There is an interesting new post over on Balkinazation describing how the Bush administration cut anyone who had qualms over the treatment of Guantanamo inmates out of the loop. In fact they apparently even issued reports in these individuals names while leading these people to believe that the reports had been canceled.

It is this sort of behavior which makes the Bush administration truly dangerous. Sure I’m not a fan of Bush’s conservative policies or his tax cuts for the rich but these issues are to a great extent a distraction. Any administration makes a huge number of decisions that never attract public attention but the consequences of these decisions can be significant, both to the people involved and the country as a whole. The health of our government and way of life depends on these decisions being made well and this can not happen when dissident views are simply shut out or ignored. Sure sometimes one needs to go forward with a decision despite the fervent objections of a few people but it is important that the decision makers hear those objections and consider them. Clinton, for instance, had a policy of listening to dissenting views and hearing them argued out in front of him and I doubt (though I could be wrong) that previous republican administrations had this sort of lock-step attitude but whether or not it has past precedent it is very dangerous.

Also a few final words on the cartoon business. My last post should not be taken as any kind of softening of my attitude on the protesters or those demanding restrictions on free speech. Nor should it be taken as any kind of endorsement of a social standard which takes it as inappropriate to criticize someone’s religion, even if that religion is singled out for criticism on its own. While I tend to think that the difference between Muslims and Christians mostly stems from the fact that many Muslims still lie in old-fashioned patriarchal and tribal cultures it is perfectly appropriate to ask whether Islam plays any particular role in encouraging terrorism. (I’m sure both Christianity and Islam both do so to some degree but I’m unsure if Christianity would be any less bad in the same circumstance).

I most certainly do not support any type of social rule of conduct which demands any criticism of Islam be balanced by a criticism of Christianity or Judaism nor do I think that the cartoons in question went to far in any sense. I still believe that some Muslims’ overreaction to the cartoons should not be rewarded. All I am saying is that (assuming Jyllands-Posten didn’t have inappropriate motivations) the choice to publish the cartoons in this fashion may not have been particularly good strategy and ultimately may cause some harm without aiding the cause of free speech substantially.

In other words my attitude toward Jyllands-Posten is the same as my attitude towards google would be if they had chosen to stand on principle and not censor search results for the Chinese (assuming valid motivations in both cases). Just as it would inappropriate to hypothetically scold google because they didn’t realize their principled stand might actually harm free expression in China it would be inappropriate to scold Jyllands-Posten because their principled stand to publish completely reasonable cartoons might cause similarly negative consequences.