A Stain on Our Great Country

John McCain claimed the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision on detainee's habeas corpus rights (protection against unlawful imprisonment) was perhaps the worst in history because they are "enemy combatants."  McCain doesn't understand that most of the people held at Guantanamo are not "enemy combatants" but "accused enemy combatants".  Most of these detainees were rounded up by militias in Afghanistan and sold for the $25000 bounty to US forces. According to Amnesty International many of these people are completely innocent, they just happened to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time or perhaps someone in a militia didn’t like them. These people have been held without charges and without rights for 6 years; they have been tortured and their torture induced confessions are about to be used in mock trails before they are put to death; and this is being done in the name of the United States of America.

Referring to the people who are being held at Guantanamo and showing his complete lack of understanding of human rights, McCain said, “These are people who are not citizens. They do not and never have been given the rights that citizens in this country have”.

So John McCain believes our rights are given to us by the government! Back to Constitution 101; the US government has not given us any rights. Our rights are not even granted to us by the Constitution; our rights are pre-existing (all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights). The Constitution puts limitations on the government’s ability to infringe our rights. It is intended to protect our inalienable (meaning not-granted nor conditional) rights from government abuse. Read the Bill of Rights and you will notice that they are stated in the negative. “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” Notice that it does not say “The people shall have the right to free speech.” The Constitution does not grant us rights, it limits the government’s power to take rights away. It is appalling that someone running for president does not grasp the distinction. But maybe that is to be expected, after all, like Bush, McCain was a legacy student; he got a pass through the Naval Academy (graduated 895th out of 899) because his father and grandfather were both Navy Admirals.