support, he quotes someone accusing John Yoo of being a war criminal. This is fucking absurd and Feldman should be ashamed, I liked him as a professor and literally find this enraging. John Yoo, and maybe one or two other lawyers with the Office of Legal Counsel (William Haynes, Jay Bybee) have been accused of being war criminals because of their roles in crafting extraordinarily shoddy legal opinions which authorized the war crime of torture, not because they have an “inward-looking” view of the Constitution. Maybe the accusation that they are war criminals is wrong, and it's an accusation not be thrown around lightly, but it's simply a joke and an insult to his readers and any conservative legal thinkers who don't think their views entail the legality of torture, to suggest that they've been accused of war crimes merely because of conservative views on international law.
