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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
What authority is given in the Constitution for the President to order the US military to intervene in the affairs of another country, as Clinton did in Bosnia?
Perhaps none.
(hint: none whatsoever)
If GWB's actions in the invasion and destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the torture that accompanied them, or the wiretapping of US citizens, are crimes BECAUSE there is no constitutional authority for them, ...
Who said this was the crime?
I tend to be sympathetic to the claim that Congress is the only body that can declare war, and yes, if so, Clinton probably transgressed that power (as I said, I think a clearer case could be made for Tomahawking Iraq). But to claim that Clinton's transgressions are equivalent to the manifold crimes of Dubya is outright nutz.
... then so too are the actions of Clinton in Bosnia, and in Sudan, and at Waco.
How so?
And what did Clinton do in the Sudan. Tell me, I'm interested.
(Your version of events at Waco is unconvincing. The right to bear arms was explicitly enumerated in your Constitution for the purpose of resisting oppresion by your own government. Constitutionally, the benefit of the doubt rests with the citizenry, who are constitutionally entitled to "fire on federal agents" when those federal agents are involved in criminal trespass....
OIC. So if I rob a bank, and make it home, I'm ally-ally-in-free, and they can't touch me in my castle (even with a warrant). Try it some time. Let me know how it turns out.
... Your doctrine seems to be that federal agents are above the law, and the consequences of breaking it. Yet you also seem to agree with Johnsen that GWB should not be. Strange, neh?)
I don't think agents ought to be "above the law". Why do you think I ever said such a thing? What I disagree on is whether the agents were acting lawfully. You seem to think not. Perhaps. But you takes your chances when you fire on them, instead of resolving it in a court of law. That's not legal advice; that's practical advice.
... But don't fret, I understand that almost nobody wants to pay anything more than lip service to the Constitution, which is why neither Glenn nor Ms Johnsen nor you have mentioned the current meetings Mr Obama is having with Congress about stealing another trillion from you all even though there is not one shred of Constitutional authority for doing so, which was my original point.
You're getting way out there in Loony-Toon Land. As Ann Robinson would say, "Goodbye...."
Every post you make further reinforces Glenn's point about tribalism and the associated blindesses it produces ...
To you. But you're so wrapped in your own "tribalism" and pet peeves that you're incapable of seeing anything with even a semblance of objectivity ... or even rationality.
Cheers,
We all thought we were doing the right thing in supporting the Hezbi, Jamiat, Massoud and others....
We didn't support Masoud much. That's part of the problem; we let pretty much all the aid get funneled through the ISI, and they gave it to the folks they wanted to support; that is to the Pashtuns (and the militant ones), in hopes that Afghanistan would become a client state and resolve their own security problems.
You don't believe me; later Masoud was getting aid from India when we wouldn't "take sides" and help him against the Taliban.
Could the radicalization of these groups have been predicted, ...
Yes. See Coll's book.
... at that time it was a coin toss at best. That was something that occurred much later in the arena.
We gave up after the Russians left, and just let the ISI do what they wanted. Many people (including in the CIA) were quite upset about that. So were others who were trying to forge a republican Afghanistan, perhaps of a federal nature. The U.S. sat on the sidelines and let the Taliban take over and consolidate their position ... with immense help from the ISI.
Cheers,
Oh yes, the "you disagree with me and are therefore insane" gambit ...
how new! how different! how refreshing!
sigh ...
Thanks for such an unambiguous demonstration that you are now completely devoid of argument.
But i hope you survive long enough to let me know how meek submission to naked power works out for you.
Have a nice day.
Oh yes, the "you disagree with me and are therefore insane" gambit ...
Oh, no. You're insane. And I disagree with you. If anything the inference is the other way around. I've pointed out why I disagree with you, but you're insane, and continue blithely drawing stick figures and buttercups.
Strangely enough, if you titrated the Haldol up a notch, you might see that I do agree in part with you; it's just that in your "tribalistic" tunnel-vision of a binary world, you're simply not seeing nuance, and you won't accept even that.
Cheers,
". . . . The right to bear arms was explicitly enumerated in your Constitution for the purpose of resisting oppresion by your own government. Constitutionally, the benefit of the doubt rests with the citizenry, who are constitutionally entitled to "fire on federal agents" when those federal agents are involved in criminal trespass...."
_____
Except that your dead wrong on all counts.
For one: "A system of laws, and not of men" -- John Adams. John Adams, who destested the British, nonetheless undertook the exceedingly unpopular DEFENSE of the British troops involved in the so-called "Boston Massacre". He did so on the principle that no man charged with a crime should be without competent counsel. And, overarchingly, because justice and law should be ABOVE politics.
For another: the NRA notwithstanding -- it being a private special-interest, not a law-making body, and a gun industry-front -- the Second Amendment does not do that the NRA, the paranoid illiterate gun-nuts, and the America-hating Scalia assert. The first draft of that which became the Second Amendment read, in full, as follows -- the final clause being the ONLY posited individual right debated concerning that Amendment:
"The right of the people [PLURAL; as in, "WE the people"; it isn't "We the individual," or, "I the people"] to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated [by LAW, as expresssly stipulated in the Constitution: Art. I, S. 8., C. 16] militia being the best security of a free country: but no person [INDIVIDUAL] religiously scrupulous of [AGAINST] bearing arms, shall be compelled [INVOLUNTARY] to render military service in person."
That last clause having been voted down, the Second Amendment has NOTHING WHATEVER to do with "individual" ANYTHING. That fact is underscored by the DEBATES of it by those who not only DEBATED it but WROTE it.
The ONLY topic of the Second Amendment is WELL REGULATED MILITIA; and a MILITIA is NOT AN INDIVIUAL. And: the head of the militia is the state's governor and or president of the US. The gov't is not Constitutionally in the business of attacking itself.
Source: Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal Congress (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), Ed. by Helen E. Veit, et al.
The Bill of Rights/Second Amendment were framed by the first Congress under the newly-ratified Constitution. It was drawn from the existing state constitutions/bills of rights; the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" appears in those bills of rights in what were and are termed MILITIA CLAUSES; a MILITIA is NOT an INDIVIDUAL.
Note: unlike the private individual, the militia is a PUBLIC institution, governed and regulated by a different set of laws than the PRIVATE right to own guns.
Last but not least: The Constitution stipulates (Art. I., S. 8., C. 16) that: Congress shall have Power To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute [ENFORCE] the Laws of the Union [which INCLUDE to Constitution], [and] suppress Insurrections . . . ."
The is NO "right of revolution" against the FRAMERS' gov'ts.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
