Stoopid Stuff

A Little More Capital Punishment

The American Federal Government is holding people indefinitly, without access to the courts, lawyers, their families or due process. Torturing people has become so deeply embedded in the American Counter-Terrorist methodology that the President has threatened to veto a major military spending bill if it includes language that limits or prevents torture. And, of course, the states just killed the 1000th American citizen since the restoration of the death penalty in 1977. What might these things have in common?

Well, certainly it is indicative of the overall direction our society is evolving. As we become more militarized, more theologically dogmatic, more rigid, more fearful of others and more insular, these increasingly violent, destructive, totalitarian solutions become not just solutions of last resort, but the favored approach. One that is encouraged by large segments of the population to be used more and more in more and more cases. It has been said that we become that which we fear the most, and if that's true then it's reasonable that America should become a Police State. Someone once said that the drug war was the root password to the constitution. But as they say, "9/11 changed everything". Homeland Security became the root password to the constitution. And as long as the government could keep the American population in fear, they had a free pass to restrain civil liberties, increase police surveilance and generally behave in ways that would have looked quite familiar to Josef Stalin.

It is fascinating and informative to look at the reasons given for this slide into tyranny and dictatorship. As terrorists, they have no right to expect the protections of the Geneva Conventions to be applied to them. As "Enemy Combatants", they have no right to expect Constitutional Protections to apply to them. As Convicted Murderers, they have no right to expect that we would have sympathy for them and consider clemency. This is one of those arguments that sounds reasonable on it's face--if you don't think about it too hard. You hear variations on these positions all the time on TV, in newspapers and in the blogosphere. It is about how other people, through their very actions, forced us to behave in ways that we really would prefer not to.

But wait a minute here. Let's just think about this for a minute. We're talking about our values as Americans. We're talking about the kind of people we want to be, the kind of society we want to have, the rules we want everybody to have to operate under. When you actually think about it, the lie becomes apparent: This has NOTHING to do with them. This is about us. Do we really want to put ourselves in a position where we have no moral authority in the world? A place where we can't effectively criticize China for detentions and torture, where we can be subjected to a steady drumbeat of criticism from European countries about OUR human rights failures, where American credibility as a world leader in democracy and the rule of law is diminished to the point where it becomes a joke in 15 languages? Do we want the America of the 21st century, the America of our children, to represent detentions, torture, murder, violence and hatred?

If the best that can be said is we're not as bad as (fill in historical fascist totalitarian state here), then I really don't think we're doing the best we can. This is not the America I love. This is a few very evil, ambitious men and women hijacking all that America stands for and replacing it with a totalitarian police state and an ideology that worships power and money, at the expense of protecting the people in the way envisioned by our founding fathers. Indeed, these people view the American people as an impediment to their agenda. It's why they lie and conceal--if they told us what they were really up to, we'd throw them in prison. It is up to us, the people, to stand up and say "we won't accept what you're doing to our beloved nation" It is up to us to say "we're not afraid". We must be willing to accept WHATEVER level of risk results from our standing up and demanding that America live up to her most enduring values. We don't invade other nations. We don't hold political prisoners. If we detain someone, they get access to the system to attempt to win their freedom. We don't murder our citizens. The rule of law applies to EVERYONE. These are our values, and it only hurts us when we undermine them.

posted by mikey @ 3:18 PM