“Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.” ~ Ben Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1738)
Habeas Corpus, like so many of our common laws is inherited from the English. Simply put it is a legal remedy for unlawful arrest and detention that translates from Latin as “You may have the body”. President Lincoln suspended it during the civil war over the objections of the Supreme Court and President Bush suspended it in 2006 when he signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 for those that were not US citizens as part of the so called War on Terror. Since the Patriot Act was passed in the aftermath of 9-11 American citizens have lost an array of basic civil liberties in the name of security and last week Obama continued that trend when he signed the National Defense Authorization Act which now allows the military to arrest any US citizen deemed a terrorist even here in the US!
I have 2 links to share on this topic, as it appears the voters in 2012 will face the dark choice between one of the sold out ignorant nabobs from the GOP against a sold out Ed Rust lawn jockey from Illinois. The exception in the GOP field is Ron Paul folks but as Frank Corder reminded me on twitter yesterday he is not likely to get the GOP nomination, IMHO because he is not sold out like the rest. (For you local folks I’d mention Buddy Roemer here but he is bat shit crazy in my opinion.) The first link is from the New York Times’ Andrew Rosenthal:
Most broadly, the bill continues the work President George W. Bush started. Mr. Bush and his supporters exploited the nation’s fear and insecurity after the Sept. 11 attacks (and Democrats’ insecurity about national security) to ram through several unnecessary bills, including the Patriot Act and a dangerous expansion of the government’s ability to spy on Americans’ international communications without judicial supervision. Now, Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress have proven that they’re equally willing to curtail civil liberties, and, in the process, further damage America’s global reputation as a defender of human rights.
I think it’s barely possible that Mr. Obama would sign a waiver of military detention when warranted. But it’s impossible to imagine a Republican successor doing that. And that’s the big point. This is supposed to be a nation of laws, not a nation of men we just really hope will make good decisions. I wish Mr. Obama saw that more clearly.
Nope it is clear he doesn’t. I soured on Obama when he went back on his 2008 promise to South Mississippi to be open to the idea of a multi peril solution to the coastal insurance crisis exposing himself as a simple lying, sack of shit politician that will say anything to get a vote. Continue reading “Last week American citizens lost basic liberties courtesy of Obama and the idiots in Congress as Habeas Corpus is no more.”