Eroding Freedom: From John Adams to George W. Bush
Mickey Z. -- World News Trust
Oct. 12, 2006 -- Put a frog into a pot of boiling water, the well-known parable begins, and out that frog will jump to escape the obvious danger. Put that same frog into cool water and heat the pot slowly, and it will not react until it's too late. The survival instincts of a frog, we're told, are better designed to discern abrupt changes. Gradual transformation -- like the measured raising of water temperature -- can sneak up on the little croaker.
I was reminded of the proverbial frog as I considered how the recently
passed Military Commissions Act (MSA) managed to get lost in a shuffle
of naughty e-mails and bipartisan accusations. This isn't meant to
downplay the MSA. As Michael C. Dorf, a professor of Law at Columbia
University, explains: "It immunizes government officials for past war
crimes; it cuts the United States off from its obligations under the
Geneva Conventions; and it all but eliminates access to civilian courts
for non-citizens --i ncluding permanent residents whose children are
citizens -- that the government, in its nearly unreviewable discretion,
determines to be unlawful enemy combatants." Nasty stuff, indeed... but
since fiddling with human rights has long been a hobby for America's
power elite, it'd be misguided to assign all the blame to the current
administration. The erosion of freedom has been a slow steady
process -- not unlike boiling a pot of water.
President John Adams signed the
Alien and Sedition Act in 1798. Under this ugly bit of legislation, I
might've received a fine "not exceeding $2,000" and/or
"imprisonment not exceeding two years" simply for writing an article
such as this.
Woodrow Wilson got his own
Espionage and Sedition Act in June 1917. Here's a sample of that law:
"Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or
attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of
duty in the military or naval forces of the United States, shall be
punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment of not more
than 20 years, or both."
Alleged liberal Bill Clinton signed
the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act into law on April
24, 1996. This USA PATRIOT Act prequel contained provisions that
Clinton himself admitted "makes a number of ill-advised changes in our
immigration laws, having nothing to do with fighting terrorism." This
unconstitutional salvo did little to address so-called terrorism but
plenty to limit the civil liberties of anyone -- immigrant or resident -- who
disagrees with U.S. policies, foreign or domestic.
Of course, there was Abe Lincoln
suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War. The FBI's notorious
Counterintelligence Program, COINTELPRO (1956-1971), was in place
through four presidential administrations -- two from each party. Also,
Japanese-Americans in the 1940s just might have something to say about
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's concept of freedom and human rights. FDR
signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, thus interning more than 100,000 people without due process. In the name of taking on the architects of
German prison camps, he became the architect of American prison camps.
Coming on the heels of other recent
legal machinations, the MSA might best be viewed as adding a few
degrees on that little thermometer stuck, well, you know where. Is it
me, or is it getting awfully warm in here?
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Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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