Justice Should be Blind, but not Deaf!

Mohammed Yousr was recently convicted of conspiracy to support terrorism. The problem is, even the FBI, who spent three years investigating this mild mannered and loyal American citizen found that "Yousr is not a practicing Muslim. He is not a fundamentalist," and that there was no evidence that he ever had any relation to any acts of terrorism, real or imagined. So, why was he convicted? Because other American citizens were so "terrified" of terrorism, that they would convict anyone of anything, as long as a government prosecutor said it was true. They were the cowards; the worst kind of cowards, because they still hide behind the very law that others have been dying for more than two centuries to protect. If they are representative of Americans (and I both do not believe and serious pray that they are not), then the terrorists have already won.

In 1776, our founding fathers pledged [their] "lives, [their] fortunes, and [their] sacred honor" to fight just the kind of governmental tyranny that now seems to pervade our society. If you disagree with the government, you must be with the enemy. Well, as the comic strip, "Pogo" once quipped, "we have met the enemy and he is us!" Juror 39 even came forward and stated that she was coerced into voting guilty by her fellow jurors, who were, themselves, terrified. Even that revelation, though, did not force the judge to declare a mistrial and allow Mr. Yousr to be tried again in a more neutral court.

If this is the road we are taking, then we are seeing the beginning of the end of the United States as a bastion of personal freedom and democracy. I am not so disheartened, however. During World War II, Americans were so scared of the Japanese threat that they allowed thousands of loyal American citizens, many born right here in the United States, to be rounded up and herded into our version of concentration camps. When challenged, the United States Supreme Court found the action to be constitutional. That, and Yousr's conviction, are shameful episodes in our history, but ones I believe to be aberrations. I firmly believe that most Americans are kind and just, and still willing to fight for what is best about our country.

To this end, I once more ask my fellow Americans to stand with me and pledge "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor," to defending liberty and justice against tyranny, fear and repression. As Benjamin Franklin said to his fellow delegates to the Continental Congress, "we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang separately."