If Boston bombing suspect doesn’t have rights, neither do the rest of us

By David McElroy · April 22, 2013

The available evidence leads me to believe that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was one of the people who bombed the Boston Marathon last Monday. I certainly can’t prove it — and I would want to see first-hand evidence if I were on a jury trying him — but I’m comfortable assuming he’s guilty for now.

If he’s guilty as I assume he is, he’s a cold-blooded killer. A monster. A selfish murderer with no regard for other people.

Despite that, I’m very concerned that police don’t intend to read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights. He’s injured and can’t speak right now, but when he’s finally questioned, he’s not going to be told that he has the right to remain silent. He won’t be told that he has the right to an attorney to represent him. It will just be up to this 19-year-old to happen to remember for himself what his rights as an American citizen are. (And you can bet that police and the FBI are going to work hard to convince him he has no rights.)

If you want to know about the history of the so-called “public safety exception” to reading a suspect his rights, take a look at this article in Slate. I’m not going to rehash the legal history of the matter, but you’ll understand the issues better if you read it.

I only want to emphasize one thing about this. If we’re supposed to have rights that are guaranteed to be honored by government — but those rights can be set aside at the sole discretion of that same government — those aren’t really recognized rights. Those are just privileges that we’re allowed to have when it’s convenient for government to allow them.

If Tsarnaev — or the worst of criminals — doesn’t have the rights allegedly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, none of us do. If the government can unilaterally decide when to ignore rights, we may as well not pretend to have them.

The U.S. government was originally given a very narrow set of powers. Some people were afraid of the central government overstepping its limited powers, so the first 10 amendments were added as a Bill of Rights. When some people (rightly) objected that listing some rights made it appear that these were the only rights people had, the last two amendments of the Bill of Rights were included to make it clear that the people and the states retained the powers not mentioned — and that not mentioning a right didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Unfortunately, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments might as well not even exist anymore.

Just about every right that was listed in the Bill of Rights has come to have exceptions of one kind or another. You can have freedom of speech, as long as you don’t want to speak anonymously about elections. You can have freedom to keep your own weapons, as long as you happen to want a weapon that the government says it’s OK for you to have. You can be free of having your home and papers searched without a warrant, unless the government decides it wants to comb through your financial transactions at any time of its choosing.

And now, you can have the right to be informed of your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, unless the government decides that it wants to know what you might know about a crime.

Our rights are slowly being stripped away. Each time it happens, most people stroke their chins and say, “Well, that seems reasonable to me. We can do without that one, at least in this case.”

You either have a right or you don’t. Lawyers and politicians have spent many years tearing down things that are supposed to be recognized as inviolable rights. If Tsarnaev isn’t accorded the rights he’s supposed to have, you don’t really have those rights, either.

You might say it’s different because you’re not going to be a criminal who’s helped blow people up. You’re probably right. But we can’t legally prove that Tsarnaev is a criminal yet. We’re just relying on the word of the same people who have now decided to limit his rights. If you reach the day that you’re the suspect, do you want the same government that’s accused you to decide to strip a right from you?

I don’t have any sympathy for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, because I assume he’s a cold-blooded killer. But I have a great deal of sympathy and respect for natural rights and for future innocent people who are going to be harmed by this shameful precedent.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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