Replies

I believe in due process...they tried to kill us, we kill them.

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg		Freepers/Avg		Monthlies
3	New York	195.00	4	48.75	669	0.29	288.00	17

Thanks for donating to Free Republic!

Move your locale up the leaderboard!

My biggest question right now is why are the foreign terrorists considered deserving of our Constitutional guarantees? Those rules are for citizens of this country, not foreign combatants. Anyone have a clus about this liberal mental process?

I was out tonight playing a gig and met a dumpy piano player from Frisco who is an obvious liberal, and tried to get me to take some www.impeachbush.org bumper stickers.

I refused the sticker. She also made a comment that "democracy will be a sad thing for Iraq." and I wanted her to explain, but I was on break and she left after I was back on stage.

Does anyone have any ideas as to why liberals think that Iraq as a democracy would be a bad thing?

I sometimes thing this county is a nation of of chicken-littles. Congress voted near unaniously for the Patriot Act without even reading it. What would have been so awful in the wake of 9-11 of approving the Patriot Act say for 90 days so Congress could actually read what they were voting into law for the rest of us? This way the president would have the authority to do whatever was necessary to defend the country from terrorists. And Congress, in the meantime, would have time to read the act to make sure they hadn't wiped out the Constitution.

As the Duke said in The Green Berets

"Out here, due process is a bullet."

This whole thing could be sorted out very easily, if Dubya had any respect for the Constitution, which he obviously doesn't. Although many civil libertarians complain about the treatment of both the US citizens who are being held as "enemy combatants" and the actual "enemy combatants" who are being held at Guantanamo, the focal point is the administration's denial of due process to the US citizens who are being held under that broad umbrella. Remove that focal point and the clamorous din and anxiety surrounding this issue would subside to a handful of voices of concern. Considering that, the solution seems simple.

Stop denying US citizens their Constitutional guaranteed due process.

It's not that hard, if Dubya were not so determined to be King George I. When you read the Constitution, it becomes blatantly obvious that one of the primary purposes of that document was to guarantee that no single branch of government could act unilaterally, to deny the rights of US citizens, as Dubya and Ashcrroft have done. It's called "separation of powers" and means that no single branch of government can act without oversight by at least one other branch of government.

To settle this issue, the administration has only to get one other branch of government to concur with their (up to now) unilateral declaration of some US citizens as "enemy combatants". That's all. It's not a big deal.

But right now, US citizens, arrested on US soil, are being held incommunicado, based only on "claims" of people under the direct chain of command of the President, with no oversight by any other independent branch of government and that is a clear violation of the Constitution's separation of powers provision. All we have now, is the word of Dubya and those who work for him, that those men are terrorists. Even if I trusted him, which I don't, I would still want to see independent confirmation from another branch of government. I would even demand that of President Ronald Reagan and I think that he was the greatest and most trustworthy President in over a century, if not ever. On the other hand, Dubya proved his lust for power when his administration authored the (ANTI)Patriot Act, which action casts doubt on anything that he says.

If Dubya were to simply present the evidence against those citizens, justifying his classification of them as "enemy combatants", to even a closed court and get their concurrence, most of this controversy would cease. Oh, there would still be some of the radical liberals, who would continue to whine about the "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo. But, they would be rightfully marginalized, since their obvious reason for such complaints would be to hurt Dubya and would have nothing to do with the rights of the detainees.

After all, most people believe that since those "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo were captured on the field of battle, they are there for good purpose. Furthermore, since they are not US citizens, they do not fall under the protection of the Constitution and since they are not part of an official armed force of another country, they don't even fall under the protection of the Geneva Convention.

Perhaps, after this whole terrorist thing is all over, the world governments can get together and come up with a set of rules for dealing with terrorists. But, you don't go trying to change the rules in the middle of a war. You live with what rules you have and worry about changing the rules later.

Right now, there are no rules for terrorists. But, there are rules for dealing with US citizens. It's called the Constitution of the United States of America and Dubya and Ashcroft have ignored it repeatedly and continue to do so. The fact that Dubya has not taken the simple step of asking another branch of government to validate his administration's classification of some US citizens as "enemy combatants", only serves to prove that he has no intention of honoring the Constitution that he swore to "protect and defend".

It's time that Republican voters nominate a real Republican to the office of President, in place of the RINO we have now. I know, baring some great snafu on Dubya's part, between now and the primaries, that won't happen. But nonetheless, I'm not sure our Constitution can survive another four years of "compassionate conservatism".

Due process for terrorists is a length of rope and a stout oak.

You Betcha! If you are a terrorist; you Die! Speedy enough for you?