samcol

Let me summarize. This guy was held for 5 years in Gitmo, after this new legislations passed he goes to a military trial. His two indepedent lawyers aren't allowed in the proceddings and he is stuck with his appointed USMC lawyer.

This is the same legislation that allows the executive branch to declare 'anyone' an enemy combatant at which point you lose your citizenship and rights. Then they can hold you indefinetly and use information gained from you through torture during military trials. Who wouldn't take the plea after going through 5 years of this nonsense?

Can we really trust kangaroo courts? Maybe this guy really did train with al qaida, maybe KSM really did do all the stuff he admitted to. The point is we'll really never know considering we have a government that is willing to torture.

If you wanted a unitary executive branch, that's certaintely what you're getting. This is the new America where you can be disappeared. Few people may care if they did it to this Austrialian, or the people with brown skin, but if it doesn't stop soon it will be, enviornmentalists, anti-abortionists, communists, gays, christians, you name it depending who's in power.

link

Just found this article on it. He claims to of been tortured, and the judge dismissing his 2 lawyers from the courtroom doesn't look suspicious or anything.

Rekna

I really wish they would put these guys through real courts..... I want justice but i'm not willing to circumvent the justice system that this country was built on in order to get it because that would be the true injustice.

Willravel

Information, including confessions, given under extreme duress is unreliable. I've said it before and I'll say it again: torture will not provide reliable intelligence.

According to the United Nations Convention Against Torture: "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity." It is was and is strictly forbidden because the US was one of the 142 nations to have signed the convention.

Additionally, the label of 'unlawful combatants' is not recognized unless the person has been given a tribunal to determine their nature. Without the tribunal, the combatants are POWs and are covered by the Geneva Conventions (which means they cannot be tortured).

Finally, any psychologist or psychiatrist with any knowledge of torture can tell you that it's useless in the pursuit of reliable information. The idea that some idiots are trying to make information from torture admissible in court goes to show just how fucking stupid and unreasonable the people in power really are. I'd like to see them tortured and made to say things that weren't true, just so they could have first hand knowledge of just how wrong what they are doing really is. It's a damned shame that people actually vote for people like Bush.

If you voted for Bush, you're responsible for torture. Great job.

dc_dux

The new House and Senate both have bills to amend the Military Commission Act and restore habeas corpus to detainees..

They dont go far enough...the President still would retain the sole power for designating "enemy combatants" and interpreting the Geneva Conventions And the use of evidence gained through torture and coercion would still be allowed.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

spindles

There has been a lot of protesting going on in Oz about this guy. Of course our prime minister is buddy buddy with Mr Bush, so did what was convenient for his ongoing relationship with the president. All signs are pointing to him losing office at our elections at the end of the year and David Hicks is one of the (IMO) major factors.

Even if he is guilty, you should not have to make up laws after the fact on which to try him and a lot of Aussies are not happy that he has spent 5 years waiting for the US govt to decide how to get him to trial.

From my perspective, Australia should have done what the UK did - ask for our citizen to be returned as soon as he was captured...

RE the defence lawyers, that seems like a huge bag of shit
The quote is from SMH (http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hic...e#contentSwap1)

__________________
who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?

host

I'm posting the following response to this thread's OP, and to will's comments, because, just as 74 year old Joan MacIntyre's 41 arrests for protesting since 2003 are.....posting the following is the "reasonable" thing to do, in reaction to Mr. Bush's crimes against the constitution. What is not reasonable, or, to my mind....even tolerable, is not posting and voicing....earnestly, and often, objections to the offenses of Mr. Bush and his regime.....objections like will's, above, and what follows, from me:

I'm not a lawyer, but I did the best that I could....given my limitations, to cite the violations of US and international law, that Mr. Bush has committed by his willful acts against his sworn oath of office:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=21

....and as willravel said at the end of his post....it is a "damned shame", and...it is much more than that, IMO. I'm in my third year here, of making a thorough and precise effort to inform you that, if you have supported Mr. Bush and his regime, you have supported a war criminal, reasonably accused of crimes against the people of the United States and it's constitution, and of crimes against humanity. I've spelled it out for you, over and over, and....even if you've covered your eyes, at every opportunity to see, you've been given that opportunity, again and again.

So, if you have or do support Mr. Bush and his actions, or even if you have observed, without objecting to what he has done, said, ordered...... you are complicit in his crimes. His crimes, and your complicity, are too consequential to allow for consideration of ways to seek a "common ground", a "middle way".

You cannot say, you "didn't know", you had to make a choice to refuse to know.
What about you....or you.....can you "hold your head up and say that you "tried"? If you cannot, you OWN this, and I cannot see you as a fellow countryman....of mine.....

Strong words? Unreasonable.....how dare you defend Bush....defend what has happened on Guantanamo, and to our constitution, and to our country, and to our troops, and to the people of Iraq....how dare you silently accept what Bush has done...?

scout

To assume anyone that ever voted for Bush is to blame for all this shit is wrong. To come back two years after the fact and blame anyone who supported Bush in his campaign for the aforementioned crimes is just wrong. More Democrats than not had a hand in passing the legislation that allowed all this to happen. Now that the Democrats have control of the House and Senate I don't see a lot of serious legislation in the pipeline to completely repeal the Patriot Act which is the very root of the problem and should be a priority. I don't see any legislation on the fast track to impeach Mr. Bush in the House or Senate, which I remind you is Democratically controlled. In light of all the things that have come out in the past year to eighteen months why isn't the aforementioned legislation at least in the pipeline, it should be. Not only is it a damn shame all this shit has happened, it's a damn shame all of us that voted for the Democratic party last election for change isn't getting what was promised by the Democratic party. Could it be because they had a hand in all that is basically wrong and don't want to stir up to much shit and blow their chances at taking the White House in '08? Simply put, things are fucked up and both parties share the blame for allowing it to happen. Neither party is doing anything but holding hearings and further wasting taxpayer dollars. There is no serious legislation from either party to change all that is fucked up beyond repair. Before you go and blame everyone but yourself and some old lady who's been arrested 41 times for all that is wrong with the United States clean up your own front porch and remember not to throw rocks when you live in a glass house. Thank you for your time.

dc_dux

Scout...again I would remind you that that the Dems have only been in control for 2 months. It is very difficult to "fast track" legislation, particularly in the Senate where the Repubs can block any bill with a fillibuster.

Amending my earlier post, this Congress has done more to overturn the Military Commissions Act than just restore habeas. And they have acted in other areas as well to restore civil liberties .

The Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 to overhaul a number of provisions from the Military Commissions Act.
* It restores habeas corpus,
* Narrows the definition of enemy combatant,
* Restricts the government from conducting torture and from using torture to compel testimony that can be used in court,
* Makes it clear the U.S. government must abide by the Geneva Conventions,
* Ensures that regardless of rank, no U.S. personnel can commit torture without consequences

The Congressional Lawmaking Authority Protection Act of 2007 which addresses the arguably overused executive practice of issuing an extraordinary number of signing statements, exerting presidential authority over bills passed Congress

A Resolution Reaffirming the Constitutional and Statutory Protections Accorded Sealed Domestic Mail, and for Other Purposes

The Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 2007 and the Open Government Act of 2007

The NSA Oversight Act to address the means by which domestic electronic surveillance may be conducted.

Repealing Title II of REAL ID Act and adding important safeguards regarding privacy and civil liberties.

and more: http://www.bordc.org/threats/legislation/

The most positive development is that many of these bills have bi-partisan co-sponsors.

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing (yes, hearings are a necessary step in the legislative process and not a waste of money) to determine if the Patriot Act needs to be revised to keep the FBI from illegally or improperly gathering telephone, e-mail and financial records of Americans and foreigners while pursuing terrorists. (link)

So I would suggest....give the system a chance to work.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Bill O'Rights

With this one sentence, you've managed to ineffectualize every good point that you made in that post. Why...would you do that? I mean, you're not going to sway anyone over to your way of thinking, by alienating a sizable portion of your target audience. Hell, I didn't vote for Bush, and can in no way be considered a supporter of his administration or his policies, and I'm offended. It's a ridiculous ascertation, which serves no function other than to assume a psuedo sense of moral superiority.
That's not discussion. That's not debate. That's just bleating.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

The_Jazz

As a follow-up to BOR's post, does voting for Clinton mean that I got a blowjob from Monica too? 'Cause I sure don't remember that...

I also voted for Rahm Emanuel when I lived in his district. Am I responsible for the 2006 election?

Are all the Iraqi's that voted for Saddam in 2002 responsible for his attrocities?

Moral superiority is great so long as you can actually back it up. I don't see how you can back up that statement, will.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

reconmike

Who says you host that any crime has been committed, show me a crime, show me an indictment or even formal charges to anything you babble about as a crime.

__________________
Where is Darwin when ya need him?

host

BOR and The_Jazz ....if you are not where willravel and I are, as far as your reactions to a US president who has committed crimes against humanity and against the constitution....i.e. against us....against our rights and protections, under the law....what would have to happen....what greater degree of offenses would a POTUS have to commit to draw a similar reaction to ours....from either of you?

Do you not see, the if the law can be altered....abused.....distorted....broken....to do it to one person....or to break the sovereign protections of another country, without provocation....then you , or another country, other than Iraq....could be next?

Your comparisons of oral sex and voting for Rahm Emanuel, when compared to our reaction to the capital crimes....the treason of Mr. Bush, and his regime, are....frankly...revealing in that you have no grasp of what the description in the OP is relating to all of us....or is insulting....and it can reasonably be described, IMO....as enabling where we are descending to, as a people protected by a constitution that used to grant to government, only what was clearly specified....in a nation that once stood resolutely against pre-emptive, i.e, aggressive war, and torture.....

and reconmike....if everyone who submitted to selective service, after the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite, told us in mid-1968 that the "war" in Viet Nam was wrong....unwinable...an instrusion into the domestic strife of another nation, and if Daniel Ellsberg had been able to speak about what he knew, from as early as 1965, about the futility of pursuing "victory" in Viet Nam....had instead, dismissed selective service, and the authority behind it....the exiting Johnson admin., and the incoming Nixon admin., how many more Vietnamese, and Americans would be alive today.

You, and so many others....followed orders....did the "right thing", in your own minds....right over a cliff. Vietnam was no "noble" war. Backing your country in contrived aggression on other nations is a choice. If you make the wrong choice, the people who die as a result of the lies of your leaders, and of your own blinding denial, are on your leaders, and on you. No one died because I blindly followed the "my country, right or wrong" jingoism.

We all must think for ourselves....questioning all authority...it's as American as apple pie to do so, reflexively, and it's a dirty li'l secret, that if everybody did it, Vietnam would have been over by 1969, and Mr. Bush would not be enabled to the extent that he has been able to do the damage to each of our rights....under the law....that our described in the thead OP.

The_Jazz

Two words - personal. responsibility. I'm responsible for my actions, not that of my government. Never have been. Never will be.

I think that I have a good grasp on the OP, and if I came off as insulting I apolgize for my inadvertent error. Humor and the internet don't always mix.

Wait, what did I just do? Take responsibility for my own actions? I fulfill my civic responsibilities by voting, serving on juries, etc., but blaming everyone who voted Republican in 2004 for the torture that followed is like blaming those who voted for Clinton for lieing about getting a blowjob. They're both lies, host. The only difference is the subject and the degrees. You can't have it both ways.

Personally, I think that we're all arguing vehemintly about a throw-away line at the end of will's post that was out of sync with the rest of his post.

This thread is starting to go south quickly. I suggest that everyone take a deep breath and remember to be nice.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Willravel

So constituents are not responsible for the actions of the political officers they vote for? Anyone who cares to look can see clearly that he stole to 2000 election. Anyone who cares to look can see that we went to war under false pretenses. Then, in 2004, people voted for him again. It's perfectly fair to allow them to share the responsibility.

I'm not morally superior to Bush supporters, but I'd dare say my decision not to vote for him sure was.

host

The thread is not important enough to let your comparison of "what Clinton did"....(and I even know that you have no political or philosophical "bent" towards resorting to it as an example....but I have to react to the triviality of it, in comparison to what is at stake in these times, with regard to the offenses committed..."in our name"....) to what is happening now.....go by without.....a challenge in relation to the scope and implications of the offenses.

If each of us does not say NO, now....after so much death....the destruction of treaties that the world agreed to risk committing to....to minimize war and torture.....after our constitutional right to "due process' has been marginalized into something only accorded us at the "whim" of the "decider", who the **** will say no....and when? How many nights should I go to bed....hoping that in the morning, the rights that the POTUS swore to "protect and to defend", are fully restored....wrenched back from his slimey, intimidating grasp?

How is this argument, not relevant...how are any issues of greater importance, to our society, what it stood for....and for the security of all the people in the world?
I'm using a pen, not a sword....to draw "my line" in the sand....and I ask you again....both of you.....if this is not enough, for you....what would be, and if not now, when?

The_Jazz

Honestly, host, this last post is what I like about you. You see the world in black and white (and bright shades at that), and it helps me negotiate my world of shades of grey. In all seriousness, I do appreciate the effort you put into your posts.

That said, the triviality of my Clinton example was no mistake. I chose it carefully. The reason is that center of that scandal and the current administration's problems both boil down to a lie or lies to the American people. If you leave the terms and conditions of that lie (if you will) out of the equation, you're still left with a lie. Period. I will certainly accept that there are degrees of lies and that neither of these were the first lies told to the American people ("mistakes were made" anyone?), but it seems to me that you and willravel are trying to have your cake and eat it too. Whatever administration is in power is responsible for it's own actions, not the voters. Our job as voters is to put that administration there in the first place by casting our ballots, but our responsibility has to end there. Otherwise, we are all culpable for the mistakes of that administration, whether they be wars, clandestine murders, break-ins and wiretaps or, yes, blowjobs.

I think that the fact of the matter is that Bush will continue in office for another 16 months or so, and then there will be some sort of major shift. Even if another Republican is elected (how, I don't know at this point), they'll have to clean house and get rid of virtually every political appointee in the current administration for propriety's sake alone. Hopefully the changes that we, the voters, dictated in November will help to curb some of the administration's greater transgressions, but there's not much else we can do short of armed insurrection, which is a deadman's hand for most involved. There is little to no chance of any sort of impeachment proceedings coming from the current Congress, but a mitigation of the some of the errors can certainly be hoped for.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Bill O'Rights

What....are you talking about? Are you just looking for someone to argue with? Seriously. When have I ever given the impression that I am a supporter of George W. Bush, his administration, his policies, or the war in Iraq? (notice that I narrowed that to the war...in Iraq).

All I did, Host, was to call Will out on one bogus statement, on an otherwise well thought out post. I told him that it defeated his whole purpose, because I believe that it did. That one statement took a post, that I could otherwise get behind, and turn me off from it. In that regard, it was a failure. All just to get a little dig in.

That, I think, is the biggest (among many) problems in Tilted Politics of late. Too many people are more concerned with being "right", and proving any percieved adversary "wrong", that any focus is lost. Truly, a myopic way to view the world.

If that is honestly the position that you want to take, then I would caution you that the slope upon which you are about to tread is an extremelly slippery one. At the bottom of which is a cespool from which no one is ever going to get clean.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

Willravel

Had I been old enough to vote in 2000, I would have voted for Gore. Had Gore been allowed to win, I would have felt very responsible for his actions. If, hypothetically, he was able to pass sweeping legislation against global warming and accidentally started a dangerous global cooling trend, I'd feel responsible. I'd think I made a mistake voting for Gore. It's fine to feel that way. Had I voted for Bush in 2004, knowing full well he was willing and able to mislead congress and invade another country without provocation, YES, I would be responsible for all the horrible things he's done in his second bogus term.

Fortunately for me, I do a lot of research into the people I vote for so I'm rarely surprised by their decisions. It's a shame few others do that. I'd personally rather people who weren't willing or able to do their homework just stay home. If you know you can't put in the time to make a good decision as far as your leadership, don't waste your vote on someone.

host

The_Jazz, thank you for your response...and I was especially surprised to be "painted" as a "black or white", reactionary....but the shoe does seem to fit, at least in this instance....

BOR....I am not saying that I think that you support Bush or his policies. The article that I linked to that described the 74 year old woman, arrested 41 times in 4 years of protesting, was really about the rally that Sean Penn spoke at.
Mr. Penn has a celebrity status that gives him a "bully pulpit", and he has a talent and a series of artistic accomplishments that permits him the "license" to say what he says, and to travel to Iraq and Iran, without hurting his "bankability" in his business ventures. He has more impact than the 74 year old, and he has not been arrested 41 times.....

My point is....you don't have to be a supporter of what our elected leaders have been doing, to be complicit in "putting the cuffs" on that 74 year old, and you don't have to be a supporter to be complicit in the 5 year detainment of a young Australian, without trail, much of the time in solitary confinement, and finally denied counsel of his choice, when he is afforded a hearing to find out what some of the accusations against him are....and this, the treatment, at the behest of our POTUS, of a citizen of an allied nation, allowed to occur because the elected leader of the young Australian's nation, is ideologically aligned with US leaders.

All you have to have done, IMO, to be complicit in these injustices, is to do nothing....to let that 74 year old face arresting authorities without a sense that you, and your spirit, are behind her commitment. That young Australian waited five years, in a cell, only to have his legal representatives ordered aside by a military authority, because not enough of us let it be known that we would not tolerate these injustices. Forceful shouts of protest, and reams of pages filled with words expressing outrage, let the authorities know that we are watching what they do, that we are angry, and that they have already pushed us past the point of silent observation that they may have mistaken as indifference, inattention, or worse....approval of what they do that is illegal and unjust.

Isn't it better to be intolerant of lesser provocations to our constitution, our international agreements, and our penchant for honest, fair, and open government, than to reserve our condemnation or aggressive questioning, until it has reached the points that it has, now? Any one of us could be seized and treated like Jose Padilla, now. Are any of us as sure, in the course of our international travels, that the authority in some other nation will not use what our government has done to foreigners at Guantanamo, as a pretext to treat one of us in a similar manner.

When they do this to one of us, they do it to all of us. It cannot happen unless we let it....and if we let it, we have permitted it.

The_Jazz

will, by your logic, I'm responsible for voting for a sheriff that had inmates beaten in jail. It's an illegal act, but I'm somehow responsible.

I think you're misusing "responsibility". We the voters aren't responsible for the Bush's administration's actions, whether they be failures or successes. We weren't responsible for the Cuban Missle Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall or putting a man on the moon. There were some voters who were by their individual actions, but I completely reject the notion that those who voted for Bush in 2000 and/or 2004 are responsible for anything done by his administration.

Feeling that you "made a mistake" is not the same as feeling or being responsible for someone else's actions. You may feel that you miscast your ballot, but that has nothing to do with whether or not you are responsible.

I think that a simple redefinition of terms is in order here.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

ubertuber

There's a problem with the word "responsibility" these days. It certainly doesn't seem to mean what it used to mean.

Al Gonzales claims to be "responsible" for what happens in the Justice Department, but follows this up with evasions and laying the blame at others' feet. He says he's responsible, but then shifts the consequences to everyone else - which doesn't seem very "responsible" to me.

In this case, yeah, people who voted for Bush are "responsible" for putting him in office. But at the same time, who could have reasonably guessed that all of the crap from the intervening years was going to happen? The passage of the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, etc. would have been virtually unthinkable without being preceeded by 9/11 - and that itself was unthinkable up until 9/10 (at least to laypeople - voters).

So, what would it mean if I claimed to accept responsibility for voting for G. W. Bush in 2000? Would that equate to responsibility for things that happened later which were in no way forseeable? From the point of view I had in 2000, I couldn't have told you whether Al Gore was more likely than Bush to do all the things we've seen in the last 6 years - because I couldn't have imagined them happening at all. Does this make me unreasonably naive?

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

Rekna

I think what will is trying to say that if you know someone is willing, capable, and intending to do X and you vote for him and then he does X. Then you are partially responsible for X happening. I would agree with this statement. At the same time I fell that if you vote for a candidate and he does X but you nor anyone else knew he was planning on doing that then you are not responsible. However there is another area that is gray and that is where people know a candidate is planning on doing X but you don't know about it and because you didn't research into the candidate you are voting for you did not know he was planning on doing that. In this case I feel the voter has some responsibility for X occurring. Voting is a responsibility and the majority of Americans don't take it seriously and don't bother looking into the Candidates they are voting for.

Willravel

Did you vote for the sheriff? And did that man have a history of such behavior? If you said yes to both, then yes.
We weren't responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis because we didn't vote for Castro. We weren't responsible for the Berlin Wall because we aren't Russians. We are responsible for putting man on the moon because we voted Kennedy into office. If people are too dumb to realize that an invasion without provocation that resulted from misleading congress and the Patriot Act are a bad omen, maybe they should think about not reproducing.
So people aren't responsible for who they vote for? Well there goes all the meaning behind voting. Let's all vote for who we think would win American Idol!
Precisely. The Patriot Act and the Iraqi War came BEFORE the 2004 elections. It's not like everything was roses until 2004 and then Bush turned into a monster.

As voting as a responsibility, people are responsible for who they vote for.

//end threadjack

The_Jazz

I can do line by line too.

Actually, I did vote for that sheriff, and I'd do it again because he did a great job in decreasing crime. It's unfortunate that he made decisions that removed him from office, but I chose to judge his tenure by all of his actions, not by a single mistake. **Note - although he won't admit it, I think Bush has made cargo ship-loads of mistakes and that his administration could be seen as a series of mistakes.

I don't know why Castro is relavent since Cuban involvement was limited to geography - it was a US/Soviet crisis. And no, we didn't vote for Khrushchev (not Castro), but we did vote for Kennedy, who's the one that put the bombers in Turkey to provoke the crisis in the first place.

Your confusion of Soviets and Russians aside, that wasn't my point. The fall of the Berlin Wall was seen as the crowning achievement of the Reagan/Bush I era. It is by all measures a great foreign policy success, and my point in including was that the voters weren't responsible - those in power were.

No, we aren't. If anything, we're responsible for electing Johnson as VP since he was the one who actually presided over the Apollo program. And it was the good folks at NASA who were actually responsible anyway. What did the office of POTUS do other than lend support and publicity?

If this administration existed in a perfect vacuum, I might agree with you, but there were obviously other things that voters cared about. I'd love to see dc_dux wander in with some statistics on it since I'm too lazy to do it myself.

Again, we are responsible for voting. We are not responsible for the actions of those in office once they are there. Are the people of San Francisco responsible for their mayor sleeping with his assistant/wife's friend? I don't think so. Were the people of Tennessee responsible when Ray Blanton started selling pardons to convicted murders? I don't think so.

My point is that you and host have both argued that there have been illegal acts and that the Republican-voting public is responsible for those acts. If those acts are illegal, then how can the voters be responsible?

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

ubertuber

If they are responsible, perhaps they should go to jail. That's what people responsible for illegal acts do, right?

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

Willravel

You don't know why Castro is important when someone is figuring out who was responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis? Seriously?
I'm 23. I never met the Soviets. I'd say that the fall could be attributed to tons of different things, but Bush was a big part by being a part of those who demanded the wall come down. I believe (not sure) that was a campaign promise, so I'd say that the voters can share some of the responsibility.
Nothing, but we don't vote for NASA, and also Johnson may have said no.
I wonder what made them think that Bush would do anything for them? Unless they were voting for a president who would enjoy vacations and ignore intel.
The mayor's personal life has nothing to do with his professional life, just like Clinton. Shit, both of them managed to do a lot of good. People just decided it was the world's business if they were getting some on the side. They probably love their soaps. As for Ray Blanton, members of his staff were found guilty, not Ray Blanton. We didn't vote for his staff.
Because he broke the law several times, THEN he ran again and got elected. Fool me once.....um....shame on you....you....um.....you're not going to fool me again!

flstf

This reminds me of the bumber stickers "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For The Other Guy". I guess some people think the only way to avoid being held responsible is to vote for the losers.

The_Jazz

At the risk of a major threadjack:

Castro was roundly ignored by both the Soviets and Americans. He had no capability to launch missles, nor was it ever assumed that he could since it was evident from the pictures that Soviet personnel were manning them. The Soviets moved medium-range missles onto Cuba in direct response to the US posting long-range bombers in Turkey, along with continued violations of Soviet airspace by U-2 flights. Perhaps we should start a separate thread where you can explain to me why Castro was anything other than an important pawn in a Soviet/American crisis.

Sorry, people confusing Soviets and Russians is a pet peeve of mine and I should have made that clearer. For the record, Stalin was a Soviet, not a Russian. Khrushchev was a Ukrainian, not a Russian. Etc. Etc.

But Johnson didn't say no, and Niel Armstrong made one giant leap for mankind. And there we are. It's one of the major exploration triumphs of all time, and POTUS had little or nothing to do with it. It happened under his watch as a part of his administration, but he's not responsible. Nor was he responsible for Grissom et al dieing in a fire on Apollo 1. Nor were my parent responsible for voting for him.

Perfect vacuum, will, perfect vacuum. I agree with you, but you're trying to hold people responsible for things that they just aren't responsible for. They did vote for him because they liked him more than Kerry and/or thought he would do a better job.

Don't confuse the fact that Ray Blanton wasn't charged with the fact that he didn't do anything wrong. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that he took the bribes and knew what was going on. Lamar Alexander was put in office several days early to stop the hemoraging. Ray was convicted of selling liquor licenses illegally while in office. If you ever want a great read about the end of a political machine, read TENNPAR by the FBI agent that went after Ray. He's convinced that Ray knew exactly what was going on. Up until his own conviction, Jake Butcher screamed from the rooftops that Ray was the crookedest politician there'd ever been in the state, which is saying something considering that Jake would be included in that statement.

So, to coopt ubertuber's statement, you're saying that a sizeable minority of the American public belongs in jail because they're responsible for the illegal acts of their elected officials?

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ubertuber

Will:

I don't actually care about Ray Blanton, but I want to ask a question about that to understand where you are drawing your lines.

If voters are responsible for the actions of their candidates post-election, isn't Ray Blanton responsible for the actions of his staff post-hiring? And by simply extraction, are not voters also responsible for the actions of his staff, since they (voters) hired the guy that hired them (staff)?

What exactly do you think this "responsibility" should entail? Should Ray Blanton be in jail? Should Al Gonzales be fired? Should Republican voters be put on trial? Or should all of these people just be feeling guilty?

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Willravel

For that reason we should probably finish this elsewhere.

Rekna

The responsibility of the voters depends on if the actions by the person they voted for were foreseeable. Saying voters do not share any responsibility at all for what their candidates do is like saying congress has no responsibility for the abuses of the patriot act or that they have no responsibility for the Iraq war.

As for the current state of the Iraq war yes the people who voted for Bush the 2nd time around share the responsibility for being there. Bush got us into the war, he said he didn't plan on leaving, ect. He also was violating the constitution like crazy before the 2nd election and thus voters are partly responsible for the current violations of the constitution. This does not absolve the elected official of the responsibility but merely adds additional responsibility to those who put him into the position of power.

jamiqua

If you push a precariously placed boulder over the edge of the hill, are you then not responsible for the destruction that ensues? If you are fullfilling you're civic duty as a responsible voter you have gained enough education to understand the processes of national leadership politics and the histories that are involved. From that point one can make a decision. It's like seeing the boulder and thinking,"hey this is dangererous! Now, I could push it down that way and smash all those houses, or I could push it down this a-way and it would fall relativelyharmlessly in a field of boulders just like it, which should I pick?" AND if you don't know which way the boulder is going to roll, don't vote, cuase you still pushed it down the hill.

dksuddeth

Will, with your particular statements and positions, can I safely assume then that you are responsible for promoting war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by this administration because the senator and representative you voted for did not pursue an impeachment? thereby validating the administrations actions? I guess that makes you a war criminal then?

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Willravel

No one I voted for won, smart guy.

ubertuber

Does that sarcasm help you make your point?

I'm curious about the implied question that dk has asked - which is the same one I asked explicitly. Where are you drawing the line? I'd appreciate it if you could explain, or maybe talk through some of the examples. I'm having a hard time getting behind your point of view because I don't understand what you mean by responsible. I still don't understand if you mean "the cause of" or "accepting the consequences for" or something else...

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Willravel

Okay, I'll touch on this one more time (I honestly don't want to threadjack, and I regret making my initial statement here instead of in another thread more appropriate).

The line: We're responsible for choosing out leaders. That's what democracy is all about. We make a careful decision about who best represents us and who would best lead our community/state/country. We all knew that Bush vacationed up until 9/11. The guy was gone something like 65-80% of the time. Except for a few misguided people out there, I think we can agree that within reason a preemptive war is wrong, especially considering that by 2004 we were all aware that the WMD and al Qaeda links were bogus. Bush and his administration said time and again that they KNEW Hussain had chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons. They even said they knew where they were. Those were lies. If they had any brains, they would have said "Intelligence suggests", because that would have at least been in the same solar system as the truth. We all knew going into the 2004 election that we bombed Afghanistan and then basically left. We also knew that Iraq was beginning a downward spiral. Sure, we didn't know it would reach the level of civil war, but we knew thing weren't going to be puppy dogs and roses.

People still came out in droves to vote for the guy. They gave him the authority to remain in power and continue his bad behavior. It is in this way that we are responsible. We had the power to give any number of people. Kerry, Clark, Edwards, Grahm, Sharpton (don't laugh) all were candidates. Sure, they weren't perfect. Shoot, no one is. I saw flaws in each of them. The question, though was out of the people who could possibly win, who would be the most responsible? 45-50% came out for Bush.

As for the line elsewhere, Ray Blanton was voted for directly by voters. His constituents were responsible for the his foreseeable decisions. Judging by the research I've done today on him, it was not reasonable to foresee his decision to hire crappy aids. The fault is his and his aids, not the voters. The line is drawn, in my mind, based on precedence. Bush had a track record to indicate that he was going to continue pulling shit. Clinton had a track record that her was going to screw around, even though it really was none of our business. Had I been able to vote in 1992, I still would have voted for Clinton because despite his sophomoric behavior he was a good leader and was the best man for the job. When Clinton got his shit stuck in Bosnia in 95, we had the precedence of resolution 752 in 1992 to know that 'all necessary means' meant trouble. When people came out in 1996 to vote for Clinton, they had the knowledge of his mistakes in Bosnia to weigh on their decision. Had Clinton committed a second mistake like Bosnia in his second term, his voters would have been responsible for it because his record made clear what he was capable of.

I hope this clears up my opinion.

ubertuber

Thanks will...

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

jorgelito

I think the confusion is caused by the two elections (and Will's not-so-great explanation and infamous one-liner).

In election one, we are obviously not responsible for George Bush's actions or outcomes because there is no way anyone could have known what events would have transpired.

In election two, we already had a glimpse of how the George Bush Administration ran things and operated, thus giving the electorate more information to go on for that election. While the voters who elected George Bush are not DIRECTLY responsible for George Bush's actions, they are responsible for putting him in office. So in other words, there is a reasonable expectation that we knew what to expect. Therefore, 'we reap what we sow".

In that sense, we are in a way "responsible" (but not literally).

roachboy

the relation of the electorate to that which is elected is curious.

within the american pseudo-democratic system, there are no mechanisms for making elected officials resposive to the electorate--and by extension, there is no way for the electorate to hold politicos accountable, to make them responsible for their actions---between election rituals---unless there is a clear legal violation and even that obviously is dependent on the political composition of the legislature--such that the notion of legal violation itself has no particular content, is reduced to a function of the composition of the legislature.

it also seems to be the case that there is a functional split between actions a president--say--can and cannot do: watergate and the absurd clinton impeachment were similar in that the actions involved could be construed as having happened outside the purview of the presidency as office or social role. while i dont remember exactly why andrew johnson was impeached (and so could be wrong about this) it seems that so long as a president does things that are construed as remaining within the purview of the presidency as a function or role, he cannot and will not be held accountable for his actions.

so formally speaking, the problem of the "responsibility" relation of electorate to those elected is meaningless apart from these periodic rituals of faction rotation.
the question of what representation is ends up being calibrated by the way in which a politco orients his or her actions around upcoming election rituals.

there is no mechanism that links the status of elected officials to ongoing changes of popular sentiment.

personally, i think the bush people are so bad at what they are doing that they serve to demonstrate the limitations of this institutional arrangement. this administration seems to me a walking talking argument for implementation of mechanisms on the order of a vote of no confidence--that is the bush administration is a living demonstration of the fact that the american system is much less democratic than a parliamentary system.


as for the sense of responsibility that one might have relative to what the selected do---within this political order, the possibilities for enacting that sense are highly limited.

one option for doing something would be the thoreau model--civil disobedience. he opposed the mexican war and by extension the idea that his taxes were going to pay for it, so he refused to pay them. ended up in jail for a little while, until he was bailed out by a wealthy aunt. which in the end didnt matter anywhere near as much as the essay that he wrote. which says alot about where such actions derive their meaning from: from the making-public of them, from the theater. so acts of opposition have to be public, in the sense that they have to resonate beyond the purview of a narrow, individualistic acting out of a sense of being-responsible.

folk in this thread are enacting another mode of distancing, which is a way of addressing the sense of being-responsible, through the critiques they outline.
the main point of the debate above appears to me to be: it is an occaison for a series of disavowals.
in a context that allows for no politically meaningful action, the best one can do to express one's alienation is to say i didnt vote for these people.
think about that.

the limits are obvious.

the underlying problem appears to me to be the design of the american semi-democratic arrangement itself, which like i said, provides no mechanism for the translation of the individual ethical problems that the actions of an administration might pose, except for the one day every 4 years when americans are allowed to be politically free, and even then not directly.

so we are boxed in by the nature of the american institutional arrangement.
a central effect of that arrangement is that actual political freedom is severely circumscribed. usually, it seems, folk find it adequate that they get to talk alot about how free they are as they do the kinds of things that americans tend to confuse with political freedom, like buy things. whatever trade-offs are involved tend to be matters that folk consent to because these trade-offs are obscured behind the usual cliches about the exceptionalness of the american arrangement blah blah blah. and we are highly trained little consent machine as well, subjected to political indoctrination in the form of pseudo-history and civics from a young age. seen from this angle, the equating of the american political (and social) orders with the agency of some god acquires a political weight: of some god authorizes the system, how can that system be fucked up? and besides,
it appears that congratulating ourselves on how free we are is a full-time job, one that requires attention and that leaves little time left over for actually thinking about the questions raised in debates like this as political.

but the bush people show you otherwise.
you are free one day every four years.
the discourse of ethics is in this thread is, as it often is, a displacement of the political--a way to avoid the parameters that shape the problem people are reacting to throughout the whole of the thread.
maybe that's because one can maintain the illusion of effective agency within an order that allows for it only in the most limited and indirect manner by reverting to this language.

have you seen "dogville"?
von trier is right.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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dc_dux

Very thoughtful as usual, roach.

Where I disagree with you is on your comparison of our system to the brit parliamentary system. I would argue ours is the more democratic and provides better safeguards to protect the public interest for two reasons - the separation of powers between the legislative and executive functions and the codification of the term of office of the chief executive.

The british PM is in effect both the leader of the majority party in the parliament and the chief executive. His/her party controls both branches (or the functionality of both branches), making impartial oversight of the actions of the executive by the legislature far more difficult to ensure on an objective, non-partisan basis.

The term of the PM is also not set by law, but determined by the Crown, who disolves the parliment, generally at the request of the PM, who will make that request at the time most advantageous for his/her reelection or the election of a successor from his/her party.

On a side note regarding responsiblity for whom we elect, I didnt vote for Bush and I have no Senators and no voting representative in the House, so dont blame me

edit:
There is one feature of the Brit parliamentary system I would love to see us copy - Prime Minister's Questions, where the PM appears weekly in the parliament to answer questions from members of all parties. It forces the PM to defend his/her positions on the "issues of the day" providing at least some accountable for his/her actions.

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