Can We Agree on the Meaning of the Bill of Rights in Wartime?

Vanity ^ | December 4, 2001 | self

[2ndMostConservativeBrdMember]

Forgive me for interrupting your very important thoughts and profound wisdom, but we are in the midst of the most exciting fundraiser ever on FreeRepublic. I would hate for any of you to miss it!

Come visit us at Freepathon Holidays are Here Again: Let's Really Light Our Tree This Year - Thread 5

and be a part of something that is larger than all of us.

Alone, we are a voice crying in the wilderness. Together we are a force for positive action!

Don't be left out!

Be one who can someday say..................... "I was there when..................."

Thank you to everyone who has already come by and become a part!

[betty boop]

In your honor, sir.

[betty boop]

Well thank you very much; I'm sure the folks attending to this this thread will try to do what they can to stuff something up to relieve your crying-in-the-wilderness probblem. Thanks for the reminder RE: our civic duty. best, bb.

P.s.: you were so timely, 2ndMostConservativeBrdMmember. I didn't even get a chance to invite potential correspondents to this thread before you showed up. So, Praise "efficiency." (I guess that's what I'm supposed to do right about now....)

[betty boop]

Oh, just for the fun of it....

[onedoug]

Can we ever?

[betty boop]

Can we ever -- do what, onedoug? "I'm listening." :^) best, bb.

[onedoug]

Can We Agree on the Meaning of the Bill of Rights?....

[betty boop]

Yep, we can. So what's your angle?

[betty boop]

We're throwing aparty in your honor, Hope you can come. best, bb.

[betty boop]

Want to come out and play? best, bb.

[betty boop]

Just in case anyone feels like getting "practical"....

[onedoug]

I don't know. It sounds downright un-American to me, somehow.

I get as frustrated as anyone with the PC crowd, and the usurption by communists of the democrat party...and parts of the Republican for that matter. But I gotta say I think a fair amount of disagreement within American society - especially about its foundations - is still a good thing...though it could be disseminated a fair degree more evenly.

[Matsuidon]

bb:

Art3, Sec2. Cl.1 and Cl.3.United States Constitution proscribe judicial requirements, specifically Cl.3 "The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment; shall be by Jury."

[tpaine]

One of the last posts on the thread you 'honor' summed it up perfectly:

To: H.Akston

bin Laden has perpetrated an act of war on the United States, even at that, if he is brough to US soil, he will be tried, not summarily shot. He still has the right to due proccess.
As a suspect in the murder of thousands of citizens, he cannot buy a weapon, he has no Second Amendment rights, no suspected felon does.

The posters that have agreed with you, (to your original post), are wrong if their assumption is that the rights detailed in the Constitution, and the protection afforded by the BOR, apply only to citizens. If Willioam F. Buckley makes the same claim, he is wrong as well. He isn't omnipotent you know.

Here's your original rant:

"Bob Barr just said on Sam and Cokie's show that the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution, and the Constitution covers "persons", not just citizens, and "the Bill of Rights applies to all persons on our soil."

That's about the most liberal thing I've ever heard. Doesn't he realize that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution clearly identifies who is covered by the words "WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES", and that not everyone on this soil is "OF THE UNITED STATES"? With Rights come responsibilities - does he want to extend American rights to people who don't pay American taxes?? American Privileges without American Responsibilities, MR. BARR? Representation from you without Taxation?

I'm not even sure that Indians are covered by the Bill of Rights, unless it's specifically stated so in some bilateral treaty.

Now, the way I read that is that you do not believe that the Bill of Rights applies to anyone who isn't an American citizen. You have been doing some serious backtracking these last few hundred posts, but it doesn't make you any less wrong, or look any less foolish.

Everything that Bob Barr said was absolutely correct. The Bill of Rights, as it has been pointed out to you to almost a nauseating degree on this thread, cover the government from infringing on the rights of people in general.

"Where in the world did you get the idea that I said America must have a different set of standards for each and every nation?"

Your post #454, where you made the statement that non-citizens on our soil, have whatever rights have been negotiated by treaties with their countries.

Barr isn't wrong, you are.

592 posted on 12/4/01 8:24 PM Pacific by Luis Gonzalez

[Delta 21]

To use one of my favorite quotations from Blazing Saddles - Gaa-lee Mr. Lamar, You use yer tungue pudyer than a twenty dollar whore!

No offence meant, just keeping things light.

A formal congressional declaration of war
- that is, congressional acknowledgment of the mere state of facts
in which the American people now finds itself and must LIVE through,
now and for the foreseeable future --
seems to me to be the very least anyone can reasonably expect, nay,
DEMAND,from their elected public officials.

The state of the elected representatives is sorely lacking to say the least! What exactly would it take to bring these public servants into servicing their public? A suitcase nuke detonated in yet another American City or National land mark? Perhaps a blood or nerve agent strategically released to actually create massive casualties instead of just test the veracity of the U.S.Postal System? What, you think they havent already thought of and planned to execute such plans?!?

My Commander-in-Chief, the Executive Branch, my fellow brothers in arms, and the (far fewer than Im scared to admit) dedicated patriots still left in this Great Nation are the only glimer of hope this country has right now. If you count yourself included in one of these categories. GOD BLESS YOU.

Delta 21

[Demidog]

It's pretty plain English. Read the Dred Scott case and tell me how you like the ramifications of deciding that non-citizens don't deserve due process.

Holding people indefinately is not my idea of due process.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Article 1, section9, clause 2, US Constitution--The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

The current situation may qualify as a situation where "public safety may require" that the writ be suspended.

[zog]

---your analysis of the fact that the founders both recognized the born with rights that are god granted, not man-granted, and also that we were the first nation to try and assert this into practice are correct. This latest in a series of wars/conflicts/police actions is yet another example of when the practice gets thrown away in favor of the tired and always ending in a disaster formula used in other nations past and present-the formula that the founders thought wouldn't work out in the long run. Well, unless fascism was the goal of this or that government. Maybe fascism isn't the correct word, but statism and authoritarianism are closer.

Most humans actually prefer to be told what to do, to "follow orders". Be it from a king, with the exaltation of the "royal" concept, or in the election of a royal-like ruling class. perhaps royal like in everything except that embarassing name, but it follows all the descriptions of royal, even to generational power wielding dynasties.

The concept of the people "ruling" themselves and hiring employees-not employers to serve as clerks and functionaries has been -once again- abandoned in favor of following a king's dictates.

Here's an example. In clintons first term of office, enough abuses were uncovered and discussed to have shown anyone who really bothered to look even past the most obvious surface level that he was in most classical definitions not only probably a traitor, but also just a "crook", plain brown wrapper crooked, really nothing unusual, just scale and style slightly different from most. During his first tenure, all his orders were followed, from top to bottom, in government, millions and millions followed them unhesitatingly, those aspects of government that he controlled ultimately. Now after the second election when he got re-elected, why is it so many continued to "follow orders" no matter what those orders were? It is completely understandable, and to be human, to see how many wished to see a change back to the better somehow, to wait until after the second election results were finalised, by renunciating his rule, but why was it that actually so few people didn't put country first and resign from their civilian positions, or resign from their commissioned positions? The answer is, most people put temporary personal comfort and security and excused demogaugery over any sense of national patriotism or doing what is right. Talk is cheap, actions actually cost folding money and personal effort and personal convictions that enter into national altrusim. His orders still got followed. Millions acted like he was their royal leader. Millions. Most in fact. Some much smaller numbers quit over principle, over their outrage and unease he instilled-BUT, most stayed in, 'followed orders" of someone and a group of ruling class regimists who were demonstrably by then a collection of "bad people", and inimicable to what this nation was about.. They consciously made a decision that their check was more important than the nation's security, and their fellow americans rights and BORN WITH priveleges.

I applaud and count as fellow thinking patriotic americans those who quit and refused to follow that persons and statist gangs' "orders" during that second term. The others, a vast number of people unfortunately, to me, sorry, no excuses, crooked traitor supporters by their very deeds of silence and aquiesence and 'following orders' up and down and sideways in the criminal cliques ordering around chains of command and control, no matter who they claim they voted for, what they currently expouse, how much they wave the flag, or how much they foment further goose stepping excuses on the internet.

Actions speak louder than words, our bill of rights is a statement of already occured "fact" that can only be taken away by force, fraud, or collusionary distraction, it has no need of interpretation if one can understand the american english used when it was written. It does not need black's-law legalese language translation. It was designed that way on purpose.

The bill of rights in it's entirety and common english language definitions exists in war time, peace time, and in between time. there is no time when it doesn't, no matter past precedent of abuses against it. Robbing a store is wrong, robbing a hundred stores and "establishing a precedent" does not make any further occurence of store robbing 'right". There is no need to suspend sections of it, or to re-interpret it. The founders made so that some provisions of our law may be changed, all but the enumerated born with rights, which are carved in stone, and may NOT EVER be changed by an governmental action, utterance, or elected or appointed or hired on person. there are zero exceptions granted, no matter the current reason, even if it seems somehow appropriate at the time. Any attempt is a defacto immediate occurrence of a traitorus act, it's a support of abusive authoritarianism over our concept of born with soverignty and human dignity, and should be denounced immediately, no matter the published 'reason" for such an attempt occuring.

There are no exceptions allowed, or should be sought by anyone who lays claim to understanding them, for any reason, at any time, and it matters not what excuse is given to even attempt it, let alone to implement or support such a change.

[Phaedrus]

Beautifully written, with depth, subtlety and yet clarity, a tribute to the idea that is America. If we all make the effort to understand and honor this idea (hey, being a citizen and maintaining a republic is not easy!), we will move again toward greatness. Beyond effort, it does require, though, a certain selflessness -- we must care about more than ourselves and our immediate gratifications. The form of a republic balances the individual's capacity to realize his/her potentials against the practical needs for borders and defense of the whole in an imperfect world. Because we are a republic we are also a beacon of hope to the rest of the world, but we will remain so only so long as we are true to the Founders' gift to us and their vision. We must both care and act and that, while not easy, buys our children's future.