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Secret Covenants
Behind closed doors, the law's chief co-conspirators -- Sens. Carl Levin, D-Michigan; John McCain, R-Arizona; Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina; and Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut -- injected into the NDAA ambiguous language that could be applied by this president or the next to Americans who resist endless war against "associated forces" somehow linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
All four of these co-conspirators are prominent supporters of harsher and harsher sanctions against Iran, actions that have put in place the dry kindling that awaits some spark to touch off a new conflagration in the Middle East.
Now that neocon operatives have "associated" al-Qaeda with Iran does that mean protesting a new war with Iran constitutes the kind of "support" that could prompt a long vacation at Guantanamo Bay? That may be too big a stretch, but it does seem odd that we're having this debate after al-Qaeda has been reduced to a sliver of its past self and as the Obama administration seeks negotiations with the Taliban.
The media play, or lack thereof, is another back-story here. Painfully clear is the success enjoyed thus far by those determined to use artificially whipped-up fear of "terrorism" in the same way Sen. Joe McCarthy used the dread of "communism" to deprive Americans of their constitutional rights.
Let it not be forgotten that our Founders, one of whom (George Mason of Virginia, author of the Bill of Rights) grew up a stone's throw from where I live, had the courage to declare how importantly urgent was the enterprise upon which they, and the foot soldiers of George Washington's army, were embarked toward freedom.
In 1776, at a time when it seemed far more likely than not that they would hang at the end a rope, they formally declared their support for a common effort to defeat tyranny. They declared: "We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
And we are the beneficiaries of their decision to risk all to ensure the blessings of liberty to us and our posterity. Are we, 235 years later, unable to recognize what is at stake? Do we lack the courage to act in the tradition of the Founders when government becomes destructive of these ends?
I came across the following on my bookshelf. It's nice. Anyone know what it's from? It reads:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
"--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
THAT is how strongly our predecessor patriots from Virginia, Massachusetts and points south, north, and in-between felt about all this. Many of them knew first-hand the evils of unchecked tyranny. THAT is why courageous foot soldiers were willing to mark the snow with blood from their feet as they marched on Trenton.
The Bill of Rights?
It is generally known that my former neighbor, George Mason, worked side-by-side with James Madison in crafting the Constitution. What is less known is that, when the draft was finished, Mason shocked Madison by refusing to sign the Constitution in 1787. His reason? He demanded that it contain a Bill of Rights.
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