Absence of Humanity

An Absence of Humanity

...in the search for continuing trust in our system of justice.

By Roy D. Follendore III

September 18, 2006

It has been as though our ship of state has somehow foundered and lost itself within a fog of enthusiastic nationalistic pride. We are its mortal sailors who have somehow misjudged the shoals. We must now search our charts for that singular solitary beam of light so that we can judge our position and allow us to safely reach the distant shore. I am of course speaking metaphorically but I am also speaking about the importance of our social system that respects and gives trust to our open and public judicial system. I believe that no other issue is as important to our national welfare so from this point I shall speak more plainly.

There are a basic set of laws which have been set forth by our ancestors as Americans we came to have these these rules of law honestly, through the trial and error, pain and suffering of past errors in judgment. The sins of the multitudes of citizens who have come before us has allowed our society to continually improve upon itself. The United States of America began as a vast experiment that was specifically designed around certain ideals which could only be allowed to be expressed within a free and open society. The freedom that all Americans are allowed today exists because of the importance that our forefathers placed on free speech and our ability to maintain debate within the ordered public spectacle of a legal court system. To bypass this most basic requirement of what it means to be an American is to do tremendous harm to the most fundamental values of our nation. We are all in the debt of our freedom and there can be no greater or more important conservative or liberal test that validates its citizens than the importance of trust that is placed on the rule of law.

911 changed nothing except the fact that it made the lack of trust seem even more problematic. Now that we all live in difficult and trying times that we are fighting far more than acts of terrorism. Like the majority of Americans, I too fear for the future of our country because I can see that there are traits that America shares with our enemies and I can see that many of our enemies to be feared most do exist within the walls of our society. I can and do believe in America; but the America that I believe in, and that most Americans believe in, simply does not allow Generals or the Politicians that they serve to dictate the terms of what it means to have a democracy. The America that I believe in protects the rights of its citizens to know, because in doing so it is protecting its right to elect those in whom they can give their trust.

What are the messages of a supposedly free society, where the scope of secret prisons in other countries have been created and maintained by our own government so that tens of thousands of prisoners could be kept from justice? We have been down this road before? The answer is of course yes. America is a population made up of immigrants who have fled from injustice. We too have seen this with the American Indians, the Irish, the blacks, the coal miners, the Japanese Americans placed in internment camps. There have always been secret prisons that bid for the good will of the rich and powerful. The argument that the detainment of each and every one of the prisoners in these prisons was justified becomes incomprehensible in the face of the fact that evidence against them is not allowed to come to light. Where can a semblance of law and order hide in a system where notions of justice exists not only beneath a blind fold but also gagged, bound and tortured within some unknown dark chamber? The openness of public opinion is an absolute requirement of justice, not a impediment to it. We must never forget that by being open and fair, justice makes us, and has kept us free.

At some point it will become necessary to judge those who have created both the climate as well as the means by which the secret prisons were created, maintained and managed. Those officials at the top will of course hide behind their well meaning oath of office. But when that moment happens, those who have participated should be given the public scrutiny of the courts that they would refuse their prisoners. The light that could not come into the cells of their prisoners should shine into the careers of the bureaucrats and politicians who have used national security to wield unscrupulous, unlawful and inhuman power. It is vital to the security of our nation that the details as to both why and how our bodies of government has failed for regardless of the best of misguided intentions by some, there can no way for our nation to hide our systemic failure of vigilance. The specter of another perhaps larger and potentially more disastrous terrorist attack can not and should not deter us from the far more devastating dangers that can only come from a cancerous erosion of our system of checks and balances.

Like pre Katrina, New Orleans, it is past time to shore up the levies that check and balance the potential dark waters that surround us. The system of Government that the citizens of this nation have not agreed to has refused to acknowledge their inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. In the absence of humanity we must depend upon the province of trust which our ship of state may only regain if we are willing and able to view evidence against those who would do us harm. This includes those enemies who are both foreign and domestic. Somewhere in this fog of politicians and secret administrators there is a light that will guide our original American cause.

.