Ask Auntie Pinko
September 27, 2001

Dear Auntie Pinko,

Why is there so little opposition to the erosion of the Fourth Amendment resulting from the "Drug War"? Is anyone particularly concerned about the proliferation of SWAT commando tactics against the citizenry?

Nelson,
Yakima, WA

Dear Nelson,

We have had an example of this disturbing folly right here Auntie Pinko's peaceful little country town. Our police (they're very nice young men and women, really,) are desperate to do something to prevent drugs from increasing their foothold in our little community. On some ill-considered advice, they staged a SWAT-style raid in a small apartment complex, and-you guessed it-they got the wrong address. It was the classic story of the nice older couple scared witless, their door broken, the whole sad, futile drama.

Have you ever read the famous poem by Pastor Martin Neimoller, in which he explains why so many of the German people stood passively by and permitted the fascist Nazi regime to murder their fellow-citizens and strip them of their own freedoms?

It's not long, and I think it bears repeating here:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by then,
there was no one left to speak up for me.

The steady erosion of our criminals' (and even suspected criminals') civil rights is easy to justify. After all, I'm not a criminal. You're not. No one we know is a criminal. And those who are, well… they deserve what they get, don't they? By committing their crimes, they've spit in the face of the community, so why should the community extend them the protection of civil rights?

We enshrined the concept of civil rights in our Constitution in the attempt to form a society based on the rule of justice, not vengeance. A society based on the principle of equity under the law, not the arbitrary expediency of the end justifying the means.

Our fellow-humans are entitled to this, even when they perpetrate crime. We must stop them from committing crime wherever possible. We must protect ourselves, and our neighbors (especially those most vulnerable,) from them. We must do our fallible human best to render justice when the law is transgressed.

I could rewrite the Pastor's poem:

They took away the rights of criminals,
and I was silent,
because I am not a criminal.
They took away the rights of those suspected of crime,
and I said nothing,
for I was not suspected of a crime.
They took away the rights of those likely to commit crime
(remember racial profiling?)
and I ignored them,
for how could anyone think I would commit a crime?
They took away the rights of those related to those who committed crimes,
and since none of my relatives commit crimes,
I turned away.
Then they took my rights…

To answer your question, Nelson, Auntie Pinko is concerned. But as long as we live in a society that believes that the end (law and order) justifies the means (abrogating others' civil rights,) we are unlikely to make much progress on this issue.

Thank you for writing to Auntie Pinko!

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