I suggest you and Stu go back and read the dissenting opinions in the series of gitmo cases. There were two big issues in the latest decision that raise real problems. First is the habeas corpus issue. Under the Constitution, congress has the power to limit habeas. In the Civil War, Lincoln had it suspended entirely. In the WW II case of the german saboteurs, they were hanged within a week, no habeas, thank you very much. A US citizen seized in the US clearly has a right to habeas. That is not the case with the gitmo detainees. They were noncitizens seized and held overseas. No case had ever given a right of habeas in those circumstances. Consider what it means in practice. To defend the habeas petition, the government will probably have to bring soldiers into court to testify the circumstances under which they captured the terrorist. The soldier would be exposed to retaliation from other terrorists, and at a minimum it would be an adminstrative nightmare. Are soldiers supposed to take notes like cops when they capture someone on a foreign battlefield?T he Court in an earlier case tried to finesse the issue of the detainees not being held in the US by saying gitmo was US territory, a clearly specious argument. In response congress withdrew the Court's jurisdiction to rule on detainee cases, which is the second issue. Congress has explicit authority under the Constitution to regulate and limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, except for cases expressly given to the Court by the Constitution. The lower federal courts are not even required to exist under the Constitution, so congress has even more authority to limit their jurisdiction. The counter argument is that congress cannot remove a constitutional right by purporting to remove it from the court's jurisdiction. For example, it would be problematic if congress withdrew the Court's authority to rule on cases involving the Takings Clause, because that is an explicit constitutional right. (Of course, congress doesn't need to do that, because the Court already eviscerated that Clause with the hideous Pelo decision.) The Court's action here in refusing to accept the limit on their jurisdiction is troubling because the case did not even involve American citizens. It did involve the Executive Branch prosecuting a foreign war, sensitive relations with allies in that war and secret intelligence, three factors that have led courts in the past to decline to review Executive action. Many people take the view that whatever the Court says is "The Law" and must be followed explicitly, no matter the consequences. That is not a view that is supported by the Constitution or by history. The Constitution sets up three co-equal branches, not two equal branches with a judiciary to resolve tough issues. The Constitution has elaborate checks and balances that were clearly designed to keep any one Branch from overstepping its boundaries. Congress can impeach the President or judges. The President can veto laws or in extreme cases, refuse to carry them out. The Supreme Court can rule laws unconstitutional. Note however that they have no way to enforce their decisions without the assistance of another branch. In this case, they blatantly trespassed upon both the Executive and Legislative Branch's turf. It would be entirely appropriate for those Branches to respond in kind by agreeing to treat the ruling as a nullity.
Insecure fools need a handgun. The NRA stands for National "RIFLE" Association, NOT the national "HANDGUN" Association. What is the purpose of a handgun? What Army ever went into battle only eguipped with handguns? Get a big dog (German shepard type) or two and a ugly wife, you will be safe.
I live near Detroit and trust me your dogs and your ugly wife would be shot in an instance. Many states including Michigan allow citizens to get concealed weapons/pistol licenses...so a handgun can be on your person, where it needs to be if your life is in danger. Self-defense has nothing to do with what armies carry into battle, and according to the Supreme court decision neither does the second amendment. Apparently the Mayor of DC is back at it again. Now he is declaring that automatic and semi-automatic handguns are still banned. DC declared that 7 shot handguns like a colt .45 1911 are in fact machine guns, since someone made 20 round magazines for them. The idiot mayor is now trying to force everyone to register revolvers only. So it looks like back to the courts. What a joke.
Wow - so we are going to reject about 200 years of American history and question the courts decision in Marbury vs. Madison. 1. I will address your first comment. I did not state that these guys were U.S. citizens. I clearly stated the line needed to be drawn so clearly us citizens are protected. . If you had your way and you got arrested on the street with a bunch of terrorists and got sent to GITMO. what would you do. You would have no right to appear before a U.S. court. Get it - you would be so screwed.. perhaps no one could help you. Its not that I like terrorists or want to live them rights, its that I love our country because we don't have to fear being shipped off to a gulag without recourse. If you really knew how most law enforcement officers are wiling to lie to put bad guys in jail you would shiver at what you just wrote. If you knew how easily you could be framed for possession you would shiver. Now you want to give law enforcement the ultimate power. Gulag with no habeus. 2. But what is really odd is that you are now arguing to overthrow about 200 years of U.S. history. The other branches of gov't have respected the U.S. Supreme courts right to Judicial review. Sure the U.S. Supreme Court may have created this power of judicial review in Marbury vs. Madison - but our country has observed and lived by that decision for most of its history. I do not know where you get your law from, but --- what you are suggesting is a constitutional crisis of the highest order. And were your ideas to prevail. I would be running out to buy much ammo and a few guns. (and I am not a gun owner). You are proposing arguments which law students discuss as hypotheticals in lawschool. I can not believe a thinking person like you propose that the executive branch treat a Supreme Court decision like a Nullity. What would they do that with - a gun - a bomb - what? You are proposing a break down of our entire system. it is nuts.
jem: >its that I love our country because we don't have >to fear being shipped off to a gulag without recourse. You go jem. JB
but - lets bring the correct perspective.. You get thrown in the gulag and named as a non us citizen terrorist. Terrorists in that gulag "GITMO or whereever" have no habeas rights. You are screwed out of your constitutional rights - perhaps permanently by the system you are advocating. If you think this through you will agree we can't have gulogs without protecting U.S. citizens at the very least. Now if you wish to create a Gulag with Due process for americans- great. then you would agree we need to due process for potentially innocent friends from foreign countries. So we can agree terroists may not deserve habeas - but it is not really about they - its about protecting our freedoms. 2. marbury vs madison may have been a power grap by the Supreme Court but would you rather have your laws reviewed and interpreted by a body of 9 old people without a weapon or the commander in chief of the military and leader of many covert agencies. I believe what you propose is out right dangerous to the future of country.
As an American, shouldn't the very principles at stake mean more to you than shenanigans embedded within corruptions of political expediencies? Are you really so concerned about what some freak left winger worries about enough to make you think the only way to respond is to take an opposite and correspondingly extreme view of the crypto-fascist? Wouldn't that appear inappropriate, when all this is to do more with core basic fundamentals in respect of demonstrating good examples set by American justice within due process, than the personal power and control agendas which drive opportunist politicians at the top of the heap. Some Brits have the right balance here. Look at what their Director of Public Prosecutions thinks about all this war on terror crap after the bombings in London England. He doesn't fall for the bogus war, which has been sold to Americans and other nations by a bunch of morally debased politicians, fronted by a swaggering commander in chief: "London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'. "The fight against terrorism ..... is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement. ........it is obvious that the process of winning convictions ought to be in keeping with a consensual rule of law and not detached from it. Otherwise we sacrifice fundamental values critical to the maintenance of the rule of law - upon which everything else depends." Sir Ken Macdonald Producing a perpetual pseudo war and encouraging fear-driven reaction to what is actually an illegal and atrocious act of murder by crazed fanatics is not an intelligent response. War is armed conflict against an enemy. Terror is a feeling of fear. It is impossible to take armed conflict against a feeling of any kind. Collectively hoodwinked into a bunch of phony arrangements made by politicians who have convinced each other they are at war when they are, in fact , at no such thing, was to allow free movement away from the safeguards essential in every true democracy. The "war" is nothing more than the use of metaphorical rhetoric to enhance the powers of the executive in taking direct control over all aspects of their actions, and in so doing, they are sure to limit the people's means to respond via the Courts . They commit this bamboozle of the people in the name of the people. We are at War with Afghanistan and Iraq or we are not at War at all. We protect ourselves from criminal fanatics by upholding the primary values in Common Law and due process which serves to protect democracy and liberty , keep criminals and over zealous government at bay, and put war in its proper place. We defeat these despot criminal killers in promoting our civilizing culture. Overriding the very rule of Law is what murdering criminals do themselves. How the f'k do you ever expect to differentiate yourself from these morons when government itself is not upholding the rule of Law?