Somehow I did not realize this. He is described as “Russian” or “Chechen.” In fact he is American.
Even though the Framers of the Constitution meant protections provided therein to be applicable to “all persons” it is nevertheless all the more chilling that the most vicious of the anti-American neo-conservatives are calling for him to be denied any protections of the US Constitution under which he became a US citizen:
“Authorities have decided to question Tsarnaev, a naturalized American citizen, without reading him his Miranda rights, which isn’t sitting well with some civil rights advocates. However, a group of Republicans said over the weekend that Tsarnaev shouldn’t even have those rights. In a joint statement on Saturday, Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte, and Rep. Peter King demanded that he be treated as an ‘enemy combatant.’ ‘The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans,’ they wrote, adding that Tsarnaev ‘clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status. We do not want this suspect to remain silent.’”
A “group of Republicans” want to deny an American citizen his Constitutional rights. What a shock!
As Ron Paul has long argued, hundreds of individuals who carry out such heinous acts as these have been successfully tried in the US court system with all the protections therein, have nevertheless been convicted of their crimes, and now serve long prison terms. In one of the presidential debates last year he pointedly and successfully parried an assault on our liberties by warmonger Michelle Bachmann:
BACHMANN: Because terrorists who are from foreign countries who commit acts against US citizens do not have any rights under our Constitution.
PAUL: She turns our rule of law on its head. She says that the terrorists don’t deserve protection under our courts, but, therefore, a judgment has to be made. They’re ruled a terrorist. Who rules them a terrorist? I thought our courts recognized that you had to be tried. And we’ve done this. We’ve brought individuals back from Pakistan and other places. We’ve given them a trial in this country, near 300, we tried and put them in prison. So this idea that we have to reject the rule of law, when you assume somebody is a terrorist, they can be targeted for assassination, even American citizens, that affects all of us eventually. You don’t want to translate our rule of law into mob rule.
“You don’t want to translate our rule of law into mob rule. ”
But oh yes, they do. When it suits them.
On Twitter @DanielLMcAdams
9:14 pm on April 21, 2013
