IT’S “DRACONIAN” TO KEEP TERRORISTS OUT OF THE COUNTRY?

11/17/15

The Wall Street Journal reported this (i.e., Tuesday, 11/17/15, page A9) morning that, in the wake of Friday’s terrorist attacks on Paris, French President Francois Hollande is preparing France for, as the Journal called them, “potentially draconian” policies, including “expelling foreigners considered a threat and stripping French nationality from dual nationals involved in terrorist activities.”

Expelling people who pose serious terrorist threats and taking citizenship away from people who are actually involved in terrorism are now considered “potentially draconian”?   O tempora, o mores!

Mr. Hollande is considering invoking France’s state of emergency statute in (maybe) calling for such “potentially draconian” measures.   Recall that the French state of emergency powers have their origin in the civil unrest that accompanied the 1955 Algerian war and allowed the French government to go so far as to ban travel in and to certain areas, to close shops and restaurants, to control the press, and even to order people to remain in their homes.   Talk about “potentially draconian”!    Thank God such measures have not been implemented.  But now even the Wall Street Journal, no panty waste on reacting swiftly and decisively to terrorism, calls such relatively mild measures as expelling and denying citizenship to foreigners who seriously intend harm and violence to one’s nation “potentially draconian.”  One would think that keeping out the bad guys would just be common sense.   But, in our lily-livered world, in which causing offense to even the most easily offended is to be as studiously avoided as contact with communicable fatal diseases, common sense routinely gets sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.   Thus, virtually any measure taken to protect society from those who mean to destroy it is considered “draconian.”  

Those of us who continue to harbor at least some libertarian tendencies are, of course, concerned about the potential implications of leaving to the mechanisms of state the determination of who is “considered a threat” and/or is “involved in terrorist activities.”   But there are times when ideology must yield to common sense and to the protection of the ultimate civil right, the freedom from imminent or actual bodily harm and from societal destruction.