On Due Process

 

J6 protestors have been incarcerated for 20 months - and counting - without due process protection.  Donald Trump is having difficulty finding attorneys who will represent him.  At American Thinker, Andrea Widburg provides some important background and history on the Bill of Rights:

Leftists seem pleased that no lawyers will represent Trump. This is a terrible thing that, as much as anything else, represents the downfall of America under the left’s aegis. The aggressive leftist purge of conservative or just brave attorneys is destroying one of America’s greatest institutions: Every person’s right to have an attorney at his side.

In 1770, Redcoats fired on a crowd that had surrounded them, taunting them and pelting them with dangerous projectiles. Five colonists died. The British soldiers claimed self-defense, but the patriots in Boston called it murder. We remember it as the Boston Massacre.

What too few Americans know is that the soldiers, despite a trial in hostile territory, got a stellar defense. Their attorney was John Adams. He knew that representing the soldiers was a risk that could destroy his law practice and impoverish his family, but he also understood something very important about the law in a free country: No one should have to stand alone against the awesome majesty of the state, which has the power of the police, the prosecution, the judge, and the executioner.

. . .

What’s happening here is troubling. As John Adams knew, every person, even a guilty person, needs a friend in the court who will help him when the all-mighty government comes calling. A good lawyer may find himself defending unpopular people or causes, but that comes with the territory in a free country.

Leftists want to destroy this important right. When they’re done, we will all be at the mercy of a government that can abandon due process entirely because hapless defendants will be helpless to assert it. The same government can also do anything it damn well pleases because no lawyers will be there to challenge its illegalities and excesses.

Lots more here.  When the government can abrogate our Bill of Rights, we’re on our own.

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