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dch24
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Post by dch24 »

scareduck wrote:The Bush administration has taken the view that we are fighting "terrorism", not a particular country.
The President was authorized only to find and use military force against the perpetrators of 9/11. By October 2002, the US had performed operations in Afghanistan, the Philippines (I've been there), and the Horn of Africa. I feel the Horn of Africa operations were the first to target "terrorists," not the people authorized by the AUMF. (The Phils ops were OK, I believe.) Further, Iraq is a member of the UN, and the Secretary General of the UN (the highest ranking official in the UN), Kofi Annan, had this to say about Bush's attack of Iraq:
Although Operation Iraqi Freedom will (in my opinion) bring great things to Iraq, the US is only cleaning up the mess it made in Iraq starting in 1959 with a covert assasination plot headed by the CIA. Personally, I find black-ops acts of war in foreign countries totally repugnant.

Sorry, I won't foist my opinions on you any more. I've backed up scareduck's statement with facts. I understand that the situations involved are so complex that we will never know all the relevant and important facts, and thus likely never agree. However, I like rational debate, so I thought I'd throw what I've got into the mix.

President Bush cited al-Qaeda as a primary rationale for war on Iraq: "Throughout late 2001, 2002, and early 2003, the Bush Administration worked to build a case for invading Iraq, culminating in then Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 address to the Security Council." 9 months later, Powell resigned, as evidence mounted that the cited evidence of weapons of mass destruction -- what he had been directed to use in his speech -- was not actually true.
scareduck wrote:This puts the government in the position of demanding a rollback of the constitutional checks until... when? When they say it's safe to. In other words, Congress has abrogated its duty and powers as the sole declarer of war (that's an old story, of course, but it's much, much worse this time around), and the President has decided that he can revoke habeas whenever he feels like it. (Note the section you quoted mentioned "rebellion or invasion", neither of which obtains here!)
Completely accurate and factual. I agree. The right of habeas corpus was curtailed by the Military Commissions Act.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Here is one for our European friends.

From:

Walter Russel Mead. This is a long excerpt.
The twentieth century taught Europeans and Americans different lessons. Europe learned that nationalism could lead to destruction; Americans learned that nationalism could bring safety and prosperity. Europe learned that bureaucratic welfare states and powerful trade unions were the only alternatives to bitter class warfare; Americans learned that government and unions were, at best, necessary evils. Europe learned that Christianity was an exhausted religion that could play no serious part in the contemporary world; Americans learned that personal religious faith was more necessary than ever.

One result is that the United States today is a much more traditional society than Europe. Especially in the "red" states, most of us still believe in God, the family, the flag, and the death penalty. Jacksonians neither trust nor take seriously anybody who doesn't believe in these things. Europeans think that anybody who believes all that crap is too stupid to make good decisions.

Jacksonians don't think about Europe much, except as a vacation destination.

Our universities have increasingly moved away from teaching young Americans about European culture and, especially, history; Americans can go for weeks, months, and even years without feeling that European culture, military power, or economic developments have any impact at all on their lives. Europeans think about America all the time. American culture and military power are constant facts of life for them.

When Jacksonian America does think about Europe, it sees what Sheriff Andy of Mayberry saw in Barney Fife— a scrawny, neurotic deputy whose good heart was overshadowed by bad judgment and vanity. The slow-talking, solid Andy tolerated Barney just fine, but he knew that Barney's self-importance would get him into one humiliating scrape after another.

Europe hopes for a world role more or less equal to that of the United States. Jacksonians roll their eyes. Jacksonians think that Europe-with a declining and aging population and an economy likely to grow more slowly than most of the economies of the developing world, to say nothing of the United States'-- is likely to continue to lose influence.
Now this is only one strain of American Political thought. There are the Wilsonians, The Hamiltonians, Jeffersonians. Right now the Jacksonians are allied with the Wilsonians, with Hamiltonians in partial support.

All this of course is very fluid and can exist in one person to varying degrees.

Here is the condensed version of those ideas:

http://www.lts.com/~cprael/Meade_FAQ.htm
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

It's so strong, in fact, that Congress keeps passing (or trying to) legislation that enables the President to violate the Constitution (warrantless wiretaps, anyone?)
Agents of foreign enemies fall under Article II. That has always been the case. Again, we summarily EXECUTED German spies in WW II. More recently, Soviet spy Aldrich Ames was searched without a warrant.

If we start seeing warrantless wiretaps of, say, the Hells Angels or the Mafia, then you should worry.

Also, you might be interested to know that in many European countries, you don't even NEED a warrant to do this kind of thing. In America, the issue is mainly one of rhetoric, promoted by the ambitious to infuriate the gullible, while they stealthily seize your rights in less obvious ways under the guise of "helping the poor," "promoting equality," or "protecting our children."
Last edited by TallDave on Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

This puts the government in the position of demanding a rollback of the constitutional checks until... when? When they say it's safe to.
You mean like the cities of Chicago, Washington, New York, and countless others have been doing to the Second Amendment for decades?

Or do you mean the way we rolled back the Fourth Amendment to allow the government to seize a third or more of everyone's income every year?

Perhaps you refer to the First Amendment right we sacrificed with campaign donation limits?

Or you might mean how we eviscerated the Fourth Amendment by empowering the State to violently enforce its opinions on what substances the people may or may not choose to ingest in their pursuit of happiness?

All for the public good, of course.
Last edited by TallDave on Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

scareduck wrote:
MSimon wrote:
scareduck wrote: It's so strong, in fact, that Congress keeps passing (or trying to) legislation that enables the President to violate the Constitution (warrantless wiretaps, anyone?) en masse. "If the President does it, it isn't illegal," said Richard Nixon, and George Bush believes the same.
Yes warrantless wire taps of phone calls crossing the Federal Border. Which has traditionally been the province of the Federal government and is allowed on the basis that non-citizens have no expectations of privacy on international calls.
Except that, not. The testimony (from an AT&T employee who had access and knew whereof he spoke) was that the NSA was engaged in wide-net trolling of ALL phone calls, regardless of destination or origin.
You are referring to data-mining, which goes back to ECHELON and predates the Clinton administration. That is not something new.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Anyways, again I have to say I applaud the sentiment that we should stand up for constitutional rights. Eternal vigilance really is the price of freedom.

dch24
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Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:43 pm

Post by dch24 »

TallDave wrote:Anyways, again I have to say I applaud the sentiment that we should stand up for constitutional rights. Eternal vigilance really is the price of freedom.
Hear, hear!

Roger
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Post by Roger »

BSPhysics wrote: (we were invaded on 9/11)
A noun + a verb=Rudy. Funny as hell.
BSPhysics wrote:Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for a time during the civil war.
I'd be interested in hearing from you, if you actually included the entire story.

The "Lincoln did it too" frame is weak my friend.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

Roger wrote:The "Lincoln did it too" frame is weak my friend.
I tend to agree. We are very, very fortunate to live in a time in which many of the things Lincoln and FDR did are now unthinkable.

I do have to chuckle, though, when I hear people say things like "unprecedented expansion of executive powers."

Roger
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Post by Roger »

TallDave wrote: "unprecedented expansion of executive powers."
Nixon did it too.... LOL.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.

scareduck
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Post by scareduck »

You are referring to data-mining, which goes back to ECHELON and predates the Clinton administration. That is not something new.
Clinton also happily signed into law the mandatory conversion of all digital PBXes to create centralized wiretapping ability, something that had never existed before and an open invitation to abuse. I wasn't any fan of his, either.

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