The cruelty is the point. I know you’re probably used to seeing that in some kind of melodramatic context, but that’s actually what it is in this case. The government’s narrative is that the people that they’re grabbing are all insane and violent gang members and that they all deserve life in the harshest conditions possible- conditions that, I presume, are not possible under the already barely enforced eighth amendment. The Trump administration already tested those waters in Trump I with refusing to give detainees such luxuries as beds, blankets, soap, toilet paper, and lights that turn off at night, and got shut down; if they send them to El Salvador, there is no constitution (or pretense thereof) to step in and say “no, you can’t do that”. They’ve said repeatedly and out loud that the terror is the point.
Here’s the big, huge, glowing hot problem that remains, even with news media now reporting that Kilmar’s wife sought a restraining order or something in 2021:
A bunch of these folks were NEVER charged with a crime. The government never had to prove their case to a jury, never got a sentence from a judge, and never even attempted to say what crime these folks committed. They just scooped them up and sent them to a life term in supermax for ???
That’s bad, like really, really, really bad. This puts us squarely in dictatorship territory, and let me be totally unambiguous here: when the government can arbitrarily sentence people to life in prison without even claiming a crime or trying the case before a jury, that is a dictatorship. We are living, right now, in this moment, in a dictatorship. If they can do it to them, they can do it to you-- and they will. In fact, they’re currently discussing avenues for stripping citizenship from US citizens so they can “deport” them to El Salvador, and they’ve confirmed to the press that they’re having those discussions. So, yes, they’re coming for you, too, just not quite yet.
P.S. if you think you’re safe because you’re not political, that doesn’t matter, because they’re political, and they think that sending you to die in an El Salvadorian prison for being gay/atheist/furry/said anything bad about Trump ever/whatever is just dandy.
The cruelty is the point. I know you’re probably used to seeing that in some kind of melodramatic context, but that’s actually what it is in this case. The government’s narrative is that the people that they’re grabbing are all insane and violent gang members and that they all deserve life in the harshest conditions possible- conditions that, I presume, are not possible under the already barely enforced eighth amendment. The Trump administration already tested those waters in Trump I with refusing to give detainees such luxuries as beds, blankets, soap, toilet paper, and lights that turn off at night, and got shut down; if they send them to El Salvador, there is no constitution (or pretense thereof) to step in and say “no, you can’t do that”. They’ve said repeatedly and out loud that the terror is the point.
Here’s the big, huge, glowing hot problem that remains, even with news media now reporting that Kilmar’s wife sought a restraining order or something in 2021:
A bunch of these folks were NEVER charged with a crime. The government never had to prove their case to a jury, never got a sentence from a judge, and never even attempted to say what crime these folks committed. They just scooped them up and sent them to a life term in supermax for ??? That’s bad, like really, really, really bad. This puts us squarely in dictatorship territory, and let me be totally unambiguous here: when the government can arbitrarily sentence people to life in prison without even claiming a crime or trying the case before a jury, that is a dictatorship. We are living, right now, in this moment, in a dictatorship. If they can do it to them, they can do it to you-- and they will. In fact, they’re currently discussing avenues for stripping citizenship from US citizens so they can “deport” them to El Salvador, and they’ve confirmed to the press that they’re having those discussions. So, yes, they’re coming for you, too, just not quite yet.
P.S. if you think you’re safe because you’re not political, that doesn’t matter, because they’re political, and they think that sending you to die in an El Salvadorian prison for being gay/atheist/furry/said anything bad about Trump ever/whatever is just dandy.