Dunno, Contrario. Maybe I’m just Euro like that. Still, I hear my alarmist position echoing across the mare more and more. Check out this ditty on a historical cognate to the Senate’s abandonment of liberty from Roman days:
Those of us who are not Americans can only look on in wonder at the similar ease with which the ancient rights and liberties of the individual are being surrendered in the United States in the wake of 9/11. The vote by the Senate on Thursday to suspend the right of habeas corpus for terrorism detainees, denying them their right to challenge their detention in court; the careful wording about torture, which forbids only the inducement of “serious” physical and mental suffering to obtain information; the admissibility of evidence obtained in the United States without a search warrant; the licensing of the president to declare a legal resident of the United States an enemy combatant — all this represents an historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive.
So — to answer my own question — not, apparently, the US Senate. Which leaves only we plebes and proles to do the job.
Yeah, I thought of you when I was reading that on the train on Saturday! I don’t know, the guy’s got a book out about Ancient Rome and, honestly, I don’t care what happens to terrorists or even people who are friends with terrorists. I’m not worried about democracy yet . . .
and yet, that’s precisely what I worry about when I read things like this…I’ll save my more outre’ thoughts on the matter for non-respectable places like my blog, but when you combine this with BushKo’s history on civilian rights (wiretapping, etc…it really wasn’t that long ago, y’know?), it gets my underthings into a bind.
Molly Ivins sez it better:
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv
Love the pullquote from W’s three-year-old speech.
Thanks for the link to the Ivins article … lawd, but I loves me some Molly Ivins. “The last of the great Texas progressives.”