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Anthony Kennedy's international view
lat ^ | June 14, 2008 | David G. Savage

Posted on 06/15/2008 12:16:25 PM PDT by Red Steel

WASHINGTON -- When the Supreme Court goes on recess at the end of this month, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy will be off to his summer teaching job in Salzburg, Austria. For the 19th year, he will teach a class called "Fundamental Rights in Europe and the United States" for the McGeorge Law School.

He tells his American and European students that the belief in individual freedom and the respect for human dignity transcends national borders. There is, he once said in an interview, "some underlying common shared aspiration" in legal systems that protects the rights and liberties of all.

That international perspective was on display Thursday as Kennedy spoke for the Supreme Court in extending legal rights to the foreign military prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "Security subsists too in fidelity to freedom's first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers," Kennedy said.

The 5-4 ruling highlighted the sharp divide over the law and the war on terrorism. The dissenters, agreeing with the Bush administration, said foreigners captured abroad in the war on terrorism had no rights in American courts.

Justice Antonin Scalia dissented with the decision "to extend the right of habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war." The ruling "warps our Constitution," he wrote in his dissent.

The majority, led by Kennedy, was more in tune with the views across Europe and of civil libertarians in this country, who have condemned the prison at Guantanamo Bay as a "legal black hole" where foreigners are shackled and held in harsh conditions without due process of law. The justices in the majority said that when U.S. authorities take someone into

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: anthonymkennedy; fascism; globalism; judicairy; scotus
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To: jwalsh07

And actually they don’t have to be members of al qaeda. They simply have to be taking up arms against the US.
This strawman of his falls miles short too.
Typical for lefties.


141 posted on 06/15/2008 5:06:52 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: smoketree
I think you need to look at a globe.

I do. All the time. We are what percentage of the world's population? We have what percent of its wealth? We control what percent of its land mass?

Do we run the whole place or do we need to accord ourselves in a manner that convinces others that we are sober, rational and just in order to win the cooperation of others, if not there esteem?

Even Bush finally stated his regrets for talking and acting like a cowboy. Reckless behavior has enormous consequences for our diplomatic standing in the world. Most of the world does not harbor terrorists, and we need to get along with most of them.

Screaming about shooting and locking up and throwing away keys on the grounds that we have accused folks of being islamofascists and without a fair trial of any sort scares lots of people. It does lots of damage.

Bush apologised for it.

142 posted on 06/15/2008 5:11:21 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: smoketree
they don’t have to be members of al qaeda. They simply have to be taking up arms against the US.

And without a habeas proceeding where do you get to force someone to demonstrate that you have taken up arms agaisnt the US?

143 posted on 06/15/2008 5:12:43 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: jwalsh07

Where did I violate my oath under the constitution?


144 posted on 06/15/2008 5:13:25 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

You are so far out in loony lefty land that there is no hope for you.
You know the saying about arguing with a fool. The only thing to do is stop before you both look the same.


145 posted on 06/15/2008 5:15:29 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: smoketree
Closing down Guantanamo and bestowing constitutional rights on enemy combatants are two different things.

No they are not at all. They are the same thing. We moved detainees to Guantanamo on the grounds that no one had sovereignty and so the military command could do anything they wanted. Once Guantanamo is closed the detainees have to be moved somewhere, and anywhere else in the world there is no question about sovereignty or jurisdiction. If it is not on US soil, even a US territory there is clear legal jurisdiction. If it is anywhere else, someone else is sovereign and their laws prevail.

The constitution I took an oath to defend does not have executive holidays in it.

146 posted on 06/15/2008 5:17:24 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: smoketree

Since I have reduced you to name calling, I guess you have nothing substantive to say.


147 posted on 06/15/2008 5:18:52 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: smoketree

Your problem is that you don’t know what a habeas proceeding is.


148 posted on 06/15/2008 5:19:56 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

Let me take a wild guess.
If they are shooting at our troops then they are taking up arms agains the US.
I’m quite sure those being shot at will know they are being shot at.
But for you looney lefties you would want evidence that they were actually shooting at the troops who were being shot at.
This is where the evidence part comes in and the whole rights thing you like stops the battle to preserve evidence so you sitting in your chair can be satisfied that the rights of the terrorists are not being violated.
It’s more of your insane left wing craziness.


149 posted on 06/15/2008 5:20:49 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: AndyJackson

Actually calling you a looney lefty sums you up quite succintly.


150 posted on 06/15/2008 5:21:50 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: AndyJackson

Once again you guess wrong.


151 posted on 06/15/2008 5:22:52 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: AndyJackson

Your problem is that you don’t know what a war is.


152 posted on 06/15/2008 5:23:49 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: smoketree
I now have reduced you to arguing in circles.

Do you know what would actually happen at a habeas proceeding? What is at stake? What must the US prove through evidence / sworn testimony?

It is not a high standard. Criminals get remanded all the time.

153 posted on 06/15/2008 5:23:56 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

Wow.
Wrong again.
Sorry but I don’t want to look like a fool so your circle jerking is your own doing.


154 posted on 06/15/2008 5:25:36 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: smoketree

If you know what a habeas proceeding is, then why are you so opposed to the US having to prove that it has valid reason for holding detainees? What is so hard about it that you think normal constitutional protections should be suspended?


155 posted on 06/15/2008 5:25:41 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: smoketree
Wrong again.

About what?

156 posted on 06/15/2008 5:26:36 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

You see. There you go again
Enemy combatants don’t get constitutional rights.


157 posted on 06/15/2008 5:27:51 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: AndyJackson

Well let me see.
Wrong about what you said.
Sorry I’m not interested in your time wasting lefty craziness.


158 posted on 06/15/2008 5:29:39 PM PDT by smoketree (the insanity, the lunacy these days)
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To: Red Steel

159 posted on 06/15/2008 5:34:47 PM PDT by roses of sharon ( (Who will be McCain's maverick?))
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To: smoketree
Suppose you are not an enemy combatant, but someone says you are. Do you get constitutional rights? Suppose you are a US citizen but they don't believe you and think you are traveling on a forged passport, and you are a terrorist, but they waterboard you and learn nothing to lead them to believe that you are a terrorist. Furthermore after six months they discover that you really are a US citizen, and now, if released, you have a $100M lawsuit against the US government. Do they let you go or hold you? Without right to a habeas hearing how do you secure your release? Or are you an enemy combatant because someone said you were, and he wouldn't have said you were if you weren't.

Well the US government put the full weight of the US government behind proving that the Haditha marines were guilty. In fact they tried to get them all to plead so they would have to prove it. Guess what? So far they are innocent. Why would the US military say they are guilty if they are innocent? Don't they have constitutional oaths? Surely the prosecutors and convening officers didn't violate their oaths under the constitution? Or the civilian officials placed over them. They didn't beak their oaths did they? So the Haditha marines must be guilty. Except some officers said they weren't. Under oath, on a Court Martial panel. Someone broke his oath. Who?

That is why we have an f'in constitution.

Or I am a leftist and the Haditha marines were not improperly prosecuted. Or maybe, since they demanded to exercise their rights under the constitution they are leftists to.

160 posted on 06/15/2008 5:43:49 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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