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In June of 2020, as I'm sure you recall, The New York Times published an opinion piece titled "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police". Why do you think the

In June of 2020, as I'm sure you recall, The New York Times published an opinion piece titled "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police". Why do you think the New York Times was publishing opinions that you believe were only held by 3 people? You of course also remember that when the New York Times published the opinion piece titled "Tom Cotton: Send In the Troops" arguing that the military should be sent in to stop riots and looting, there was a massive backlash and the editor for the opinion page resigned. This even though the opinion expressed by Tom Cotton was fairly popular. I would think if the New York Times was publishing opinions that had no popular support at all, there would have been a backlash about that, wouldn't you?

selimthegrim 5y ago
One of these things is of doubtful constitutionality, the other is not. If Cotton suggested suspending habeas corpus would you want the Times to print that too?
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  From Cotton's opinion column itself: "For instance, during the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson called out the military to disperse mobs that prevented school desegregation or threatened innocent lives and property. This happened in my own state. Gov. Orval Faubus, a racist Democrat, mobilized our National Guard in 1957 to obstruct desegregation at Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower federalized the Guard and called in the 101st Airborne in response. The failure to do so, he said, 'would be tantamount to acquiescence in anarchy.' More recently, President George H.W. Bush ordered the Army’s Seventh Infantry and 1,500 Marines to protect Los Angeles during race riots in 1992." What Cotton suggested is expressly permitted by an act of Congress and that act has been invoked many times over more than two centuries. It's been used half a dozen times to suppress riots since the 1960's. Not one of those actions has ever been found to be unconstitutional. Second, if Tom Cotton and only two other people in the entire US want habeas corpus suspended, than no, I would not want the Times to print an opinion column suggesting that. A poll had 52% of Americans agreeing with sending in troops to stop the riots. If Tom Cotton and 52% of Americans want habeas corpus suspended, then I think a paper that calls itself the "paper of record" is exactly where that case should be made. Just as it would have been appropriate to make the case in those opinion pages for why we would send the 101st Airborne into Little Rock and Detroit, the 197th Infantry into Baltimore, the 1st Marines Division into Los Angeles, and military police to the Virgin Islands.

selimthegrim 5y ago

One of these things is of doubtful constitutionality, the other is not. If Cotton suggested suspending habeas corpus would you want the Times to print that too?

rufus_foreman 5y ago
From Cotton's opinion column itself: "For instance, during the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson called out the military to disperse mobs that prevented school desegregation or threatened innocent lives and property. This happened in my own state. Gov. Orval Faubus, a racist Democrat, mobilized our National Guard in 1957 to obstruct desegregation at Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower federalized the Guard and called in the 101st Airborne in response. The failure to do so, he said, 'would be tantamount to acquiescence in anarchy.' More recently, President George H.W. Bush ordered the Army’s Seventh Infantry and 1,500 Marines to protect Los Angeles during race riots in 1992." What Cotton suggested is expressly permitted by an act of Congress and that act has been invoked many times over more than two centuries. It's been used half a dozen times to suppress riots since the 1960's. Not one of those actions has ever been found to be unconstitutional. Second, if Tom Cotton and only two other people in the entire US want habeas corpus suspended, than no, I would not want the Times to print an opinion column suggesting that. A poll had 52% of Americans agreeing with sending in troops to stop the riots. If Tom Cotton and 52% of Americans want habeas corpus suspended, then I think a paper that calls itself the "paper of record" is exactly where that case should be made. Just as it would have been appropriate to make the case in those opinion pages for why we would send the 101st Airborne into Little Rock and Detroit, the 197th Infantry into Baltimore, the 1st Marines Division into Los Angeles, and military police to the Virgin Islands.