Posted on 07/21/2002 9:38:40 AM PDT by GeneD
Edited on 07/19/2004 2:10:08 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Washington, July 21 (Bloomberg) -- The government should consider reversing a more than a century of tradition and law to give the military authority to make arrests and fire their weapons on U.S. soil in the event of a terrorist attack, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said.
(Excerpt) Read more at quote.bloomberg.com ...
They won't be paying for it. We Americans will be told to foot the bill, for our safety, you know.
....and the fact that an event that would trigger such a deployment would also demonstrate fairly conclusively that such a deployment would be ineffectual
So the government would admit that the solution to a problem is not more government? You have to be kidding.
And for that there needs to be a precedent. Thusly, NATO troops in Serbia/Kosovo breaking ground as the first multi-national force inserted into the affairs of a sovereign nation.
The plan marches on.
Thompson making that remark was just coincidental, dont you know??? In that vein, has any "congressman" spoken out against this proposal???? Where are they??? Just maybe there are none, that would really scare me.
They cannot even do a visual check to the back seat without cause by law unless you give permission. Like I said if people do not put the police on notice at check points then they will take a mile. Now if your hiding something well then your playing with fire. They can slow you down and obsereve if your wearing a seat belt and or if your vehicle registration is valid, if they are then they have to let you pass. If their not, then they can stop you.
In many States the cops stand near a traffic light to do this. You have to stop and they can observe. But search? No way. Like I said, these check point are getting out of control.
And I thought Fred was one of the "good guys".
And, no, I'm not expecting the 'government' to admit anything. I'm suggesting that foreign troops would not be an option, politically.
-SV
I used to go along the same line as all of the other true republican voters regarding picking the worst of two evils. But, now, I must do exactly what I demand of my congressmen and women. I must vote on principle. Everyday I see more and more that I don't agree with in either the republican or democratic parties. I am ashamed of Gov. Ridge, President Bush, and John Ashcroft.
The RNC gave me a phone call yesterday and I gave that poor lady an earfull.
Ok. How do you reconcile that you were willing to use military forces to augment "police" on our borders? Or the National Guardsmen at the airports? Or the Coast Guard in our ports?
This says that you are not completely aginst using the military domestically.
21 posted on 7/21/02 10:14 AM Pacific by NetValue
The President swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. In that Constitution it specificly states that the President is to protect the states from invasion. Any President who does not uphold that oath is impeachable, not that our spineless Congress would ever take their duty seriously.
What is an invasion? An invasion is nothing more than the occupation of our territory. There is no requirement that the invaders be armed. As time passes and tens of millions of foreign nationals occupy our land, the effect will be the same. The infrastructure of our nation is changed. The language changes. The majority populace becomes the foreign national. Eventually their desires will rule the day in our nation.
Now, when is it proper to use U.S. armed forces? Is it only proper to use it to used armed invaders? If so then our nation could be overrun by any nation that desired to occupy our soil with enough of it's foreign nationals.
China owns the largest oceanic shipping company, Cosco. They could load their fleet of ships up with hundreds of millions of invading aliens any time they liked. Would it be proper for us to stop them, or to allow them to do so as we do the Mexican nationals today?
I would submit that it is entirely proper to put armed forces on the border to focus outward with the intent of stopping the occupation of our nation. What you are comparing to this is the policing of U.S. citizens within our borders. That is completely different. Our founding fathers did not envision a standing U.S. army policing it's own citizens. I don't either.
I got a solicitation in mail yesterday from RNC,"requesting" a donation of $25 or more, their inference was that if I did not, the democrats would be in power. To tell you the truth I thot they were.
I was so hot under the collar that I wanted to write a nasty letter to Racicot just to vent my spleen. Then I did the next best thing, I canned the letter. No more money, not again, they care less about this country.
A literal interpretation of the Constitution, perhaps?
Governors and presidents can call in the military when needed, such as airport security. Perhaps the law can further allow civilian forces can bring in military investigators and experts when issues of high-technology weaponry overwhelm the police, but that wouldn't involve arrest powers.
Furthermore, the military isn't designed to be a police force and it weakens their training to put them into that situation.
So is the United States. Your point is?
Interesting that Posse Comitatus is extra-constitutional.
Please explain. I'd loooove to hear this one.
There two evil things that the Founding Fathers, never wanted, and never thot would happen. They envisioned for this country, citizen legislators and a citizen military.
First we got professional politicians with a lifetime grip on power and then we got a professional military. Now the professional legislators want to give the professional military the power of arrest.
I do not think the Founding Fathers would ever agree with this.
I also agree with your point. Besides not be designed as a police force, it does not operate as one either. It operates on a whole different set of principles. Heck we can't even gather a force strenght to handle what we are doing abroad. How in the name of God are we going to handle operations abroad and operations in CONUS. This is just nuts.
I have to think there is something else going on here that is making Members of Congress react this way.
Don't start putting ideas into the founders' heads. Article I, section 8 allows Congress to raise and support armies. Even New York City didn't have a formal police force until 1845. Police are fairly new.
I ran across this link which explains how the US worked before Posse Comitatus. It's even from one of those "Big Brother is right around the corner" authors.
Newer than the US. See #118.
> > Interesting that Posse Comitatus is extra-constitutional.
Please explain. I'd loooove to hear this one.
Oh, calm down paranoia-boy. It simply means "not in the Constitution". Hence "extra" instead of "un".
My link in #118 will satisfy your curiousity. A literal interpretation of the Constitution permits a standing army to execute police powers, provided they are not quartered during peacetime. Now, that goes against almost 1000 years of Anglo-American tradition. Still, there were several instances where they were called in to do just that.
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