The U.N. High Commssioner for for Human rights, Navi Pillay, said that if Texas did not allow Humberto Leal to have access to the Mexican government during his trial, then it was a breach of international law. And the conservative majority of the Supreme Court denied his appeal. I think this issue is one that many in the Guarantors of Poverty constantly take a very strange inconsistent position on. They claim on the one hand that international law is not a big deal, that the United States law is what REALLY matters, then on the other hand when countries with their own laws that are different from their own violate their moral sensibilities (such as in Iran), they claim that Iran needs to be condemned and their laws are not just.
Cognitive dissonance is holding two contradictory opinions about something in your mind at the same time. This is something psychology has found humans just do. Conservatives seem very prone to do this, and the case of Humberto Leal is a prime example. When North Korea captured our journalists and sentenced them to hard labor, the conservatives and the right-wing echo chamber Fox News demanded ACTION to free them. Free them. Let the international community put pressure on North Korea. So the conservatives make a special case for themselves, that our law is above international reproach, while the laws of other nations are subject to what we believe is best. Ethnocentrism lives on!
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