by Andrew M. Greeley
November 25, 2001
This essay priginally appeared in the Daily Southtown (Chicago)
It is ironic that on this weekend when we offer thanks for all the blessings our country has received, there is a whiff of fascism American style in the air.
The precious freedoms in which the Pilgrims came in search of and which the founding fathers confirmed are under systematic assault from hard-right Republicans who apparently are ready to use the present crisis as a pretext for abrogating freedoms that they've never really liked.
The right of habeas corpus has been suspended, lawyer-client immunity has been suspended, the right to a speedy trial has been suspended, the right to trial by jury has been suspended. The right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure has been suspended. The right of access to presidential papers has been revoked.
More than 1,000 people are in jail without being identified or charged or indicted by grand juries. The government eavesdrops on lawyer-client conversations. Military tribunals will try captured persons suspected of terrorism (as a prelude to their certain execution). Five thousand legal immigrants are being rounded up for "voluntary" questioning by the FBI.
President Bush, unlike most of his recent predecessors who have been only too eager to make their papers available to historians, wants to tie his up in red tape.
There are three defenses offered for these violations of our heritage:
Previous presidents have taken similar extra-constitutional steps.
They are necessary to protect us from terrorists.
Only aliens are subject to most of the violations of the Constitution.
No one would deny that previous presidents, including some very great ones, played fast and loose with the Constitution. However, those who point to Lincoln's military tribunals fail to report that most of the convictions (which on the record were patently unfair) were later reversed or pardoned.
The issue, however, is not whether other presidents violated the Constitution; the issue is rather whether they ought to have. No one argues seriously today that Franklin Roosevelt did the proper thing when he herded Japanese Americans into concentration camps.
No evidence has been adduced to show that these draconian measures will make us one bit safer from terrorists. We are told that we must trust that our leaders know what they're doing. Yet one must wonder if such measures are not a way to cover up for the failure of the FBI to prevent the terrorist attacks, to collect enough evidence to indict those who worked with the terrorists, to apprehend other potential terrorists, or to figure out who is sending anthrax through the United States mail. The arguments against jury trial for arrested terrorists is that they have come into this country to kill Americans and are not entitled to the rights of American citizens. In other words, they are guilty till proven innocent.
Finally, it is all right to suspend the Constitution, we are told, because the immediate targets are foreigners. Indeed, it is all right to "profile" 5,000 young men from mostly Islamic countries for FBI interviews because they are not citizens. When the liberties of foreigners are threatened, it is implied, the liberties of the rest of us are not put in jeopardy. Only a fool would believe that. The people in charge just now would not hesitate a second to go after American citizens if they thought it were a good idea. Witness presidential adviser Condoleezza Rice's successful effort to censor CNN from presenting interviews with bin Laden.
Even more fundamentally, however, it is simply wrong to assume that the Constitution creates rights for American citizens that need not apply to foreigners. There are, as the Declaration says, certain inalienable rights with which the creator has endowed us, rights that are inherent in the nature of human nature. The Constitution does not create these rights. It merely confirms and validates them.
I suspect that most people, whipped into a frenzy of fear and anger by the media, don't care that, when we violate the right of a young Arab against whom there is no suspicion, save that he is young and Arabian, we endanger the rights of everyone.
When good does evil in its fight against evil, it becomes indistinguishable from that evil.
The closet fascists among us, however well-intentioned they may be, are far more serious threats to us than the followers of bin Laden. They would, given half a chance, destroy the American soul.
Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, author and sociologist. He teaches at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. His column on political, church and social issues appears each Sunday in the Daily Southtown. Father Greeley's e-mail address is Agreel@aol.com and his home page, which includes homilies for every Sunday, is www.agreeley.com.
[posted 1/14/02]
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