Urging the government to assassinate someone vs. urging others todo that

[Malla Pollack]

Well, I'm hardly the list moderator, but I see the subtext of this
discussion as how seriously constitutional law should take religious calls
against certain outcomes, especially abortion. 

Malla Pollack
Professor, American Justice School of Law
Visiting Univ. of Idaho, College of Law
mpollack at uidaho.edu
208-885-2017
 

-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Samuel Bagenstos
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 6:37 AM
To: JMHACLJ at aol.com; CONLAWPROF at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Urging the government to assassinate someone vs. urging others
todo that

I'm just wondering where our list moderator is to tell us that the question
whether Chavez is properly compared to Hitler, while perhaps marginally
relevant to constitutional law questions, gets beyond our principal area of
expertise and probably generates more heat than light?

====================================
Samuel R. Bagenstos
Professor of Law
Washington University School of Law
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO  63130
314-935-9097
Personal Web Page:
http://law.wustl.edu/Academics/Faculty/Bagenstos/index.html
Disability Law Blog:  http://disabilitylaw.blogspot.com/

>>> <JMHACLJ at aol.com> 8/24/2005 8:28 AM >>>
In a message dated 8/24/2005 9:15:26 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
RJLipkin at aol.com writes:

I can't speak for the  Christian justification of Bonhoffer's action. But if

I were called to do so,  I think it would rather easy to do on the
supposition 
that Christianity is not  committed to pacifism or nonviolence as an 
inviolable imperative. Hitler was  engaged in world conquest and racial
cleansing on 
an unimaginable scale. He  (Hitler) represents a paradigmatic example where 
negotiation, diplomacy, and  compromise were impossible. 
But the conclusions Bonhoffer reached about the need to remove Hitler
appear 
to have been derived while Europe was still negotiating with  Hitler.  Now, 
at home, Bonhoffer might have understood the futility of  it.  But not
abroad.

It  strikes me as somewhat silly even to say that Chavez is nowhere near
that 
 ballpark.  But I'll say it anyway. Should the very extremes regarding  
assassination be paradigmatic of normal foreign relations, pray tell, what
becomes 
of Christian love or a decent secular commitment to respecting  humanity?

 
There are differences, undoubtedly.  First among them would seem to me  to
be 
Bonhoffer's conclusion that the stand he took he needs must have taken  from

within Germany, rather than from a comfortable abode in England or the  US.

 
But, please, having spent my youth with the children of Castro's torture  
victims, do not tell me that there is any qualitative difference between one

brutal dictator like him or like other who have risen over time and  Hitler.

Quantitative, yes; qualitative, no.  Mao's murderous regime  claimed its
dozens 
of millions because his qualities as a brute coincided with  the quantities
of 
his potential victims.  That others have not "outshined"  because the 
quantities of potential victims is smaller does not make them better  humans
or more 
noble.
 
Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ


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