So, I'm listening to Bill O'Reilly a little last night, as I am playing on the interwebs. Mind you, I'm not really paying attention to him, and trust me when I say I don't need to generally do so to get whatever his point is. Let me just say I like O'Reilly. He's like that uncle who has an opinion on everything, is always righteously indignant about it all, whether it's about some child molester getting off with a light sentence or the neighbor's dog crapping on his lawn. He's not always right, but he's amusing, full of bluster and bullshit and himself.
Anyway, O'Reilly is saying that the Democrats--or at least some of them--want to give habeas corpus to terrorists. Now, for those who think habeas corpus is how Mushmouth (from the old Fat Albert cartoon) says "having corn," you're wrong. It's Latin and means that one should "have the body" when accusing someone of murder. (Actually, it's
habeas corpus ad subjiciendum and means not only that one must produce the evidence (body) but do so for examination.) Well, that's how the notion began. Today, legally, it means that one must present in court that someone detained is rightfully detained. A "writ of habeas corpus" (a legal plea to show that your mutual neighbor is being lawfully detained for crapping on O'Reilly's lawn) is an important tool for protecting an individual's liberty from arbitrary state action.
O'Reilly says it is outrageous that some (mostly on the left, he suggests) are demanding that terrorists (TERRORISTS!) should have this right to have evidence against them subjected to examination.
I guess what O'Reilly suggests is that the if the government deems someone a terrorist, then they are terrorists, and by the fact that they're terrorists, they have no rights.
Is anyone else frightened by that notion? That the government which needs a 459 page manual to explain the difference between its @$$ and its elbow, should be able to just label someone a terrorist and be answerable to no one?
Forget what the Constitution grants and to whom. I'm not saying that foreign enemy combatants necessarily have Constitutional protections. What I am saying is that if something is moral because human beings have certain inherent rights, then who cares if the Constitution covers it or them? The Constitution is a wonderful document which helps (but does not fully succeed) in keeping our government under some control because as a rule governments are notoriously bad at keeping their power reigned in.
I'm all for sticking it to terrorists. Hell, when we find a terrorist I'd be happy with the death penalty for them. But we have to be sure the people we're punishing are terrorists. I don't trust the government's say so just because it wants me to trust it.
I'm not for protecting the rights of terrorists--I'm for making sure someone is a terrorists so we can freely act to punish him and be certain he's forfeit his rights. The only way to do that: evidence.