When officers of the Boston Police Department took custody of one of the young men suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon last week, he was injured and not in a condition good enough that he could be questioned. Citing public safety exceptions to the Miranda warning (“You have the right to remain silent,” etc.), however, officials planned to question him without reading him his rights.

Noting that the public safety exemption has an expiration date, however, a group of senators (Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire; Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina; Peter King, R-New York; and John McCain, R-Arizona) suggested to the Obama Administration that the suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, be treated as an enemy combatant. “The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans,” they said.

The quick eagerness to treat an event that, based upon the knowledge available, is a simple crime — even though it is a horrible and, in the case of the United States, an uncommon crime — like an act of war made against the United States by another sovereign country, is disturbing. Similarly, discussion that revolves around whether Tsarnaev and his brother are American citizens is disturbing.

Indeed, it is worth noting that the Constitution uses the word “citizen” in only two places (qualifications for office and judicial power); it never appears in the Bill of Rights, and the other amendments only mention citizenship in terms of judicial power, the 14th Amendment and voting. The Constitution and the amendments to it, then, are much less a statement of Americans’ rights than they are of the limitations upon American government.

In any case, the zeal with which some public figures advocated treating Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant engaged in a war suggests a prioritization of a criminal conviction over convicting the right criminal of the right crime.

Our justice system is built on the assumption that people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law until a jury of their peers determines that they are guilty. That justice system also runs on the belief that convictions are useless if they do not imprison the actual criminal. Anything short of a trial that follows the procedures established by centuries of precedent that would be accorded to a petty thief is a mere show-trial, empty of any meaning beyond a vengeful need so satisfy the requirement that “someone must pay.” Well, that “someone” is the debtor.

It seems like everyone in politics treats America as an ideal (whether that be opportunity, a level playing field, a Christian nation, a capitalist nation, an empire of liberty, or whatever else, policy always receives judgment based on how “American” it is) rather than a geographic place. To be “American” is to carry in your heart a set of values that are epitomized in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

If America is in fact more an ideal than a country, it is important that government agents and politicians be consistent in how they treat others, particularly those accused of crime. High-profile cases such as these are always important “Who are we?” moments of decision. So, who are we?