> we're seeing a smarter form of disappearance, one where we know who took them, we know where they end up
Nobody is saying due process was followed. But do you really not see why the government saying “we have no record of this person and do not comment on matters of national security,” to the press and to the courts, would not be worse?
> didn't engage with the hypothetical and changed the situation
How did I change the situation?
> On this topic, I think reasonable people can disagree, which we clearly do
On Trump defying the courts, yes. On the definition of disappearance, I don’t think so.
> it feels like an evolution of KGB tactics that adds some documentation, but the outcome is precisely the same
You couldn’t sue to get your family—and information about them—out of the Gulag. Disappearance is where detention blurs into execution. We’re simply not there. Nobody is able to claim Garcia is on vacation, we have to confront the fact that he’s been extrajudicially detained.
> On the definition of disappearance, I don’t think so.
Ha, well OK then! Well then we can make it one way: I understand what you're saying, I understand how a reasonable person might arrive at your conclusion, but I disagree. Whether you can do the same for me says less about me than you.
To me, your heels in the sand here feels like college-level semantic literalism and absolutism. Debates like this that focus on historical definitions rather than a discussion that considers the larger whole in evolving societies and changing contexts (technological, administratively, and others).
Yes, someone getting black bagged and executed in silence is clearly worse. It is the worst form of disappearance. But I don't think that's where the bar is for being "disappeared" - for me, that is when you are denied due process, prevented from receiving it, and all knowledge about you is now entirely reliant on the bad faith captors. This doesn't feel unreasonable or unfair to me, especially as it relates to everyday civilian discussions such as this one.
Will due process win out in the end, and I'm here wringing my hands like an idiot? Maybe so, we'll see how the next four years ago.
At any rate, I think we're clearly at impasse. Final shots are yours.