The Liberal Patriot

Subject: American Justice - J.G. Schwam

American Justice, Is It Up To The Task?

By: J.G. Schwam - 12/04/01

"The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life

when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself."

Archibald MacLeish

It is time to focus on what makes the USA great. It is time that we

all sit back and think about the bill of rights and the freedom to

choose our destinies as best we can that the bill of rights has given

us. We should remember that without this document and the

absolutes that are the basis of our laws nearly none of us would be

able say as we do today that we are proud to be Americans and

proud to be a free people.

For some it is easy to rationalize that in times of great crisis that

for the sake of preserving our freedom we can relax some of the

protections the bill of rights affords us for the sake of protecting

those very same rights and freedoms.

I see no reason why the confidence that we have day to day, in

our system of laws and justice should not remain intact. Thomas

Jefferson said; "we are a nation of laws, not men". This is what

separates this from much of the world. The fact that we remember

this is how we have functioned under those laws for so long. If we

believe that our system of laws is capable exacting truth and

meting out justice than we should have every reason to believe it is

strong and fair enough to do so in times of great crisis. Allowing

some of the protections and freedom the bill of rights affords us to

be temporarily set aside is dangerous and unnecessary.

We should not make decisions born of fear and the lust for revenge

that will shape our lives and futures for generations to come. We

should think rationally. Is our civilian justice system really incapable

of convicting and justly sentencing those guilty of terrorist acts

against America? Other than fear of and contempt for those guilty

of such horrible acts of terror what basis do we have to believe

that our justice system is not up to the task and that we have no

choice but to resort to military justice? As a result of that fear and

contempt we must not sacrifice our freedom and open the door for

those freedoms to be further abridged in the future. These are the

questions we must ask our legislators and ourselves. These are the

positions we must urge them to take.

Military tribunals sound harsh and final. And in most cases they are.

We all want harsh and final judgement of those guilty of the

attacks on our land on September 11th. We also want to have the

ability to apply the same judgement when and if plans for future

atrocities are uncovered but we should not apply a different

standard then we would want applied to ourselves. We should

remain steadfastly confident that the justice system that has

served in most cases to keep the rights we have held sacred intact

and free from abuse or usurpation for over 200 years can and will

do so today. This system if is allowed to will mete out justice fairly

and without prejudice to those that are not citizens or are foreign

nationals as well as it has for Americans.

If we suspend our laws and try either in military courts than we

show the world have no confidence in the justice system of our

proud land and we become in the eyes of the world to be no better

in the face of strife than those we seek to bring to justice.

Justice is blind. She should be allowed to remain that way. We

should demand it.

J.G. Schwam is a contributing writer for Liberal Slant

2001-2000-1999-1998

LIBERAL SLANT Web Publications.

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