And, even if Padilla is the only American who has had his Constitutional rights pulled right out from under him, then this country is still in a world of serious, deep, shit. **IT’S OUR CONSTITUTION! OUR BOTTOM LINE!! ** It’s the foundation of all U.S. citizens’ rights–the absolutely unbreakable, rock-solid guarantee that all citizens enjoy certain basic legal protections. Only now we don’t. see the problem here? It’s a big one.
It doesn’t take a whole city-full of Americans being wrongfully detained, or even fifty or a hundred of them–it only takes the precedent of ONE American being denied his fundamental rights for our entire system of laws and justice to be gravely imperiled. Yes. Gravely. True, there is still time for us to remove the cancer and change things back to the way they once were. But there is no promise that that definitely will occur.
I don’t think this can really be over-exaggerated, can it? For all the blustering there is about Bush the suxxxor on this Board and society in general, it actually surprises me that there is not more outrage then there already is. And there already is a lot.
** Limited to the people in this country that DevNull does not care much about, etc **
There are circumstances when Constitutional rights are properly pulled out from under people. For instance, if a person is raising an axe to strike me in the head, I have the right to kill them with a gun… even though I do not have a right to go around killing people and also people have a right to enjoy life without harm. (an inherent right, yes but still pulled out from under the axe weilder)
The same mechanics apply to Padilla. There was an exception that you do not agree with. Fine. Go change that exception… or continue blaming Bush for it for all I care.
Just remember that I am not included in the miserable end of your prophecy of being “in a world of serious, deep, shit.”.
Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s bullshit, I’m with BrainGlutton on this one. Humans have no inherent or natural rights. Observe a hungry lion.
Rights are a purely legal concept conjured up entirely by humans.
An interesting approach, but one that is, sadly, lacking any basis in law or custom. A criminal act, however heinous, does not instantly cancel a person’s Constitutional rights, it simply makes him or her subject to criminal sanctions, which must be applied consistent with his/her Constitutional rights.
I gave an explicit example of how a person’s right to life may be taken away by me under a specific circumstance, therefore it is possible, legal, and frankly a common happening. Killing people happens every hour of the day in our country and many of these killings are in self defense.
Are you saying that I am not allowed to take away the right of a person to their life if they are about to take mine?
I am not “in a world of serious, deep, shit.” because I am not an enemy combatant. Padilla was and our laws have a special set of circumstances for enemy combatants.
The problem with that stance is that folks were beating the crap out of thieves and taking part in retaliatory homicide long before the humans created the concept of legalism.
Certainly people have tried to call a lot of things Rights, when they’re in fact only so many words on a piece of paper, but humans do seem to agree on a handful of common principles (though the rules don’t apply if you’re doing something to one of THEM, only to US). The only enlightened bit is empathizing across the US/THEM thing.
Law is basically the manifestation of trying to externally synchronize any US/THEM rules within the system into a coherent whole… with varying degrees of success, historically.
I hear you, and we are probably talking about the same principles, but using different words. I would prefer to use the words “desire” or “need” instead of “right”. We humans, like that lion in the corner, have inherent and natural desires or needs. We desire and need food, water etc, and for the lion the food issue is straightforward. If it breathes and bleeds, it’s fair game.
But for humans it isn’t that simple, and hence the concept of “rights”. The issue of “rights” is a legal construction put in place to control human’s natural desires and needs.
It does not matter what I think. The law provides for treating a person deemed an enemy combatant in a much different way than, let’s say, a person who is not deemed an enemy combatant.
If you do not like the law, petition to have it changed. Our system of government was built on us citizens exercising such powers… no matter what the leftist professors are teaching nowadays… which I swear to God is something on the order of teaching that changing laws is in part comprised of making really shitty puppets in an anti-Bush parade and marching with international commie groups.
A District Attorney can one day focus on humble old me and arrest me for raping a black stripper, if that DA wakes up and decides that is what he feels like doing that day. I am not in “a world of serious, deep shit” because that is a possibility in our world. Do you know why I am not in “a world of serious, deep shit” because that is a possibility in our world? Easy. Because the law provides for justice in cases of false arrest, gross incompetence, and Nifonging.
If you can’t afford a lawyer to attain justice, then the ACLU can help. If your case is too anti-American for the ACLU to handle (highly unlikely), you can always make your own shitty puppet and march with the CPUSA. (The youth CPUSA site encourages puppet making for marches).
And that is the problem. The president reserves the right to designate anyone, including US citizens on US soil, as enemy combatants, without any judicial review or requirement to present any evidence at all. Apparently, you trust the government to never abuse that power, and never make a mistake. I do not.
If you have a trust issue then go start the motions to change the law.
I am not going to help you. I trust the government enough to have big guns and numerous tanks. I will also permit them to have executive branch power to designate anyone an enemy combatant AS LONG AS the judicial allows it… and it passes the Constitutional smell test.
I’ll pipe up when there is abuse of that power that I, for one, allow the executive branch to have. I will also squawk if the executive defies the judicial branch on the matter.
I’d say that “rights” are different from “wants” or “needs”. I’d agree that the difference between “rights” and “needs” is similar to the difference between “needs” and “wants”… I.E. it’s a question of scale and not kind. BUT, it seems strange to say “Rights are a legal construction” when we see the same Rights described in unrelated systems of law.
The statutory basis is that the Geneva Conventions cover civilians, and how they must be treated, and the Geneva Conventions cover military, and how they must be treated. So if you’re looking for a way to violate the Geneva Conventions in spirit while trying to maintain a legalistic deniability (the word “plausible” intentionally omitted), you create a classification for the opposition forces not covered in the Geneva Convention and say “Hyuck! It dun’t applied!” to muddy the waters when someone mentions war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The Constitution supercedes the Geneva Conventions with respect to American citizens detained on American soil. I was curious on what constitutional basis Bush justified suspending habeus corpus for such detainees.