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firmly believe, as an American whose family can trace its roots
to the colonies back to the 1680's, that being American is
particularly noteworthy, but also carries with it a huge
obligation.
As the Founding
Fathers outlined "a more perfect union" where the
rights of man stand supreme and Government is only afforded the
powers WE GRANT them, we must hesitate to give away rights for
appearance of security. In short, "We, the
People" get our rights from the mere exercise of being born
human and that Government is always secondary in the
consideration of any equation of civilization.
Government is only given the authority we bestow upon them -
Government has no rights under God - Government is not born out
of God's image nor is it granted any authority unless granted
that authority by God's people.
All too often in
these days where terrorists launch attack after attack imposing
their will of their God, their religion, and their repugnant
sense of morality, Government thinks it has the power to
determine what rights Americans will end up with instead of
understanding that rights bestowed upon a Free People by their
creator are NON-NEGOTIABLE. Government does
not get to determine which rights will be allowed to happen in
order to have the easiest way to protect us.
Rather, there is no obligation by our birth to make governing or
policing easy. Only when the rights of a free
people are allowed to persist in their entirety can we begin to
understand the burden that this places on the Government.
In the post 9/11
world, both political parties have decided to grab power and to
horde it like squirrels preparing for a rough
winter. In the process, the Government, acting
without the authority of the Constitution to do so, has seen fit
to steal the rights of Americans under the EXCUSE of protecting
us. As Benjamin Franklin said that a people
who will give up liberty for security deserve
neither. You see, Government may have the duty
under the Constitution to protect the citizens, but it does not
have the power to do so when it abridges individual
liberties.
Of course there
will have been court cases that have appeared before the Supreme
Court that whore the Constitution with repugnant rapidity, but
that does not make their rulings just or congruent with the
concepts of liberty.
As I noted, it is
not a right of the police in any form to have an easy job to
undertake their sworn duties. Americans have
God-given rights bestowed upon them and none of those rights can
be negotiated away to make investigations by police
easier. And there is nothing in the rights of
man that give Government any power to quash what rights we are
born with -life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - as well
as property rights - just so that investigating crimes is easy.
I shall not
pretend to be popular when I stand firmly to advocate for the
rights of the surviving Boston bomber to be treated as an
American citizen that he is.
He is not an
enemy combatant - a very lazy category imposed by Government to
make their job easier to steal more rights from Americans.
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American
citizens on American soil cannot have their rights stripped from
them without due process. And even thought the
evidence at this moment may seem overwhelming against the 19
year old bomber, the fact remains that he is fundamentally,
without equivocation, innocent UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.
It makes no
difference that his actions may seem to be that of a terrorist -
for he has been found guilty of nothing. He has
basic, fundamental rights to a speedy and fair trial and to be
represented by the best legal services he can
afford. The fact that the crimes HE IS
ASSERTED to have committed does not give the Government the
right to trample his rights to make their job
easier.
It is
particularly repugnant that the very same Government that has
lambasted torture as violative of human rights would then even
suggest that we can violate more human rights on the basis of
supposed "emergency threats" even as this same
Administration botched this investigation several years ago with
these two perpetrators. After the fact of an
outcome that does not wear well on them, this Administration
wants to usurp this young man's rights in order to make up for
pathetic police work on the front end. These two men
were known well by the FBI and the fact that the FBI missed this
situation does not give them the power after the fact to
fabricate a new way to treat an American citizen when something
has happened.
Let me be clear -
the actions a week ago in Boston are vile and
horrific. But the magnitude of the events does not
justify stealing from an American his God-given
rights. And while there are a plethora of dead and
maimed victims who had their own rights trampled, our judicial
system nonetheless was created to afford guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt as a standard - and even if there is hearsay
suggestions that say these men admitted to being the bombers,
there still must be a respect for the process that our
Constitution affords each one of us if we are so
charged. Allowing Government any latitude to
infringe on liberty always ends with the Government keeping that
latitude and demanding more as if it has an insatiable appetite
for making their job easier.
It hurts me to
advocate this position because the thought of an 8-year old
being shredded and killed weighs upon me - his life cut short in
his ultimate most innocent being. Yet, in the
overall scheme of maintaining and preserving liberty for the
greatest amount of American citizens, we must allow the
perpetrator his day in court and to defend himself with all the
rights given to him by God. In the end, when
the adjudication of this perpetrator's crimes has been reached,
if the power of the case is so persuasive as to find the
perpetrator guilty, then may God have mercy on his soul as he is
sent to meet his maker. But we cannot stoop to
something so low as to deny him his rights just to make
ourselves feel better or to make the job of police the easiest
it can be.
The price of
liberty does hurt. It is our cross to bear.
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