As we observe Memorial Day this week I find myself increasingly sad. It used to be that the rationale for joining the military was that it was an opportunity to sustain and defend the great freedom and liberty our citizens enjoyed by legal right.
A couple months ago the Supreme Court ruled that immortal corporations were legally persons, and therefore can funnel all the money they want into the political process. In other words, our freedom and liberty, the basis of our sovereignty, the basis of our capacity to enforce law, is now in competition with an entity that will outlive us and can certainly outmuscle us at will.
A couple weeks ago in Arizona, racial profiling was made legal. As Sarah Palin says, "We're all Arizonans now." What that means specifically is that in Sarah-world we now live in a country when any day, any one of us might be asked for our papers, please. Of course we all know that the law is intended only for brown skinned people, but how long before folks who like brown skin people become suspicious?
Last week, the Supremes did it again with a legal decision that empowers Congress to make laws that allow the indefinite detention of certain criminals: in this case, sexual perverts who prey upon children. Now, to be sure everyone detests sexual perverts. But what does it mean for Congress to be able to overturn judicial court decisions and decide that criminals who have been convicted and have served their sentences may, upon the end of their sentence, be held forever in prison because they constitute a threat to others?
I wonder how long it will be until the crime of dissent is thought to be a continual threat to society? What these three moves add up to is a slow but steady increase in the erosion of the civil liberties and freedoms that were once at the core of what made America great.
So tell me again why it is that we are sending young troops to become psychologically and spiritually traumatized in countries where our freedom and liberties are not at stake? What specifically are we fighting for and against? We know that Iraq was based on fraud for which no one was held accountable. Indeed, having illegally attacked and destroyed the country, the only ones facing the consequences are the troops. And Afghanistan is utterly incoherent. Once again, only the troops face the consequences.
What really made this country great was our moral idealism, our sense to do right making amends when we did wrong. Such a country is worth sacrificing for, but that idealism and that country no longer exists. We've become bullies raging out of control. And, as with all bullies, the end is foreordained; having destroyed others, we will destroy ourselves. And that, more than anything, is at the heart of my sadness.