The Decline of the American Republic

I drove north today to have some mool naeng myoon, and on the drive back home I heard this week's episode of This American Life, called Habeas Schmabeas (Here's the Real Audio link).

It is despicable that the Bush Administration has ordered the military to hold prisoners of it's War on Terror, to interrogate them, and to coerce them into confession in a complete absence of the Geneva Conventions or habeas corpus. If that is what America has become, then America has become repugnant.

Rhetoric often tells us "America, love it or leave it." But I suggest that America, lovable, inspired America, has already left us. We are left, then, with a steaming pile of crap where the 1st Article of the Constitution does not apply.

Right now, people are fighting and dying, ostensibly to protect our freedoms. Ironic.