Looked at from the UK, the debate raging in the United States about how and where the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should take place seems somewhat bizarre. To the British, it is currently inconceivable that anything other than normal criminal trials, preferably in the locales where they committed their crimes, should be used to bring terrorists to justice. It is hard to imagine a serious suggestion that someone accused of mass murder in London should be tried in any other way.

Yes, we’re in child-is-father-to-the-man territory. Up your nose with a rubber hose, John Bull! You freedom-hating British would scoff at such proud American traditions as indefinite detention without charge. The essence of democracy is to exercise monarchical authority! You and your queen just wouldn’t understand.

Among the problems with our political discourse is that arguments of the form “why don’t we examine how we do things in other countries” garner active derision.