More Rights for Terrorists !

Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis (What Emails ?) Hastert (R-Ill) characterized the almost completely Democratic vote against stripping habeas corpus rights from "enemy combatants" detained by the United States as a vote for "more rights for terrorists".

Pure Republican spin, of course. What the Democrats did was to vote to preserve rights any person in U.S. custody has had since the founding of the republic, i.e., the right to have an independent judge decide whether his or her confinement was legal and, if not, to order their release. Pretty basic stuff for more than two hundred years.

Now, if you are a foreign national and Mr. Bush has labeled you an "enemy combatant" and the CIA has got their hands on you, you are out of luck, period. They can hold you forever. They don't have to tell anybody. If you are thinking "thank God I'm an American citizen", consider Niemoller's famous, "When they came for the communists, I didn't protest . . . ", but that would be a digression here.

Our question is: Why should we give a damn about what Bush does to terrorists ? So what if we deny them their "rights" ? They want to kill us.

Fortunately, that question has been perfectly answered and in a movie. A Man for All Seasons. What happens when we would ignore the law to fight evil ? The movie's central character, Sir Thomas More, discusses the point with a young man named Roper.

Wife: "Arrest him!"
Sir Thomas: "For what?"
Wife: "He's dangerous!"
Roper: "For all we know he's a spy!"
Daughter: "Father, that man is bad!"
Sir Thomas: "There's no law against that!"
Roper: "But there is, God's law!"
Sir Thomas: "Then let God arrest him!"
Wife: "While you talk he's gone!"
Sir Thomas: "And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!"
Roper: "So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!"
Sir Thomas: "Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"
Roper: "Why, yes! I'd cut down every law in England to do that!"
Sir Thomas: "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down--and you're just the man to do it, Roper!--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"
"Yes," Sir Thomas concludes: "I'd give the Devil the benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"

That's why we care. For our own safety's sake. And yours.

Stay Naked
jd

It is our understanding that the use of a single frame of the abovementioned film for noncommercial and educational purposes is a "fair use" within the meaning of the Copyright Act. If we are wrong, you all may be declared enemy combatants. Oops.