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Originally Posted by Paq
.......Anyway, the thing that comes back to my mind everytime i try to wrap my head around the fact it got through the senate: Just how hard would republicans have bitched if clinton had even come CLOSE to this much unilateral power?
I'm just glad there are 2 yrs left. If the left fucks up the next election and the republicans win again...I have no idea what will happen to me but i can feel it's the big one...
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After thinking about this for several days.....and reading and posting about the possibility of it....for much longer, I don't think that the main controversy is about torture. It is about a series of "tests"....."they" are probing....taking an "inch", at a time.......to measure our reaction. After each inch taken, "they" are further emboldened. Jefferson predicted their "urge":
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& what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that his people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Col. William S. Smith, 1787
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........and from Justice Joseph Story:
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The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
-- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court
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I've posted about it here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...25#post2130025
This is the way what has happened, is described in an NPR piece:
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....Interpretation at the Discretion of the White House
The legislation that Congress passed does not say enemy combatants are people who "take up arms on the side of al-Qaida." The bill instead refers to people who provide "material support" to the enemy. <b>The language of the bill says that is the standard for both citizens and non-citizens. But Berenson says that's not how the administration will apply it.</b>
"As a practical matter, it would turn out to be a much higher standard for an American citizen," Berenson says. He says a "very demanding review" would need to take place within the executive branch before the president would sign an order declaring a U.S. citizen to be an enemy combatant.
"There's really no risk that a U.S. citizen who merely gives a charitable contribution, in error, to an organization that supports terrorism is going to find him or herself declared an enemy combatant," he says.
<b>Yet this higher standard is not spelled out anywhere in the bill. Berenson acknowledges that what he describes is the White House's interpretation.</b>
To Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, that sounds as if the administration is saying, "Trust us." And with a phrase as general as "material support," he's not comfortable doing that.
Ratner says the Bush administration has a history of broadly interpreting what constitutes material support. 'It certainly includes a very broad level of behavior, " Ratner says. "The real problem is, it's really up to the administration to define it, and that's pretty sad to me.".....
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"They" <b>pushed</b> with Patriot Acts I & II and Gitmo, the incarceration of Padilla, the implementation of Miltitary Tribunals, and by ignoring the provisions of the FISA law. Our "reaction" to each incremental "taking" of our former rights and protections, is observed, and the result is that they are emboldened to "take" more. More than 60 percent of both houses of our legislature voted for this:
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http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001625.php
Debate the Merits of Torture? Who Has the Time?
By Paul Kiel - September 28, 2006, 2:04 PM
Over the last two days, the Senate has been considering <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010019.php">a bill</a> that, just about everyone can agree, is of singular importance.
The Senate has allotted itself <b>ten hours of debate to consider the bill and five amendments offered for it.
Compare that to the three days of debate</b> Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) provided in June, to consider the Marriage Protection Amendment (and even after that, the amendment failed). At the time, Democrats <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=432632">complained</a> that Frist was eating up precious floor time with a political stunt.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), one of the main backers of measure, <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=432632">objected</a>: <b>"If it was purely politics, let me assure you we'd be debating this in September."</b>
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What the post 9/11 period seems to be, is an acceleration of the "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile", that the US Constition was drafted and structured to circumvent. In 1788, it was a compromise.
The question now is.....if the US executive is hindered, as he and the majority of the legislators are claiming, in his duty of "protecting" us, by our constitutional rights....why have a constitution, at all? How much further does the "trust us", element that this new "law" reduces our formerly guaranteed "rights", down to.....have to be taken....via new laws to come....such as a law to legitimize the ignoring, by the executive, of the FISA surveillance law, before our constitution is so "hollowed out", that all of our major protections...from the government, are permitted, only at the discretion, of the government?
Isn't fear of our reaction, if "they" go "too far", the only real deterrent we can project, to discourage "them" from doing just that? They're testing us to see how much they can erode the constitution, before we rise up in protest.
We've failed every test, and the majority of our representatives now vote to transfer some of our remaining "rights" to them. We're again failing to react, by intimidating them. If the coming election results fail to shift the legislative balance towards preserving our remaining rights, and conducting a more honest, accountable, and transparent government, whether because of corrupted voting, or by the "will" of the majority, what then?
When do we react on a grassroots level, and how? Wouldn't peaceful, persistent protest, beginning ASAP, help to avoid violent reaction, further down the road, when the transfer of our rights, to "them" continues, or will the current "process" end up eliciting no signifigant protest at all?
How do you know, when it is "too late" to resist, and to attempt to turn this power transfer, (coup?) "around"? Is life, if you accept that it is "too late", worth living?