Paging Ben Franklin...

Recognition of individual dignity, limitations on arbitrary state power--these are not the norm in history. As with most unusual conditions, there's a tendency to regress to the mean, and we are witnessing that in spades:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has succeeded – by the skin of his teeth — in getting Britain’s House of Commons to approve new police counter-terrorism powers that were condemned by civil liberties groups, a former prime minister, a U.N. human rights investigator and several dozen of Brown’s own Labour MPs.

Tony Benn, Member of Parliament: "I never thought I would be in the House of Commons on a day when Magna Carta was repealed. It is Osama Bin Laden's biggest victory because we have been persuaded to abandon rights we've held and boasted about..."

While the British slowly strangle Habeus Corpus, one of the most essential guarantees against arbitrary power, the U.S. Supreme Court belatedly woke up and exercised some of that "checks and balances" stuff we used to be taught about in civics class:

In a stinging rebuke to President Bush's anti-terror policies, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign detainees held for years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to appeal to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment without charges...

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 5-4 high court majority, acknowledged the terrorism threat the U.S. faces - the administration's justification for the detentions - but he declared, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

I rarely agree with Kennedy and his usual allies on the high court, but I believe they got this one right. It's not 'legislating from the bench' (their usual M.O.) to reaffirm that justice applies equally to all. There are those already lamenting the court's decision to "grant rights to foreign terrorists." They didn't grant anything -- they recognized, as did the Founders, that "ALL men are created equal... endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." The U.S. government is not the source of ANY of our rights... it is charged with protecting what already exists. That fundamental concept is what sets our system of jurisprudence apart from all others. Even unrepentant, evil men must have their day in court. It is not the right of any magistrate to hold them at will without resolution.

But even though the Court ruled in favor of due process, that doesn't mean the concept is in high favor in the U.S., as the ongoing debacle with the FLDS in Texas shows. Once we were a principled people. Now we're an expedient people, fearful of the potential costs of doing the right thing. Too much trust is given to silver-tongued demagogues who promise us safety in exchange for unquestioned loyalty.

Justice Kennedy's ruling this week echoes Ben Franklin's thought on that bargain: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."