 What is most revealing of the frailty of today's opinion is that it relies upon nothing but that implication from a dictum, plus its own (quite irrefutable because entirely value laden) "balancing" of the competing demands of the individual and the State.With respect to the point at issue here, different times and different places — even highly liberal times and places — have struck that balance in different ways.Some Western democracies currently permit the Executive a period of detention without impartially adjudicated cause.