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Friday, August 16, 2002

Further proof that the Constitution of the United States of America is officially an anachronism
From This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow:

Do you believe that it's okay for the state to hold a citizen in a military facility without formal charges--as long as some law enforcement agency suspects him of, effectively, thoughtcrime? (In which case, perhaps you ought to consider moving to a country which places the same value on personal liberty that you do, such as, say, Iraq or Libya.)

Constitutional rights are meaningless if they do not apply equally to everyone, even Ted Bundy and Charlie Manson and Tim McVeigh, and even traitorous-high-ranking-al-Qaeda-dirty-bomb-plotting-except-as-it-turns-out-not-really gang members from Chicago. You either believe in our system of Constitutional protections or you don't, but there's nothing to debate here, especially when your strongest argument is, But he's a terrorist! I just know he is! There was never much doubt that Charlie Manson was a mass murderer--he still got a damn trial.

If you don't understand this, if you have learned nothing from the lessons of history, if you so blithely dishonor the gift of liberty which has been passed down to you from preceding generations...then I guess you deserve the world you will inevitably inhabit. Unfortunately, you will also drag the rest of us down with you, like a cinder block chained to the feet of a drowning man.

- Tom Tomorrow

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