GOP Ready to Overthrow Constitution and Bill of Rights After Boston

Numerous studies have shown that the United States ranks up with Russia and China when it comes to the level of surveillance and lack of privacy for citizens.  Now, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings and the capture of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, leading members of the GOP want to toss out legal protections guaranteed to U.S. citizens.  For a political party that whines incessantly about the "slippery slope" that could be triggered by gay rights and same sex marriage and an abusive federal government, they are oblivious to the much more frightening slippery slope that will be set in motion if Tsarnaev is treated as an "enemy combatant."  Once exceptions to the rule of law, right to trial by jury, etc., are made and worse yet, become acceptable, all of us are ultimately at risk to an unrestrained government.  One need only look at how the Nazis slowly undermined the rule of law in Germany in the 1930's for a case study of where this slippery slope can lead.  Emotion - and pandering to a misogynistic party base - do not justify jettisoning constitutional protections for citizens.  A piece in Politico looks at the GOP rush to subvert the processes that all of us should support.  Here are highlights:

Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain are calling for the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings to be tried as an enemy combatant, rather than as an ordinary criminal.

“Under the Law of War we can hold this suspect as a potential enemy combatant not entitled to Miranda warnings or the appointment of counsel,” the Republicans said in a statement released Friday night. “Our goal at this critical juncture should be to gather intelligence and protect our nation from further attacks. We remain under threat from radical Islam and we hope the Obama Administration will seriously consider the enemy combatant option.”

“Now that the suspect is in custody, the last thing we should want is for him to remain silent,” they said. “It is absolutely vital the suspect be questioned for intelligence gathering purposes. We need to know about any possible future attacks which could take additional American lives. The least of our worries is a criminal trial which will likely be held years from now.”

President Barack Obama offered a possible nod to that issue in his televised address Friday night, saying that “it’s important that we do this right.”  “That’s why we have investigations. That’s why we relentlessly gather the facts. That’s why we have courts,” Obama said.

I am not opposed to questioning Tsarnaev and doing things right, but let's not forget that under Bush/Cheney, America violated the Geneva Conventions and engaged in illegal torture.  Indeed, Bush and Cheney deserve to be tried for war crimes.  Now the same mind set wants to undermine protections at home for U.S. citizens.  I find it scary to say the least.  In some ways since 9-11 we are slowly drifting towards a police state and many people don't even realize that it is happening.  One would think that John McCain of all people would be worried about abuses and possible torture.

Forgotten Values For the Virginia GOP

As the recent crucifixion of Tracy Thorne-Begland demonstrated, Virginia's Republican Party has totally forgotten the founding principles of this nation.  Sadly, if given the chance, the Virginia GOP would establish a right wing theocracy with Victoria Cobb and Bob Marshall playing the roles of Grand Inquisitor.  

U.S. Air Force Recognizes Rights of Pagan Service Members

Recently the U.S. Air Force Academy in recognition that freedom of religion is not reserved to only certain approved Christian denominations and Air Force Academy officials in Colorado Springs approved the construction of an outdoor space for the worship of pagan deities. Not surprisingly the Christo-fascist elements went berserk. Illustrative of the foaming at the mouth that ensued are the remarks of Robert Jeffress, Pastor First Baptist Church of Dallas who stated that such action "is an open invitation for God to send His harshest judgments against our nation." Pastor Jeffress then launched into a Bible quoting tirade (I will spare readers the details) to justify his obvious belief that only Christian beliefs should be officially recognized. If you are not a Christian, it's a case of too bad, you have no rights. Jeffress' mindset is all to prevalent among the far right and is one of the reasons LGBT citizens are targeted for punishment. In a response column in the Washington Post, the true concept of religious freedom is set forth. Here are some highlights:

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I'd like to point out to Pastor Jeffress that when the Air Force respects and safeguards the religious rights of minorities, we are all safer. Patrick McCollum, who has fought many of the key legal battles for the rights of Pagan soldiers and prisoners, says, "When Pagans get our rights, everyone gets their rights."
Rights are inconvenient things.
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Problem is, who decides? And by what criteria? And how do we know the bad guys are truly bad, or that the accused are truly guilty? Those sorts of sticky questions got us the Bill of Rights and the concept of due process, for saints and sinners, for the accused who are innocent and those who turn out to be guilty. For if we deny due process to the guilty, we risk convicting the innocent.
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And if we deny equal right to Pagans, because Pastor Jeffress interprets his Bible as saying his version of God doesn't like our religion--we put him and his church at risk as well. For tomorrow, some other pastor, priest, rabbi or imam might decide that the First Baptist Church of Dallas is anathema to their version of God, and drive him and his flock into hiding.
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The framers of the Constitution may or may not have been thinking of broad, religious tolerance--nonetheless, the First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Not "Christian religion", but religion, plain and simple. Only if Jews, Muslims, Pagans and infidels of all sorts can worship freely can Christians of all denominations rest secure that their rights, too are safeguarded.
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Different faiths, different names for Goddess and God are like different doorways into the mysteries that go beyond words. When we honor and respect the great diversity of faiths, we assure that our own doorway, too, will remain open.

American Freedom Campaign

Before I get to the office and the day gets busy, I wanted to note a website that I heard about when I turned on the TV while having my morning mug of strong coffee. It was the tale end of a segment on Joe Scarborough with Naomi Wolf that involved a discussion of the erosion of Constitution under Chimperator Bush and an organization that had been organized to resist the subversion of the Constitution and citizens' civil rights. The web address is: http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/

The organization's agenda is as follows: At critical moments in our history, Americans have been called upon to protect our Constitutional guarantees of liberty and justice. We face such a moment today. The American Freedom Campaign is a non-partisan citizens' alliance formed to reverse the abuse of executive power and restore our system of checks and balances with these ten goals:

1. Fully restore the right to challenge the legality of one's detention, or habeas corpus, and the right of detained suspects to be charged and brought to trial.

2. Prohibit torture and all cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

3. Prohibit the use of secret evidence.

4. Prohibit the detention of anyone, including U.S. citizens, as an "enemy combatant" outside the battlefield, and on the President's say-so alone.
5. Prohibit the government from secretly breaking and entering our homes, tapping our phones or email, or seizing our computers without a court order, on the President's say-so alone.

6. Prohibit the President from "disappearing" anyone and holding them in secret detention.Prohibit the executive from claiming "state secrets" to deny justice to victims of government misdeeds, and from claiming "executive privilege" to obstruct Congressional oversight and an open government.
7. Prohibit the abuse of signing statements, where the President seeks to disregard duly enacted provisions of bills.

8. Use the federal courts, or courts-martial, to charge and prosecute terrorism suspects, and close Guantanamo down.

9. Reaffirm that the Espionage Act does not prohibit journalists from reporting on classified national security matters without fear of prosecution.

In my view, these are serious issues about which much of the American population is clueless.