Your constitutional rights and the Patriot Act

Remember several months ago, when I said I would delight in the pain of my Republican friends when they began to complain about the Obama Administration using the powers they gave President Bush? Well, here we have a story about Ashton Lundeby, a 16 year old being held as a suspected terrorist. Without a lawyer, without trial, without any constitutional protections at all.

When the Patriot Act was passed, many Americans warned that this law would be abused. We were told that we were being ridiculous and paranoid. "Everyone deserves their day in court," we said. We were told that terrorists didn't deserve constitutional protections. "But what happens when the definition of terrorist is expanded?" we asked. "That won't happen," we were told, "stop being paranoid."

Well, here we are. First, it is kids calling in bomb threats. Then, it will be some other demographic that fits some legally technical definition. It will not be long before people who own evil assault rifles are declared to be terrorists.

You see, when you give power to government in the form of a new law, you must remember that it is in the nature of governments to abuse that law, to use it in ways that you never intended, to find ways to exploit that law to grant themselves even more power. It does not matter whether that government is liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat.

Government can only rule through force, so when you ask the Government to act on your behalf, what you are doing is applying force by proxy. Since Governments are run by people, who by nature always want more power and wealth than they already have, government will always seek more of those resources.

The definition of these evil terrorists has been expanded. The secret police knock on your door, spirit away your child, your spouse, your roommate, and whisk him away to a secret prison, where he or she has no Constitutional rights. Welcome to the dictatorship.

(BTW- Mom in the video says she does not "believe in guns." Guns are not like the tooth fairy. They exist whether you believe in them or not. As you just saw, the people with the most guns win. That is why the Second Amendment is so important.)

Thanks to David Codrea for the tip.