Do you support the Military Commissions Act of 2006?
In a word, NO! A very emphatic and loud NO. Of all the rights granted by the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights perhaps not one is of greater importance than the writ of habeus corpus. As defined under American law
A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody.The Military Commissions Act of 2006 serves to remove the right of habeus from all detainees classified by the administration as military combatants. No judicial review is allowed those so named. The law in effect allows punishment without judicial proceedings, a concept foreign to the American way.
Our nation was founded on principles of liberty and justice for ALL. There is not one mention in our Constitution of any distinction among human beings. One may argue the Founders saw some races as inferior and intended to keep them subservient, but the wording works to the benefit of every person in the nation. Any person deprived of any rights is in effect punished. The MCA works in ways that violate the sense of our Constitution and of the ideals of our Founding Fathers.
The United States cannot hope to recover any measure of moral standing so long as the MCA is allowed to remain a force of law. We as a nation owe it to ourselves and to the world to repeal the act and get on with fair and open trials of those charged with crimes against our nation. Those detainees for whom the law was intended to punish and are not to be charged should be released and resettled in their own nation posthaste.
Given the wording of both the MCA and some Bush signing statements the greater danger to Constitutional rights in this country today may be the application of the MCA to any person (citizens are not excluded from the reach of classification as an “enemy combatant”). To insure our freedom in future times we must restore the balance of power as established by the Founders. A triumvirate government is only as strong as the weakest of the legs (just like in the three legged stool).
Peace.
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7 comments:
We are losing our rights bit by bit in this nation. We must fight to regain the rights so may fought so long and hard to guarantee. This battle will not be won easily. We cannot afford to lose any more of our Constitutional rights lest we lose the very basis for our nation.
Peace, Jerry
Bit by bit, yes, Jerry, but Habeas Corpus is the mother of all protections of rights. Note, I didn't say it was a right. It isn't. Each of us has the natural right to freedom and control of our bodies.
Habeas Corpus protects that right from those who would take it without good reason (that is, without some proof that we, in the exercise of our bodily freedom, had harmed the freedom of others).
Habeas Corpus is the cornerstone of our political system. If people could see beyond the latin words, they'd get it. The latin means (my latin is rusty) something like "we have the body". It implies that authorities need to produce the imprisoned when asked, and that in turn implies that they have to justify imprisonment.
Jerry, 'they' can take away our lives, but only we can surrender out freedom.
workshop,
We may be the only ones who can surrender our freedoms, but I would argue the government can take the same freedoms away by passing laws such as the MCA. It is our responsibility to protest and to insist our freedoms not be removed.
Peace, Jerry
Linking arms for our rights!
workshop,
If enough of us join together we will overcome. I am counting on you!
Peace, Jerry
Jerry, I sure hope we don''t end up leaving it to another generatioon to reclaim its rights. Sometimes it looks like we will be forever be remembered as the generation that gave it all away. We let the economy go to heck. We let the deficit turn into a monster. We let our military become embroiled in unnecessary but terrible wars. And we let the Constitution fade away.
That would be a terrible legacy.
workshop,
The legacy of the Bush administration will go down in history as one of the very worst ever. The American people were misled, lied to, and bamboozled. We have a chance to take a new direction but people must begin to pay attention and to take action to insure that new direction.
Like you, I'd prefer to leave a better nation than the one I found on arrival. Hope does spring eternal.
Peace, Jerry
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