Casting Terrorists as Defenders of the Constitution By J.R. Dunn

The American legal system is the latest of our institutions to collapse in the face of terrorism. Cherished pillars of our society and polity have dropped, one after the other. In most cases, it was only to be expected. The media lasted a matter of days, the academy not even that long. The Democrats slid early, through a combination of cynicism, opportunism, and ideology. The Republicans are tottering, never having actually grasped what it meant to act as a "war party". The CIA, the State Department, and much of the federal bureaucracy have, as always, proven themselves masterly at looking out for their own interests.

But there was always some hope for the law. The legal system, with its deep sense of tradition,  its intellectual resources, its clear concept of mission, and its simple, stolid inertia (sometimes as much as virtue as a failing), its refusal to be hurried concerning matters of import, had plenty of anchors to keep it from slipping the same way that more ephemeral sectors had.

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