--- Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Where in the above does it say that you have to > reside within certian > borders to deserve these rights? > > Doug
Nowhere. Which is why the Declaration is a wonderful sentiment without force of law. Everyone on earth _should have_ those rights. There are lots of people who want to take them away. Because of that we are forced to make choices. Pretending otherwise is absurd, and arrogant fools can make all the claims of bigotry they want (transferrence, perhaps?) but it doesn't make it any less true. Here's a question for you, if you think the Declaration should guide our actions. You supported Judge Roy Moore, right? "Endowed _by their Creator_ with certain inalienable rights..." Not so good for separation of church and state, is it? _In fact_, the push to extend rights they do not have to these people is a far greater threat to American civil rights than anything done by the Administration. Make no mistake, these people will be contained. No responsible government would allow anything else. If we put them into the civilian justice system, then the judges and lawyers involved will bend every law, every procedure, to make sure they stay in jail. Those will become precedents that will redound throughout the American justice system. People have natural rights. Those are rights in the state of nature, unenforced and unenforceable. They have civil rights, rights that they get in exchange for giving up their natural rights which are guaranteed by the governments that the people created. Those civil rights are set out in constitutions, like ours. These constitutions have legitimacy when they are created with the consent of the governed. This is why British subjects, for example, have far fewer rights than American citizens (note the crucial difference in wording), yet the British government is no less legitimate than the American one (I suppose Erik will want us to invade Britain next). _In fact_ we have a problem. We have a group of people who are immensely motivated to kill Americans and who have attempted to do so in the past. Our system of justice was not created with people like that in mind. _If it were, our rights would be much smaller_. As even a basic study of constitutional law tells you, American civil rights have fluctuated over time in response to threat. Civil rights during the Civil War were significantly curtailed (far more so than in any period before or since) by the man now hailed as the greatest of all Americans - and rightly so. During the Second World War the American press was generally censored to prevent it from reporting critical data to the enemy - and rightly so again. And this during a time when the press was not adversarial to American interests. Treating terrorists captured on the field of battle in Afghanistan like bank robbers in the US is the fastest way I can think of to erode civil protections in the _American_ judicial system. The reason that we treat them differently is that they are, in fact, different. Might some of them be unjustly imprisoned? Yes, they might well be. Some of them almost certainly are. We undoubtedly killed some innocent people in Afghanistan. That didn't mean the war was not worth fighting. That was an injustice greater than holding people in Guantanamo Bay for a while. But it didn't stop us from doing the necessary thing. If we let these people go, they will go back to killing Americans. If we try them in a fully-fledged public trial, we will destroy our ability to protect ourselves from their compatriots and distort our own justice system. If you choose the second, _then be aware that you are choosing the second_. I would respect that. I wouldn't agree, but I would respect it. When you make a choice, you choose all the consequences of that choice (Lois Bujold, I believe). So the consequence in this case will be simple. Some, perhaps many, innocents will die. That is a virtual certainty. _Are you willing to accept that?_ Maybe you are. That's an absolutist position that has no grounding in law or precedent - and I would say an honest person would admit that as well. But it's an understandable one. This isn't going away. Children close their eyes on the world. Adults have to live with their eyes open. So make your choice. Choose to let them go, and choose all the deaths springing from it. Choose to try them, and choose the deaths and defeats coming from that. Choose to hold them until a better solution presents itself (and note that we have already released some of the people there). Or heck, suggest a different choice - I'd love to hear it. But for God's sake admit what the choices are. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
