It Is Always Darkest..

..when the ship hits the bottom of the ocean. Re: Derek's post "America's Darkest Day" below, those of us who live days thinking about the implications of principles extended to their logical end -- physicists among them -- cannot view the agreement of Congress and the enshrinement in laws the end of Habeas Corpus as anything but an enormous step toward the end of democracy and toward the re-establishment of tyrranical government.

The unassailable rights of an individual are the basis of social contract in a democracy; we each support a government, giving it enormous powers, but knowing that there are lines it cannot cross. We can speak out against it, and it can shout back, but it cannot lift us from our rock and toss us in a dungeon for doing so.. Because it is not illegal to do so, and if we were to demand a hearing with a judge to determine if there is legal basis for our imprisonment, the judge would conclude "No", and we're back home in an hour, because of habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is why we can demand of a police officer to know why we are being arrested. Habeas corpus gave us the phrase, "Justice delayed is justice denied," and we cannot be held indefinitely.

Friends, that is now over in the United States. The United States government can now send people to prison, without justifying it to anyone, for no reason or for any reason whatsoever. They can hold people indefinitely without charge. You would one day, disappear, never to be heard from again.

The moderate enablers in the Republican party try to pat-down those spiky wet hairs: "This is only for terrorists", they say. "This is for enemy combatants." Friends, we have no rights if they are not held by everyone; and what the Republican Party has done is said "No one has these rights anymore", and now we are bickering over what category of person will be treated this way.

So pray that the President does not decide to widen those categories. Because he has the power to do so. Any time. Against any person.

The rule of law! We have no rulers but the rule of law! But when our government removes those laws which bar their actions, which increases their powers to intimidate, supress and nullify those who oppose it, those powers will be used.