I said I would write more about the shooting.

Dark, brooding, solitary and inconsolable, Hawkins was reportedly taking powerful anti-depressants - drugs that have been linked to violence and suicide. He had also been given drugs for attention deficit disorder.

A friend, Shawn Saunders, said Hawkins was not a social person, preferring to play video games while drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.

So here it is, he is anti-social, on drugs, and plays video games.  Sounds like a recepie for disaster.  I wish that I could even begin to develop the words as to why this kind of statement makes me so upset.  How many years have gone through my life being the same person.  But I don’t shoot anyone, or myself.  I have some seriously self destructive behaviour, but my desire to play video games and dring alcohol doesn’t drive me to kill.

This young man had other issues.  His parents are divorced, he had broken up with his girfriend, lost his job and was living in someone’s basement.  You think maybe some of those things combined with a mixture of perscription drugs and alcohol may have had soemthing to do with it.  He felt like he had no one to turn to, he felt removed from humanity and alone.  There were very few people reaching out to him, and probably a lot of people reacting to him with anger.  He was troubled and disturbed, weed and video games didn’t make him kill, mental illness did.

Guantanamo Bay

So the Supreme Court is currently debating wether or not the detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to Habeas Corpus.  You can click on on the link for a specific deffenition, but put sussinctly it is a court order that demans that the police, government, or whoever is detaining you appear in court and tell you why you are being detained.  Currently this is a right that the detainees don’t enjoy.

Why?  The reson is really two fold from what I understand.  The first is that they aren’t citizens of the United States, and therefore they aren’t really subject to rights under our constitution (which you can read in full here, and I highly recomend that you do).  The second is that they are not being detained on American soil, which means that they aren’t subject to the “law of the land,” and therefore have no real rights.

So I get that.  Seems like simple and logical arguments, and I can see how the govenment would draw those conclusions especially considering the hard on that they have to keep there people imprisioned (which they can do indeffinitly without informing the detainees as to why they are being imprissioned).  And a part of me understands that they are “terrorists” and dangerous to the world, and all of that crap.  But here is my problem, these are people, no matter who they are or who they associated with, they are still human beings, and the last time I checked our country beleived that “all men are created equal.”

Shoudl it really matter if the detainees are American citiznes, or if they are on American soil.  Should it really matter if they are “terrorists.”  We give a child rapist the right of Habeas Corpus, mass murderers, drug dealers, even Sadam Hussain was informed of why he was being brought to trial, and being imprisioned, and ultimately executed.  So why shouldn’t these detainees receve the basic knowledge of why they are being detained.  Only 10 of them have even been charged with a crime.  Some of them for 6 years.  Imagine living in prison for six years without even knowing why you are there. 

So what the hell, are people deserving of equality, or is this particular segment of humanity so profoundly evil that we can’t even tell them why they are in jail.  I say fuck that, how hard is it to tell them, “You are here for associating with an Al Qaeda operative.”  Wait a second they did that with Murat Kurnaz.  Kurnaz was detained for associating with a known “suicide bomer,” as in someone who had blown themselves up as a terrorist.  Kurnaz, found a way to retain a lawer, and when that lawyer finally got case into a court where the government had to relinquish the evedince that they were holding Kurnaz on a little research revealed that the “suicide bomber” was alive and well, and no where near a terrorist.

Sure this is one example in the 400 plus people that are in, or have been in Guantanamo, but no one is even looking at any of these people to make sure there aren’t other people in the facility that are suffering for no reason like Kurnaz did for four years.  Four years of his life gone, because he associated with someone that was a “suicide boming terrorist,” but wasn’t.  In my book that is pretty shitty, and as a country that is quick to talk about their “moral authority,” we sure are lacking in morality.  Maybe it is time to actually take a stand for morality and put an end to this travisty of justice.