We're throwing our rights away

I have long been a proponent of constitutional rights, and feel that our rights should be protected above all else. Even when I worked in the public defenders office in New Mexico, part of my job was helping to find reasons to get obviously guilty people off on reasons that their rights were violated. And I did that gladly. If there was a search that didn't follow the rules, then the evidence should be thrown out. I faced a lot of criticism because of that. Especially when it was known that I helped get drug dealers off because the police didn't do something as simple as call the judge and ask for an extended search warrant. Now what I read in the Colorado law, really irks that wish for the rights to be protected.

Apparently in Colorado, if there is a case of unlawful sexual contact of a child, the hearsay rule is thrown out. What this means, is that if there is a child that has been touched inappropriately, and they tell Joe that daddy touched me there, then Joe can go to the Courts and testify that the child said that daddy touched me there, and it will stand. Now I am not saying, and please don't read this to mean that I think that child ought to be abused, but I feel that we have made laws to protect everyone for reasons, and that if we start making exceptions like this, we are on a slippery slope, that leads to the destruction of our country.

Don't get me wrong, I am not just against laws that affect sex offenders. We have something in this country that was passed under the great tutelage of George Bush called the patriot act. The patriot act says in part that if you are suspected of being a terrorist, the government can come pick you up, take you into custody and hold you there until they see fit to do something with you. All of your constitutional rights are thrown out the door. The right to a speedy trial, the right to fair and reasonable punishment, all of it is thrown out the door. They also have the right to monitor your phone without any intervention from anyone. Even though, there is a special court already set up for them to go to request a wiretap. The government at that time felt that was too much trouble, they just want to do the wiretaps without telling anyone. Oh, and these were finally repealed recently.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that we as a country need to protect our freedoms. We need to guard against the government saying that we don't deserve those protections. or at least that is as I see it now....


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