Equal Protection Under the Law?
A fundamental principle of American Constitutional liberty is a citizen's right of equal protection under the law-no matter your social or economic status, no matter what crime you are accused of, and no matter where you happen to live.
It is a clause in the Fourteenth Amendment and goes hand-in-hand with the due process guarantees of the Firth Amendment.
Americans regularly trot out our commitment to equality by claiming that we enjoy the greatest freedom and equality to be found anywhere in the world.
This stance is often buttressed with the lofty statement: "In America, anyone can become president.
" And nearly every citizen agrees we are living in the greatest country until an event occurs that appears to invalidate that lofty premise-such as the need to kill one our "enemies" who inconveniently happens to be a citizen.
Back in September of 2011, an American-born citizen, Anwar Al Awlaki, was assassinated in faraway Yemen by an American pilotless drone.
Many cheered but a few citizens were tepidly concerned.
In the cold sober light of dawn, Americans seem unconcerned that Awlaki was deprived of his Constitutional right of due process.
Do Americans actually believe that the president has the authority to deprive a citizen of his protections under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments? Is the order to kill any citizen the president deems worthy really what the Founders intended? The buzz over that particular action has died down but the assumption and concentration of power in the executive branch continues to increase.
The slide down the slippery slope of civil rights erosion, begun by the Bush/Chaney administration, has accelerated and we may never be able to reverse this course.
Power, once granted, either by acclamation or tacit approval, has proven nearly impossible to revoke.
There is another side to equal protection that is never mentioned, and it applies to those who are not prosecuted.
Selective enforcement of laws is certainly a form of unequal treatment.
As an example, those lesser lights prosecuted in the Wall Street fraud scandal were not treated equally with those in the upper echelons who were not.
Guilty or not, those who are selectively prosecuted are not being treated the same.
I failed to see the equality when the Feds went after Martha Stewart for insider trading, while members of Congress regularly do the same with impunity.
Of Course they actually got her on a technicality (lying to Federal Agents), who are also immunized against prosecution for lying to suspects.
If lying is forbidden for suspects it should be equally forbidden for law enforcement.
Martha went to jail and the bankers, who managed large scale fraud that robbed people of their homes and pensions, got bonuses.
In another egregious example of unequal treatment, the president has unilaterally decided that we should forget about any war crimes committed by members of the previous administration.
Yet, Bradley Manning is being prosecuted to the full extent of the law for treason.
He didn't lie us into a war that caused thousands of innocents to die.
He only helped disclose the lies.
Equal treatment? I don't think so.
Where is it written that the Justice Department or government official may choose which of the law-breakers are to be prosecuted? Failure to speak out against such gross injustices gives tacit approval to such policies and insures repetition.
It is a clause in the Fourteenth Amendment and goes hand-in-hand with the due process guarantees of the Firth Amendment.
Americans regularly trot out our commitment to equality by claiming that we enjoy the greatest freedom and equality to be found anywhere in the world.
This stance is often buttressed with the lofty statement: "In America, anyone can become president.
" And nearly every citizen agrees we are living in the greatest country until an event occurs that appears to invalidate that lofty premise-such as the need to kill one our "enemies" who inconveniently happens to be a citizen.
Back in September of 2011, an American-born citizen, Anwar Al Awlaki, was assassinated in faraway Yemen by an American pilotless drone.
Many cheered but a few citizens were tepidly concerned.
In the cold sober light of dawn, Americans seem unconcerned that Awlaki was deprived of his Constitutional right of due process.
Do Americans actually believe that the president has the authority to deprive a citizen of his protections under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments? Is the order to kill any citizen the president deems worthy really what the Founders intended? The buzz over that particular action has died down but the assumption and concentration of power in the executive branch continues to increase.
The slide down the slippery slope of civil rights erosion, begun by the Bush/Chaney administration, has accelerated and we may never be able to reverse this course.
Power, once granted, either by acclamation or tacit approval, has proven nearly impossible to revoke.
There is another side to equal protection that is never mentioned, and it applies to those who are not prosecuted.
Selective enforcement of laws is certainly a form of unequal treatment.
As an example, those lesser lights prosecuted in the Wall Street fraud scandal were not treated equally with those in the upper echelons who were not.
Guilty or not, those who are selectively prosecuted are not being treated the same.
I failed to see the equality when the Feds went after Martha Stewart for insider trading, while members of Congress regularly do the same with impunity.
Of Course they actually got her on a technicality (lying to Federal Agents), who are also immunized against prosecution for lying to suspects.
If lying is forbidden for suspects it should be equally forbidden for law enforcement.
Martha went to jail and the bankers, who managed large scale fraud that robbed people of their homes and pensions, got bonuses.
In another egregious example of unequal treatment, the president has unilaterally decided that we should forget about any war crimes committed by members of the previous administration.
Yet, Bradley Manning is being prosecuted to the full extent of the law for treason.
He didn't lie us into a war that caused thousands of innocents to die.
He only helped disclose the lies.
Equal treatment? I don't think so.
Where is it written that the Justice Department or government official may choose which of the law-breakers are to be prosecuted? Failure to speak out against such gross injustices gives tacit approval to such policies and insures repetition.
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