The other shoe

Warning: politics. (We've had a lot of pictures lately)

The rule of law. It's the thing that other countries in the world look at the US and admire. The constitution and the bill of rights were documents that revolutionized the manner in which people enjoy rights. For point of reference, Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into being in 1982. I'm older than written rights in Canada.

That being said, the so-called war on terror is changing the renowned status of the US. As stated earlier on this blog, thanks to a bill the President signed, US citizens no longer have Habeas Corpus rights. The US asserts the right to capture and hold any person on the planet, if the US thinks they might cause a crime. It's the whole, wouldn't it have been better to stop Hitler before he became Hitler argument.

Only, it's contrary, in some ways, to everything the US stands for.

When you have a congressman of the US asserting the right and obligation of the US to grab and hold suspects, and then dismiss any accidental arrests as the cost of doing war, then you can see why in the eyes of the world, the US model might not be the one to aspire to anymore. But it isn't just that this congressman advocated for the arrest of suspects. It's that when people groaned at his logic, he shot back a line that really is somewhat jarring. Watch this. It's boring, but we should all see what the government says in our name.