GIVE ME LIBERTY

The recent cases brought before the Supreme Court on behalf of Padilla and Hamdi are begging the question, "Can we trust the POTUS with the power to throw an American citizen into prison and hold them without charge indefinitely?" Although thoroughly depressed that such a question can be considered without fear of a riot, I cannot be wholly surprised. September 11th and the "War on Terror" provoked, "How much of our liberty must we sacrifice in order to be safe from terrorists?" (As though we could afford to sacrifice any.) As though it were moral to sacrifice any. As though it were not treasonous to sacrifice any. Americans do not make compromises with tyranny that they may avoid attack or fear----no American I would be proud to call my countryman. Where are our memories? Know we no history? What does a person think the most powerful office in the world, POTUS, will do with unaccountable, unlimited power over any individual in America? Use it wisely? Use it humanely? Use it openly? How dumb can a dolt really be? Or millions of them in our country's unfortunate case. To answer the last question first, Benjamin Franklin said, "Those that are willing to sacrifice essential liberties in order to purchase a little, temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." I suppose good people can disagree about this, but I don't think a good person can disagree with this while staying true to what makes our country the greatest republic in the long march of history: Our freedom, though it wanes; Our bravery, though it declines; Our sacrifice, which has, like a river, run from the birth of our states unified through all our history to our time without change. Our country has never lacked for young patriots who loved their land more than their life. They step forward still. They have never failed us, but what of our duty to them? To them and to all Americans to protect liberty. They have kept us safe. Have we kept them free? No, we question. We forget. We diminish. We fools.
Presently the Supreme Court will rule on the power of our highest elected official to deprive American citizens of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without due process. On his word. Nothing more. Oh well it is for Orwell that he died! So much more frightened by our present would he be. To close this matter for now, from my end, I would like to quote Noam Chomsky from his most excellent book, Hegemony or Survival, "President Bush is said to have on his desk a bust of Winston Churchill, a gift from his friend Tony Blair. Churchill had a few things to say on these topics:
'The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly todeny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.'" (the end of exerpt)

Wise old Winston probably did not in his most troubling nightmares imagine this power would be granted in a republic, least of all that Republic of Republics: The United States of America.