Act to Restore Habeas Corpus Fails

The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act failed to pass cloture today. Check out the results here.

Let me clarify this. There was a bill proposed in the United States Senate the other day. The questions asked by the bill were, "Do you, Senators of the United States, support the idea of habeas corpus? If you were arrested, would you rather know the charges against you, or not? Would you rather see the evidence against you, or not? Would you rather jail time be definite and based on evidence, or not? Would you rather we have a constitution, or not?" And, apparently, the answer is no. No, says the United States Senate. No, We the United States Senate do not support HABEAS gosh dang CORPUS! Supporting the right to habeas corpus has become controversial.

A big Fuck You to every senator who voted against this, but the biggest Fuck You to Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. On the Restore Habeas site, Chambliss' vote is listed as a maybe, aka an abstention, and that is just unacceptable. Chambliss seems to think so little about one of the most fundamental possible constitutionally-enumerated rights that, meh, he just didn't show up. I can picture him waking up in the morning. "Honey, get up, time for Congress!" "Awww! What are they voting on today?" "Whether the people's right of habeas corpus will be protected again!" "Aww, whatever, I'm going back to sleep!" Fuck you, Chambliss!

I live in this country for two reasons. Reason the first: my family lives here. This reason is currently obviated by the fact that I could live in Vancouver, Canada and be closer to my home in Los Angeles. Reason the second: I'm intensely proud of our rhetorical tradition of rights and liberties. I'm so happy my political tradition includes people like Paine, Madison, Washington, Thoreau, Douglass, Lincoln, Debs, Martin Luther King Jr, and a host of academics, and I'm so happy how free I am today as a result of them, people like them, and people who are willing to fight for ideals like theirs. If that reason is obviated, as the current trend seems to indicate might happen, there'd be no point in me sticking around, and I feel really sad about that.