Raving, ranting, rambling.

In response to the recent and difficult to believe activities of Our Only National Legislature (Two Houses, No Balls), John Scalzi wrote a nice little rant On Moral Cowardice, wherein he happened to note the following about Our Only President: I can't imagine he won't be the worst president of the 21st Century. I was moved to write, and actually post, this response:

The thing that I think is the worst part of this bill is that it gives the President sole authority to decide what constitutes torture, or a breach of the Geneva Convenstions, or circumstances where habeas corpus can be ignored. Now, I dislike Our Only President a lot, but I think in practical terms, what's going to come out of this is a few hundred people tortured (most of whom have already been tortured), and a few hundred people held for years without trial or charge, in secret prisons (most of whom are already so held). That is bad, and disgusting, and it disgraces us.

But what if he isn't the worst president of the 21st Century? There's nothing to prevent the president elected in 2028 from being far worse than this fellow. Do you really want to bet that won't happen? And this framework, which I can't imagine being repealed once it's passed, allows President Dada to pick people up off the street and lock them up forever. And to build secret prisons to do that. All just as legal as houses. All he has to do is ask himself if it is legal and necessary, and tell himself it is, and then go out and do it.

I have friends who have been arrested on "terrorism-related charges". Maybe other readers here have, as well. Protesting the war, causing trouble at the political conventions, doing stupid shit. All were either charged or let go, and the ones who were charged were acquitted. Because, you know, none of them are terrorists. And as bad as this administration is, in the end, they let people go out and oppose them. But under President Caligula, my friends could—again, legally—be locked up forever, possibly without anybody knowing where they are, without charge or trial or lawyer or nuthin', because they mouthed off about the invasion of Terrorist Venezuela.

The thing about our Constitution is that it, on the whole, doesn't trust our presidents. I can't think why the Congress does. Has our history since Washington been one of uninterrupted integrity in the Oval Office?

I repeat it here, primarily because I’m not sure that all my Gentle Readers are aware that at least one Gentle Reader has been taken by police on “terrorism-related activities”, of which, you know, innocent. I don’t want to go into the details of the experience, which was horrific enough, and indicative enough of the disgraceful state of our criminal justice system. But he was arrested, and charged, and brought to trial and all. I’m not claiming that now, with it all behind him, that it is all behind him, because that would be false. He will continue to be punished for what he didn’t do. But he’s home, now.

Unrelated matter: remember the national convention, when the police, in egregious violation of constitutional rights, used that orange plastic netting stuff? They took a bunch of people downtown, and they let them go, because there was nothing to charge them with, and, you know, the law? Do you know any of those people? Are they home now?

I should feel better because the law is unclear about whether it applies to US citizens?

Again: I don’t think Our Only President and his cronies are going to start locking people up for disagreeing with them, and holding them without charge indefinitely. Well, I don’t think they are going to step up such a program domestically. Not this President. Not this time.

I skipped Constitution Day this year, but when I rave about our wonderful Constitution, and our wonderful Madison, and how incredibly long it has lasted—and I mean incredible here in the sense of not hardly credible, in the sense of I have come from two hundred years in the future, when the Constitution is in peril, wait, stop, why are you cheering?—I emphasize that our birthright as Americans is a self-correcting structure that takes it as a given that we will, now and then, elect fools and scoundrels. Hoorah! Let’s fuck that up!

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.