Moral Sovereignty and America's Foreign Policy

An American Expat in Southeast Asia | 27 March 05 | expatguy

[dufekin]

Well, that's really good. Maybe the Southeast Asians should take this case to the United Nations to promulgate a treaty. Our Courts would listen to the United Nations, even if they should defy the Congress and play word games with the Constitution. Don't worry; the Courts have ruled that even unratified treaties still bind the interpretation of the Constitution. Our President's sole influence upon the Court comes through his prominent influence over foreign legal traditions, for the Courts have decreed so.

And the answer to your questions: In the United States, we do not have human rights; our government exists to secure the certain inalienable rights with which our Creator endowed all persons. But a "person" and a "human" are not the same; a "person" is a legal construction, and any Judge can declare a genetic human to be not a person by fiat. Such decrees are irrevocable.

The Courts have used this tactic against Dred Scott (1857), Norma McCorvey's baby (1973), and Terri Schiavo (1998). Yes, we just have a problem with judicial tyrants.

I PERSONALLY RECOMMEND TRIAL BY JURY IN ALL CASES WHEREIN NO ECONOMIC VALUE IS IN CONTROVERSY. We need to extend jury trials, jury nullification, executive clemency, and other rights to suits at common law.

[MarMema]

BTT

[atomicpossum]

All of us have now died a little inside.

I don't know about that. I hear a lot of people here lamenting the loss of 'state's rights' over human life.

[sheikdetailfeather]

Well done and so sadly true.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Excellent, thanks.

You hit the nail on the head:

When great men stand by and mumble to themselves "...Well the courts have decided" and do nothing as an omnipotent judiciary and corrupted court system misuses the law to legitimize atrocities committed against our fellow man, then we have truly fallen as a people.

[Tolik]

expatguy: (permalink: http://laotze.blogspot.com/2005/03/moral-sovereignty-and-americas-foreign.html)

...When a great nation such as ours starts to dehumanize individuals in the way that Terri Schiavo has and is being dehumanized in an organized effort to justify and rationalize the killing off of those members of our society who are sick, disabled, no longer productive, "have worthless lives or lives not worth living" or "wish to die" then we have lost the moral high ground.

When great men stand by and mumble to themselves "...Well the courts have decided" and do nothing as an omnipotent judiciary and corrupted court system misuses the law to legitimize atrocities committed against our fellow man, then we have truly fallen as a people.

Human rights are those we possess by virtue of being human. They are God given rights, natural rights, i.e., rights we possess by nature, not by law. They are not rights granted to us by any government, and so they cannot be taken away by any government, regardless of what laws it may pass and what degree of violence it may employ to enforce its laws.

.....What right do we have now to excoriate others? What right do we have to speak out against human rights abuses around the globe?

....If China decides to put a bullet in the brain of all their retarded school children tomorrow, what can we say or do?

Nailed It!
Moral Clarity BUMP !

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of good stuff that is worthy attention. I keep separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson, Lee Harris, David Warren, Orson Scott Card. You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about).

[onyx eyes]

thankee, I'll go do that . you are a good person.

[lainde]

bttt

[lainde]

Beautifully said...Kudos!

[snowsislander]

When a great nation such as ours starts to dehumanize individuals in the way that Terri Schiavo has and is being dehumanized in an organized effort to justify and rationalize the killing off of those members of our society who are sick, disabled, no longer productive, "have worthless lives or lives not worth living" or "wish to die" then we have lost the moral high ground.

I don't think this case shows flaws in our national character. Our president and the governor of Florida have not espoused this killing; our Congress has not espoused this killing; a large percentage of Florida's legislature are against it.

It is disappointing that a probate judge in Florida can sentence a woman to death by starvation, and in the process of executing her ignore Congressional subpoena and can command the Pinellas County Sheriff to defy the executive branch of Florida.

Those extraordinary actions themselves were not the rule of law: they were rule by judge. But those actions had their origin in a simple problem: Florida has a law on the books that is unconstitutional. It allows for the state of Florida to deprive citizens of life without due process.

I have heard people comment that this is somehow a states rights case, as if states somehow have a right to kill their citizens at their own pleasure. The states do not have such a right. Citizens are guaranteed by the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution due process when they are deprived of life. Florida's law abridges that by providing an expedited process to terminate life.

However bad this law is, it takes an over-the-top and out-of-control judge to take it to this point. The safeguards, extraordinary as they were in some cases, were invoked because of an extraordinary danger: a probate judge in a guardianship case who decided to use this power to improperly terminate a life. When the injustice of this was pointed out by the parents of the individual, this judge stubbornly refused to listen to reason; the review process for his decision was not designed as one to be a review of a capital case; the only safeguards left were legislative and executive intervention, because the judicial mechanisms that were being invoked were the wrong ones to handle a capital case.

While this is lamentable, and does not show our best face, it is not a condemnation of our government at large, or our leaders at large. It may show weaknesses in our distribution of power; it may show how a law designed for one reason had a provision that give it an entirely different complexion in the hands of a bad actor; it may show that our wheels of justice sometimes grind too slowly to save individuals, but I don't believe that it shows that our country has somehow taken on a new and evil face.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

I don't think that was necessarily a reflection on the merit of your thread, but simply a measured judgment on the part of the moderators.

There are too many threads relating to this case, both news and opinion-related, to contain within one particular forum.

That being said, I think that your thread does indeed raise many disturbing issues, which need to be addressed before we move forward as a nation.