Afraid of the wrong thing

"We have lived as if in a trance. We have lived as people in fear. And now, our rights and our freedoms in peril, we slowly awaken to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing." For more on why Olberman is so exercised, here's a link to another video: a discussion with a professor of US constitutional law on the profound implications of the President's signing the Military Commissions Act into law. The most alarming thing in the latter video is the accurate read on America's collective yawn about its freedoms being signed away. As covered in this space previously, the passage of such laws is only made possible by Congress's assumption that the Supreme Court will eventually strike them down as unconstitutional. (Congress can pass laws that win political points unworried by their negative consequences if they have faith that the courts will invalidate them. This allows Congress to pander, while leaving the hard work of defending freedom to the judiciary. It's lazy and it's dangerous, as detailed in this article, "Pass the Buck", co-authored by my beloved Dahlia. It also violates elected officials' oath to protect and uphold the constitution. ..