Beatnik

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%...eged_terrorist)

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tHa_KhAn

Gutless Congress....very well said. That is what I am getting at. Many, many people did not have a problem marching into Iraq, especially the advertisers on all news outlets, but when the conventional part of the war was over and no more video game style footage was coming back, things took a down turn in many people's eyes. While I mean no disrespect to those who have lost friends or families in Iraq, I have friends and family that have been under fire over seas long before G-dub was in the Whitehouse. How many other conflicts would we have been involved in instead of Iraq had we not been there? There are so many other conflicts going on like Sudan, Lebanon, etc that had we not been in Iraq we would have been there. Many of those conflicts would are UN sponsored and we would be in the thick of them regardless of who is in the executive chair.

PM me on what days you can game Ndarg, let's try to get Baur as well

@El Gringo,

Right on. However, it didn't start with this administration. I think our general public has given the executive branch too much power. Most people associate the president with everything in government. Sure he has a veto power, but that is there as a balance and not meant to be the final say. I think because of the 2 party system the veto has turned the president into the final say. Congress seems too lazy and too divided to concern itself with overriding a veto ever. Couple that with most people being too lazy to keep track of the politics of their House and Senate representatives, the president ends up with all the power because voters will pay attention to one guy. The president also can end up with all the blame though as seen. I think congress needs to assert more of its power and voters need to use their power to direct congress. Until that happens, not much is going to change for the better regardless of party.

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TheSkudDestroyer

Congress is a lame duck even more than President Bush. They're all so busy with November 2008 that they forget it's only November 2007.

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|TG-6th|Skud
BMT Graduate - 320th Training Squadron, Flight 024 - MSgt Romero - "Kids no more!"
30 weeks Keesler AFB, 1W031 - Weather

Kerostasis

Selective quoting much? Let's look at where that article goes after you stopped quoting.

The Padilla case was fairly complicated, but the end result is that it doesn't support your assertion. After losing in the 2nd circuit and being denied an appeal by the Supreme Court, the administration dropped that case against Padilla and brought a new one against him, which went through the 4th circuit. The 4th circuit was going to let the administration prosecute him on that case, and the Supreme Court was going to rule on an appeal there, but then that case was also dropped and Padilla was moved back to a civilian court for his criminal charges.

Citizens can be accused of supporting the enemy, and tried in court, but they can't simply be whisked away with no constitutional rights because Bush feels like it. There is ALWAYS judicial oversight for citizens.

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Beatnik

This is precisely what happened. He was held for years without charges, designated as an enemy combatant. After lengthy appeals, it was eventually overturned, but not for lack of trying by the Bushies.

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Hambergler

A similar injustice:

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

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...98805530677622

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El_Gringo_Grande

Yes, those horrible activist courts came to the rescue and let the guy out. Thank the lord.

You pretty much proved my point. He and his tried to do things that turned out to be wrong. They where only stopped because others stopped them, not because they saw the error of their ways. That guy would still be disappeared had it not been for the fact that this country is better than an evil looser elected president (twice).

The point is "Bush, the most hated president" tried to do this. If he would have gotten away with it there would have been more, I bet. This was probably a test case. He and his administration has tried at every turn to expand terms like "enemy combatant" and "torture" to suite their power needs. They tried to spy on more Americans by expanding powers given to them that allowed spying on foreigners. They tried to bypass the FISA courts to cover that expansion up.

Just because he didn't succeed doesn't mean he isn't trying. Trying is what makes him and his so darn bad.

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I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

Kerostasis

Ok, you guys do realize Padilla was convicted on all counts, right? For all that Bush may have tried to overstep his power here, this wasn't just "some guy that Bush didn't like". He was a real, honest-to-goodness terrorist ally. So telling me the situation under which Padilla would "still be disappeared" doesn't phase me. I want you to tell me the situation under which you or I could be "disappeared". Have any evidence for that?

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xTYBALTx

Are you going for a straw man?

We've gone from arguing that Bush overstepped his authority - a point which you apparently now concede? - to being required to think up scenarios in which you, Kerostasis, could be disappeared.

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

El_Gringo_Grande

Hmmm, you saying that governments have not ever made people go away?

Of course you aren't. You are not that blind. But USSR, China, N Korea, Germany, Cambodia to name just a few off the top of my head. Of course those countries had basically a dictator whose word was law and nobody questioned it or else.

Now if you are asking if it could or has happen in this country? I don't think so. It would be hard since we have a semi-transparent system that has a bunch of checks and balances. People are convicted and punished within that system. The crime and all evidence for that crime is presented to the system and the accused can attack back and question any part of their case. The people who make these judgments can, for the most part, be removed at any time and are peers of the suspect. Any person so convicted can then appeal that decision through a whole bunch of other courts who have different judges with different political leanings and desires. At any point one of those judges can either have the .....

Waite, Bush tried to bypass all that silly non-sense, didn't he?

Never mind.

In Bushes world some guys in suites in some undisclosed building decided they had the goods on you and that was that. If those guys where wrong (and eventually they would be wrong) a innocent person would be sent away with no recourse. Or if they picked up the wrong guy nobody could question it. Not even the accused. It sounds like the accused could not even find out exactly what he was accused of or what evidence there is to support their claim.

That is the president of this country doing this. And that leader was trying to by pass all kinds of checks put in place by other parts of the system.

And that doesn't phase you? Wow, just wow.

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I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

Kerostasis

You people have a nasty habit of getting way off-topic. Let me remind you where we came from.

So I responded that Gringo's examples for how the President's expansion of power threatened his freedoms were incorrect.

And his examples are still incorrect. Now you're going in a completely new direction and complaining that Bush tried (and failed) to go after a terrorist using a method you don't want used on you. Well, ok, its not going to be used on you, and in fact its not going to be used on any citizen because the courts knocked it down. So whats your point?

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El_Gringo_Grande

But they are not incorrect because the president isn't a bad person in need of hating. They are incorrect because we live in a great country that, on the whole, hates dorks like GW and actively works to limit what they can do.

__________________
I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

tHa_KhAn

I think they were originally citing this as a specific abuse of power by the president. I think it is an even better example of how our system should work. The executive branch was checked by the interpretation of the judicial branch. The executive branch does not have the final say when it comes to interpreting legislation and it showed in this example. Which why I still don't get how few people get involved with supreme court appointments. They are life time appointments and essentially are the final say in everything, should they choose to be.

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Steeler

Failed? Hardly. The man was kept in maximum security isolation for what, five years? He had blinder goggles and headphones on when they took him to the dentist. He was stripped of all humanity and deeply psychologically abused, effectively rendering him a non-person to the outside world. He was "neutralized," if I'm recalling the phrase correctly. Whether or not he deserved any of it, he got it without any kind of judicial process or recourse for appealing his condition.

Now that he has faced a court that one could put one's faith in, if one so chose, society can lean back and rest easy that it's system more or less worked in the end. But we should all remember that in this case, punishment was meted out before the facts of the case were judged. And the desire of the executive to bend, and even break the law to suit it's own nebulous ends should give anyone pause.

If you're looking for a good reason to hate the president, or if you more polite fellows prefer, a reason to denounce the president's politics, look no further than his constant mantra of "trust me with this extra power." Because he has never given us reason to trust him with it. In fact, our most cherished laws specifically limit his power because history teaches us not to trust ANY executive with it.

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BeSiege82

What is sad is:
1. Congress has a worse approval rating than the President.
2. You can't trust the different presidential candidates' promises or tenets.
3. Are their plans really good for us in the long run or are they just being good con artists so they can get power?

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lTG-Irrl BeSiege82
A former platoon leader...

"Courage grows strong at the wound."
"Virescit Vulnere Virtus."

"{My grump-o-meter starts to make a high-pitched whine when I point it at your post, though.}" -- Axis