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Should Obama violate the Constitution to protect it?
msnbc ^ | january 14, 2013 | Faiven Feshazion

Posted on 01/26/2013 9:12:19 AM PST by lowbridge

Our government is guided by the U.S. Constitution, the vital document created over 200 years ago that includes founding ideals which protect civil liberties of Americans. With the help of appointed and elected government officials, the United States runs on a set of unchangeable principles and carefully added amendments.

Recently, the debt ceiling debate called into question the Constitution and how the president’s power is demarcated in the original text. The issue lies in whether or not President Obama should bypass Congress and make the executive decision to raise the spending limit.

It is not unprecedented to violate the Constitution deliberately, with good intention. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln used this path when he suspended habeas corpus in an effort to save the country during the civil war. In doing so, President Lincoln was successful in reuniting the government. On Saturday, host Melissa Harris-Perry and her panel discussed when it would be necessary for the Commander-in-Chief to trump the age-old document.

“The president needs to get his best legal advice and move forward [without Congress]” said Seton Hall University law professor Mark Alexander on Saturday’s Melissa Harris-Perry, urging that valuable time is being wasted in Washington debating the debt ceiling issue.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: constitution; melissaharrisperry; msnbc; obama; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills
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To: Venturer

I wonder if the average citizen even realizes such.


41 posted on 01/26/2013 11:15:22 AM PST by Michael Barnes (Obamaa+ Downgrade)
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To: lowbridge
1861.

(From Internet sources.)

When a man confined at Fort McHenry sued for a writ of habeas corpus Chief Justice Roger Taney ordered the government to show cause why the man should not be released. The Chief Justice was advised that the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended.

Taney issued an attachment -- law Legal seizure of property or a person. The writ ordering such a seizure -- for the commandant of Fort McHenry but the marshals were denied admission to the fort.

Taney then "issued an opinion in the case declaring that the President alone did not have the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus-only Congress could do that-and holding that Merryman's [the man at Ft. McHenry] confinement was illegal. The Chief Justice, knowing that he could not enforce his order, sent a copy of it to Lincoln."

Lincoln was not impressed and other victims -- mayors, police chiefs, journalists, everyone -- soon followed.

Lincoln said about writ of habeas corpus: should everything fail because that one law "made in such extreme tenderness of the citizens' liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent . . . [cannot] to a very limited extent be violated?" You want "the government itself go to pieces?"

The federal government we got now? Yes!

Void the bowels of Washington!

42 posted on 01/26/2013 11:37:15 AM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: lowbridge

Does ANYONE drug test anymore?


43 posted on 01/26/2013 11:42:48 AM PST by cardinal4 (Constitution? What Constitution?)
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To: lowbridge

Does ANYONE drug test anymore?


44 posted on 01/26/2013 11:43:14 AM PST by cardinal4 (Constitution? What Constitution?)
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To: Don Corleone

IMPEACH>>>IMPEACH>>>IMPEACH>>>IMPEACH

This situation definitely requires at least four impeachments.


45 posted on 01/26/2013 11:46:36 AM PST by Viennacon
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To: cripplecreek

That person rself is scareally believes what she wrote. That in itself is scary..


46 posted on 01/26/2013 11:48:09 AM PST by cardinal4 (Constitution? What Constitution?)
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To: cardinal4

Stupid laptop, lets try it again..
It is scary that the person who wrote that silliness really believes it..


47 posted on 01/26/2013 11:50:43 AM PST by cardinal4 (Constitution? What Constitution?)
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To: cripplecreek

ROTFL. I think the paper has been had.


48 posted on 01/26/2013 12:01:44 PM PST by Cboldt
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To: kjo

Obama’s emergency is the ticking clock.


49 posted on 01/26/2013 12:07:02 PM PST by The_Media_never_lie (Actually, they lie when it suits them! The crooked MS media must be defeated any way it can be done!)
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To: lowbridge

The MSNBC retard assumes the Constitution needs saving. It doesn’t. It is just fine. It’s we the people who need to reign in government. We need saving from a tyrannical government.


50 posted on 01/26/2013 12:09:33 PM PST by vpintheak (Occupy your Brain!)
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To: lowbridge
...valuable time is being wasted in Washington debating the debt ceiling issue.

Right. Who needs messy give and take of debate to reach a consensus conclusion. What we need is a communist dictator to make things run efficiently without all that horrid discussion.

The number of commies coming out the past few years saying cancel elections, no term limits for Pres, Constitution is outdated, bypass the Electoral College, confiscate all guns, etc is very scary. It all adds up to totalitarianism.

51 posted on 01/26/2013 12:14:33 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: phoneman08

Our dictator is very proud.


52 posted on 01/26/2013 12:16:08 PM PST by The_Media_never_lie (Actually, they lie when it suits them! The crooked MS media must be defeated any way it can be done!)
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To: lowbridge

Yes, Obama can save the Union by causing a civil war, just like America’s Hitler.


53 posted on 01/26/2013 12:37:26 PM PST by UnwashedPeasant
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To: UnwashedPeasant; rockrr
Yes, Obama can save the Union by causing a civil war, just like America’s Hitler.

Jefferson Davis?

54 posted on 01/26/2013 12:40:09 PM PST by x
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To: lowbridge
It is not unprecedented to violate the Constitution

No, but it WAS/IS illegal!

55 posted on 01/26/2013 12:40:34 PM PST by Texas Fossil
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To: cripplecreek
That letter is straight from SNL, or should be.
56 posted on 01/26/2013 12:57:32 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: lowbridge

Who was brave enough to watch MSLSD long enough to glean this piece of swill? Eww.


57 posted on 01/26/2013 1:43:22 PM PST by redhead (PRAY DAILY for a Restoration of the Righteous Intent of America)
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To: lowbridge; All

I used to not question that the USA and its Constitution had survived the Civil War because that is essentially what we are taught to assume in school. But some patriots like me who study the Constitution and its history now regard the original USA as having collapsed as a consequence of the Civil War, the original Constitution made worth no more than the paper that it was drafted on; so much for the Constitution’s “insure domestic Tranquility” clause.

And since war is hell, the winning side, the North, got not only one of the traditional spoils of winning a war, the “license” to rewrite history to make themselves hero, but in the case of winning the US Civil War the license to also rewrite the Constitution which I personally call Constitution II. The arguably unconstitutional rewriting of the Constitution by the North is evidenced not only by Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, but also by the questionable ratification of the 14th Amendment which has remained controversial to this day.

But in broader perspective, the Civil War and the post Civil War rewriting of the Constitution by the North is arguably the turning point where the federal government had finally managed to do what the Founders had dreaded, the federal government having worked itself free from the shackles of it’s constitutionally limited powers, positioning itself to eventually destroy state sovereignty.

Sadly, generations of patriots have arguably been living their lives in the confusion of the ongoing post Civil War cold war without knowing it, Constitution-ignorant patriots oblivious to the idea that the federal government continues to ignore its constitutionally limited powers, usurping 10th Amendment protected state powers every opportunity that it gets.


58 posted on 01/26/2013 1:55:49 PM PST by Amendment10
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To: JRandomFreeper

Johnny,
I’ve a feeling you, like I, already pretty much do what you want. Wwithin reason.


59 posted on 01/26/2013 2:32:49 PM PST by Joe Boucher ((FUBO))
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