No summer vacation for politics.

This summer is turning out to be an interesting thing politically. I'm considering throwing my hat in for a summer CW column, so I've been trying to keep a decent track of things... And, of course, the recent big news is Guantanamo Bay. President Obama keeps trying to shut it down and bring some semblance of actual due process to the criminals there, and others are cowering, afraid of letting these criminals into these United States.

For those who are afraid: Why?

Why are you all so afraid of these people being put in jails in America? Do you think our jails can't hold them, that they're so dangerous they'd instantly bust out and pull another 9/11? We do have our own terrors in America that have managed to be kept within the stony walls of a prison cell. Maybe TV is making people fear this. With shows like 24 showing terrorists practically more prominent than non-terrorists, and Prison Break saying, "Hey, look, we can break out if we try hard enough!" I think people have become unreasonably afraid.

Here's the deal, though. Afraid or not, they need to be put on trial. We've got people being held down there that have been tortured illegally and denied their legal rights of habeus corpus and the like. If we start eliminating those rights for them, what next? What if Bush decided to start throwing American citizens suspected of being terrorists into Guantanamo? Perhaps it's a slippery slope that I'm presenting, but I've honestly seen too many people take a mile when you give an inch. We can't let ourselves give up our rights, even the ones we don't think we're using, just for some protection. It sets a precedent that will only lead us down a road of harsh return.

And for goodness sake, we've got brain eaters and bombers in our prison system. I think we can handle a few more.