Post-election Links

[erudito]

Ah election time, the things that happen. Via wolfkit.

Arnie seems to carry some weight with Californians.

What one can learn from post-election comment. Via razerwolf.

Actually, compared to those other 'programmatic North-East liberals', McGovern in 72, Mondale in 84 and Dukakis in 88, Kerry did relatively well, as one can see from this election data site (

Comments

Um

[erudito]

We're not just randomly locking up foreign nationals without charge. Yet.
What about detention for asylum-seekers? I suppose it is not 'random', and one can get out if one agrees to leave, but I am not sure the US is being 'random' either.

I don't know that, in a spectrum of rights and legal processes, we would come out notably ahead. The provisions of the Patriot Act people were getting so worked up about are mostly already Australian law.

Mind you, both countries are lily-livered softies compared to the French: France has a strikingly harsh anti-terrorism policy. It has had no qualms in making the most of laws allowing the detention of terrorist suspects without trial for months on end. All four of its nationals repatriated from Guantánamo Bay were detained on a judge's instruction on their return to France. Dominique de Villepin, Mr Sarkozy's successor as interior minister, has been unyielding in his determination to expel imams guilty of hate crimes. When an expulsion order against Abdelkader Bouziane, an Algerian cleric based near Lyon, was overruled in the courts, Mr de Villepin changed the law-and Mr Bouziane was on the next plane out.

Re: Um

[thorfinn]

Hrm, forgot about those asylum seekers... Technically that mostly happens offshore, not inside Australia, and as you say, technically they can leave if they want. Leastways, that's what our wonderful government claims, anyway. And, well, yeah, nothing surprises me about the French. And you're probably right when it comes to actual guaranteed rights and legal processes, that we don't really come out ahead. No bill of rights, etc. Our legal system is a bit more sane than the one in the U.S., but I dunno how long that will last, if Howard gets to stack the High Court too much more... Mind you, Bush gets to stack the U.S. Supreme Court even more too, so not much hope of things improving there either.

Re: Um

[erudito]

Actually, Howard has far more control over appointments to the High Court than Dubya does to the Supreme Court -- the latter have to be ratified by a majority of the US Senate.

Here, they are just a prerogative of the Executive. Mind you, Howard has been a pretty cautious appointer of judges. He goes for judicial conservatives (i.e. those who are likely to be pretty restrained in their judgements, and not change the law much), though of notable quality.