(no subject)

THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ( Read more... )

(no subject)

The Bill of Rights
(The first Ten Amendments to the Constitution.)( Read more... )

I consider Amendment Ten to be the one most often encroached upon, and also the one where encroachments are least often noticed or challenged. It is very easy to say, "well, we're not changing the Constitution," but to then quietly slip past some bit of legislation that grants a bit more power here, a little more there, until you have whittled away at all the rights granted here. Every encroachment, if it is not to bring a huge outcry from the population, has to involve Amendment Ten. "We're not taking this power or right from you. We're just providing this department with the power it needs to..." And it sounds good.

Except. Power is not infinite. Every bit given somewhere means that much taken from somewhere else. In this case, every bit given to the government over and above those granted in the Constitution is taken out of the hands of the population. That's not always a bad thing, not always wrong. But it needs to be an informed decision on the part of the population. It cannot be something that the administration got away with because the people did not know the power was supposed to be theirs.

I guess what I'm saying is know your rights. Make sure the people around you do, too. If you never pass on another bit of knowledge, never discuss anything else politically, these documents should be passed on and discussed. It's not subversive, it's necessary.

(no subject)

Okay, first things first.

I'm not political. It doesn't matter to me who holds what seat or what Office, or which party is in power. I could not care less about the "moral fiber" of any candidate, including what religion they are and who or what they screw in their free time. Label me political and you're missing the point entirely. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a Congressman, Senator, Representative, governor, whatever, could argue that women were only put on this earth to give blow jobs and reproduce, go outside and pour libations to the Man in the Moon, and then wind up with ritual self-mutilation, and I might shake my head,I might be disgusted, but I wouldn't be unduly worried. That's because I may not have faith in the officials, but I *do* have faith in the system of checks and balances. That's the point of the system, after all -- to make sure that the country at large is able to shrug off the oddnesses of any one of the officials, because there's a buffer in place. We're not subject to any one person's whims and wants, or even a few people's, and if something does get past the system in one person's term, well, we could pretty much depend upon the fact that things would almost certainly change in the next person's term.

My objection now isn't that a candidate whom I dislike is in office. It's that the system is being changed to allow one person's or three people's or one group's wants to become instalaw and then reality in everyone else's lives, from warehousing personal information to for godssakes indefinite detention without access to counsel or trial by jury. And that most people haven't really taken notice of the fact that it's happening, because they didn't know the system in the first place. Or worse, that people are accepting the changes as somehow necessary in these times. I've heard my own father say, "well, sometimes you have to take away rights in order to crack down on terrorism," and the thing that frightens me is not that he would say it, because he grew up and spent most of his adulthood under a system that resembles what America is becoming, but that Americans agree with him. The only reason I could find to explain that was that people didn't know what they were supposed to have. When I emigrated, I got a wonderful course on American Government. It was mandatory at Dowdell Jr High at the time, along with US History. By the time I was a senior at Lincoln Park, though, three years later, American Government was an elective -- and most students opted not to take it.

If I promised you ten apples, and I handed you five, or three, or one, you'd argue with me. But what if I promised your grandparents I'd give you ten apples, and they never told you? When I handed you three, and you didn't know you were supposed to have more, you wouldn't argue. You might even think I was generous, letting you have any at all, especially if I first explained with a sad face what troubled times these are, how small the crop was, how many parasites were on the trees this year. That's where we are right now. The administration is telling you how many parasites are attacking the country, and so the crop of liberties and rights is poor this year -- it's bound to be better once we kill ___, you understand, it's just that -- and they are handing you fewer liberties, fewer rights, and you aren't protesting because you do not know what was promised to you back in the days when the agreements were made. Thousands of men and women have put their lives on the line to vouchsafe you these. Before you can truly accept and honour their sacrifice, you really ought to know what, exactly, they were fighting to protect. It wasn't the President, it wasn't a political party. It was the agreements that make the country what it is. I also think it's a really poor return for their efforts if, through ignorance and apathy, you cede the freedoms they didn't let anyone take from you by force into the hands of the administration. It's one thing to decide, intelligently and reasonably, that the administration should have a point of control. It's something else entirely to simply let them take it because you did not know.

So, now you know. And that's really what I wanted to achieve.

remembering.

He waited in the lobby for her for two hours. He called her room three times, nervous when she didn't answer, and made quick trips back to his own room to check his phone there for messages when he discovered we couldn't access voicemail for any of the rooms from our consoles.

Toward the end of the two hours, he sat in a chair in the lobby, glancing at his watch. He'd given up pacing.

And then she showed up. She was at the desk, asking for him, before he noticed her, but when she turned, he was at her elbow.

She's not beautiful. He's not the most handsome man I've ever seen -- his nose is too prominent, she is mousy. The kind who sat at a table by themselves all through school, no doubt. But I saw the look on each of their faces when she turned to see him standing there, when he moved to stand beside her. They never touched each other; he reached out halfway, then stopped. They turned, and walked away, and that was the last I saw of them or will see of them, no doubt.

I'm having trouble forgetting them. I keep seeing the look that passed between them... and remembering what it felt like when I wore it myself.

It feels like forever, tonight.