Tag: rights

American in exile with no due process

Imagine taking a vacation to some exotic place, perhaps even going to school abroad for a few months, and then being told that you can’t go home.  The New York Times reports that such is the tragic situation of Yahya Wehelie, a young American who went to Yemen to study, at the insistence of his parents.  He found himself on the No Fly List, for reasons we don’t know, and given no reasonable way to get home to Virginia.

Here we see the juxtaposition of many principles:

  • The government responsibility to protect Americans on the ground and in the air from terrorism;
  • The individual’s freedom to travel;
  • Government responsibility to enforce trade other policies, such as that of importation of prohibited goods; and
  • An individual’s right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

Americans have the fewest rights when flying back to the United States.  You can expect to be searched, probed, and prodded.  You don’t have the right to carry a bottle of water into an airport, and you can expect substantial inconvenience, especially if you are disabled, when traveling.  You can expect your laptop to be confiscated.

The situation is changing, however.  A recent decision by a federal judge limits rummaging through laptops of American citizens.  Another decision is clearly needed: Americans deserve the right to face their accusers, to hear allegations, and to be able to respond to those charges so that they can receive justice.  The basic premise of an airport search is to address threats that are not amenable to taking the time to have such a hearing.  Several weeks should be more than plenty of time for a case to be heard by a competent judge.  Having some random person stick your name on a list is what one should expect of  Nineteen Eight-Four and Brazil, and of America.

What would you do if it were your son trying to get home?

Happy Independence Day!

fireworksHappy Fourth of July!  232 years ago, descendants of peopel seeking religious freedom declared that they would not be subjugated from afar by a tyrant and his parliament.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Since then nearly every government in the world has recognized the basic right to have a say in how one is governed, excepting of course Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, North Korea, China, Russia, and the United States.  Even as he wrote those words, Jefferson held slaves on his property.  It would take another eighty-nine years for black people to be free, and another 92 years for their children to go to the same schools as white people, and another 51 years for them to have the first black national candidate for president on one of the major party tickets.

Put another way, Jefferson lied.  He did not hold those truths to be self-evident.  People had to fight for them every step of the way, starting with patriots in the American revolution, continuing for the rights of black people during the Civil War.  When we do not stand up for their rights of others, we lose our ability to defend our own rights.  The examples are shameful.  In Germany, nobody stood for others’ rights and the result was a world war and a holocaust that afflicted all of Europe, while back in America we once again jailed our fellow Americans because of the color of their skin.

Now in America we see another group once again fighting for their rights.  That a person is gay does not offend my rights as an individual.  Even were I to find homosexuality offensive in some way (which I do not), we as Americans have the right to offend.  And we do it as early and as often as we can.  Only heaven help the person who does it to us.  The tyranny of the majority part of human nature, and requires each of us to check ourselves about our beliefs.  And so, when Californians go to the polls in November, they will have a choice: indulge their bigotries and impose their will on a minority of people who merely want to the same treatment as others, or stand up for a group who has always held fast that they too are Americans and can and should do their part as patriots.

The tyranny of the majority doesn’t stop at race or sexual orientation, but is rooted in America in religion.  George W. Bush is President of the United States in large part because he galvanized a group of people who wished to impose their religious values on all of us, and he and they have been remarkably successful.  The Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, an organization that gives money to churches, has been held to be constitutional, while school vouchers have stripped away disparately needed money from improving public education.  It is not Muslims who need to fear for their rights, but those of us who want nothing at all to do with religion.  Can you imagine a presidential candidate, never mind a president, who did not end every speech with “God Bless America”?  Our founders saw this fear and clearly placed freedom of religion in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

Today is not also the anniversary of our founding, but also the 182nd anniversary of the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.  Those who believe that partisanship is an invention of the late 20th century should take the time to read John Adams, by David McCullough, in which he describes the bitter battle between then opponents in 1800.  That particular bit of rivalry led to the historic decision of Marbury v. Madison in 1803.  Our rivalries are as the framers intended, meant to spur good government.  Whether that goal is met today is an open and fair question.