Hey, be us!

One thing that Americans believe should be exported around the whole, besides Coca-Cola and blue jeans, is democracy. I'm not talking about Iraq here - that's another topic for another site - but rather, the general feeling within us that American freedoms are a wonderful and powerful thing, and we wish more of the world can be like us in that respect.

Expats, no matter how well integrated into the local society, have one thing that always separates them - for me, that would be a little blue booklet that is my U.S. Passport. No matter how bad things may get, we have that parachute that, more often than not, will deploy and save us. Going overseas makes us reflect more often on what it means to be an American, and how great it is.

All this brings us back to the title of this post, a play on words for the title I originally typed - Habeas Corpus.

Today, as I am writing this the U.S. Senate may pass a bill, which would surely be signed by the current President, to eviscerate the U.S. Constitution, in particular Article I, Section 9, providing habeas corpus relief to governmental action. What is often known as "The Great Writ," handed down from English Common Law, is being excised from American jurisprudence.

Besides amassing student loan debt, one thing that I did gain through my schooling is the appreciation of the Constitution; I am not a Constitutional scholar or theorist in any shape or form, but I do instinctively get uneasy whenever there is an attempt to legislate away our rights and protections. The current administration wants the world to be like us, but they have forgotten what U.S. means it seems.

No matter your political stripe, the mid-term elections are 40 days away. Register and vote, even if you're overseas.