The Constitution's Funeral

After pointing readers to an AP story basically saying that there is/was no evidence supporting the charges against "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla, Tom Tomorrow goes into this wonderful little rant:

Do you get it yet? Do you begin to understand the implications here, when an American citizen can be arbitrarily declared a terrorist, held indefinitely as enemy combatant--with no evidence to support the charges?

Or 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...

And--bonus rant--keep in mind that we are about to go to war with Iraq, and very probably sacrifice the lives of an untold number of young American military personnel--because if you think that Iraq is going to be a pushover like Afghanistan, you are simply delusional--keep in mind that we're heading into this with no real evidence that it is in any way necessary or justified, nothing but the word of the same administration which recently assured us that Padilla was, no question about it, a high ranking al Qaeda dirty bomber. The time to ask questions is now--because if we find out in five years, or twenty, that the half-baked justifications we were given had no more basis in reality than the Gulf of Tonkin incident, well, that's going to be a little too late for the young widows of U.S. servicemen, for the children who will grow up without without their fathers or mothers. This isn't a computer game. The price of Saddam's overthrow will be paid in American (and of course, Iraqi) lives. Is it so much to ask that we be given something more compelling than Don Rumsfeld's vague assurances that this is necessary, trust us, we know what we're doing?

And, in a related commentary in the LA Times, Jonathan Turley formally announces that John Ashcroft has moved "from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace." He continues,

We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's America. Some of his predecessors dreamed of creating a great society or a nation unfettered by racism. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself, neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty.

For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been viewed as coexistent values. Ashcroft and his aides appear to view this relationship as lineal, where security must precede liberty.

Since the nation will never be entirely safe from terrorism, liberty has become a mere rhetorical justification for increased security.

Ashcroft is a catalyst for constitutional devolution, encouraging citizens to accept autocratic rule as their only way of avoiding massive terrorist attacks.

Geesh, maybe Fran Schor is right, and we should start using the "F" word...