Magna Carta Watch
Here's a tidbit from today's edition of the Washington Post:
The government has maintained since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that, based on its reading of the laws of war, anyone it labels an unlawful enemy combatant can be held indefinitely at military or CIA prisons ... The definition [of unlawful combatant] applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an unlawful combatant.
It fills me with dread that our Congress is considering a bill that would allow the Executive - by its own discretion - to detain U.S. citizens without formal criminal proceedings. At the same time, a bill is making its way through the Senate that would allow the Executive that same discretion in determining what sorts of coercive measures are torture and which are just playing really, really rough.
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.Are we really about to set the clock back to 1225?
posted by Joshua @ 4:13 PM
2 Comments:
This is a sad day indeed. I find I can't bring myself to watch the news anymore because I just get upset at the way the country is moving. At some point along the line we forgot what it was to be an
American.
There are some in the country who would probably tell you that my American Chopper DVD collection makes me more of an American than the Harvard college student with the entire Micheal Moore library. I can't stand Micheal Moore, but he does have a right to say whatever he wants no matter how warped it might be.
People in these last two decades seem to have lost part of themselves. We haven't all lost whatever is that makes us great, but it feels as though each day I see less and less of it in other's eyes.
I keep waiting for someone who we all look to to stand up and say, "This isn't what we stand for. We aren't going to do this. We can all fall, but let be said we truly WERE something god damn it!" I have yet to hear it.
When I was very little my father would tell me that the democrats were the bad guys and the republicans were the good guys. I guess explaining all the grey areas of social polictics to a four year while you're having a beer after work didn't seem like a good way to unwind. As I grew older I began to understand those grey areas, but I still felt deep down that my dad was right.
As more time goes on I find I have more and more trouble believing.
Here's Keith Olberman's latest on, well, this and the rest of the events of the past week.
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