Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Rule of Law, Rights of People

I've been horrified by the ways that the current US government has been violating the civil rights of both citizens and noncitizens. Habeas corpus has been suspended de facto, with people who have not been charged with any crimes being held in prisons for years. No legal representation, no right to contest their status (recently changed to the kangaroo court military tribunal system after the Supreme Court made the Bush administration obey the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.) Now there is movement by the government to make torture legal, through outsourcing. This is simply outrageous. If we are decent enough to recognize that torture is unethical (not to mention ineffective in finding out true facts), then sending prisoners to countries that do allow torture is also unethical. There can be no nuance to this position, no cutesy face-saving while treating a fellow human being as a nonperson. To paraphrase a comment in the linked post, at this moment a vote for Republicans = a vote against humanity.

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