Someone disappeared today.
I don't know who. I don't know from where. And you and I will likely never know why.
Do you understand?
You and I no longer have the inalienable right to demand that the government produce a person held in custody and justify to us, in open court, why that person is being held. When your daughter doesn't come home after the Code Pink demonstration, the one where people got arrested, you no longer have redress. You cannot demand to see her, and to know the charges against her. Do you understand? When your son doesn't come home from sitting vigil outside the White House, you no longer have redress. The evening that your wife drives over to the PTA meeting in the car with the "Free Leonard Peltier" bumpersticker, and doesn't come home, you no longer have redress. Do you understand?
In the Magna Carta, the first written basis of the English law which in turn is the original basis for American law, it is written: (translated from Latin)
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.
This right, which has been canon in our legal system for nearly eight hundred years, is now lost to us. This right is now violated in law. This right, to be free of unlawful imprisonment, to be free of the capricious whims of flawed, vengeful men, is now lost to us. Do you understand?
We do not know by name who has disappeared today. We know only that he, she, they -- are lost to us. At the whim of the man holding the office of President, anyone taken into custody from this date hence is lost to society, taken beyond the reach of the law.
Our Congress has set us back eight hundred years.
Eight. Hundred. Years.
Don't talk to me about a pre-9/11 mentality. Don't talk to me about a pre-1776 mentality. We are here dealing with a pre-1215 mentality, with a King John mentality. Our King George W is not satisfied with being the worst president in American history -- he is going for the ultimate prize, competing with King John in the departments of waging useless wars, bankrupting the State, and despoiling the ancient law and custom of the land. He is vying for the title of Worst Head of State of Any Anglo-Saxon Nation Ever.
And I fear it will take an armed confrontation at our Runnymede before the vengeful men currently in power relinquish that power. How many brigades has Justice Stevens?
Do you understand yet?
[/rant]