Standing at the edge of a precipice

This editorial in today's New York Times is a must-read.

Rushing Off a Cliff

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush’s shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism....

Here's the rest. As I said above, it's a must-read. Stop what you're doing right now, and follow that link. Read the editorial. Ask yourself how we the people can look the other way while this bill is rushed through Congress.

Our democracy is being taken away from us, folks. Republican, Democrat, Independent -- do you really think it's appropriate that the president -- any president -- should be able to have people locked up for life without trial and not have to justify his actions?

Honestly, is that something you can abide?

The terrorists have won, my fellow citizens. They've won because we're now being ruled by fear. We're setting aside centuries of legal precedent because there are some bad guys out there who wish to do us harm. We're letting slip away the very things that make our country great.

Boy, did FDR get it right: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. It's eroding our democracy from within. It's not the terrorists who are doing this to us, my fellow citizens -- we are doing it to ourselves.