Civil Liberties

Ideas on Iraq and civil rights at home
Last night at dinner with the in-laws (my boyfriend's mother's 50th birthday dinner, actually) we all got onto the debate of Iraq, and America's actions and attitudes. Great conversation ensured. As a family, we never talked like that. No one ever really had an opinion at the dinner table; we sat, we ate, we got up, we went our separate ways. Dinner was just a functional thing, not an intellectual thing.

Which is why I love dinner with the in-laws.

So last night it was his dad saying (about his brother and myself) that we're just America haters, we'd hate anything America chooses to do, we could find fault with anything they'd do. It's not that, although America does give us plenty of material to whinge about.

I believe the crux of what we were arguing about, was civil liberties. I'm a great believer in the analogy that countries are people, with all the associated issues. We, as individuals, have a right to privacy. We have a right to access to a lawyer when accused of a crime. And the police can't come into our house (at least in Australia) without first obtaining a search warrant from a magistrate. And there has to be a good explanation given by the police to the magistrate to get that warrant.

Lets take my countries = people analogy. US = police. Iraq = citizen. UN = magistrate. In this instance, the UN did give the warrant, infact they helped look. But they didn't find anything. The police, without any evidence, ignored the advice of the magistrate, and barged into the house, not only violating the civil liberties of the residents, but also trying to assasinate the head of the house, and then change the way the house runs.

Obviously there are differences, but it's basically the same thing. Iraq was judged guilty by the people who don't have the right to judge them guilty. We have the UN for that. But now with the US doing what they damn well please, it's much the same as a crime syndicate doing what it wants because the police are powerless to stop them. And who wants to piss off crime sydicates? No one.

Now, I'm mostly being a devil's advocate here. I believe that yes, there probably were WMD in Iraq, and that Saddam Hussein is a bad person, used murder to get his own way, maltreated his people, etc etc. And yes, I think Iraq probably would be a nicer place with a democracy.

But we have international laws for a reason. For the same reason it's illegal for the police to enter your house without a warrant. Sometimes the criminals will get away with the crime. Sometimes they'll get away with murder. But the second we take away the common person's right to privacy, and security within their own home, and give that right to the police to enter their home, then we're living in a police state.

Heck, I'd much rather a magistrate made the decision to ransack my house looking for evidence, rather than the average policeman. The average policeman isn't interested in justice, he's interested in answers for the mysteries he's trying to solve. We have magistrates who are appointed to keep our civil liberties.

Here's another analogy, which we also discussed last night.

A common storyline on cop shows and legal shows is the plot where the cops have obtained evidence illegally. We the viewer know the accused is guilty, the cops know it, the judge knows it, even the jury knows it. But because the evidence was obtained illegally, it's inadmissable, and the accused gets away with murder. The average person screams "injust!" and I don't blame them. It pisses me off, too. But as my bf's brother said last night, he'd rather 12 criminals go unpunished, than 1 innocent person incarcerated. Or even executed, in some states of America. And I agree. We have to maintain our civil liberties.

My bf's father lives in a reasonably affluent suburb, and has a good job, two educated healthy sons, and a loving wife. He doesn't do anything wrong. He'll never break the law, and chances are, he'll never be accused of something he hasn't done. He can't *know* what it's like to be falsely accused of something. He'll never live in a country where his way of life is threatened. Iraqi's have a way of life too, and we're threatening it. I asked him "so if Iraq moved into Australia, forced you to worship Allah, pray 5 times a day, cover your wife from head to toe, not eat meat, how would you feel?" He said "if I lived under a government that has been guilty of genocide, and the new regime promised to do things fairly, I'd be standing at the wharves, waving them in, welcoming their way of life." Besides thinking that's bullshit, I then pointed out that the Australian government *had* been guilty of genocide with the Australian Aboriginals, and he went rather quiet at that point. Still, I think it's remarkably easy for him to make those kind of value calls from the safety of his dining table, knowing that Australia is "friends" with the biggest bully in the school yard with the biggest fists.

The US judged Iraq without due process, and found them guilty, having ignored the independant arbiter in the process. To me, that's illegal. And we lose a culture along with it. The middle east has supported life (whether or not we personally agree with that way of life) for thousands of years. America is a baby, compared to them, what gives the US the right to march in and shove a democracy down their throat? Japan had functioned for over 500 years without a civil war, before America decided it needed to industrialise them. America started with a religious argument, then commited genocide with the American Indians, had a civil war to get it's own independance, and now is taking away the independance of a different country, under the guise of "giving them their independance".

Is anyone else worried that America has troops in many many MANY countries throughout the world now? If you think "no", ask yourself would you be worried if they were all German troops stationed all throughout the world, and Germany had access to so many weapons of mass destruction. I think you'd sleep a little less easy.

I see the US like a tv evangelist. They think they're right. They think they have the only solution. They think everyone would benefit from seeing things their way. People who think differently are going to hell. Their life's mission is to convert everyone to their way of thinking, and they can't fathom how someone might like to live a little differently.

Personally, I don't agree with Saddam Hussein's politics, and murder doesn't sit right with me. Neither do nuclear weapons of any sort. But what sits even less right with me, is blindly treating everyone that doesn't think the same as you, as a criminal that needs to be "fixed".

Australia is one of the most diverse countries in the world, we are made up of so many different cultures. Unfortunately my bf's father doesn't see that as a good thing. I think we should embrace diversity, and enjoy our differences, and see everyone as equal. And admitting that even if you don't understand someone, a culture, a race, a country, you accept them anyway. We're all equal!