In fact, the principle of consumer choice (which exists within a right to contract and freely associate) is a civil liberty.

It’s not a dichotomy at all. I didn’t ask you to choose them — I asked which was more important to you.

BECAUSE, once again, it is the federal and state governments’ jobs to ensure the right to a fair trial, not the consumers’. If those governments fail, they should be checked and restrained through the proper channels (elections, judicial, etc…).

That said, one of the great benefits of economic choice is that you can, if you so choose, spend your money in a way that encourages certain political ideals — whichever ones you want to encourage. We all should want defendants to have the best possible lawyers, but that is not required of us (how “free” would we be if we were required to believe in certain things?).

If there was any sort of reasonable basis for a business to assume that this official’s statement meant that they would have a hard time getting government contracts based on what firms they hire, then I would agree (absent a vote to that effect by congress) that this statement was out of line.

In reality, though, all he did was a) remind consumers that they can choose to (or not to) patronize certain businesses, and b) reminded businesses that their political exploits are subject to the will of the people insomuch as the people are willing to vote with their dollars.

Neither of those things are in any way inconsistent with freedom. Quite to the contrary.

If you cannot answer this question, you do not understand the problem:

How is what he said any different from “If you do not like the fact that Company X does Behavior Y, you should consider not purchasing their goods or services.”

Once you see that there is no difference, you see that the real question is this: What is wrong with encouraging people to exercise their dollar-vote in a way consistent with their own political beliefs?

As extra credit: would you have felt any better about his statements if he said: “Companies should consider not giving their business to law firms who DON’T do pro-bono work for gitmo detainees because it makes the US look bad and hurts us in overseas markets.”

If you believe that statement is better, I think it’s a fair conclusion to reach that we shouldn’t care what this one guy said and we should, instead, be focusing our debate on the actual detainees and their legal representation, instead of using some official’s statements as a proxy for it.

Anyone who needs an attorney would benefit from having a better one, although I’m not convinced that the gitmo detainees need better attorneys in order for their rights to be protected. In fact, their unique status may make the quality of their attorneys less relevant to the actual disposition of their cases…

By that I mean that, given the nature of the cases that will come before the courts, it’s likely that the appellate/supreme courts are going to do what they want, regardless of what arguments are made by the respective sides. We’ve definitely seen that in past Gitmo cases.

And we’re also making an assumption that a person is a better attorney simply because they work at a big firm, which simply isn’t the case.

…although I still believe that none of this is really the issue:

If the attorneys that the government provides are not good enough then it’s still a failure of the government that needs to be fixed at the government level, not at the market level.

And I still don’t believe that someone encouraging individuals to express their political interests by voting with their feet and dollars can be “totalitarian”. Indeed, the very nature of the statement indicates political and economic freedom.

Now, if Dave had said “I think those of us who want Gitmo detainees to have high-priced biglaw attorneys should patronize the firms that are doing the pro-bono work” I’d have agreed wholeheartedly with him.

Surely you would agree that the detainees at Gitmo, given their unique status among prisoners held by the U.S., would require legal representation that’s far beyond the capabilities of the average attorney.