Constitutional Neoconmen

"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and for people, equally in war and peace, and it covers with its shield of protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of men that any of its great provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."
– Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

The above statement was made by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1866 in the context of its ruling that the Lincoln administration’s suspension of Habeas Corpus was unconstitutional. As long as the civil courts were operating (which they were), the Court ruled, it is unconstitutional for either the president or the Congress to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus. What this statement says is that it is precisely in times of national emergencies, such as war, that civil liberties must be most jealously protected. If not, then governments will be encouraged to generate crises, or perceptions of crises, in order to grab more power for themselves by diminishing individual liberty.

This profound truth gives the lie to the notion that one can be an advocate and supporter of the American state’s unconstitutional and aggressive wars on the one hand, and a "constitutionalist" on the other. War is the enemy of constitutional liberty. The current poster boy for this contradictory outlook is the radio talking head Marc Levin ("The Grate One," as Lew Rockwell calls him) who bloviates endlessly about how devoted he supposedly is to the Constitution while aggressively supporting the neocon agenda of endless war in the Middle East and elsewhere – and all of the accompanying assaults on civil liberties at home. So as not to appear to be sexist, I should also point out that Congresswoman Michele Bachman is the current poster girl for this position, claiming that of all the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination she is the most devoted to the Constitution, while rabidly supporting the never-ending expansion of the warfare state.

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