he goes to prison
we have a vast prison system in America. we fuckin’ love putting people in jail in this country; it’s an easy way for politicians get tough on crime, victimize minorities and abuse the criminal justice system to gain votes. but no one wants to take on two hundred assholes that we have failed to even charge. there’s too much legal limbo! no one can decide which court to try them in! it’s too fucking confusing, no one can figure it out!
a friend pointed out to me that it’s a good thing that closing Guantanamo isn’t exactly going smoothly – the Obama administration has been offering up a lot of massive proposals and very few details (think of the restructuring of the domestic auto industry), she is right. it’s good that there will be further public debate.
with that acknowledgement, I will rashly say: anyone who tells you that they don’t want terrorists housed in the United States because of security concerns is … ill-informed. to mince words. Terra Haute hasn’t burned to the ground because of its federal penitentiary. and no one even knows where Florence, Colorado is.
here. bring them to Virginia. they can stay with me. I won’t bat an eye.
come out swinging
but this debate, which has been driven largely by those on the right in an attempt to make the Obama administration look soft on national policy, is growing into something of an image of our times. I mean, really, his political advisors dropped the ball on this, this public faceoff with Dick Cheney. this shouldn’t be happening, they shouldn’t have even let it get to this point.
but goddamn, did he look good doing it. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point it became more than just politics. at some point, it stopped being about public relations and making the other asshole look bad, and it became about conviction. I’m watching this play out, and I see two choices: do I like being told I’m kept safe at night? or do I like my chances in an open society? and that’s not a choice at all.
