So! How Long before a Lame Duck Congress Outlaws the Constitution?

Let's be clear in our understanding. I love the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights every bit as deeply as Southern Babtists love John 3:16. No matter how the old document gets batter'd by the Church of Latter Day Greed, "We the People of the United States" have not only the right, but the obligation to hold every public official representing us to their own solemn pledge to uphold that old document, the bedrock of our country.

The recent, much bally-hooed "rebellion" of a few Republicans in Congress has been just another simple exercise in distraction. Not only is there no ambiguity to the Geneva Conventions, there is absolutely NO QUESTION that coercion, torture, kidnapping, and denial of due process are ILLEGAL actions that have been undertaken by officials of the United States of America, under direct orders of the Bush Administration, against American citizens and other humans abroad.

And now they are talking about classifying people as "illegal noncombatants". Ain't that neat? What constitutes a LEGAL non-combatant in Kool-Aid Land? We live in a country where my college-educated fiftysomething cousin couldn't give me a better explaintion for outlawing gay marriage than "well, it's probably going to cost the rest of us something". And she volunteers at the Clinton Library in Little Rock.

A good woman, my cousin...she was more than able to hear me say it's not right to deny somebody access to their partner when they are hospitalized, especially if they are terminal. Any more than it would be right to keep a loved one of opposite sex away from a person -- and it does happen. My good cousin, who has grandkids of her own and not all the product of marriage, said she never thought of it that way...

Legislators, state and federal, have passed laws that are unconstitutional. And we have always had the judiciary branch, in its sole reason for existing, counter foolish sentiment that violates the ultimate law of the United States, that old document called the Constitution.

The "compromise" working it's way through Congress? Outlaws every protection guaranteed by the Constitution. They are outlawing a class of people, determined by the executive, of any and every recourse to end an already years long "extraordinary" imprisonment.

And once they do that? Once any American citizen has no rights, any other American can be denied. Illegal noncombatant could, and quickly will morph into illegal indigent. Or illegal agitator. Or illegal illiterate. Or illegal moral degenerate.

I am no product of some imaginary "liberal elite". I got two years of business college, and am a daughter of fairly low middle class folks from a small farming state. I ain't ever that durn smart, despite my gift for gab. But I do understand the concept of fair play, and I do understand MY Constitution...to hell with GOP lawyers who scream for 'tort reform'. And to hell with ANYONE in public office who's sworn not to protect the homeland, but who swore so help me God to uphold the Constitution, and breaks it every day.

It's not about the Geneva Conventions. It's not about protecting Americans. It's not about spreading democracy.

It is about the ultimate deregulation. It's about abolishing the basis of America's very culture and identity, the rule of fair play. It's about killing the Constitution.

I have faith in the Constitution. I have none in men, or women. One explains the other.