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| Mon, 11-24-2008 - 3:30pm |
Just got this from one of my GOP friends - wanted to know if I wanted this bumpersticker - reminds me of the old Hall and Oates song...
| Mon, 11-24-2008 - 3:30pm |
Just got this from one of my GOP friends - wanted to know if I wanted this bumpersticker - reminds me of the old Hall and Oates song...
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really i saw 2041, a little earlier than that
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/25/pf/soc_sec_trustees_report/index.htm?section=money_topstories
We once were a nation of laws, not preconceptions. In those days, a defendant was tried--and if found guilty, then that person was subject to whatever punishment was meted out by the COURT system. Kangaroo courts don't count even if they're styled as "military tribunals".
I very much doubt that any law-abiding citizen wants to release those who have been proven, IN A COURT OF LAW, to be guilty of terrorist activities.
Those who endorse a system in which guilt is presumed until found innocence is proved, might want to consider the ramifications if THEY were being tried. Setting precedents can be a two-edged blade.
altered... you forget:
1) these individuals are not US citizens
2) they were not aprehended in the US
They are prisoners taken in wartime, generally speaking, unlawful combatants.
They are not owed US due process.
>>> We once were a nation of laws, not preconceptions. In those days, a defendant was tried--and if found guilty, then that person was subject to whatever punishment was meted out by the COURT system. Kangaroo courts don't count even if they're styled as "military tribunals".
Aah...the good old days of yesteryear. Sorry, these enemies aren't the same as your Daddy's enemies and their crimes can't be tried in a civil court.
>>> I very much doubt that any law-abiding citizen wants to release those who have been proven, IN A COURT OF LAW, to be guilty of terrorist activities.
Tell that to OJ. LOL! And again, it's incredibly naive of so many on the left to presume that our civil courts are an appropriate venue for trying terrorists.
>>> Those who endorse a system in which guilt is presumed until found innocence is proved, might want to consider the ramifications if THEY were being tried. Setting precedents can be a two-edged blade.
I don't plan on becoming a terrorists, so my fear of the "slippery slope" is somewhat small. As for the presumption of innocence...I think the guys who captured the terrorists and have investigated them know what they're doing and aren't holding these guys for littering.
I did not forget any of those things.
Even prisoners of war are guaranteed certain safeguards. See: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm
The Bush regime argued against giving Guantanamo detainees POW status, precisely because they were attempting to wiggle out of those protections, like the proscription against "enhanced interrogation techniques", aka waterboarding. See: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN20205631 then note that the first link does NOT say that combatants must be in uniform. BushCo tried to create a whole new category of prisoners perhaps akin to war criminals of WWII. Even Nuremberg's war crime trials were more open than the travesty of justice being practiced at Guantanamo. JAG officers have expressed dismay at the roles they were asked to play: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001896
And here's another kicker--some of those "terrorists" swept up in the dragnet weren't combatants. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But they couldn't even argue their own innocence, have witnesses to corroborate their stories, or present evidence. Justice wasn't just blind, it was deaf and dumb as well.
Our government has not followed either our own laws or international laws. Pretty pathetic for a nation which was founded in direct resistance to and rebellion against individual caprice and non-representation. And emblematic of the type of arrogant power-grabbing which also led BushCo to justify warrant-less wiretaps. We were being destroyed not by the enemy without (Al Qaeda) but by men and women within our own country's leadership who felt that ends justified the means. They violated the Constitution.
That we have not demanded accountability for their actions speaks volumes about partisan loyalties, and citizen fear/ignorance/apathy. Bad news for a healthy democracy!
All somebody has to do is label you a terrorist. Think about it. You could be held incommunicado on cooked-up "evidence" with no legal recourse whatsoever if the precedent BushCo tried to perpetrate is allowed to stand. Smacks an awful lot of the old USSR stuff.
You state, "Sorry, these enemies aren't the same as your Daddy's enemies and their crimes can't be tried in a civil court." WHY can't the prisoners of Guantanamo be tried in a civil court? "Because I say so" just doesn't impress me regardless of who's trying to be authoritarian.
If "O.J." is meant to be OJ Simpson, I had no idea that he fit into the terrorist category. Pretty expansive definition! See paragraph one.
As far as the reason why prisoners are still being held, some of it has to do with awareness that we have made enemies of those who once were relatively benign. Probably also trying to control the worms that were canned when we captured and took battlefield prisoners off to another hemisphere, destroying evidence gathering, testimony, etc. CIA has been notorious for act first, then verify legality later.
Even prisoners of war are guaranteed certain safeguards.
Not unlawful combatants however.
>>> All somebody has to do is label you a terrorist. Think about it. You could be held incommunicado on cooked-up "evidence" with no legal recourse whatsoever if the precedent BushCo tried to perpetrate is allowed to stand. Smacks an awful lot of the old USSR stuff.
Wellllllllll...not really. All of the detainees have had lawyers and had their cases reviewed by military courts. You'd also have to be wearing a pretty tight tin foil hat to believe that Bush wants to detain people "just because." The fact is that they have pretty compelling information about these detainees, but, while true, it might not stand up to the rules of evidence required by US civil courts...such as Miranda, or the proper collection of evidence or the availability of witnesses to appear in court or even matters of national security, just to name a few.
>>> You state, "Sorry, these enemies aren't the same as your Daddy's enemies and their crimes can't be tried in a civil court." WHY can't the prisoners of Guantanamo be tried in a civil court? "Because I say so" just doesn't impress me regardless of who's trying to be authoritarian.
Well to begin with, as has been pointed out previously, these are foreign nationals who committed crimes in foreign countries beyond the jurisdiction of US courts. Then there's the issues I mentioned above...and that's just a start without getting into the particulars of each case. Overall...it's a bad, and very naive, idea.
>>> If "O.J." is meant to be OJ Simpson, I had no idea that he fit into the terrorist category. Pretty expansive definition! See paragraph one.
You can debate with his wife about how appropriate the terrorist label is...oh, wait...he killed her...and beyond that, he also falls into the category of a guilty man intentionally being set free by people with a political agenda.
>>> As far as the reason why prisoners are still being held, some of it has to do with awareness that we have made enemies of those who once were relatively benign.
Terrorists are rarely benign...which is why they're still being held. Our courts aren't equipped to try them, other countries refuse extradition and many previously released detainees have returned to the "fold" and attacked us again.
>>> Probably also trying to control the worms that were canned when we captured and took battlefield prisoners off to another hemisphere, destroying evidence gathering, testimony, etc. CIA has been notorious for act first, then verify legality later.
Gee...what a bizarre concept in a war. It's a shame that the CIA didn't dust each IED for prints.
"The social entitlement programmes are necessary, for both humanitarian reasons and as a key element of achieving a stable society,"
It is those social programs that have caused most of the problems we have now.
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