Black and White

Black and White.
We are in a time of black and white. We have been in this place before. Sadly, it is not new. In the recent past one could either “love it or leave it” or they were a “good boy or an ‘outside’ agitator.” Surely if you were “one of US” you would have ALL of our beliefs. If you don’t believe in SOME of the same things you must be against ALL of OUR beliefs and you are trying to tear US down. Welcome back to the 1960’s. Actually, we may have never actually left the 60’s. After all, one of the biggest issues in the last presidential campaign wasn’t what our country’s future will be but what each candidate did or did not do in the Viet Nam era. Were you a protester? Were you a “loyal patriot?” Where EXACTLY were you in the 60’s. That question implies that where one stood on those issues tells US all we need to know.

This debate has not matured with age. We are still either “Hippies” or “Hardhats”, Liberals or Conservatives, For US or Against US. Just who is US is always a matter of what hackneyed label you want to paste over the subtleties of the opinions of the “other side”. In the final analysis, the black and white labels have been wrong for five decades or more, and counting. Being in the majority opinion has justified coarse treatment for the minority. The reactions from the minority de jour to rough treatment caused the next shrill reactionary response, guaranteeing escalation and retaliation.

The minority at the moment seems to be anyone interested in having some shred of the Constitution left once the current terrorist threats fade from the headlines. Recently, on C-SPAN, there was a lawyer defending the need for due process for the detainees at Guantanamo. Instantly the lawyer was set upon by a series of callers, who brandishing their 60's era label makers, were clicking madly and pasting labels anywhere there was open flesh upon which to stick them. Caller after C-SPAN caller responded with vilification of the lawyer's intentions and with personal attacks upon his integrity and veracity. One caller asked that the lawyer “reveal who he really was – an ultra-liberal Democrat who was out to bash Bush and let terrorists kill more Americans.” In the end this is how the math added up for most of the callers; due process justice for folks in Guantanamo = you want to let terrorists kill more of us. If you want due process – YOU are the enemy. This lawyer wasn’t some long haired William Kunstler defending the bratty Chicago Seven defendants. He was reasoned, restrained, respectful individual who listened to the callers and tried to explain that his logic and intent was not to “topple Bush." He was trying to communicate that all he sought was “due process” for the defendants. In other words he was not saying "free my innocent brothers." His only message was that they should be, in apparently soon to be forgotten words, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. In today’s discussion he was just “aiding the enemy.”

We are in a very dangerous place indeed if we are all susceptible to guilt without evidence or civil justice. The message seems to be that these detainees were arrested so they MUST actually BE guilty of being enemies of the country. Why because the government said so. Did they say so in a court of law? Did they say so with evidence presented to a judge? Well no, why do you ask? The government said they were helping terrorists so therefore we need to lock them away. Well won’t that be convenient the next time anyone gets in the way of government policy. It doesn’t matter what they were actually doing, we won’t have to prove that any more. All we will have to do as government officials is SAY that they are doing something that threatens and we can just go round up the “bad guys”. So, chose up. Are you with US or against US? This begs the question, just when might YOU be considered a "bad guy" and how will YOU then defend yourself without the Constitution to protect you?

What's needed seems to be an immediate abandonment of the idea that there is ONLY black and white. The world is a kaleidoscope of color with myriad shades of gray including both black AND white. Our mutual rights are grounded in the concept of recognizing and respecting the guarantees in the process of justice. Without mutual respect we will US and THEM our way out of a civil society based on the rule of law to a Wild-West vigilante state. Tolerance, reason and the rule of law will turn many of our “enemies” into “fellow citizens” with a different point of view.