The Cowardice of Conservatives

Over the weekend, the usual faces showed up on the usual Sunday talk shows.  Among them was Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who appears to be following in her dad's footsteps, both politically and ideologically.  Politically, she appears to be in grooming to make a run for some office in the next few years.  Ideologically, she is a liar and a coward.  She managed to display both during a Fox News (naturally) interview.  Let's start with the lies:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWlOvU-6SbQ

When you look at the question over whether the US tax payer ought to be contributing to bailing out Greece, I think you also got to say wait a second at the same time that we are looking to put $7 billion to bail out Greece… we’ve got the same types of policies being put in place here in the United States that frankly are much more likely to lead us down the path that we see Greece on.

The US isn't contributing to bailing out Greece.  The IMF is, via a package of loans made by other member countries who use the Euro.  The US is a member of the IMF and one of its top contributors, as we have been for decades, but the Greek bailout is coming specifically from individual packages approved by Euro countries.

Further still, the problems Greece is facing have more to do with their inability to address their debt, due to contraction of their economy and their own inability to control their currency.  The value of their money is dependent on the rest of the Euro-using EU, unlike the US, which issues and controls its own money.  In fact, due to the problems Greece is facing and the Euro loan they are receiving, the US dollar is growing in strength and will continue to do so for years to come.  The US economy is also growing, unlike the Greek economy which will shrink massively under the weight of their austerity measures.

The Greek problem is one of financial mismanagement and conservative approaches to economic management.  The Greek leadership have always favored conservative approaches to managing their economy (even as they fattened themselves on it) and are now paying the piper as the problem spreads to the rest of Europe.

But Cheney wasn't finished in her diatribes, and went on to display the cowardice of the right wing in addressing things like our justice system, due process, and the rights of citizens:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkivDbZbJyY

When the administration captures a terrorist and their first instinct is to inform him that he’s got the right to remain silent, that is exactly the wrong way to win this war. When we capture a terrorist, our first instinct has got to be: How do we understand the networks to which this terrorist is connected? How do we understand where he was trained? How do we understand who the leadership is?

The first instinct is to remind the SUSPECT that he has rights so that anything he then says is admissible in court?  Yes, that's how our justice system works and it works beautifully.  The suspect in the NYC Times Square attempted bombing is a US citizen, who is now being accused of a crime which could mean a lengthy prison sentence.  He indeed has rights and if the prosecutors seek to prove the charges against him in court, they will need to build a solid case, airtight, and fully admissible.

I honestly do not understand this hypocrisy and cowardice from conservatives.  The legal system is fully capable of prosecuting suspects even as it legally interrogates them to determine further information which could lead to a bigger investigation or which could yield intelligence the military could use in our wars.  Why the conservatives shrink back from liberty, from rights, from due process reveals only their cowardice and short-sighted thinking.  They don't believe the Constitution is strong enough to handle these situations, while plainly ignoring the fact that it handles them all the time.  The first WTC bombing?  The suspects were caught, Mirandized, interrogated, and eventually convicted.  They are in prison to this day.  Timothy McVeigh?  Caught, Mirandized, convicted, and eventually put to death.  The DC snipers?  The same.  Eric Robert Rudolph?  The same.

What's any different here?  Does Miranda GRANT rights to a suspect?  No.  It simply makes them aware of rights they already have, regardless of being told about them or not.

It's a little thing called "inalienable rights".  Liz Cheney and cowardly liars like her, might have read that phrase somewhere before.