{"id":372,"date":"2002-06-11T22:44:49","date_gmt":"2002-06-12T06:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ogre.nu\/wp\/?p=372"},"modified":"2016-05-28T16:06:52","modified_gmt":"2016-05-29T00:06:52","slug":"first-principles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/?p=372","title":{"rendered":"first principles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dankohn.com\/archives\/000030.html\">Dan Kohn<\/a> writes: &#8220;It is shocking that there is not more of an outcry over the unlawful detainment of radioactive &#8216;dirty bomb&#8217; suspect Jose Padilla.&#8221;  The old bleat that &#8220;the Constitution is not a suicide pact&#8221; is brought up, and that&#8217;s the hook for my comment.<\/p>\n<p>Lincoln may have said it first; it fits Lincoln&#8217;s pattern &ndash; a plausible homily which, if examined closely in the light of real history rather than fairytales, proves (if anything) the opposite of the proposition in support of which it was invoked.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nLincoln seemed (in this and other comments) to think that the Constitution was handed down by the government, as kings sometimes &#8216;grant&#8217; constitutions.  Naturally no king could be expected to hand over his life; so if the sovereign is in danger its safety must take precedence over the terms of the &#8216;grant&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>But some of us, who were not born in log cabins and did not have to walk miles to borrow a book, know that the US Constitution is not a grant by the government to the people of permission to enjoy certain liberties so long as they do not inconvenience the government; it is the exact opposite: permission by the people to the government to exist so long as it keeps faithfully to its purpose: &#8220;to preserve these Rights&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>No indeed, the Constitution is not a suicide pact: the people who made it did not consent unconditionally to throw away their life, liberty and property for the convenience, or even the survival, of the entity thereby created.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dan Kohn writes: &#8220;It is shocking that there is not more of an outcry over the unlawful detainment of radioactive &#8216;dirty bomb&#8217; suspect Jose Padilla.&#8221; The old bleat that &#8220;the Constitution is not a suicide pact&#8221; is brought up, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/?p=372\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitution","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3611,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/3611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}