Eroding
Freedom: From
John Adams To George W. Bush
By Mickey Z.
13 October, 2006
Countercurrents.org
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 of water temperature. 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--including
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
President John Adams signed
the Alien and Sedition Act in 1798. Under this ugly bit of legislation,
I might've receive a fine "not exceeding two thousand dollars"
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 over 100,000 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?
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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