Legitimacy as a Battlespace
Mike Innes
is quite correct in identifying many of my concerns surrounding the
Hamdan trial with the concept of "legitimacy". I would like to note
that the questions I asked in my last post were partially designed to
elicit an emotional response from people, rather than a reasoned one. I was specifically looking at a current disconnect between actual legal theory (which I am not an expert in), general perceptions
of the limits of a legal system and, most importantly, the use of any
disconnects as an active battlespace. As a note, I should point
towards an absolutely excellent answer to my final question was
recently posted at the Small Wars Council (thread; post) by JMM99, who is following the CT Lab symposium (and enjoying "educating" me).
For most people, I suspect that the idea that a person can be taken
from their home in one country and charged by another nation under its
domestic laws (and without their same protection) is terrifying. Not
only is it terrifying, it will, inevitably, undermine the perception of
a rule of law, especially if the "law" can be changed and those changes
aplied retroactively. This strikes at the heart of the perception of a
legal system as "legitimate", by attacking people's perceptions
regardless of the actual legality of the action.
In effect, that which
is outside of our perceptions is "dangerous" and by being forcibly
made aware of a previously hidden danger (even though it may have
always existed), our perceptions of "reality" are breached, creating a
cascade of uncertainty relating to all of our perceptions of reality; a
"reality shock" to use Burkart Holner's term (Reality Construction in
Society, Schenkman Pub. Co., 1972).
People react differently to reality shocks, but one of the reactions is
to make some people susceptible to accepting a "new" interpretive schema
for reality - in effect, a new schema for defining what is and is not
"legitimate" (I've blogged a bit on this here).
Taking off my hat as someone who poses question to evoke an
emotional response, let me just ask, now, in whose best interests is it
for the general population of the world (not the politicians or lawyers
or academics ;)) to increasingly view the operation of the US justice
system as, to butcher Gramsci, "taking off the velvet glove"?
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