No More Perfect Union
When I read about the Supreme Court’s decision today regarding our detainees at Guantanamo Bay, my first reaction was not that of anger but of great pride that our civilization is shaped by such institutions. This 5-4 decision is a tribute to our forefathers’ ingenious belief that there must be brakes on any excess of efficiency or even of the coherency of The State. That is to say, our government was designed with a deliberate flaw that compels us to constantly defend against what some ideologues really want: the perfected Union.
That said, I am surprised to learn that a homicidal Muslim of Arab extraction —born in the manure of the dysfunctional Middle East and desiring nothing but martyrdom through jihad— is entitled to the same rights as I am under the Constitution of the United States of America. Liberals and anti-Americans who applaud this decision today ought to be asked whether such an expansion of American rights to non-Americans and unlawful combatants isn’t really just more of the same unconscious imperialism that pervades all their thoughts. That is to ask, if hippies think America’s Constitution belongs to the world, then why don’t they get on board with the rest of what that entails? The Danelaw must be respected —from Baghdad to Islamabad, by God!
