Very Disillusioned Day

As most of you know, I have begun law school. One of my first assignments was to re-read the Constitution of the United States. As I've reviewed this amazing document, I have several comments about the current political administration. First, the 8th Amendment protects us against cruel and unusual punishment. As I continue to study both Constitutional and Criminal Law I will begin to learn what is defined as "cruel and unusual". However, there are some commonly known examples; we do not torture, we have a right to representation, we have a right to confront our accusers, etc... It seems with the President's new attempts to expand the power of interrogators on how to treat detainees; he is forgetting the standards in which we hold ourselves and country too. Does this mean that those who are not citizens of this country do not deserve the same standards we apply to ourselves? Is it just enough that we believe them to be terrorist that they are automatically guilty? If safety is an excuse used to violate these laws established for ourselves, what other excuses and short cuts will our "leaders" use in order to "protect" us?

What frequently frightens me is that the citizens of this country more and more complacently give up those rights endowed by our Constitution and turn a blind eye when those same standards are not applied to our supposed enemies or threats. As Colin Powell argued, if we do not hold ourselves to the same standards, what will prevent other nations from acting in a similar fashion to our brave men and women at war?

I am also constantly frustrated by the smear and abuse Democrats get from pointing out these dangers in this type of action/thinking. They are called weak on defense and security. Let me just say, holding our country to high standards is not weak on security. Finding other means for accomplishing our goals is always an option, and apparently the Bush Administration cannot think outside the box. He refuses to deviate from the course he has set, yet violence and hatred of America is spreading throughout the world. Are we really safer just because another attack has not been successful on our soil? Or, are we creating and inflaming the dangers for the future? I believe the action of this Presidency will ripple for quite sometime throughout the many administrations to follow. We will have to find ways to clean up the mess created by this administration.

On another note, I have taken a hiatus from both the news and blogging because of school. It disheartens me to turn on the news and see more and more disappointing, frustrating news. Is nothing going on in the world that is good? I saw an interview with George Clooney on Darfur and still no action has been taken by the world community to stop this atrocity. What's even more sick, is I talked to a fellow classmate about it, and they had no clue to what I was talking about. In case anyone does not know, Darfur is the location of our own 21st Century Genocide. Yes, that's right people; the human race really has advanced back in time. And we haven't even learned from the Holocaust or Rwanda. Today I'm really proud to be a part of the human race.