I have heard mutterings that the Boston marathon bomber should be treated as an “enemy combatant” or that his rights should be curtailed in other ways. Due process is not a gift we give to the accused; it’s a gift we give to ourselves. Once again, Robert Boalt’s, “A Man for All Seasons”:
More: There is no law against that.
Roper: There is! God’s law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what’s legal not what’s right. And I’ll stick to what’s legal.
Roper: Then you set man’s law above God’s!
More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact – I’m not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can’t navigate. I’m no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I’m a forrester. I doubt if there’s a man alive who could follow me there, thank God….
Alice: While you talk, he’s gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.
Well said Doug. With everyone talking about the reactionary comments to last week’s events (including a brilliant opening by Jon Stewart last night), the old saying about how principles are only worth anything when they’re inconvenient keeps coming back to me. I must have responded to tens of posts from friends on social media regarding how they wanted the defendant/ suspect tortured or held as an enemy combatant in Guantanamo and then Sen. Lindsay Graham decided to unload on his twitter-feed and give credence to these crazy notions – and he’s not only a colonel in the air force reserves, but in the JAG corps none-the-less. He should know better.
Maybe it’s just me, but how come the only thing about the Constitution conservatives seem to want to uphold is their right to own a firearm? Everything else is negotiable. That’s just sad.