Yesterday Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote a troubling op-ed article, 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free, that was published in the Washington Post. I’ve read it twice. I can’t find a substantive error in it.
Like most of you, I been aware all along that, in the panic after 9/11, the U.S. government has (to put it mildly) taken ever-increasing liberties with due process and the constitution when exercising its enforcement powers, and has grown impatient with constitutional limits, and civil and human rights. On certain specific issues, such as treatment of prisoners at Guatanamo and the TSA, I’ve been outraged and have spoken up strongly, in letters to Congress and this blog. But this article put the picture together for me.
Al Qaeda is winning, people, although not in persuading others to adopt its twisted and murderous form of Islam. (My apologies to the over one billion decent Muslims in this world who find the very idea of comparing Al Qaeda’s views to Islam offensive, but Al Qaeda did in fact twist Islam and not some other religion to come up with its ideology.) Al Qaeda is winning because they hate our freedom, and by a few violent, murderous attacks that endangered individuals but in themselves did not and could not endanger this country, they persuaded us to forfeit that freedom. Worse, we forfeited freedom not for a little temporary safety, but for the ILLUSION of safety. :/ We aren’t safer today than we were; we’re just more frighted.
Enough.
I’m working like crazy on a project for my day job that’s due in a couple of days, but I needed to take the time to say this. Any politician who supports more limits on this country’s freedoms and specifically who votes for abominations such as the recent Defense Authorization Bill that allows indefinite imprisonment of Americans without trial or recourse will not receive my vote. Any candidate for political office who wants my vote and my support MUST convince me that he or she will at the first opportunity repeal the laws that allow violations of the first, second, fourth, fifth, and sixth and eight amendments to the U.S. constitution.
I’ll figure out what else to do after I get this book written. (Why do I think that this will be time consuming and expensive?) <wry grin>