When persons aren't persons - but corporations are

Set aside for a moment what prompted this case (as hard as this may be).

The United States is supposed to be a nation of laws. As long as a law is constitutional and doesn't violate any inalienable precepts, that is the law we must follow. The government must follow it as well.

Even if a Guantanamo Bay detainee claims the law is being violated, you have to weigh this claim according to what the law says. A detainee could be accused of a million terrorist attacks - but the government still has to follow the law. Emotion cannot be a bar against applying a law that was duly enacted.

Nor can some activist ruling. Yet it happens anyway.

An appeals court for the Washington, D.C., circuit declared on Friday that Gitmo detainees aren't actually "persons" - so they can't seek protection of a law that covers "persons."

I know we're talking about terrorist suspects in this case, but we all have to be worried because it's such a slippery slope. How much of a slippery slope? Imagine what Clyde Street (one of the steepest streets in Cincinnati) would be like if coated with Oil of Olay. That's how steep and slick this slippery slope is.

Some laws about "persons" are designed to apply specifically to those who are being detained. So if you say detainees aren't "persons", these laws are gutted.

This ruling has serious implications for concepts like habeas corpus. American citizens who aren't even accused of any crimes are unlawfully detained without fair court hearings on a daily basis. Are they not "persons"? What about their habeas corpus?

Think this doesn't happen? I spent last year engaging in roadside protests against an abusive teen confinement facility near Cincinnati. Are the kids who are held there not "persons"?

Eric Holder has been nearly as inept as the Bush regime in handling Gitmo cases. I guess he's competing with Arne Duncan and Robert Gates in the contest to see who Obama should fire first.

Maddeningly, while you might be considered not a "person" if you are detained for a crime you may be innocent of, corporations are considered "persons." Corporations are given rights that are supposed to be reserved only for living beings. In practice, corporations have more rights than people do.

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Appeals_court_rules_Gitmo_detainees_are_0424.html)