OK, this makes me REALLY mad - AG Gonzales denies habeas corpus is Constitutional!

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I just realized something.

I'm not nearly paranoid enough. This daily affront to our Liberties is beginning to become truly frightening. I see no good end to this. We'll either be ripe fruit for an internal or external fruit-loop induced bloodbath or our grandchildren will be reminiscing about the "good ole days", you know, back when America used to be a republic. J. Edgar and his antics almost seem tame and reasonable by comparison.
 
Ummm actually, I think the preamble to the constitution makes it very clear who is covered under the rights and privileges outlined in said constitution:

We the people of the United States,...

I think it applies to we the people of the United States.


I most certainly agree, but didn't spell that out. My bad.

At _the_barest_minimum_, habeas corpus applies to citizens, and quite likely is extended to more than that.
 
Great.. are we next going to require our soldiers to Mirandize the enemy?

Require a trial before we fire upon any individual enemy?

:cuss:
 
I'm not nearly paranoid enough. This daily affront to our Liberties is beginning to become truly frightening. I see no good end to this. We'll either be ripe fruit for an internal or external fruit-loop induced bloodbath or our grandchildren will be reminiscing about the "good ole days", you know, back when America used to be a republic. J. Edgar and his antics almost seem tame and reasonable by comparison.

I have a different perspective. I believe we need to push the USA further towards a totalitarian state, and further erode the rights of the people. This will make revolution come faster. Seriously, right now nobody gives a **** if it doesn't affect them. They don't care if a handful of Americans are arrested and held indefinitely. They don't care when the bill of rights are violated, as long as it isn't them.

Admit it, we are a bunch of sheep. And we won't start making noise until they come for the slaughter.
 
We're in this "handbasket" because when you're surrounded by thugs, and we are, both abroad and internally, you tend to look for allies to hold them off, not recognizing that maybe you've hooked up with a thug of your own while you were in need.

The answer to all tyrannies is not to be "in need" but to be clear about who you are, what you need to protect and assert, and to make sure you have the means to defend yourself. Step two is to assemble enough like-minded people to make a serious difference.
 
Habeas Corpus

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy” - James Madison.

This is one of my favorite quotes from a founder.

The current administration, and it's party, say that if we don't allow all their secret programs, the terrorists will win.

Perhaps if we allow our rights to be eroded, under the presumption we will be safer, then the terrorists win.

Danny
 
Article 1, Section 9:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Note the use of the word privilege rather than right.

Also interestingly, this is in the limits on powers of congress section, possibly implying it modifies some congressional power that already exists.
 
Note the use of the word privilege rather than right.

The difference between a right and a privilege is that a right can never ever be suspended, or taken away forcefully. One has to voluntarily surrender the right first.

A privilege is different, the government can take it away, which the founders thought were necessary in some cases. So they specifically stated when it may be suspended, which basically states when it cannot be suspended, which is every other time.
 
Amendment IX:
"
The enumeration in the constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."


So even if THAT SECTION of the Constitution doesn't guarantee habeas corpus (it does), the ninth amendment states that just because it isn't listed, doesn't mean we don't have it.


soooooo... he can go suck an egg.
 
Rights and Privileges

When the top legal officer in the country resorts to arguing with members of Congress about whether a certain "privilege," habeas corpus, which incidentally dates back to 12th century English common law, is granted by the Constitution or can only be suspended based on an article of said Constitution, it cannot be good news for freedom and liberty.

I heard some of the exchange between Gonzales and Arlen Specter. To me, it was very scary. I do not consider myself safer now than I was between 9/11 and March 2003.

Danny
 
If Arlen Specter is a RINO for defending our oldest and most cherished freedoms against the Administration's goons, the Party has well and truly lost its way.
 
The frightening thing is that he hasn't lost his mind. He knows exactly what he is doing.
I can not count the number of times I have stated this over the last six years on this forum and a couple of others.

This applies to all the high profile actions, inactions and omissions of this man and his cronies. He needs impeaching badly, followed by a criminal prosecution. The same goes for his cronies, and his fake opposition on the "left", and those in a couple of previous administrations both "right" and "left".

These people need the political rug pulled from under them pronto. If they do not manage to pull some major stunt in the meantime and forestall it, this coming election will likely be our last opportunity to pry the helm from the fingers of these thugs and get this country back on it's own course.

-------------------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org
 
The AG needs to take Logic 101.

He did, but his version was a philosophy class called "Might Makes Right and
the Victors Write the History."

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy” - James Madison.

Something else they don't teach in school anymore --the history of the
Founding Fathers and the Spirit of the Law in America.

That is how we have arrived at this point. It is best reflected in the other
old proverb about those who fail to learn from history are condemned to
repeat it.
 
I watched the AG before Senator Leahey, discussing the case of a Canadian grabbed in the USA and sent to Syria.

It was frightening as the AG refused to answer and sat there with smug certitude of his mission.

Babbling about CCW permits taking away gun rights pales before the incipient tyranny of the Bush administration. It is frightening that some gun world folks who crap their pants over things like permits will go along with the most authortarian, freedom challenging policy as long as it gets the 'enemy'.

They have no conceptualization of liberty, at all.
 
Part of that GEM is that the democratic party has so abused gunowners from the late 60s to the present that many have a mindset of blind support for the GOP due to absolute hatred of the Democrats.

As far as I'm concerned the GOP and DNC are both so guilty of high treason against the constitution that I'd throw a kegger if both parties perished catastrophicly.

Look up the "prisoner's dilemma".
 
There are those amongst the Republican Party who will make the next primaries bloody. If it is a killing field for the neo-cons, we can in time take back what is lost. Even if a Dem gets the Presidency (which is almost a certainty).

However, if that doesn't happen, we are screwed.

I ain't holdin' my breath about the neo-con comeupance happening though.
 
Jefferson is probably turning over in his grave.

"Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus, and a representative legislature... I consider as the essentials constituting free government, and... the organization of the executive is interesting as it may insure wisdom and integrity in the first place, but next as it may favor or endanger the preservation of these fundamentals." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1815. ME 14:255
 
This may turn out to be a good thing for the Second Amendment if it gets big enough. An AG trying to play semantics with habeus corpus may provide us with ammunition (no pun) against those who want to play semantics with the 2A. I don't see a difference here. What Gonzalez should have said, if this is what he meant, was "once a person becomes an enemy combatant, they have committed treason, which means they have forfeited their US citizenship, and hence Constitutional guarantees do not apply." Maybe that isn't what he meant, though . . .
 
TX1911, you might want to rethink what you've said.

"once a person becomes an enemy combatant, they have committed treason, which means they have forfeited their US citizenship, and hence Constitutional guarantees do not apply."

If that's the 'reasonable' meaning we're in serious trouble. You're assuming that a person is subject to the penalties for the only crime mentioned in the Constitution the moment it is decided by someone that he has become an enemy combatant. That determination is solely at the un-reviewable, un-appealable personal discretion of the Executive. In other words, punishment and guilt without trial, evidence or counsel.

The next part that is even more troubling is that by so behaving they have forfeited their citizenship and all Constitutional rights. That has never been the legal tradition in this country. The Eighth Amendment forbids "cruel and unusual punishment", presumably for the guilty, although in this day of extraordinary renditions and Cheney's torture chambers that may not be true. During WWII and afterwards in various espionage trials such as the Rosenbergs' the accused and even the convicted were assumed to be US citizens and were given the benefit of the protection of the nation's laws.

Renouncing one's citizenship is a very specific thing. There are safeguards to make sure that a person is not assigned that status arbitrarily. The Administration has floated the idea that anyone could be stripped of citizenship, without trial, if the Executive finds that he his actions or intent in their opinion constituted such a disavowal. Fortunately it hasn't gone any further than evil words. The idea lurking there is abominable - anyone can be stripped of his citizenship the moment the President decides that he is troublesome.
 
I have a different perspective. I believe we need to push the USA further towards a totalitarian state, and further erode the rights of the people. This will make revolution come faster. Seriously, right now nobody gives a **** if it doesn't affect them. They don't care if a handful of Americans are arrested and held indefinitely. They don't care when the bill of rights are violated, as long as it isn't them.

While I'm not advising for open rebellion, I'm going to say that, in principle, what you suggest is probably the only way to retain any hope for us, our children, or grandchildren to see much of freedom again.

The way it works is this: creeping incrimentalism slowly leeches rights away. The person born in 1940 doesn't miss the gold standard, because he's never known there to be one. The person born in 1990 doesn't miss full-auto firearms, because he never had them (and besides, they're for military use only). THe person born in 2010 won't miss the rights to speech

The reason we've been seeing such a drastic increase in their attack rate is because they've now got suitable hosts for their propaganda and plan - that is, people who have gone through the socialistic indoctrination of public schools - in every strata of operational society. Everyone who predates the massive Marxist overthrow of the education system of this country is dead, too old to do much but push a walker, or on their way out within the decade.

The younger generations are all the more influenced by this agenda as it has compounded itself and, for the most part, only have a very vague concept of "rights" at all. People have a right to free speech and believe what they want, right up until it interferes with the agenda of the status quo - that is, political correctness. People have a right to trial by jury, unless they're bad or the media sensationalizes it.

For the most part, simply suggesting to these people that they misunderstood their rights will be enough to seperate them completely from thinking they ever had the right to begin with.

Theoretically, the only way to prevent this compounded social rot from compounding further - probably not much more than one generation off, if that - would be to act now, while there are still those who are classically educationed, and have educated themselves outside the confines of MTV and The Real World still of an age capable of doing something about it. It would compound rapidly, resulting in dissonance in the minds of those who are now content to accept the current rate of liberty errosion. Like turning the pot the frog sits in up to 'boil' a bit too quickly, giving it the sensory input needed to determine it's well on time to jump the foxtrot out.
 
My opinion and $.02

At some point this nonsense has to stop. In the meantime prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

doesn't the word "parabellum" mean essentially that ?

No politician can save me. No Politician cares about me. I WILL take care of myself, I WILL protect those around me even if they are strangers, I WILL NEVER give up.
 
I'm Not Much Of A Beer Man...

HiroProX said:
As far as I'm concerned the GOP and DNC are both so guilty of high treason against the constitution that I'd throw a kegger if both parties perished catastrophicly.

May I chip in a few cases of wine and some whiskey?

We need at least one of them to collapse to make room for a truly conservative(as in constitutionally conservative) party for it to be effective in the Electoral College and build enough representation in Congress.

I'd abolish the Seventeenth Amendment as well to get representation of the several states back into the Senate that the Seventeenth took away. "One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown...." George Washington, from his farewell address.

Woody

"There is nothing to fear in this country from free people. But, when freedom is usurped, there is something to fear for people will revolt to remain free. To all usurpers, do the math. But don't wonder the outcome when you miscalculate." B.E.Wood
 
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