[QUOTE=Blalron]
Even conceding that rights don’t exist without a legal remedy, why the fuck are the Republicans actively preventing this from being a right? Is this compassionate conservatism in action? I’m trying really hard to understand. Why are we treating other human beings (even if they aren’t americans) like shit? Is this what Jesus would do?
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Interesting that the only time religion is invoked on these boards in a non-religious specific thread is to shame believers into doing what you suppose we ought to do.
I’ll make you a deal - I’ll refrain from using Jesus to tell you what you ought to do or believe, and you can do the same for me. Were I you, I’d take that - I really don’t want to get into a discussion with you about which of us is the biggest sinner.
If we permit them such rights, they will embarrass us. The chains of irrefutable evidence are slim. They’ve already let quite a few go when they realized that they were guilty of pissing somebody off, or simply being an acceptable warm body to be turned in for a bounty. They don’t know how many detainees are innocent by legal standards, and so long as they don’t know, they don’t have to face it.
Additionally, some of them (probably) are guilty as hell, but the same lack of evidence applies. So if they are endowed by their Creator with certain inconvenient rights, they will be freed. So you release people who really did hate America, as well as some who have every reason to hate America, if they didn’t already. Then you have the ones who will simply be glad to be free from our tender mercies, and happy just to get the hell out of Cuba, and harbor no particular animosity. Myself, I’d probably be in the last camp, but I’m a very forgiving person.
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
Interesting that the only time religion is invoked on these boards in a non-religious specific thread is to shame believers into doing what you suppose we ought to do.
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If you feel shamed, perhaps you should reflect upon why you feel that way.
So you are an advocate for separation of church and state? Can we take Under God out of the pledge? Cool.
I think we should use The Golden rule (treat others as you would like to be treated) as a guide, which is by no means exclusive to Christianity.
Alright, there’s really no reason to bother, since none of you lefties really want anything except to yell and curse and scream, but here’s the shake:
We have NO jurisdiction, period. We can’t force someone a trial for a crime they didn’t commit. Nothing they’ve done is illegal in most of the palces they’ve done it! To claim otherwise, that our laws apply to people overseas when convenient, leaves us with one more option:
We can simply kill them on sight. Messy but not against the Geneva Convetions, as they’re unlawful (more or less) guerrillas not in uniform. I believe there is some vaguely related treaty we’d have to leave, but it’s not as if any enemy we’ve ever faced actually adhered to any such thing, so we’d lose nothing politically.
We can just let them go when they surrender.
We can put them on trial even though we acknowledge they did not actually committing a crime under any jurisdiction we control, giving them the full authority of our legal system. Both immoral and probably illegal under U.S. law. It’s been done a few times but is both messy and extremely dishonest.
We can let some other government take care of the problem. Which is functionally equivelant to just killing them or sticking them in some hellhole prison, whereas Guantanamo Bay, though not a five-star resort, is reasonable.
What bothers me is the self righteousness and absolute refusal of you lefties to actually look atnthe problem. But hey, if it makes you feel better to carp about how evil we are, go ahead. When you make enough of a mess, you’ll be back to demand we save your asses… again.
We have NO jurisdiction, period. We can’t force someone a trial for a crime they didn’t commit. Nothing they’ve done is illegal in most of the palces they’ve done it! To claim otherwise, that our laws apply to people overseas when convenient, leaves us with one more option:
[/QUOTE]
Fact is, if we can hold people indefinitely because we say so, we can put them on trial for violating rules on our say so as well. We have the power and nobody can stop us from doing the right thing.
[QUOTE=Blalron]
Fact is, if we can hold people indefinitely because we say so, we can put them on trial for violating rules on our say so as well. We have the power and nobody can stop us from doing the right thing.
[/QUOTE]
Really?
Would you try a prisoner of war not accused of a war crime, or merely detain him? And if you detain him, wouldn’t that be detention without trial?
What bothers me is the self righteousness and absolute refusal of you lefties to actually look atnthe problem. But hey, if it makes you feel better to carp about how evil we are, go ahead. When you make enough of a mess, you’ll be back to demand we save your asses… again.
[/QUOTE]
We are not at war (and no - Iraq isn’t a war) so there are no prisoners of war. Just criminals, people snatched from foreign streets and random people sold to us by bandits and warlords. What bothers the fuck out of me as it should out of every decent human being (and thus excluding a lot of thread participants) is there are no just mechanisms for establishing guilt. Into the torture network they go. Guantanamo, Syria, Egypt - anywhere who has some friendly torturers to hand.
What bothers me is you right wing savages whose response to a threat to our democratic way of life is to build a friggin’ bonfire of the values that define our way of life and dance around them chanting ‘protect us, protect us’, like bloody savages.
We can simply kill them on sight. Messy but not against the Geneva Convetions, as they’re unlawful (more or less) guerrillas not in uniform.
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Really. And why should I believe they are anything of the kind ?
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
4) We can let some other government take care of the problem. Which is functionally equivelant to just killing them or sticking them in some hellhole prison, whereas Guantanamo Bay, though not a five-star resort, is reasonable.
[/QUOTE]
And why should I believe anything of the kind ? Let’s see; I can believe the Bush government and it’s supporters, who have been a fount of lies and errors; or I can believe it’s critics ( who have been right more often than not ), who talk about how we’ve tortured and murdered and how quite a few of these people have been driven insane by what we’ve done to them. Some resort.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
What bothers me is the self righteousness and absolute refusal of you lefties to actually look atnthe problem. But hey, if it makes you feel better to carp about how evil we are, go ahead. When you make enough of a mess, you’ll be back to demand we save your asses… again.
[/QUOTE]
The right hasn’t saved me or anyone from anything, nor is is capable or desirous of doing so. It is far too evil, stupid, and irrational. You want to be saved, go to the left; the left might do so; the right, never.
As for looking at the problem, America is the problem.
The Bush I and Clinton administrations detained people at Guantanamo - some of them for long periods indeed, and most of them without trial. And while this detention was struck down by court decision in 1993 (regarding Haitian refugees), that decision was vacated. The Clinton Justice Department struck a deal where the Haitians would be released in return for the decision not becoming precedent that would tie their hands later.
Clinton then, of course, housed Cuban and Kosovar refugees at the base, and it would be fair to say to say that these actions by previous administrations were precedent for Bush administration policy. Now, that policy itself can of course be debated, but it has deep roots indeed.
Now, I’m not saying this justifies anything in and of itself. I merely suggest that it lends credence to those who argue that we have traditionally applied a different standard of justice to citizens and legal residents vice those who are not. Furthermore, this seems to be the case regardless of the party in power.
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
Another few questions for the crowd:
The Bush I and Clinton administrations detained people at Guantanamo - some of them for long periods indeed, and most of them without trial. And while this detention was struck down by court decision in 1993 (regarding Haitian refugees), that decision was vacated. The Clinton Justice Department struck a deal where the Haitians would be released in return for the decision not becoming precedent that would tie their hands later.
Clinton then, of course, housed Cuban and Kosovar refugees at the base, and it would be fair to say to say that these actions by previous administrations were precedent for Bush administration policy. Now, that policy itself can of course be debated, but it has deep roots indeed.
Now, I’m not saying this justifies anything in and of itself. I merely suggest that it lends credence to those who argue that we have traditionally applied a different standard of justice to citizens and legal residents vice those who are not. Furthermore, this seems to be the case regardless of the party in power.
Thoughts?
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My thought would be to ask the question:
Were Bush and Clinton torturing them? Were they rendering them to torturers? Was the process anything to do with ‘justice?’
No (obviously)? Then it is completely irrelevant.
Housing refugees/disappearing and torturing people. Clearly not in any way comparable.
[QUOTE=tagos]
No (obviously)? Then it is completely irrelevant.
[/QUOTE]
I think it is relevant, as these actions provided legal and physical precedent for the detention. IIRC, they beefed up the facilities used to house the Cubans and used them to first house the initial Afghan war prisoners.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Alright, there’s really no reason to bother, since none of you lefties really want anything except to yell and curse and scream, but here’s the shake…[incoherent bullshit]…When you make enough of a mess, you’ll be back to demand we save your asses… again.
[/QUOTE]
You got some froth in my eye. Can’t we just have you and RedFury duke it out for the prize of most irrationally partisan?
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
I think it is relevant, as these actions provided legal and physical precedent for the detention. IIRC, they beefed up the facilities used to house the Cubans and used them to first house the initial Afghan war prisoners.
[/QUOTE]
You might think that but they were not ‘detaining’ them, they were holding refugees for processing. That they were not being held indefinitely or tortured is a pretty big difference.
Holding refugees for processing cannot be considered any sort of precedent for anyone who isn’t grasping at straws to back their own unedifying opinion.
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
No one supposes that these prisoners have no rights - we have treaty obligations that protect them.
However, constitutional rights do not extend to everyone in the world. This is pretty obvious, and I continually wonder why some folks can’t grasp this.
[/QUOTE]
I wonder about this. If a citizens rights are due him it is because we’ve recongnized it as our governments duty to uphold the fundamental rights of man…not the fundamental rights of an ‘American’ man. We hold our legal documents as the light of truth illuminated upon the world, isn’t it fair to say that ignoring those truths, no matter where he comes from, is hypocrisy?
[QUOTE=Waverly]
Please. Let’s not put words in mouth. Inalienable rights don’t literally exist, because, alas they need a frame of reference and the potential for enforcement. Those requirements don’t always exist. The good news should be that the US does have a relevant frame of reference (they believe in these rights) and the means to enforce them (they just have to stop taking them away!)
Bricker notes the lack of literal existence, and then disingenuously stops right there. He’s an obfuscator. The fact is that we can agree that these rights are conceptual in nature, but it is a concept that the US makes a reality for its citizens, and yet seems intent on taking these same rights away from a select group of non-citizens.
If we can assume that the US founding fathers didn’t think there was some literal seat of inalienable rights, then we are left to conclude that they intended to provide a set of rights that they wanted all men to have and to protect them. I think this is clear; can we agree on it?
What doesn’t appear to be clear, much to my dismay, is that these rights cease to be a noble concept, and loose much of their luster, if the US seeks out a group of non-citizens and takes away rights that it normally holds in such high regard.
Sailboat, your interpretation of what I said is about 170 degrees off from what I actually said. Maybe I’ve been a bit clearer above or it is worth a re-read of my earlier post.
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While I agree that holding so-called “enemy combatants” indefinitely, without charging them, is contrary to the founding principles of this country, I disagree that all the rights established in the constitution apply to non-citizens. That is demonstrably untrue.
The problem with those allegedly inalienable rights that Jefferson talks about is that they are way too high level to deal with operationally. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What, exactly, does that mean? It sounds wonderful, but we deny people those “rights” all the time-- even US citizens. Operationally, we have to look at the Constitution and our legal code to determine what we actually do. And we look to the SCOTUS to be the final arbiter on what the words in those texts mean.
As Mr. Moto points out, POWs are held with the right of habeas corpus, and are not subject to trial. In fact, we are required by the GC, article IV, not to try them. GC articles III and X define the rights that detainees not determined to be POWs have. That should be our guiding principle, not what Bush says.
I don’t think that what Bush has proposed can be considered a “competent tribunal”. But that does not mean we need to afford these guys all the rights and priviledges of US citizens, nor should we. A foreign battlefield is not a domestic crime scene, and cannot be treated as one. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” really doesn’t help us here.
I think we should use The Golden rule (treat others as you would like to be treated) as a guide, which is by no means exclusive to Christianity.
[/QUOTE]
So we’re agreed, then, that “What would Jesus do?” is not what you wish to use for formulation of government policy.
And I’m willing to use that Golden Rule here: if I’m ever captured in a hostile territory having taken up arms against the United States, I’m OK with being locked up without recourse to habeas writs.
I think you mean- “having taken up arms against the United States, or having been identified for a bounty as a person who may have or may yet take up arms against the United States, or having been in the wrong hut at the wrong time, or actually genuinely being a terrorist asshole, but we’re not sure which”. Other than that, I agree with you.