Today's Daily Quiz: September 24, 2007
The Bush administration, in concert with Congress and the Supreme Court, has removed the centuries old protection of Habeas Corpus from the American justice system. Given this fact, should members of Congress, the Executive Branch and the Supreme Court be denied Habeas Corpus if they are deemed to be in violation of unspecified and arbitrary accusations?
Previous DQ: Following the senate resolution to condemn MoveOn, should the senate next propose a resolution to condemn FOX news for their continual lies and slander of Democrats and for providing known haters Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity with a forum to debase and threaten opponents of their extreme ideology?
Answer: Read all of the excellent answers here.
posted by Virt at 1:24 AM
6 Comments:
Yes! In fact, I think a little 13th century justice would do our government officials a world of good.
kb
I bet the International War Crimes Tribunal gives Bush and Cheney Habeas Corpus rights when they go on trial in The Hague .
Our esteemed leaders arbitrarily violated and denied Habeas Corpus? Never, I say! Never! Not with Assimilated Press on guard sniffing out the truth like an Airedale on the scent of a river rat! Our leaders are different than ordinary citizens. They are Supercitizens, entitled to their own taxpayer funded, fully covered health care, golf trips to Scotland, and legal protections that ordinary citizens don't really use much.
There are those people who have come right out in public and said and written that America "needs" another 9/11. That sure sounds like they are wishing harm on the country, its people, its government and its property. If this isn't the definition of an "enemy combatant" then what is? I don't notice the FBI rounding up the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation for questioning, or throwing them in Gitmo without any access to due process or their families to explore if they have terrorist sympathies or are against our "freedoms".
There are Congressional members, so-called "lawmakers", most of them attorneys who supposedly understand the ramifications of a lawless society, who refuse to comply with legally served supoenas http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5897.html
Bush also refuses to recognize supoenas http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/09/america/09prexy.php.
Cheney blocks any attempt to even find out how many people he has on staff - whose salaries we pay. Not the names of his staff, which should also be public knowledge, but even just the number of people he employs. He fought all the way to the Supreme Court not to have to release his meetings with energy industry leaders to the public. And these supreme solons of our country, our ultimate law-makers, supported him.
In order to have "violations" there has to be some sense that there is a law that can be violated, in order for there to be violations there has to be some acknowledgement of the social contract that says that we are all of us, every single one of us, subject to the law.
Considering this sense of the social contract is now almost nonexistent, what "violations" are we discussing? Violators are people born in other countries who do not have friends in high places, and native-born Americans who are not super-rich. Few in Congress fits that definition which is why habeas corpus does not matter to them one bit.
Here is the type of thinking we are up against now. This is from "American Thinker" Dan Friedman (what a misnomer....)http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/where_bush_went_wrong_in_iraq.html
It lays out the "reasons" for striking Iran and somehow ties striking Iran to acheiving overwhelming success in Iraq. It states that Iran would do nothing in return, anywhere in the world, ever. It suggests that another war is not only a good idea, it's a great idea that solves all the problems in the Middle East, wins the White House and Congress for the Republicans, and has no down side for America at all. It also probably gets the oil stains off the driveway, helps you lose weight, grow hair, make money and find salvation. There may even be a bamboo steamer.
Striking Iran is listed as "a golden opportunity." What is truly terrifying is that the people with their fingers on the button agree.
Start screaming, to anyone who will listen, as loudly and as often as you can. We are heading towards another misbegotten war.
Text below:
"Now for the good news. All the damaging consequences of all the blunders the President has committed to date in Iraq are reversible in 48- to 72-hours - the time it will take to destroy Iran's fragile nuclear supply chain from the air. And since the job gets done using mostly stand-off weapons and stealth bombers, not one American soldier, sailor or airman need suffer as much as a bruised foot.
Let's look downstream the day after and observe how the world has changed.
First and foremost, there's this prospective fait accompli -- and it changes everything. The Iranians are no longer a nuclear threat, and won't be again for at least another decade, and even that assumes the strategic and diplomatic situation reverts to the status quo ante and they'll just be able to pick up and rebuild as they would after an earthquake. Not possible.
Next, the Iranians would do nothing -- bupkes. They don't attack Israel, they don't choke off the world's oil supply, they do not send hit squads to the United States, there is no "war" in the conventional sense of attack counterattack. Iran already has its hands full without inviting more trouble. Its leaders would be reeling from the initial US attack and they would know our forces are in position to strike again if Iran provokes us or our allies. They would stand before mankind with their pants around their ankles, dazed, bleeding, crying, reduced to bloviating from mosques in Teheran and pounding their fists on desks at the UN. The lifelines they throw to the Iraqi insurgents, Hezbollah and Syria would begin to dry up, as would the lifelines the double-dealing Europeans have been throwing to Iran. Maybe the Mullahs would lose control.
Strong tremors would be felt throughout the Islamic ummah. "Just as we feared, they finally called our bluff. We pushed America to the limit and America pushed us back twice as hard. Looks who's the dhimmi now! Uh, maybe we need to rethink this 7th century Jihad crap -- as well as the Jihadist idiots around here. This is all turning out to be more trouble than it's worth."
Miracles would be seen here at home. Democratic politicians are dumbstruck, silent for a week. With one swing of his mighty bat, the President has hit a dramatic walk-off homerun. He goes from goat to national hero overnight. The elections in November are a formality. Republicans keep the White House and recapture both houses of Congress. Hillary is elected president - of the Chappaqua PTA.
Going forward, with Iran's influence blunted and the insurgents cut off, we end the war in Iraq on our terms. In his first hundred days, the new president reads Iraq the riot act and tells its leaders if they don't pull themselves together by a date certain, America will decide they're not worth the candle and we're going to get out.
From that point on, with our arms free of the quicksand, we can fight the war on terror the way it should have been fought in the first place. Using our enormous edge in weapons, intelligence and technology, and building on it, we launch quick, lethal, ad hoc strikes wherever in the world we determine terrorists are working to harm us, shooting first and asking for permission later.
Am I dreaming? I don't think so. Being too sensible is probably more like it. In any event, I am not creating anything original here. Combine Bush's recent statements with those of the President of France and it's not hard to see where this is heading. Mr. Bush still has time to put America back on the offensive again. But with only a little more than a year left in his term he has no time to lose. Rarely does history provide a failed wartime leader with such a golden opportunity for salvation."
moot point. They would never be found in violation of anything. Didn't you get the memo, comrade?
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