White Hat/Black Hat

I'm pleased with the Supreme Court's decision on Habeas Corpus. For one, we haven't declared war and we aren't fighting against a nation. The reality of this situation we're in is that it may never end - certainly other nations, such as Spain (ETA), Great Brittan (IRA), and Israel, have all had intractable terrorism for decades on end; we've had home-grown terrorism here in the form of lynching/KKK, burning of black churches and synagogues, and abortion-clinic bombing and shootings, that have ebbed and flowed, but have not fully ever left.

My point is, putting an enemy combatant in prison for the few years of a conflict is one thing; the people we have detained in Guantanamo and elsewhere may remain there their entire lives if we don't treat them as criminals with basic human rights rather than enemy soldiers with, arguably, fewer human rights. Then what if there is even one innocent detainee in that mix - though statistically I'd imagine there must be more than one. Part of the very fabric of our nation's legal system is that we would rather let ten guilty men free than incarcerate one innocent man. That is the America I am proud of; it's the America that a tyrant will never understand.

I brought up something at the last CFI meeting which I think some on the right, driven by (understandable) fear, fail to acknowledge: that we are a nation that sees itself as moral, as the guys in the white hats, and part of our history (especially in the 20th Century) has been for the rest of the world to see us that way as well. The terrorists killed roughly 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001, and that was one of the darkest days of our republic. But what we have done to ourselves since that day has been far more detrimental than anything they could have done: our leaders have traded our white hats for black. They have turned us into bullies on the international scene, and have turned most of the world against us - perhaps not against our people yet (thankfully!) but certainly against our government.

No one is prouder to be an American than I. I am proud because we are Good, not because we are strong - although I argue that our strength comes first and foremost from our moral authority. America does not hold people without right to trial, does not torture, does not commit rendition to skirt our own human-rights laws, does not invade countries based on trumped-up intelligence and without just cause.... These are all things that Evil countries do, immoral countries. If we are indeed evil, then what do we have left worth fighting for?

I firmly believe that we can protect our nation from another 9/11, or even worse attacks, while obeying the laws and morals that have made ours the greatest and strongest nation on Earth. I don't think morality is an indulgence appropriate only when things are going our way.