First, Rosie O'Donnell was not fired. Rosie felt that with her hateful, anti-American rants she should be free to sell her lies to NBC or CBS if they offer her more next year. ABC wanted to lock her anti-American lies in for three years. In other words, ABC wanted to reward her for her vile and moronic anti-American statesments and Rosie felt her vile and moronic anti-American statements were worth more.
Okay...let me explain. I do not call people names. These are words that I chose carefully and her claims, for example, that America blew up buildings in the World Trade Center complex are not only moronic -- she basis her claim on the "fact" that "never before in history has fire melted metal. How does she think metal is shaped? Does she think there are "car mines" where cars are dug out of the ground fully formed? Has she never seen a smelter or molten metals being poured into molds? Is she truly that stupid or is she intentionally lying in order to promote a vicious slander against America? Those are the only two possibilities.
So why does Barbara Walters continue to employ her? Why does ABC allow this? Money? Don't you think Rush Limbaugh would bring in a good deal of money with a similar show? Wouldn't the show do better if it had intelligent conservatives watching and not just angry, New York City single women? No, it's not money.
It's because truth means nothing to the left. Nothing. So when Peter Jennings died the same Barbara Walters who allows these anti-American lies to be spread by an upside-down, hanging angry women incapable of maintaining a normal relationship with the opposite sex who pops pills because never having worked for a living, her millions of dollars leave her so depressed she has to pop pills is considered, lauded her deceased colleague by saying "what made Peter great was that he knew there was no such thing as the truth."
To Barbara Walters Rosie and her friend Peter are one and the same. People to whom truth is meaningless.
616 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 600 of 616 Newer› Newest»He knew how he had "beat the Russians". He built his own army that way. And with another war, the Americans in Afghanistan, he had the perfect opportunity to expand that army and use it to destabilize other countris in Africa and the ME.
Osama is no dummy.
have you been paying attention to recent US Armed Forces Command Realinements? Horn of Africa is a new Command the broke off from CENTCOM recently. Now there are three Commands being unified to cover ALL of Africa (except Egypt). This was only announced last week. The Islamicist movements are gaining strength in Northern Africa. Many of the suicide bombers are recruited there and trans-shipped to Iraq.
Eventually America is going to have to deal with the "source" of all this... the Sunni's. And if we are ever going to take on the Sunni's in Egypt & Saudi, we need a guaranteed oil supply. That oil supply is Iran/Iraq. It is strategically VITAL. Cause once the Saudi's get into a beef with us, if we don't have an alternate supply lined up, Europes economy will be plunged into an economic brown-out that will last decades.
How do you define "winning" in Afghanistan? The war we are fighting is not a coventional war because we are not fighting nation states even if we are fighting in nation states. Do you expect a formal surrender?
It's not I who talks in the language of winning and losing and victory, it is the right. I think that language is irrelevant, but any criticism of the execution of either war is deemed to be "wanting to lose." I don't even know what really means, beyond the vaguest of senses.
If you believe it would be a disaster for the coalition forces to leave Afghanistan, how can you believe differently for Iraq? Do you believe it would be good thing to pull our troops out of Iraq?
Ah, but Iraq and Afghanistan could not be more different. Iraq has universities, an industry, an educated urban populus, quite secular even. Iraq has natural resources that provide a foundation for a development of mass-scale employment. Iraqis have known what is like to live in a country with much less religiously-motivated strife than they do now. Even though they have been engaged in war for a long time, and oppression as well, Iraq is a country vastly more "Civilized" and sophisticated than Afghanistan has ever been, even before the Soviet invasion.
Do I think pulling out is a good idea? I'm on the fence. I don't see how staying is making anything better. The occupation of Afghanistan has certainly improved the stiaution there for Afghanistan and the world when compared to before. I don't think that is as clear in Iraq.
If we pull out there may very well be a civil war, and a regional war.
I also can't say I don't feel a personal urge for revenge. I want to say, you see you stupid fucks (meaning Americans), you supported this batshit nuts idea, well now pay for it. Pay for it with your soldiers' lives, pay for it with your tax dollars, pay for it with what will inevitably come down upon you for weraking such horrible havoc on a country that did not ask for it. I want to see the people responsible punished, because I think they lied about the reasons for the war, and they recklessly disregarded the predictions about how it would go (strife, civil war, unrest, etc).
I don't know, I don't know. It's a truly fucked up situation, and it's all the US's fault, frankly. We made this shit happen.
"PS With regards to Jondollah, once again, the US seems to be supporting terrorist groups that will fight its battles for it."
It is called being smart. It is the same reason we supported Stalin when we fought Hitler. It would have been stupid to fight them simultaneously. We cannot possibly fight ever battle at once.
so do you think supporting al-qaida in afghanistan in the 1980's to fight the soviets was smart?
When Rome collapsed, it was the Christian Church which provided a structure that allowed the disparate pieces to come back together. It took over a thousand years last time.
Eventually America is going to have to deal with the "source" of all this... the Sunni's. And if we are ever going to take on the Sunni's in Egypt & Saudi, we need a guaranteed oil supply. That oil supply is Iran/Iraq. It is strategically VITAL. Cause once the Saudi's get into a beef with us, if we don't have an alternate supply lined up, Europes economy will be plunged into an economic brown-out that will last decades.
Europe is way ahead of ya:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
Yes, it took down the USSR. But it left a mess we need to clean up. THAT is what we're doing.
Europe is way ahead of ANYTHING. They're in DeNile.
Fusion...no...cold fusion.... no... solar power... no... windmills...no...thermal....no...fuel cells....no...
There's no magic energy bullet. Stop praying to your techno-god.
dirty as it is, we'll be on pure coal power before any new clean "technology" has a prayer.
Oh, i should have assumed you're a Europhobe? Are you a Francophobe in particular?
And please, don't go down the deeply stupid path of saying "i'm not afraid of them" because
Francophobe:
: marked by a fear or strong dislike of France or French culture or customs
http://m-w.com/dictionary/francophobe
Have you ever been to Europe, by the way?
Iran was 10x more "civilized" than Iraq. Look at what happened since '79. This problem didn't start on 9/11. Even Osama takes it back to WWI.
The hidden cold war
I lived in Spain for 3 1/2 years. Does that count?
Ignorant is too generous for what you are, me.
I also lived in Venezuela for 4 years, but since that is hardly Europe...I guess I'll head off any stupid assumptions on your part and accusations of my being a Franscisco Franco-phobe
You didn't answer my question about you being a francophobe or a europhobe.
did these little stints happen to be on military bases of some kind? cuz that's kinda different.
It's obvious your beyond educable me. Good luck w/life in that Straw house you've built for yourself.
...no I lived in downtown Madrid across from a soccer stadium. How long did you live in Europe me?
Oh, and in case you didn't know this, the US has never had bases in Venezuela.
And what does any of this have to do with the price of beans in a Savador Dali painting?
I lived in Europe for a total of 9 years, FJ.
Why are you throwing around insults again? so weak. you just make yourself look dumb. win on the point, old man, and that is a real victory.
I must be a pacifista-phobe, yeah, yeah, that's the medical diagnosis...
Fear of peace... or a Martian.
What is the point again?
It looks like you have diarrhea of the proverbial internet mouth, FJ.
That's your point? You win! LOL! Pot-to-kettle... Pot-to-kettle
Plato "Phaedrus"
SOCRATES: There is time enough. And I believe that the grasshoppers chirruping after their manner in the heat of the sun over our heads are talking to one another and looking down at us. What would they say if they saw that we, like the many, are not conversing, but slumbering at mid-day, lulled by their voices, too indolent to think? Would they not have a right to laugh at us? They might imagine that we were slaves, who, coming to rest at a place of resort of theirs, like sheep lie asleep at noon around the well. But if they see us discoursing, and like Odysseus sailing past them, deaf to their siren voices, they may perhaps, out of respect, give us of the gifts which they receive from the gods that they may impart them to men.
PHAEDRUS: What gifts do you mean? I never heard of any.
SOCRATES: A lover of music like yourself ought surely to have heard the story of the grasshoppers, who are said to have been human beings in an age before the Muses. And when the Muses came and song appeared they were ravished with delight; and singing always, never thought of eating and drinking, until at last in their forgetfulness they died. And now they live again in the grasshoppers; and this is the return which the Muses make to them--they neither hunger, nor thirst, but from the hour of their birth are always singing, and never eating or drinking; and when they die they go and inform the Muses in heaven who honours them on earth. They win the love of Terpsichore for the dancers by their report of them; of Erato for the lovers, and of the other Muses for those who do them honour, according to the several ways of honouring them;--of Calliope the eldest Muse and of Urania who is next to her, for the philosophers, of whose music the grasshoppers make report to them; for these are the Muses who are chiefly concerned with heaven and thought, divine as well as human, and they have the sweetest utterance. For many reasons, then, we ought always to talk and not to sleep at mid-day.
PHAEDRUS: Let us talk.
What is your point, fj? blah blah blah and you say nothing. i think you're suffering from brainspermia -- when you have too much sperm built up in your body and it clouds your thinking to the point of senility and insanity.
The United States hardly supported al-Qaeda. In fact, nobody had any idea who Osama bin Laden was at that time. His organization then was not the same organization it is today. Communism was the worlds most dangerous threat and that is what our resources were spent on. According to wikipedia:
"The U.S. government maintains that they supported only the indigenous mujahedeen, and Osama bin Laden's participation in the conflict was unrelated to CIA programs. This assertion was confirmed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's Deputy Operations Chief, in his book Knights Under the Prophet's Banner. Regardless, some still claim this U.S. program may have indirectly encouraged similar funding systems to contribute Muslim Arab militants. But in reality, the foreign Arab fighters generally were just as opposed to the USA as they were to the USSR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#_note-BERGEN-BIN-LADEN-CIA-LINKS-HOGWASH
Peter Bergen, a CNN journalist who conducted the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997 said on August 15 2006:
"The story about bin Laden and the CIA -- that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden -- is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. The real story here is the CIA did not understand who Osama was until 1996, when they set up a unit to really start tracking him."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/bergen.answers/index.html
And I think your suffering from terminal PMS that has never allowed you to experience a single coherent thought... ever. I'm simply here to make sure you don't go nuts and start throwing around any more of your used tampons in here.
I had heard most Afghan money at the time was funneled to the Pakistani Intelligence. Maybe they funded him. Who knows. There's usually a tiny bit of truth in every rumour.
Ah, the point. The point is that there will be war regardless. HUGE power vacuum. Shape it and minimize it OR pull out, create a much bigger one, and watch the whole region go to 'H in a handbasket. I'm for staying and minimizing. You're for letting them all go to 'H.
If we pull out we'll simply have to back the Saudi's in whatever non-Israeli games they want to play up until the European genius' invent your magic fusion bullet. If I start saying Hail Fusio's, do you think it will help them into production sooner?
LOL FJ, sure, if it makes you feel better, think those things. But you know who is the smarter person here; 97th percentile, ashkenazi jew, young, energetic, scientific and math background, law school, top law firm, c'mon, don't fight it. hahahahaha
Yeah, it was funneled through the Pakistani government at the time. If you think there were no connections, remember that Israeli plane that almost got shot down with a surface-to-air shoulder-fired missile a few years ago? Where, um, do you think that weapon came from? Why do you think the US spent a ton of money buying back those things in Afghanistan in the 1990s?
And you quote selectively and dishonestly sometimes. A CNN reporter vs. an actual foreign minister? who knows who is more credible?!
Due to U.S. efforts to undermine the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, some have speculated it may have contributed to creation of the organization, while others have strenuously denied this assertion. Robin Cook Former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons writing for the Guardian, spoke of al-Qaeda as an unintentional product of Western interests:
Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by Western security agencies. Throughout the 80s, he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organization would turn its attention to the west.[23]
btw - At some point Osama & his Yemeni boys are going to start hitting the Paki's much harder. He needs to secure his Afghan flank first. USA pulls out, and Osama should have all the Paki nukes within ten years. India, watch yourself!
Iran is going to move into Jordan/Syria/Lebanon & eventually the Balkans.
Yemen & the Saudi are going to hack up the rest of Africa.
As the Chinese proverb/curse goes, "may you live in interesting times."
me... one problem at a time. Sometimes you aren't always playing with a full house, you gotta play the cards you're dealt.
It was the best hand at the time.
How many Soviet Divisions were there deployed ready to hit the Fulda Gap at the time? How many ICBM's. How many Typhoons, Oscars, Kirov's?
I guess I was a real Euro-phile for quite a while...till '89 anyways.
Course Clinton took the USA on his own private "world responsibility" holiday for 8 years.... at the most critical time.
Funding and training the Balkan/ Croatian mujahadeen
Europe was woefully unable to fight on its own continent for its own interests.
Divided they fall...
I bet you think you're some kind of genius, but you're just restating some well-known facts and theories, and floating some wild speculation.
There are people who do what you are trying to do professionally -- they write sources theses and books and papers, not comments on anonymous blogs.
They actually must give a cr*p then. I just like to wildly speculate, like you.
Like you say, I'm just a crazy old coot, not some flash New York City attorney-wannabe like you.
btw - What does bring you here? Gathering ideas for source papers? A book? LOL!
Don't tell me... you going to go work for Obama & run Dept. of State in '09.
G_d help us.
I've got a feelin' that Iago ain't going to appreciate his new boss much.
Speaking of Obama, goodness gracious, he has a law degree from harvard? Do you think it's the Oral-Law JD with an asterisk on it, that you suggested for black people, since they can't learn as well as white people, according to you?
"Car mines." Haha. Rosie might actually be stupid enough to believe that.
Nope. He's one damn smart man, and a helluva debator. He could almost tread water against Alan Keyes. And that's saying something!
I just saying, Harvard Law gets the best of the best. It's those Yalies and NY Law schools that migyt have to contemplate adding the *s if they ever wanted to graduate black lawyers in quantities representative of their proportion in the population at large. And by the time you get to the "state" law schools, the asterixed degree's will be made available in the boxes of Cracker Jack's in the vending machines in Mumia dorm.
FJ, previously:
...all you need to do is lower the admission standards. That way you could easily double or even triple the number of qualified minority applicants.
Because unless you do that, they'll simply flunk out. Of course, you could also develop a "special" African Oral-Law curricilum and put an *asterisk* next to their JD*s.
I give that idea about six months into the next presidential Democrats term before becoming a reality. An Hispanic JD* will probably be forthcoming too.
To get the numbers up to "representative proportions" would require every law school in the country to set aside 50% of their admissions for blacks only... for maybe a decade ot two. Ashkenazi's... already grossly over-represented in the profession. Sorry, please go to Canada.
Actually, Yale is the more prestigious law school, and is much more selective than Harvard:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/law/brief/lawrank_brief.php
I've got some advice for you: before you open your proverbial trap, fact-check yourself.
Digging in the archives for dirt eh? You like de-contextualizing statements and offering them as evidence. I tip my hat to you Post-moderns. Deconstructing texts, and re-arranging the messages is defintely an obsession. Kinda like the guy in "A Beautiful Mind" decoding the newspapers, looking for the hidden conspiracy messages.
Have fun! LOL! There's a message... what do I want it to say? Hmmmm. LOL!
Oooooh. touche. Yale more prestigious Law School. Huge point, that one. What are the ranks again?
And why should I have to fact check anything? That's what I pay you for. LOL!
Much more selective... Stretch that much?
1 point on the LSAT more selective. Is that why you couldn't get in? Or had they already met their Askenazi quota?
I never saw Beautiful Mind
I didn't apply to Yale, but their acceptance rate is half of Harvard's.
And please, context shmontext. You said what you said, and it's disgusting.
I'm having another ghastly vision of the future: FJ will go through and erase some of his more inflammatory posts to erase the evidence of what he's said before.
Queen of Nits, I am humbled by your superior knowledge regarding Law School rankings. Please share some of your superior wiki-wisdom with us regarding the politics du jour of war or good & evil.
why do you keep calling me that? I don't understand.
Women who are not nitwits must scare you like they scare the right.
And why would I have to do that unless you so grossly decontextualize and misrepresent them that even Woody Allen himself would no longer recognize his Annie Hall scripts.
They do!
Ann Coulter. I think I'm in love.
She's not a nitwit. She went to Cornell Law, btw. But she is deeply dishonest.
I gotta feeling the minority portion of "paralegal" (JD*) field will soon grow by leaps and bounds with specialties in new legal occupational "categories" like "traffic tickets", "homosexual divorce", and "embryonic stem cell patent law".
Almost a nit-wit then. You see, I post something containing wit, and then you locate the "nit" and blow it up into a veritable HOLACAUST.
Queen of Nits. I kind of like the appellation. It fits.
She's not dishonest. She simply has a Master morality... like most republicans.
You see it as dishonest. It is anything BUT dishonest. It's simply a "different" perspective on "right-wrong". A "master" perspective. Plato would call it "right opinion" (we are the right, after all). And they are different, of course, from "true opinions". It kinda all matters where the info lies on the "divided line" epistemology...
What is dishonest about ann coulter is that she went to law school, she presumably passed the bar, so she knows the law, quite well, yet she deliberately misstates it in her columns. Anyone with her credentials could not know the law without perpetuating some sort of fraud, yet she knows what she says isn't true, and she says it anyway.
That's dishonest.
"Do you think it's the Oral-Law JD with an asterisk on it, that you suggested for black people, since they can't learn as well as white people, according to you?"
He must get it from his mothers side of the family. I know, I know, insensitive joke. I hope I don't get Imused.
shoud have been: "Anyone with her credentials could not NOT know the law without perpetuating some sort of fraud"
xkvsxe, i don't get it. maybe it's for the better.
"Robin Cook Former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons writing for the Guardian, spoke of al-Qaeda as an unintentional product of Western interests:"
If al-Qaeda was an "unintentional product of Western interests" that hardly means we supported al-Qaeda in any meaningful sense. There is no evidence that we supported or funded al-Qaeda. How you feel you need to re-write history to put down the United States is beyond me.
What we have our sentences like ..."some have speculated it may have contributed...". Forget the speculations, where is the evidence? The evidence simply does not exist. I think a CNN journalist who investigates these things for a living is a credible source. Here he is again:
CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen notes that the "Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding." He notes:
"While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.
"Former CIA official Milt Bearden, who ran the Agency's Afghan operation in the late 1980s, says, "The CIA did not recruit Arabs," as there was no need to do so. There were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight, and the Arabs who did come for jihad were "very disruptive . . . the Afghans thought they were a pain in the ass." Similar sentiments from Afghans who appreciated the money that flowed from the Gulf but did not appreciate the Arabs' holier-than-thou attempts to convert them to their ultra-purist version of Islam. Freelance cameraman Peter Jouvenal recalls: "There was no love lost between the Afghans and the Arabs. One Afghan told me, ‘Whenever we had a problem with one of them we just shot them. They thought they were kings.'"
... There was simply no point in the CIA and the Afghan Arabs being in contact with each other. ... the Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding. The CIA did not need the Afghan Arabs, and the Afghan Arabs did not need the CIA. So the notion that the Agency funded and trained the Afghan Arabs is, at best, misleading. The 'let's blame everything bad that happens on the CIA' school of thought vastly overestimates the Agency's powers, both for good and ill." [Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: The Free Press, 2001), pp. 64-66.]"
And there is much more in the article.
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-318760.html
This comes form the United States Department of State, and we all know we cannot trust the evil U.S. government (and apparently CNN journalist).
"xkvsxe, i don't get it. maybe it's for the better."
Obama's mother is white.
Well, what the relationship was between the mjuahedeen and the Arabs is not really germane to the question of whether Paksitan gave some of the CIA's goodies to the Arabs as well as to the mujahedeen. The CNN reporter may be credible, but the government, especially on this issue? You think the State Dept. is going to own up, NOW, to having helped build al Qaida? you've got to be mad. of course not.
Like I said, the CIA has done some really awful things, I totally don't put this past them. What the State Dept. says to the public now is only laughably believable, c'mon, you know you have to take it with a grain of salt.
As for Obama's mommy, I suppose then we need to ask FJ regardig his position on quatroons and octaroons and all that.
"What the State Dept. says to the public now is only laughably believable, c'mon, you know you have to take it with a grain of salt."
Of course, but Robin Cook, a British politician and Iraq war critique is a credible source? You would believe the head of a foreign government over your own? Over a CNN reporter?
"What the State Dept. says to the public now is only laughably believable, c'mon, you know you have to take it with a grain of salt."
Of course, but Robin Cook, a British politician and Iraq war critique is a credible source? Over a CNN reporter?
It's a close call. On the one hand we have Robin Cook, who actually HAS security clearance and was on the inside with MI6 and consequently the CIA, but who has incentives to lead a disinformation campaign. On the other hand, we have a reporter for a news organization that regularly has puns for headlines, is still talking about NAtalee Holloway -- yes, he doesn't have the same incentives that Robin Cook has to lie, but he also doesn't have any security clearance.
You would believe the head of a foreign government over your own?
Well, Robin Cook was not the head of any foreign government, but it depends on the government, depends on the person speaking, and depends on the issue. I dot't have any illusions that our government is somehow less Machiavellian, less political, less secretive than other governments can be. Obviously, there are governments that are much less credible than the US, but then there are others that are on par with the US.
One more thing: you know who really DOES have an incentive to lie? Al-Zawahiri. YOu can argue that saying the CIA helped them would show how tricky they are, how they're using the CIA's money, weapons and training against the very hand that fed them. On the other hand, it's kind of a weakness -- people will ask, coudl you have done it without the CIA's help?
Again, a close call. I'm surprised you and that CNN guy are taking bin Laden's and al-Zawahiri's word at face value.
As for Obama's mommy, I suppose then we need to ask FJ regardig his position on quatroons and octaroons and all that.
Why would you need to do that? You know that I support inter-racial marriage and would like to see much MORE of it. You bheing dishonest again me. You know the law and are being deliberately dishonest.
And where is you proof that Coulter does the same? Facts not in evidence.
You go so far as to say she's perpetrating a FRAUD.
I guess layers and judges NEVER disagree about the law. There are NEVER any dissenting opinions. All Supreme Court decisions are UNANIMOUS.
Now who is DEFRAUDING who, me?
You're a lawyer wannabe. You should know the law. SHAME on you for attempting to dupe and defraud us AGAIN. LOL!
All the above posts are obviously me.
I'm on my son's computer, again.
I didn't say she was perpetrating a fraud. Learn to read.
You accuse Coulter of either having perpetrated a fraud in obtaining her degree or being currently a perpetrator of fraud for misusing it. I suggest you use your "wiki-wisdom "dictionary to equate deliberate deception and dishonest to fraud.
After all, even SCOTUS justices use wikipedia... and Scalia carries his dictionary around.
LOL!
Fraud in my eyes is a crime or civil offense. Publishing columns in which she deliberately misstates the law is not such an offense, so it is not a fraud.
Sorry, try again.
"I'm surprised you and that CNN guy are taking bin Laden's and al-Zawahiri's word at face value."
It is not simply based on his word, although his word does play a part in it. It is based on actual events, such as who the CIA actually gave money to, who they actually attempted to support, and for what reasons. Al-Zawahiri's word is just another piece of evidence. I am not sure what the CIA supposedly did wrong here.
It is based on actual events, such as who the CIA actually gave money to, who they actually attempted to support, and for what reasons.
But all your evidence of these events is just hearsay, either from bin Laden and Zawahiri, or Robin Cook. The reporter just re-tells what he heard. How do you know who to trust? Did you see any CIA documents or CIA officials talking about this, in particular under oath?
It's all just speculation, isn't it? It was all covert and has yet to be declassified.
One more thing about supporting terrorist groups that do your dirty work:
The US constantly criticizes Iran for allegedly supporting terrorists across the border in Iraq with people, armor-piercing bombs, guns, etc.
But do you think anyone takes the US seriously when the US is infact engaged in very similar behavior towards Iran?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/05/protected.terrorists/index.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iranian opposition group based in Iraq, labeled a terrorist organization by the United States, gets protection from the U.S. military despite Iraqi pressure to leave the country.
The U.S. considers the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, a source of valuable intelligence on Iran.
The group also is credited with helping expose Iran's secret nuclear program through spying on Tehran for decades.
Iranian officials tied the MEK to an explosion in February at a girls school in Zahedan, Iran. (Full story)
The U.S. State Department considers the MEK a terrorist organization -- meaning no American can deal with it; U.S. banks must freeze its assets; and any American giving support to its members is committing a crime.
The U.S. military, though, regularly escorts MEK supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf.
"The trips for procurement of logistical needs also take place under the control and protection of the MPs," said Mojgan Parsaii, vice president of MEK and leader of Camp Ashraf.
That's because, according to U.S. documents, coalition forces regard MEK as protected people under the Geneva Conventions.
The US loses all moral authority and credibility whe it does things like this. It may be advantageous in the short run, but it only makes the US weaker in the long run. And long-run planning is important and quite possible, with intelligent, educated people.
"Anyone with her credentials could not NOT know the law without perpetuating some sort of fraud"
So you admit that Coulter does know the law...that she didn't commit any FRAUD, BUT that she then deliberately mistates and misrepresents the laws in her columns... for having a differing "legal opinion" must be a "deliberate deception," since "your" legal opinion differs from hers. Please either admit this is illogical or...
Please enter into evidence her deliberate misrepresentations of the law.
Try again, madam lawyer/expert on logic wannabe.
The US loses all moral authority and credibility when it does things like this.
War is immoral. America's acts of force/ immorality were sanctioned by the UN and world. If we are losing moral authority around the world, it must be because America's actions are being misrepresented around the world by useful idiots like you.
The first casualty in any war is the truth...
Oh stop with your boring platitudes. You're supposed to be a veteran or something, right? so, do you believe in such a thing as "laws of war" and "war crimes"?
Do you agree that not all wars are created equal, not all actions within wars are equal, that some are allowed and some are not?
And the question i'm discussing is not whether it's moral or not, it's about credibility. If you want to crticize another country for something, don't be doing the exact same thing!
Or do you think that what Iran is doing is okay, because war is immoral, so anything goes?
No. I don't believe in them. For only the Victor can enforce them...unless the rest of the world were "willing" to get involved. They are NOT.
So winning is everything.
Iran has no sanction from the rest of the world to be in Iraq. We do.
Retracting your "deliberately deceptive" OR inherently illogical Coulter remarks, counselor?
International laws are "dead letter laws" without a means of enforcement. And with a US veto in the Security Counsel, the General Assembly would have to be willing to overide.
They haven't the will.
America has carte blanche to do anything it wants in Iraq.
They're almost the only country with the means to enforce it. The rest don't have the will or means.
Shakespeare, "Hamlet"
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;' Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't.
Do UN made international laws have:
1) cause
2) will
3) strength
4) means
International Law is:
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward
Physics enforces ALL it's laws.
unless the rest of the world were "willing" to get involved. They are NOT.
Surely you've heard of this international criminal court thingie, and how the US is refusing to sign on? It has cases, dontcha know.
Iran has no sanction from the rest of the world to be in Iraq. We do.
Um, this is why I wonder if you're nuts.
Retracting your "deliberately deceptive" OR inherently illogical Coulter remarks, counselor?
Again, you are just simply to stupid to understand the words that are coming out of my mouth. Fraud is a crime or a tort. to get a law degree without knowing any law, you would have to perpetuate a fraud. writing erroneous, lying columns is not a crime or tort. why are you so stupid?
International laws are "dead letter laws" without a means of enforcement. And with a US veto in the Security Counsel, the General Assembly would have to be willing to overide.
They haven't the will.
See, you're just showing that you don't even understand how the UN works, the very basic functioning on it, so your pronouncements on international law are about as credible as my cat's, if i had a cat.
Oh keep talking. Your self-confidence and concurrent ignorance are truly entertaining...
FYI: what you're saying about international law is akin to saying, "the court of appeals of new york simply doesn't have the political will to strike down oregon law." or something as nonsensical.
I have not seen any primary sources. The evidence I have looked at is from the work of journalist that have looked into this and from the State Department. Robin Cook made an accusation about the CIA funding al-Qeuda and Peter Bergen directly refuted his comments.
I really do not see the issue in trying to show who the CIA did and did not support. We were fighting communism and in order to do that we had to support people we may otherwise would have not supported. Again, we supported Stalin - a mass murderer and dictator - in order to defeat Hitler. At that point in time, Nazi German was the greatest threat. The world is not as neat and simplistic as you appear to want to make it.
Look up fraud again in your dictionary. Avoidance. Looks like the liberal white flag of surrender again me.
And if the USA doesn't recognize an international court of justice, can any decisions of the court possibly be enforced?
Thanks again for an entertaining morning. LOL!
We were fighting communism and in order to do that we had to support people we may otherwise would have not supported. Again, we supported Stalin - a mass murderer and dictator - in order to defeat Hitler. At that point in time, Nazi German was the greatest threat. The world is not as neat and simplistic as you appear to want to make it.
All i'm saying is that you have to think ahead, plan long-term. It's easier not to, but it might be worse not to as well.
Yes, the US supported Stalin to defeat Nazi Germany, but the supposition there is that supporting Stalin was necessary to defeating Germany, and more importantly, that defeating Nazi Germany was necessary. Was supporting al-Qaida (assuming the CIA did) absolutely necessary to defeat the USSR, and was defeating the USSR absolutely necessary? I don't think it's as clear and black and white as you want it to be.
Some things may be advantageous to do, but you have you evaluate your costs. No one can predict the future, but that doesn't mean we can't think ahead and surmise what might happen, prepare for various scenarios, and work to avoid other ones. If the costs and risks are too high, maybe you should abandon the endavour altogether. Strengthening Islamic militants may have been a good way to fight the soviets in Afghanistan, but was it worth the cost? Was 9/11 worth it? You tell me. After all, it's only 3,000-odd people, right?
And if it wasn't worth it, why are we going down the same path again?
And if the USA doesn't recognize an international court of justice, can any decisions of the court possibly be enforced?
Seems that it's working quite fine without US interference, as is the ECHR and various other tribunals around the world, convict and sentence peopple to prison terms without any US involvement. Amazing!
Your hubris about the US ... so typical of idiot rightwingers.
...and just so we're clear. Whenever me accuses ANYONE ELSE of committing an act of DELIBERATE DECEPTION, we ALL know WHO is committing said act.
...either that, or your acting in good faith, but have a DIFFERENT moral stand for forming your opinions re: right and wrong, good or bad.
QED
...and the cases the ICJ has brought against America that have resulted in American's being tried (not in abstentia)???? LOL! Arrest Bush & Cheney... like the German's want to... LOL!
Let's see them try.
was defeating the USSR absolutely necessary?
Spoken like a true Conrade, Comwad!
You don't know anything about the ICJ. It's not a criminal court, so no one can be "tried" in it for any "crimes."
The US was a party to the ICJ, until the ICJ ruled against the US in a case pertaining to the US's involvement in Nicaragua, at which point the US withdrew from the jurisdiction of the court. It is a court of voluntary jurisdiction, by definition.
But hey, weren't we talking about the ICC and other international bodies that function well and good without any US support? Nice way to change the topic, that's what you do.
Let's look up fraud:
"1 a : DECEIT, TRICKERY; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b : an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : TRICK"
All right, she's a fraud in the lay sense of the word. I was using it purely in the legal sense when I said that she would have to perpetuate a fraud to get a law degree and pass the bar without knowing the law she pretends to not know.
Defeating "Hitler/Stalin"... was it really necessary???
was defeating the USSR absolutely necessary?
Spoken like a true Conrade, Comwad!
Well, was it? And if so, why?
I guess we simply weren't culturally sensitive enough of Hitler's need to exterminate Jews, Russia's need to run gulags or starve Ukranians, or ARAB needs to KILL JEWS and Restore the Caliphate and reconquer Spain.
Stalin was a great guy. The gulags should have been extended to the rest of the world, I know.
You're not answering the question. Stalin was not the one finally "defeated." Perhaps a hot war against Stalinist Russia would have been justified, considering what a horrible man he was, but in fact, the US cooperated with him instead.
The USSR does not equal Stalin.
I'm no defender of it at all. My family was stripped of our Soviet citizenship for various anti-Soviet activities. But don't get carried away wiht lovely rhetoric.
me admits to only the most minor part of her error... thereby ceding her entire argument to me. Thank you. Self-contradicted, again.
...and Nazi Germany was not Hitler.
Facts in evidence of intentional deceipt against Coulter, counselor. There are none currently in evidence. You were blowing smoke. Admit it.
Ockham prefers my explanation. Multiple moralities and people acting in good faith, seen by others as deceptions.
For example:
"If Americans support abortion, let's vote. . . Just this past term, in Stenberg vs. Carhart, the court expanded the apocryphal abortion right to an all-new right to stick a fork in the head of a half-born baby."
Now, Coulter, as a legal professional, knows that there are no national referenda in this country, knows that not all issues are decided by the legislature.
"The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats' behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle. They fill the airwaves with treason, but when called to vote on withdrawing troops, disavow their own public statements. These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors."
She knows the definition of treason, but she don't care.
"The presumption of innocence only means you don't go right to jail."
Really, Ann? Is that what it means?
I agree with you that we must weight long term cost and benefits, but don't you think the CIA did this? Maybe you disagree with the conclusions they made, but to be fair, you have to base your disagreements, not on what you know today, but based on the same information at the time the decision was made. You appear to want to place some nefarious motive on the CIA. Instead, maybe they acted in good faith.
I really do not think it is fair to link 9/11 to our support of Afghanistan against the Soviets. The cause and effect relationship between the two events are almost non-existent. The main reason bin Laden attacked the United States is because he did not like the fact that the U.S. was present in the holiest place in Islam. He wanted Americans out of the holy land. The probem is, the Saudi government had little problem with it. Osama bin Laden is extremely rich, so even if he happened to receive some funds from the CIA long ago, I am not sure how that links to 9/11. 9/11 happened because of bin Laden; not the CIA.
You appear to want to place some nefarious motive on the CIA. Instead, maybe they acted in good faith.
Not nefarious, just lack of forethought. In this case, i'm going to go with "stupid" rather than "evil." However, back to my original point, obviously this was not well-thought out, but shouldn't a lesson be learned here about supporting terrorists? Maybe that didn't work out so well laast time, and maybe we shouldn't do that again, you know?
I really do not think it is fair to link 9/11 to our support of Afghanistan against the Soviets. The cause and effect relationship between the two events are almost non-existent. The main reason bin Laden attacked the United States is because he did not like the fact that the U.S. was present in the holiest place in Islam. He wanted Americans out of the holy land. The probem is, the Saudi government had little problem with it. Osama bin Laden is extremely rich, so even if he happened to receive some funds from the CIA long ago, I am not sure how that links to 9/11. 9/11 happened because of bin Laden; not the CIA.
I think it's beyond fair. Whatever the stupid and bad motives of the USSR were in invading Afghanistan (I wrote a very long paper on this event), the US actively supported an 8-year war in that country, supported the anarchy, warlord side, and when the USSR pulled out, the US simply allowed the anarchy to form into something, which became the Taliban. The US wanted to kick out any force of law and order, even if it was the USSR, and in its place put in... *crickets*. So, who is responsible for the anarchy that procuded the Taliban, which later aligned itself with al-Qaida and provided a safe haven in the 9th-cenutry warlord Stan that Afghanistan became?
A few air strikes here and there before 9/11 didn't really disrupt anything. And please, don't blame it on Clinton. Let's assume that Clinton didn't do anything. Bush had 9 months in office before 9/11, why didn't Bush strike Afghanistan, if it was such a threat? Remember, Bush ran on an isoloationist ticket, criticizing Clinton for his foreign policy, nationbuilding, involvement in Kosovo.
well, FJ, will you now admit you were wrong?
The USSR was responsible for the chaos and anarchy in Afghanistan. Maybe it was not a good idea for the United States to leave Afghanistan once the Soviets were defeated, and thus you could say the U.S. is partly responsible, but the majority of the problem was created by the Soviet Union for attacking Afghanistan in the first place and of course on the Taliban themselves. Regardless of the reasons the Taliban came to power, the Taliban did not attack the United States on 9/11. It did harbor al-Qaeda, which is why we attacked Afghanistan after 9/11.
I wonder how you can critize the U.S. for leaving Afghanistan after defeating the Soviets, yet you are uncertain about the U.S. staying in Iraq in order to create some kind of stability. What kind of chaos do you think will arise if the U.S. leaves Iraq? What kind of terrorist harboring regime do you think will form? Regardless of your feelings about the start of the war, since we are in Iraq, it appears you should be supporting our efforts there.
It's not like I don't support the efforts. I wish it would work.
You make a good point and that is why I am not sure. I mean, if we stay, do we just stay forever? I don't think we will stay forever, i don't think americans will let that happen, even if it were the right thing to do. So, do we just put off the inevitable by staying longer? If Iraq's history can be divided into phases, are we just extending a phase pointlessly, have people die in a phase that will, at some point in the future, morph into another phase?
I just don't know if it's feasible to think that the US can improve the situation there. And i also don't think it's feasible that the US will stay like it is there forever.
Also, after its fall, the USSR/Russia was in no position to take care of Afghanistan. maybe they would have established "democracy" or whatever in Afghanistan had the CIA not funded the mujahedeen. But that is speculation.
In any case, if the USSR destroyed the country and is incapable or unwilling of bringing it back to order, should the US just sit on the sidelines out of principle and allow a security threat to build up and ally itself very closely with the "government" of that country? OR should the US be acting, as you guys love to say, "preemptively" in the interests of safety of Americans? The US failed on all counts there, Bush I, Clinton II, Bush II, to prevent that. It's at least partially responsible for that omission, for failure to act.
Now you might say, well, that's exactly why we went into Iraq, to avoid another failure to act. But it's not hte same, the level of terrorism links in Iraq was nothign compared to afghanistan, the links were tenuous, Iraq was a dictatorial state, but a state nonetheless, unlike the chaos that was afghanistan under the taliban. I mean, I think that Iran and Iraq are simply incomparable to afghanistan. Maybe Saudi is more comparable.
I am glad you have an open mind regarding our situation in Iraq. I have taken your questions into account. I think it will be a long and difficult road.
I'm glad you do too. Reasonable minds can disgaree :)
...me but there are state referendums. Bzzzzz. Sorry.
...perhaps she's using the "common meaning" and not the legal definition. Like you do, "occassionally". Bzzzzz. Sorry.
...presumption of innocence does mean what she said. Bzzzzz. Sorry.
Where was I wrong? For not agreeing with your strawmen arguments??? Hardly.
And I love the chain of causalities you draw in your Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq arguments. Just feel free to draw the "starts" and stops" for the causal chains wherever you like...
And you have perfect 20-20 hindsight on everything, and no foresight towards the future. You blame the CIA for not having the same "vision". (Duh!). You are truly a creature designed by Epimetheus.
No one can predict the future, but that doesn't mean we can't think ahead and surmise what might happen, prepare for various scenarios, and work to avoid other ones. If the costs and risks are too high, maybe you should abandon the endavour altogether.
then 20-20 hindsight...
Strengthening Islamic militants may have been a good way to fight the soviets in Afghanistan, but was it worth the cost? Was 9/11 worth it? You tell me. After all, it's only 3,000-odd people, right?
The USA was supporting the tribes rebelling against the Soviet regime in Kabul. Things were going GREAT for this support UNTIL Osama bin Laden and his MENTOR have a falling out. Osama's MENTOR is dispersing the trained mujahideen to tribal leaders for their use. Osama decides to INSTEAD, take command of these trained fighters, and to retain command and control for himself. His mentor objects. Osama assassinates him and takes over the mujahideen to be used an independent force to re-establish the caliphate and the cause of pan-arabism.
Osama hijacked the Afghans. You say the CIA should have forseen this event. I saw "hogwash".
Abdullah Azzam was Osama's mentor & original founder of the precurser organization to al Quaeda.
A "partial" Osama timeline.
...me but there are state referendums. Bzzzzz. Sorry.
...perhaps she's using the "common meaning" and not the legal definition. Like you do, "occassionally". Bzzzzz. Sorry.
...presumption of innocence does mean what she said. Bzzzzz. Sorry.
Again, you open your mouth, and just as you did with international law, a subject you have now abandoned, you open your mouth and remove all doubt that you're an idiot.
But see, you're a layman, you have an excuse not to know the law. She's not, she's a lawyer. Incidentally, did you know that lawyers are subject to higher standards of perjury than regular people, because of the assumption that lawyers know the law?
That's all i'm saying. She knows the law, and she deliberately misstates it.
And no, if she were using the layman's definition of treason, she wouldn't have used the exact language from the constitution. She says "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" (and incidentally again, i don' tknow how you can fill the airwaves with aid and comfort), and the constitution says:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
See, you have an excuse for not knowing what the presumtion of innocence is (and her definition is wrong, btw), but she doesn't.
Deliberately misstating the law. She's dishonest. That's what I originally alleged.
In fact, for your information, if you are presumed innocent, you can still end up sitting in jail for months awaiting your trial, if you are denied bail. In fact, most people who are in JAIL are awaiting trial. PRISON is where you go after being convicted.
'Aid and Comfort' is also a common definition of treason. Especially in the US so.... Bzzzzzz.
and yes you can...IF you are pose a continued risk to the community or can't post bond.
Heck I ain't even a scheister and I know as much about law as you. LOL!
You say she's deliberately deceiving us. No proof of that yet. Try again. And all your evidence appears to be circumstantial. Where's some direct evidence?
'Aid and Comfort' is also a common definition of treason. Especially in the US so.... Bzzzzzz.
and yes you can...IF you are pose a continued risk to the community or can't post bond.
Heck I ain't even a scheister and I know as much about law as you. LOL!
12:47 PM
Is it?
Main Entry: trea·son
Pronunciation: 'trE-z&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English tresoun, from Anglo-French traisun, from Latin tradition-, traditio act of handing over, from tradere to hand over, betray -- more at TRAITOR
1 : the betrayal of a trust : TREACHERY
2 : the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family
http://m-w.com/dictionary/treason
And once again, you open your mouth and show us how much of an idiot you are. It's not just about continued risk to society. If there is a flight risk, or for certain crimes, there is no bond. If you present a risk to yourself (or others) you don't be released either.
You think that in 3 years of law school Ann Coulter didn't learn anything? You know, she was an editor on the Cornell Law REview, so you can't even argue that she was just the worst student. She must have gotten good grades, she knows the law.
Hey, I can't help you regain sanity. It's not my problem.
excuse me, not bond. Bail.
as a sidenote, since ann coulter has never been married, do you think she's (a) a virgin or (b) a fornicator?
keep in mind, she's 45 years old.
if she's a virgin, i think it explains everything.
Dictionary shopping me? Why not simply follow the link I had posted. Oh.... becuase it doesn't support your case.
I hope you never try working for a DA. They don't like or approve of lawyers who omit exculpatory evidence. Especially in your purely circumstantial case.
Your a lawyer. You should know better. SHAME on you, trying to deceive this poor dumb layperson.
Does the BAR Association have a morals clause now, me? If so, maybe you can get Coulter disbarred.
I don't know and don't care about her sex life. But restraining yourself from malicious gossiping is NOT one of your many (LOL!) virtues.
In fact, it all seems rather "deceitful" of you.
Shame is bullshit, used by weaklings against the strong.
The second definition of treason on witionary is the LEGAL definition of treason, not the lay one.
And no, I would never work for the DA, considering how little it pays and what a crappy job it is.
I don't know and don't care about her sex life. But restraining yourself from malicious gossiping is NOT one of your many (LOL!) virtues.
you don't care? but you care about homosexuals' sex lives, your children's sex lives, the sex lives of fornicators!
You are simply amazing, FJ. I am awed by your complete inability to be consistent. It's really baffling.
Speaking of virtues, why don't you tell us about the war crimes you committed when you were in the military, since there's nothing wrong with war crimes according to you?
btw, there's nothing worthy of disbarment in what Coulter is doing. But it's prima facie evidence of dishonesty.
I am glad we can have a civil debate here. I am going to defend Ann Coulter here.
You do not have to believe something is treasonous under the law in order for it to be treasonous in broader terms. For example, Jane Fonda was never arrested for treason, but her actions were arguably treasonous. Likewise, when Howard Zinn says the world would be a better place without the United States, these words do betray the country. Nevertheless, it is protected speech under the law. Ann Coulter explains all this in her book Slander.
Her other point about abortion is well understood by many legal scholars. The right to privacy, in which the right to abortion comes from, is a right made out of nothing. It is one of the worst rulings in U.S. history, probably right behind Dred Scott. I think Constitutional scholars that intend to understand the Constitution from an orginalist perspective will come to the conclusion that the right to abortion is a baseless right. Just because the Surpeme Court makes a decision does not make it the right decision. In due time, I think Roe V. Wade will be overturned. I hope you are not implying that the Supreme Court can never offend the Constitution.
Precisely... only it isn't cited in my source as the "legal" definition... "aid & comfort" has become part of the general lexicon, too.
"Shame is bullshit, used by weaklings against the strong." Now your talking like a Nietzschean!
If it doesn't affect me and mine, I generally don't care about peoples sex lives. When people try and shove their sexual habits into my face, THEN I care. Ann doesn't do that. No inconsistency. Bzzzzzzzz.
I committed no war "crimes", by definition.
btw, there's nothing worthy of disbarment in what Coulter is doing. But it's prima facie evidence of dishonesty
If that is the case, then this thread contains plenty of prima facie evidence of your own dishonesty.
Are you being deliberately dishonest? Or are you just weighing and amplifying the photons of falsity (nits) inherent in every truth, my queen?
I'm going to get into a debate about Roe v. Wade. I was simply pointing out that you can't have a national vote, as Ann seemed to be suggesting.
As for treason, even Ann's speech is protected by free speech. I never said it wasn't. I am not going to talk about Fonda because frankly I don't know enough about what she did.
My only point was that Ann is a learned legal professional and yet deliberately misstates the law. Apart from her views or her politics, this is prima facie evidence of dishonestly. It would be if someone responded to your multiple questions about any topic in English, and in the end said, "I don't speak English." Prima facie evidence.
If it doesn't affect me and mine, I generally don't care about peoples sex lives. When people try and shove their sexual habits into my face, THEN I care. Ann doesn't do that. No inconsistency. Bzzzzzzzz.
Do you care about your daughter's sex life?
I committed no war "crimes", by definition.
All rightie. Tell us about some things you did that would generally be considered war crimes.
Ann is suggesting that Roe V. Wade is bad Constitutional law, and thus, as a federalist system suggest, decisions regarding abortion should be left to state legislatures, not federal judges. Everyone knows what Roe V. Wade says, but it is this decision that Ann Coulter is disagreeing with. How is this being dishonest? She is saying it is a horrible decision; lets vote on it like the Constitution says we should. Are you suggesting that anyone that disagrees with a Supreme Court decision is being dishonest?
Has Ann Coulter ever suggested that liberals should be arrested and convicted for treason under the law? Or is she simply making the point, as I believe she is, that liberals do not want to defend the United States? Even if she did make the former, she could be expressing what she believes the law should be, not what it currently is. Is a disagreeing with a current law being dishonest?
Are you suggesting that anyone that disagrees with a Supreme Court decision is being dishonest?
Absolutely not. Ann says, "If Americans support abortion, let's vote. . . " to me, that implies a country-wide vote because she says "Americans" and "let's vote" as in, all of us.
Is a disagreeing with a current law being dishonest?
No, obviously not, and i didn't use any of her quotes where she does that. But she flatly states things that she knows are wrong.
She is saying it is a horrible decision; lets vote on it like the Constitution says we should.
Where does the constitution say we should vote on it? The amendments say that rights are retained by the people and the states, but it doesn't say that results necessarily in a vote. If you're going to be espousing strict constitutional construction and minimalist, don't write into the Constitution what isn't there, right?
I really don't want to get invovled in this, but i msut draw your attention to this little quote from a letter by George Washington, the president of the constitutional convention and one of the founding fathers:
“The happiness of this Country depend much upon the deliberations of the federal Convention which is now sitting,” reads the second paragraph of the quill-and-ink letter. “It, however, can only lay the foundation — the community at large must raise the edifice.”
Do you think this has any bearing on original intent? What do you think Washington's original intent was?
"The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats' behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle. They fill the airwaves with treason, but when called to vote on withdrawing troops, disavow their own public statements. These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors."
I feel the same the same way as Ann. How is this statement deliberately dishonest? Because it's not "material" aid & comfort? And that the behaviour is only legally seditious and not legally treasonous behavior? But then, you can't fill the airways with "material" aid & comfort, so she HAD to be using the term in the "common" sense unless, like Tokyo Rose, were directing the enemies propaganda directly.
But Coulter is allowed to use the term in whatever sense she likes... and her use seems consistent with her job (not a legal one) and common usage. And "Gutless traitor" is NOT a legal term, it's a common one. This statement is NOT proof of a deliberate deception or dishonesty.
Hello. Does what my daughter does affect me? You are still sober, aren't you?
And I plead the fifth on divulging anything YOU might perceive to be a "war crime". For all I know, yyou think showing up for a war is a crime. So collect your own evidence, counselor.
Even so, Ann Coulter may be suggesting that we should have a national vote on abortion. I think it is obvious that we cannot have one with the current court ruling. Do you really think she is suggesting that Roe V. Wade does not exist?
How does the "community at large" mean federal judges? If anything, it sounds as if the people should be making the decisions; not 9 judges. As Thomas Jefferson said:
"...But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force."
—Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:451
Without debating the merits of Roe V. Wade any further, I just do not see how she is being dishonest. I think it is clear she is expressing her belief in how things should be, not how they are.
And your axe handles on a non-plausible national referendum intention don't line up no matter how hard you try... for there's a direct path to referendum through the tenth.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.
Hello. Does what my daughter does affect me? You are still sober, aren't you?
Does it affect you any more than what someone else's son or daughter do? Why do you "abhor" homosexuals then? why do you not want them in the army? It doesn't affect you any more than your daughter's actions.
Ugh, just the other day you were criticising me for being a fornicator -- does my fornication affect you? surely no more than ann coulter's or your daughter's. You keep changing the standard. Just today, you went from "epeople shoving it your face" to "affect."
Well, you can't have a national referendum. It just doesn't exist in the US. Without some sort of amendment or new law or something.
and here we are at the classic attack on the supreme court's power at all! Jefferson is clearly saying that to give the Supreme Court the role it took in Marbury, you need "people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs."
So, godspeed, please, go, make the argument that the court's whole jurisdiction and functioning is wrong because its founding decision Marbury is wrong.
Stop fighting small battles regarding this decision and that decision, and fight the big battle -- the whole authrity for decisions is corrupt? Am I right?
PS I'd love to know if you support the recent partial birth decision, because, if there's no right to abortion, where in the constitution does it say that the federal government can ban medical procedures (or murder) done by doctors in various states?
Even if you characterize it as murder, murder only becomes a FEDERAL crime in certain, limited circumstances. Most murders are state crimes only. So where in hell did Congress get this authority to make this kind of murder a federal crime? It's not in the consstitution, the right to life and all that.
I've explained "why" homosexuals do not belong in the army. You didn't listen the first time, so I'm not about to repeat myself. "Don't ask, don't tell," works for me. In other words, don't shove it in my face.
I called you a fornicator becuase you were shoving your sexual standards in my face me, attempting to mock/shame me for what you thought was prolonged abstinece after my description of a man's sexual cycle of (manstrual cycle). I simply retaliated. You shoved sex in my face, I threw back. Simple. The standard doesn't change. Keep throwing and eventually you have to catch.
As for the rest...divert and extend...divert and extend. You can't help yourself.
When Ann Coulter suggest we should vote on it, I do not believe she is talking about a direct vote. I believe she is talking about voting for elected officials, and then Congress will decide.
When did the court ban partial birth abortion? I am not sure if that is what you are talking about because what the court did is uphold the existing law. It said that Congress has the power to make certain laws regarding abortion. Maybe you are suggesting that Congress should not have that power. Prior to the 14th Amendment, maybe that was the case, but the 14th Amendment reads:
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
One could argue that unborn children do not have equal protection under the law.
I thought we were talking about whether or not Ann Coulter was being dishonest, not whether or not Congress should have the authority to make laws regarding abortion. Personally, I think it should be left to the states to decide. The federal government should stay out of it and that includes the Supreme Court. How is Ann Coulter being dishonest when all it appears she is doing is expressing her opinion?
...and you defintely suffer from temporal distortions. "If it doesn't exist at this moment, it could never exist in the future... so she lies and is being dishonest" is terrible logic.
xkv,
Apparentlty, if you disagree with me you simply must be a dishonest liar and inconsistent.
There couldn't be ANY other reason for NOT agreeing with her...
Like having a different standard of "good and bad" or "good and evil".
Me's perspective is the "objective" perspective and our perspectives are merely "subjective".
And if she's a lawyer, then all lawyer's opinions must be "objective" as well... unless of course, they're subjective, and not me's, then those lawyer's opinions are dishonest.
< /sarcasm>
Lawyers try and contextualize every argument as if it had to be played in a courtroom setting.
Sorry, but things don't get much phonier anywhere than they get in a courtroom.
And todays law is tomorrow's dead-letter law.
They hack the limbs off any argument they can't tie to a Procrustean bed to make it fit.
One day Theseus will come by and return the favor.
I already told you how I think she's being dishonest. "Let's vote" is ambiguous at best.
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Well now, don't this only refer to states, not the federal government? I think you see how this is a problem. The court probably shoulda struck this law down, since it's a federal law, right? If you believe in original intent, the framers of the 14th amendment didn't really intend it to apply to the federal government. To get to that, you'd have to subscribe to the doctrine of "reverse incorporation," which states that all rights and protections found for the people under the 14th amendment against the STATES also extend to the FEDERAL government.
Please also take note that the priviledges and immunities clause of the 14th amendment is no longer applicable law.
I guess you didn't like the direct logical implications of your own Jefferson quote much, since it would reach an absurd result. But the court did engage not in original intent analysis, but in structural analysis to reach its decision in Marbury. Is then, a structural analysis valid for constitutional interpretation? If so, is the "penumbras and emanations" analysis in Griswold then valid as well? And what about that pesky 9th amendment?
Omg, FJ, get a life. seriously.
You may have told me how you think she is being dishonest, but I just do not see how you have argued that case. She is simply giving her opinion.
Are you saying that the 14th Amendment did not increase the power of the federal government over the states? Maybe Congress would not have the authority to pass such laws, and the Court could strike such laws down, but it appears that the Supreme Court could force the States to grant unborn children equal rights under the law. If States have laws against murder, then it must apply this law equally to all citizens; including the unborn.
How can the Court rule that it has the power of judicial review? Does not it take the power of judicial review in order to rule that the Court has the power of judicial review? It sounds as if the Court just granted itself this authority. Even if it does have this authority, that does not mean that the Court can create rights out of thin air. The job of the Court is still to interpret the Constitution, not re-write it. Unfortunately this has extremely politized the Court, which was supposed to the least political branch.
Are you saying that the 14th Amendment did not increase the power of the federal government over the states? Maybe Congress would not have the authority to pass such laws, and the Court could strike such laws down, but it appears that the Supreme Court could force the States to grant unborn children equal rights under the law. If States have laws against murder, then it must apply this law equally to all citizens; including the unborn.
What the fourteenth amendment technically did is require that the states treat all citizens equally, and extend the constitutional guarantees, like the freedom of speech, to the states. But did it increase the power of the federal government? with respect to enforcement of these new rights, sure.
The question you inevitably fall upon with your argument is whether "the unborn" are citizens. Are they counted in the census? Can families claim them as dependents, and for other similar purposes, does their existence count? Can you claim that the fertilized egg kicking around in your uterus (but not being able to implant because you're on the pill) is a 2nd passanger for the HOV lane?
How can the Court rule that it has the power of judicial review? Does not it take the power of judicial review in order to rule that the Court has the power of judicial review? It sounds as if the Court just granted itself this authority. Even if it does have this authority, that does not mean that the Court can create rights out of thin air. The job of the Court is still to interpret the Constitution, not re-write it. Unfortunately this has extremely politized the Court, which was supposed to the least political branch.
Woah woah woah, wait a second. So is structural analysis like in Marbury okay or not? If not, the whole house of cards is wrong. If it is, then the penumbras and emanations analysis of Griswold is acceptable.
Now, take this:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
And put it together with this:
Amendment XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
To me, the two together say that there are rights that are retained with the people that are JUST AS IMPORTANT as the rights in the constitution. And that no state can infringe on those rights, those liberties or properties, if you will, without due process. What is due process? Procedural due process, sure. But should the laws of a state that infringe on those rights be subject to some sort of higher federal review, a due process of sorts? I say yes.
Yep, Theseus is defintely overdue.
Lawyers are idiots. One part stupid and three parts coward.
Plato, "Timaeus"
For no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. And in the case of pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from the body. For where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander about in the body, and find no exit or escape, but are pent up within and mingle their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are blended with them, they produce all sorts of diseases, more or fewer, and in every degree of intensity; and being carried to the three places of the soul, whichever they may severally assail, they create infinite varieties of ill-temper and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, and also of forgetfulness and stupidity. Further, when to this evil constitution of body evil forms of government are added and evil discourses are uttered in private as well as in public, and no sort of instruction is given in youth to cure these evils, then all of us who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our control. In such cases the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather than the educated. But however that may be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies, and learning, to avoid vice and attain virtue; this, however, is part of another subject.
I sense jealousy, I sense resentment, bitterness. I have a take-home exam, what's your excuse for being on this page all day?
Ah that word "evil." Plato must have been a victim of slave morality. Why would you listen to him?
I enjoy watching your every missile miss its' target, and every target set up for you to hit moved.
Never forget girlie girl. The lawyers only stand at the loopholes 'till the real pirates show up.
Fascinating.
So, uh, tell me again why you're quoting Plato regarding "evil" if evil is just what the weak call the strong?
"Oh SNAP" #78.
C'mon, i want to see you tapdance your way out of this one.
You are just completely clueless, aren't you. Plato's represents the ultimate slave morality.
Nietzsche, "Beyond Good & Evil"
Socrates basically had seen through the irrational in moral judgments. Plato, who was more innocent in such things and without the mischievousness of a common man, wanted to use all his power—the greatest power which a philosopher up to that time had had at his command—to prove that reason and instinct inherently move to a single goal, to the good, to “God,” and since Plato all the theologians and philosophers have been on the same road—that is, in things concerning morality up to now, instinct, or as the Christians call it “faith,” or as I call it, “the herd,” has triumphed. We must grant that Descartes is an exception, the father of rationalism (and thus the grandfather of the revolution), a man who conferred sole authority on reason. But reason is only a tool, and Descartes was superficial.
So how can you admire Plato and Nietzsche at the same time then?
Omg, why am i asking?! you're the master of doublething.
Nietzsche is to Plato as Zeno was to Parmenides.
Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spake thus:
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman- a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going.
The rope is secured at two ends. Plato stands at one end, Zarathustra the other. One defined the perfect forms, the other defined the real form.
You've heard of the "Should be" "is" fallacy? (or something like that). Now resolve the paradox.
Plato is the ideal. Nietzsche is the reality. How close can we movbe towards the "ideal"? That is the experiment.
Of course, we'll fall off the rope before we get there. Every civilization does. Each >progressive step forces us to advance(?) along the tightrope... feminism - step on the rope, gay marriage - step on the rope. Each step causes us to sway a little bit more and our situation to become a bit more precarious.
And Marcuse yells -"Faster! Soon we'll be on the other side!" And the progressive take another step. LOL!
Plato is the ideal? Wait, the slave morality is the ideal?
Nietzsche "Gay Science"
...Gradually, the human brain became full of such judgements and convictions, and a ferment, struggle, and lust for power [Machtgelüst] developed in this tangle. Not only utility and delight but every kind of impulse took sides in this fight about "truths"; the intellectual fight became an occupation, an attraction, a profession, a duty, something dignified—: and eventually knowledge and the striving for the true found their place as a need among other needs. Henceforth not only faith and conviction but also scrutiny, denial, mistrust, and contradiction became a power, all "evil" instincts were subordinated to knowledge, employed in her service, and acquired the splendor of what is permitted, honored, and useful—and eventually even the eye and innocence of the good. Thus knowledge became a piece of life itself, and hence a continually growing power: until eventually knowledge collided with these primeval basic errors, two lives, two powers, both in the same human being. The thinker: that is now that being in whom the impulse for truth and those life-preserving errors clash for the first fight, after the impulse for truth has proved to be also a life-preserving power. Compared to the significance of this fight, everything else is a matter of indifference: the ultimate question about the conditions of life has been posed here, and we confront the first attempt to answer this question by experiment. To what extent can truth endure incorporation?—that is the question, that is the experiment.
One ideal. The "Good". For Public & Individual's role within it.
Nietzsche is another ideal. A completely self-reliant individual who has no need for the herd.
Plato is the right half of your brain - Super Ego.
Nietzsche is left half of you brain - Ego
A divided Id/Limbic System communicates & mediates w/both.
A tri-partate "brain" would be an apt paradigm.
You should study neurology and neurophilosophy one day. It's a real kick in the pants!
Well, I've an early date for coffee tomorrow. Till then.
Ciao.
"The question you inevitably fall upon with your argument is whether "the unborn" are citizens."
I would argue that they should be. I am not going to get into why I believe that at this moment, but I was only pointing out that I believe a Constitutional case can be made to ban abortion.
"So is structural analysis like in Marbury okay or not?"
This decision is here to stay. I just think it is interesting how judicial review came about. It makes an interesting conversation, but reversing this decision is never going to happen. The court has this power, which is why I support orginalist judges on the Supreme Court.
I do think it is interesting that the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment are kind of in conflict. It was after all, the anti-Federalist - those that supported state rights, that wanted the Bill of Rights in order to assure that the federal government remain limited. The 14th Amendment, on the other hand, increased federal power over the states. To incorporate the Bill of Rights over the states is to counter the entire purpose for the Bill of Rights; which was to limit, not expand, the power of the federal government.
I think the 14th Amendment has been a mixed blessing for conservatives. On one hand it does seem to limit government power, but on the hand it radically increases it:
"...What should libertarians think of the Fourteenth Amendment?
It's a question without an easy answer. Classical liberals of good faith have found themselves on either side of the issue....
The Fourteenth Amendment is in everybody's Pocket Constitution, and it's not going anywhere. Fair enough, but the above account shows that the amendment cannot be justified with a bedtime story about Lockean first principles. If libertarians are to embrace the Fourteenth Amendment, they'll have to find pragmatic reasons to do so. The argument must be that the amendment has been, and will continue to be, an effective weapon in the struggle for individual liberty. But even here, the case is not nearly as strong as Roger Pilon believes it to be....
in practice, the Fourteenth Amendment has often operated as a grant of legislative and executive power to judges. And that power has been used to violate the very rights it was meant to secure.
This is nowhere clearer than in the line of cases thought to represent the Fourteenth Amendment's finest hour: Brown v. Board of Education and its progeny. Brown has iconic status on the Left and much of the Right, because many commentators see it as ending de jure segregation and furthering the first Justice Harlan's noble ideal of a 'color-blind' Constitution.
But this is only part of Brown's story. Equality before the law shifted effortlessly into forced equality of outcome in the space of a few short years. State resistance, massive or otherwise, was useless. In North Carolina Board of Education v. Swann, the Court struck down a state statute providing that no student would be compelled to attend any school for the purpose of improving racial balance in the schools. In Washington v. Seattle School District, the Court did the same with a statewide voter initiative preventing mandatory busing for purposes of integration. In U.S. v. Yonkers, a federal judge held the Yonkers city government in contempt, ordering it to integrate its schools by building scattersite public housing in predominantly white areas. This line of cases reached its coercive nadir in Missouri v. Jenkins, when the Supreme Court held that, to further integration, a federal judge could order a local government to increase property taxes, even though the increase was barred by the state constitution.
'Well, it serves you right for setting up government schools in the first place,' say we libertarians. But wait. Faced with a desegregation order in the early '60s, Prince Edward County, Virginia, refused to assess school taxes and instead shut down its public education system. In 1964's Griffin v. County School Board, the Court ordered Prince Edward County to levy the taxes and reopen its schools. In 1996, when the Court ended male-only admissions at the Virginia Military Institute, one of the obstacles to VMI's privatization was a possible Griffin-based challenge from the Justice Department.
Thus, in the wake of Brown, federal courts enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment have seized vast coercive powers, state resistance to taxation and social engineering notwithstanding. To what benefit? None, actually. As the editors of a leading--and, it should go without saying, leftist--constitutional law text admit, there is "no proof . . . that [integration]has aided blacks in any demonstrable fashion." (Stone, Seidman, Sunstein, and Tushnet; Constitutional Law; 2d Ed. Little, Brown, and Co.; 1991 pps 530-31) It's true that in recent years, the federal courts have cooled somewhat to desegregation lawsuits. It's also true that, thanks to Missouri v. Jenkins, we're no longer protected from taxation by unelected, life- tenured federal judges. The precedent remains on the books, waiting for the next egalitarian jihad. In its 1868 Resolution deratifying the Fourteenth Amendment, New Jersey charged that the amendment would work a radical 'enlarge[ment] of the judicial power.' In fact, New Jersey suspected that the amendment itself was 'made vague for the purpose of facilitating encroachment on the lives, liberties, and property of the people.' Maybe the Garden State was on to something....
the Fourteenth Amendment includes a de jure grant of power to Congress. Section Five of the amendment reads: 'The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.' Roger Pilon argues that Congress should routinely invoke Section Five to strike down state violations of individual rights. In the Cato Handbook for the 105th Congress, he declares that Congress has 'often failed in its responsibility under the Fourteenth Amendment to police the states. Here is an area where federal regulation has been, if anything, too restrained.'
It's unlikely that Pilon fully recognizes the implications of this position. In the passage immediately preceding the above, he rails against burgeoning federalization of crimes, which has taken place because of willful misinterpretation of Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. But if Congress can step in under the Fourteenth Amendment to secure basic individual rights when states 'fail to secure them against private violations,' as Pilon assures us Congress can, then Pilon has opened the door to a vast federal police power. Say goodbye to the tentative restriction of federal authority provided when the Court struck down the Gun Free School Zones Act in U.S. v. Lopez. Does carjacking violate our rights to liberty and property? There's your authority for the Federal Carjacking Statute. Do outlier states provide women with insufficient protection against domestic abuse? Quite possibly, so make way for the Violence against Women Act. If you like the 'substantial effects' test for invocation of the Commerce Power, then wait until you see what Congress can do with matters that 'substantially affect' liberty. [In fact, the Violence Against Women Act VAWA) is based in part on just such a theory of Congress's power under Section 5. Several district courts have upheld the statute. But on March 5, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals emphatically rejected VAWA, and with it the theory that Congress can use the Fourteenth Amendment to federalize crimes when, as Roger Pilon puts it, 'State measures prove inadequate.' See Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytechnic 1999 WL 111891 pps 40-55.]
In the midst of the recent furor over black church burnings, Congress passed the Church Arson Prevention Act. In his Cato Handbook chapter and a 1996 Washington Post op-ed, Pilon chides Congress for relying on the Commerce Clause in enacting the anti-arson statute. Instead, he tells us, Congress should have invoked its authority under Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment. 'If the facts had warranted it,' he writes, Congress would have had 'ample authority' under Section Five to pass the Church Arson Prevention Act. Reading between the lines, I surmise that he doubts that the facts warranted it. Indeed, there's every reason to believe that they didn't, as research by Michael Fumento and others later suggested. But we operate with a real-world Congress, susceptible to political pressure, and a real-world judiciary reluctant to make what it sees as political judgments. If the only check against federalization of crime is to be found in the judiciary's willingness to overturn congressional findings of fact, then that's no check at all...."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/healy1.html
So you say that Marbury is here to stay. That kind of constitutional analysis is either stare desisis, or what is known as "custom" and/or history. It's different from original intent in that it looks beyond the intent and actions of the originators (in the case of the 14th amendment, the originators are the post-civil war legislators), and it looks to how things have been done, the history and custom of our laws and regulations. I find this method disquieting because it seems to justify the perpetuation of various laws and legal concepts simply because that's the way it's been done before. That's why I look at Marbury as a structural decision, and i believe that structural analysis is indispensible, regardless of the original intent.
As for Brown v. Board of Educ., it's a bad decision. I fully support it, i'm glad it was made, but it was based in the idea that segregation harms black children, based on dubious, shaky far-from-generally-accepted sociological studies. THAT's how it violated the 14th amendment: segregation was not equal protection because it harmed black people.
A favorite question of Scalia is whether he would have voted for it, since it goes against everything he stands for and believes in.
The way I see it, i can't support only the originalist method of interpretation and Brown. If i have to choose, i'll go with supporting Brown and abandoning original intent.
And that article is out of date: the Violence AGainst Women act was in part struck down by the Surpeme Court. For decades, the commerce clause was the basis of all sorts of legislation, including the Civil Rights ACt of 1964, and only in the 1990's did the court finally strike down any law under that justification.
Again, if i have to choose between the Civil Rights Act and original intent or strict construction, i'll choose the civil rights act.
It's a natural law sort of view: there are rights taht exist regardless of whether supreme court even exists, and it's the court's job to figure out those right, which according to the 9th amendment are not disparaged simply by not being included, and those rights hodl the same kind of inviolable place as the enumerated rights. the right to privacy, the right to control your own body, the right to not be discriminated on the basis of merely your skin color.
Original intent has its limits. Custom has it that we don't have a constitutional convention every 30 years to add and subtract varioius rights. So, what is more important, upholding an old document or protecting natural rights? i'm goign with the rights. the document is worthless without "the people."
You make many interesting points, especially about Marbury and original intent. I think you are suggesting how is it possible to want original intent on everything accept the Marbury decision. It appears that an arbitrary exception is being made. I am not sure I have an answer at this point, but I do have a question. What do you think the original intent of the Supreme Court was? What was its purpose?
I think I agree with you about precedent in court decisions. If the court simply chooses to uphold precedent, then it appears that it is very difficult for the court to ever change a ruling. If precedent, by definition is true, then why change what is by definition already true? There does not appear to be any valid reason to do so. At least from an originalist point of view, the court has good reason to change a ruling if the precedent of that ruling is an opposition with the original intent of the Constitution.
I think the purpose of the Constitution was to be a radically conservative document; meaning that it was not to be tampered with or changed very easily. That is why the amendment process requires a supermajority in the Congress and then 3/4 of the states. The Founders did not want the whims of the people, Congress, or the courts to simply change the Constitution because of certain subjective feelings. Therefore, even if one feels that the Civil Rights Act is a good thing, this feeling does not warrant its passage in of and itself. One should follow the Constitution first and foremost. For example, why is it that a Constitutional amendment was required for Congress to pass laws restricting the use of alcohol, but some how Congress can restrict the use of marijuana, based on the Commerce Clause, even when an individual grows it in his or her back yard, having nothing at all to do with interstate commerce? At this point, it appears that the conclusions are made before the arguments. It was argued that it effects interstate commerce, but I think we can call that stretching it. Would you agree that the Commerce Clause has been misused?
You appear to be approaching the Constitution from a utilitarian perspective. In other words, you would support certain rulings based on the utility of its outcome, rather then upholding the actual meaning of the text. As I think you were arguing, it is better to focus on the consequences of decisions rather than the merits of those decisions, or as you said, "upholding an old document". We do not have a constitutional convention every 30 years, but we do always have the option of a constitutional amendment. I think this is the true voice of the people.
She prefers the "wisdom" of the court, to the "wisdom" of the peoples representatives. Both are flawed. But substituting the courts flawed judgements for the legislatures is NOT the way to go. It is a violation of the Constitutional process. Sometimes the "people" need to be taught/learn their own lessons. The Courts shouldn't try and shield or protect them. We aren't children.
...and the Day a Constitutional Convention ever gets called is the day I grab my guns and head to the meeting place to SHOOT any traitor that dares attempt to anull the current Constitution!
What do you think the original intent of the Supreme Court was? What was its purpose?
First of all, let me say this. If you look at the length of each article, ARticle 1 about the legislature is Loooooong, article 2 about the president is pretty short, article 3 about the courts -- tiny. Why? Uh, guess what constitutional conveners, you sent the whole convention working on articles 1 and 2, it's the middle of summer, it's fucking hot in that tiny room, just write something down for the court, and let's the fuck out of here, and make this thing into law. True story.
You can look at the original intent of the court, or you can look at the original intent of the constitution as a whole. It was supposed to be a governing document, establishing a government with checks and balances. If you look at it structurally, the court MUST have some sort of checking power for the system to balance out, for the system to work. That's similar reasoning to the implied powers doctrine -- so you make a law about post offices, but you didn't say that congress had the power to appropriate money to hire various contractors and to buy or take land for these post offices-- what to do? Implied powers doctrine: the power to do all the things necessary to efectuate the various laws and provisions are IMPLIED. Sure, it's open to abuse, but so are a lot of things, and the system can't work without it.
The Founders did not want the whims of the people, Congress, or the courts to simply change the Constitution because of certain subjective feelings.
True, that's why the Senate elected he president at first, not the people. The founders were into the people having inalienable rights, but not so hot on the people actually having a lot of direct say in what the federal government does. That was their original intent: should we stick with it, regardless of the amendments that have been made? I dont think so. The founders were not gods, the constitution is a ducment made by men for men, it's not divine law handed down from the lord to exist in perpetuitiy. Even Scalia agrees, for example, that we simply can't live right now according to what the founders thought was NOT cruel and unusual punishment. Standards with regards to that have evolved, and there's no going back.
In other words, you would support certain rulings based on the utility of its outcome, rather then upholding the actual meaning of the text. As I think you were arguing, it is better to focus on the consequences of decisions rather than the merits of those decisions,
I support flexibility. I think both Brown and the Civil Rights Act were things that were in the spirit of the document, in the spirit of the 14th amendment, but took a long time to be put together legally. Some things are more important that sticking to the exact letter of the words -- as long as it's not completely out there. I don't think Griswold (which "invented" the right to privacy) is completely out there, for example. The penumbras and emanations argument therein is a nice, historical/structural/custom argument. The 9th amendment argument by Goldberg is also an originalist/structural argument. you'd be surprised.
Roe, even, goes into a langthy historical discussion of abortion, it's not just whimsical, thoughtless liberals writing god knows what to shove their agenda through.
In the EU, they don't have "precedent" or "stare decisis" but they often analyze the arguments with regards to "the spirit and letter of the law." I think that's important. Scalia, for example, is strange in this respect: he's all about analyzing the costitution's original intent, and the amendments'. He loves the federalist papers, documents from that era, dictionaries from that era, etc. But he simply doesn't care about the original intent of non-constitutional legislation. He refuses to consider the legislative history-- doesn't that seem contractiry? When it comes to legislation, he's a strict textualist.
One more thing I wanted to add: the 14th amendment priviledges and immunities clause is dead letter law simply through custom. It hasn't been struck out, but it was rejected as any justification for anything in the Meat Pakers case, and that case has never been overruled. If you presented an argument based on the clause to the Supreme Court, they would be very suspicious.
I think that's stupid, but that's the way it is, and even Mr. Original Intent/Textualist himself, Scalia, would not entertain an argument based on that clause.
Praise the gods that they have sent me to watch over, shelter and protect their children from harm. The third millenium and the emergence of the nanny state.
Prevent forest fires, outlaw matches!
btw - Scalia IS definitely the ubermensch! ;-)
Evan,
Although I eagerly await the next round of debate b/w Farmer John & Me I must say that the Rosie thread is becoming old news. Could you start a new one, say...one about more people watching O'Rielly talk about the Rep debate than who actually watched it or why the Iranian prime minister brusquley walked out on Condi during a crucial sit down about current Iranian affairs.
Thanks
"One more thing I wanted to add: the 14th amendment priviledges and immunities clause is dead letter law simply through custom..."
Correct me if I am wrong, but can't they do anything they would be able to do under the Privileges and Immunities Clause, under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment? What is the difference between the two clauses? Does Due Process give the power to the courts where as Privileges and Immunities gives the power to Congress?
"Standards with regards to that have evolved, and there's no going back."
I have a feeling you would argue then, that the standards regarding the 2nd Amendment have changed. Would you say that since the Founders could not foresee machine guns and sniper rifles, that laws against such weapons are appropriate? If the standards do change, why not amend the Constitution? The Founders gave us a process of changing the standards. If you want Congress to have the power to ban arms, then amend the Constitution to do so. The Founders purposely made the process to change standards very slow.
"But he simply doesn't care about the original intent of non-constitutional legislation. He refuses to consider the legislative history-- doesn't that seem contractiry? When it comes to legislation, he's a strict textualist."
I agree. I believe legislation must also be viewed from its original intent.
Correct me if I am wrong, but can't they do anything they would be able to do under the Privileges and Immunities Clause, under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment? What is the difference between the two clauses? Does Due Process give the power to the courts where as Privileges and Immunities gives the power to Congress?
Well, the due process clause refers to life, liberty and property. That is obviously not equivalent to "privileges and immunities." I wish the P&I were still around, but it ain't.
"Standards with regards to that have evolved, and there's no going back."
I have a feeling you would argue then, that the standards regarding the 2nd Amendment have changed. Would you say that since the Founders could not foresee machine guns and sniper rifles, that laws against such weapons are appropriate? If the standards do change, why not amend the Constitution? The Founders gave us a process of changing the standards. If you want Congress to have the power to ban arms, then amend the Constitution to do so. The Founders purposely made the process to change standards very slow.
Agreed. Ain't funny that those same originalists are the ones defending their constitutional right to assault weapons? Be consistent. If you're an originalist, the 2nd amendment gives you the right to a single-shot musket or the like, not a Glock. But standards evolve, so the 2nd amendment protects the right to own glocks. but if standards evolve, then standards evolve as to other things as well.
It's an inconsistent position on the right. I don't support banning guns, but I do support regulating them to some extent. Even the 1st amendment doesn't protect all speech.
"Well, the due process clause refers to life, liberty and property. That is obviously not equivalent to "privileges and immunities." I wish the P&I were still around, but it ain't."
So privileges and immunities is broader than due process?
"I don't support banning guns, but I do support regulating them to some extent."
I certainly do not believe individuals should have the right to purchase heavy explosives. I mean, why stop at assualt rifles? Lets go all out.
me requires all Conservatives to be foolishly consistent yet demands NO consistency from any other party (including herself). She simply cannot be taken seriously on any topic, let alone the law.
...and me's ability to identify ANY inconsistency in another person's argument has been shown throughout this thread to be woefully deficient.
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