Impulse

‘

“It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanc­tion the sub­ver­sion of one of those lib­er­ties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.” — former Chief Justice Earl Warren

The Military Commissions Act (S.3930) has passed both houses, grant­ing the pres­i­dent the abil­ity to estab­lish mil­i­tary tri­bunals for Guantanamo Bay, dodg­ing the Geneva Convention, and elim­i­nat­ing the need for habeas cor­pus. Habeas cor­pus is one of the spe­cific, fun­da­men­tal rights a bunch of colo­nials fought a war to get back in the 1770s.
I am pissed off. No, I’m way beyond anger. The United States is a great coun­try. Yet Bush con­tin­ues to dis­man­tle every­thing good about this coun­try down to its his­toric foun­da­tion. And con­gress repeat­edly grants him per­mis­sion to do so.
In more sane moments, I often reflect that though American democ­racy is an excel­lent sys­tem, it has the short­com­ing that it can be hijacked from time to time by fanat­ics and mass hys­te­ria. We did pass the 18th Amendment with a 2/3 major­ity, after all…