The 219-year-old constitutional republic known as the United States of America died this past Wednesday when its newly-designated monarch signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
Among other things, this new law terminates the right of habeus corpus in the United States and enables the monarch or his appointed deputies to indefinitely detain anyone they deem an "unlawful enemy combatant," defined as "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States."
Makes no difference if you're an American citizen. If you're "a person" and you've "materially supported hostilities" against what used to be the United States, by, say, giving money to a group deemed "terrorist," you may be tossed into jail without having the right, formerly guaranteed under the provisions of habeus corpus, to appear in court and ask why you have been so tossed. You may languish there forever, without being charged with a crime. You may be tried before a military tribunal without having the opportunity to examine the evidence against you, since such evidence as there is may, under the terms of this act, remain secret.
The Military Commissions Act repeals the Bill of Rights. Free speech and freedom of the press are fatally compromised by it, since the monarch has specifically stated that "...for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America." (The program he was speaking of was his own electronic surveillance of his subjects, or formerly, citizens.)
So what are the chances that any day now, the publisher of the New York Times might be fingered by Alberto Gonzales as "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities" against the monarchy?
The fourth-amendment right to privacy is no longer guaranteed, since law enforcement agencies connected with these tribunals can secretly gather, then later refuse to divulge whatever evidence they choose.
The right to avoid self-incrimination is rendered moot by this law's allowing of confessions obtained by types of torture (such as waterboarding) that are less odious (as determined by the monarch and his staff) than "grave breaches" of the Geneva Convention's Common Article Three.
As for Amendments six, seven, and eight (the right to a speedy trial, trial by jury, and prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishments), see paragraph number three above, and the paragraph preceding this one.
The centrality of Habeus corpus to an understanding and practice of law based on citizens' rights is much older than the U.S. Constitution. It's enshrined in English common law and goes back to the 13th-century Magna Carta and beyond.
As MSNBC's Keith Olbermann pointed out on his commentary program "Countdown," "(E)ven without habeas corpus, at least one tenth of the Bill of Rights, I guess that's the Bill of 'Right' now, remains virtually intact. And we can rest easy knowing we will never, ever have to quarter soldiers in our homes… as long as the Third Amendment still stands strong.
"The President can take care of that with a Signing Statement."
Olbermann also adds, "Countdown has obtained a partially redacted copy of a colonial 'declaration' indicating that back then, 'depriving us of Trial by Jury' was actually considered sufficient cause to start a War of Independence, based on the then-fashionable idea that 'liberty' was an unalienable right.
"Today, thanks to modern, post-9/11 thinking, those rights are now fully alienable."
Olbermann broaches a pertinent topic by citing the 1776 Declaration of Independence, in which aroused subjects served notice that they would no longer tolerate the excesses of an arbitrary monarch, and said of him that "A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
If that was true of George III of England, a king whose rule was legitimized by law and tradition, how much more true is it of King George II of America, who is self-appointed, self-anointed, and the self-declared "decider?"
People of the former Republic of the United States, what will it take for you to realize just how much power you have? When will you discover the tremendous persuasiveness of a mass movement based on non-cooperation? When will you realize that he's only the decider until we decide otherwise?
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