elinko@mavs.coloradomesa.edu

Happy New Year.

Your president, Barack Obama, has signed the National Defense Authorization Act “with serious reservations” about a particular provision added to the bill. The provision, which allows for the indefinite detention of United States citizens by military authorities with presidential authorization, detention without the reading of Miranda rights, access to legal representation, and due process, was snuck in by your lawmakers like all those illegal immigrants inside fake hay bales.

Obama said in a signing statement that he would not use the added provision to do anything unconstitutional to any American citizens. I’m a tad confused as to how the provision existing isn’t unconstitutional enough towards American citizens? These are your elected officials, they are supposed to represent you, and they just added this to a bill that is supposed to appropriate funds to defend you. Instead, it has the power to put you in a military prison without telling you why.

Compromise in politics is incredibly important, and the lack of it is why we have so many problems in our political system. This is what Obama chose to compromise on, perhaps not his most shining, blatant opportunity. I understand that the NDAA is an important piece of legislation that needs to be passed every year, this was exploited with the attachment of this provision.

I supported Obama in 2008, even while he has not lived up to the promises he made that made me support him originally. This was the last chance for Obama to live up to my expectations of him. I wasn’t 18 yet during the last presidential election, and I was excited to vote for president in the next. However, now that they have this power, I probably never will. This is not the kind of power I want the chief executive of our country to have.

I’m growing fatigued with this kind of settling in today’s American politics. I don’t like that Obama settled for an unconstitutional provision simply because the rest of the bill that it is attached to is necessary in order to defend this country. I don’t like that the American people are settling for the lesser of two evils every time they vote for president. I don’t like that most politicians in this country are representing private interests and their own personal investments.

Unless the political structure of this country (now supported by lobbyists and big business interests) changes, I feel like many voters will feel so unrepresented that they will exercise their right not to fill in a bubble for every choice on their ballot. Why shouldn’t they? Unless candidates start to accurately represent their constituencies, then they shouldn’t be elected to office. The lesser of two evils is starting to look pretty darn evil.