Thursday, September 18, 2008

Happy Belated Constitution Day!

Since I only started this blog today, I clearly have some catching up to do. The Constitution (including my favorite section, the Bill of Rights) is the single most important document in our nation's history. It is the foundation of our entire government and our national heritage. It is, however, trounced and disregarded daily in the name of protecting us from whatever the day's bogey-man happens to be. From elementary school onwards, we are indoctrinated into the belief that America is “the land of the free” and that the Bill of Rights is paramount in securing our liberty. The war on drugs, however, represents one of the greatest threats to this American ideal to date: chilling freedom of speech, rendering our right to be secure in our homes and free from unreasonable searches and seizures moot, depriving us of due process, preventing us from confronting our accusers through a system of secret informants, imposing cruel, disproportionate punishments, and completely stripping the Ninth and Tenth amendments of any semblance of meaning.

For more information check out the great post on the ACLU's website: http://blog.aclu.org/2008/09/17/this-is-your-bill-of-rightson-drugs/

As an aspiring attorney, currently applying to law school (more on that later), I can only hope that one day I'll be lucky enough to work for the ACLU, safeguarding our vaunted civil liberties from the government sworn to protect them.

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