The most prized heirloom in the garden of American values is not an individual right such as freedom of speech or that to bear arms. That honor belongs to the independent legal system which defends such rights. To this end, the courts use their power to uphold the personal dignity of all, to allow fair trials to be experienced by all, and to ensure due process for all. When the court recognizes government action as toxic to the people, such an action is forced to wither on the vine. In The Federalist Paper Number 78, Alexander Hamilton writes of such power—“Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.”

With the passage of the Military Commission Bill of 2006, these deeply-seated concepts, central to the foundation of constitutional law, have been uprooted and mulched by Congress.

The effects of the bill should be immediately repellent to all Americans. The bill gives the president the authority to jail nearly anyone, including American citizens, without a judgment of guilt or innocence. It removes the right of habeas corpus, meaning that such people may not challenge their detention as illegal. The bill allows for secret evidence to be used against such people in court. It prevents the courts from hearing challenges to the legality of any of these measures.

Most repulsive of all is that this bill legalizes what would be considered torture under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, it states that the president, not the courts, may make the authoritative interpretation of Geneva. Anyone who claims to have been tortured may not exercise the rights Geneva grants.

In short, the bill gives the president the sole authority to determine whether or not someone is a terrorist, to define torture, and to deny nearly any and all attempts to challenge his authority in court. Hamilton and the other Founding Fathers would be infuriated.

Blame does not lie only with the president, who requested such power, but also with the Congress that saw fit to pluck our freedoms from where they have grown for over two hundred years. Rather than serving as a powerful check on the executive branch, the legislature has served as only a rubber stamp for presidential policies. Rather than defend due process in the name of American values, it has authorized torture in the name of re-election.

The American people must also take some responsibility for the actions of its government, as a democracy cannot survive without constant watering by its members. At any time, we might have clearly proclaimed that such practices were offensive to the national character. While those who did speak out must carry the shame of not having done so loudly enough, the brunt of the responsibility falls upon those Americans who relinquished active vigilance for the lazy comfort of absolute faith in our elected leaders, those to whom the concepts of liberty were viewed to be farther than the farthest star to their comfortable daily lives, and those who resigned themselves to silence in a nation that exalts speech. In some small way, each and every one of us is party to this outrage upon our national dignity. However, there is still a chance we might redeem ourselves.

All Americans who care about their country’s most important ideals must vote against the majority in Congress this November, regardless of one’s own political affiliation. Even if your views are so disparate so as to prevent you from being able to vote for the opposition party, vote for a third party at the very least.

To vote for a party that seeks to undermine the very basis of constitutional law deserves not praise for being politically active, but scorn for being politically irresponsible; not admiration for being ideologically loyal, but derision for treachery towards the nation’s greatest virtues; not celebration for staying the course, but condemnation for ensuring that we abandon the path of justice.

We must vote for change in November if we are truly to be the cultivators of the American way of life. If we do not, the garden we have toiled so hard to establish will be choked with the weeds of tyranny before long.

Austin Randazzo