Magna Carta required the king to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that the will of the king could be bound by law. Link
Oh how far we have fallen. Tuesday will be remembered as one of the saddest days in the legislative life of this country. Tuesday, by law, the President (a single, elected official) has the ability to indefinitely detain, incarcerate and torture anyone. Anyone. All this frothing about how it’s only aliens is a cover to the real, central issue. Today, representatives of your rights allowed your right to be taken away. Watch Olbermann for the scenario where you’re the one who gets picked up as an “unlawful combatant”.
It is immoral, it is reprehensible, and it is a travesty to the memory of hundreds of thousands of fallen men and women who laid down their lives so this generation, the generation currently buckling to the war-mongering power grabs of a corrupt government, can claim to live in safety.
This country should be more than ashamed. This country should be more than guilt-stricken. This country should be in mourning. Mourning the passing of ideals. Mourning the passing of the American dream. Mourning the death of Freedom.
- We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
Indeed, we have lost the ability to evaluate our own minds, or hold thoughts that go beyond our small sphere of effect. Most Americans will not feel the impact of this law, either for good or bad. But the American people have allowed a precedent to be set. We have allowed our government to strip our freedoms without so much as a march or a thought of opposition. We yawned in the face of a President granting himself almost dictatorial powers. Those who stood up for the ideals were labeled as lovers of terrorism or, worse and most ironically, traitors.
I say this with all sincerity. I would rather a dozen terrorists go free than one person be held in my name and be tortured by mistake.
We have one tool left to fight this despicable turn of events: we can still vote. Despite faulty machines, an overwhelming voice cannot be tampered with. We can’t vote out the President, but we can vote out anyone who supported him in this bid to wipe out the basic freedoms all Americans enjoyed, up until yesterday.
Michiganders, Pete Hoekstra supports this policy. Vernon Ehlers, David Camp, Fred Upton, John Schwarz, Michael Rogers, Joseph Knollenberg, Candice Miller, and Thaddeus McCotter all support this policy. Debby Stabenow, a Democrat, supports this policy. Every one of them deserves to be voted out of office.
Countrymen, find your representative on either the House or Senate voting records. If they voted Aye, vote them out. This is not how America thinks. This is not how America acts. Have we learned nothing from the past? Are we so blind that party loyalty is all we see? If you are religious, is this how your god wants you to treat your fellow man, as a punching bag? No level of safety is worth compromising our conscience. No enemy is so dangerous that we have to wound ourselves in their pursuit. If we, as a country, believe that the ends justify the means then the “war on terror” is already lost.