Goodbye America.... (Page 4)

Coke spit!!!! Sorry, Olberman is the lefty equivalent of O'Reilly, they are equally biased.  Personally, I think he's unwatchable (and I used to like him).

Nothing personal, I know everyone likes different things.

Yes, which is why you should wait and see how the judicial branch handles the inevitable challenges to the law.  That's how the constitutional form of government works (see, e.g., the ruling on the wiretap act)

Such a clause would be unconstitutional.  A law might restrict court review of rulings made under it, but not review of the law itself.  That would be collapsing the legislative and judicial branches and destroying the checks and balances inherent in the system.

If you don't believe it will ever come to it then why concern yourself over it? 

Arlen Spectre admits that he does not think the bill will pass through the judicial system...YET HE VOTED FOR IT!!!  Why in the he11 would you vote for something you think is not going to pass judicial scrutiny, expecially if you are the chair of the Senate Judiciary Commitee?????

"Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R) of Pennsylvania, who voted for the law, nonetheless told his colleagues just prior to its passage that he doubted the Military Commissions Act would survive judicial scrutiny."

Because he is not a judge.  There are a lot of reasons a law may not pass judicial muster, he gave no indication of why he believes it will fail.

I would prefer to have our reps voting their conscience (or pocketbook, whatever...) rather than their interpretation of a law's constitutionality (many of whom are not lawyers and have not studied con law - heck, even those that have studied it probably haven't read the constitution since con law I)

drewb8 - 2006-10-19 3:52 PM

ASA22 - 2006-10-19 1:38 PM As with most issues this isn't a simple issue. Again, I have to ask, I've been trying to find examples during U.S. wars where foreign combatants were granted the rights guaranteed to civilian citizens under the U.S. Constitution. I haven't been able to find any examples. To the contrary, those deemd war criminals have been tried outside of the civilian court system, either by military courts or international courts. I think this is an important issue. Because if the baseline in this issue is the rights enjoyed by civilians in a civilian court then the Act represents a huge divergence from established notions of rights and procedures, however, if the baseline is that of military court jursidiction, the Act doesn't represent that big of a change. (Based upon my rudimentary research. I reserve the right to change my opinion as I look into the issue more. )

I could be misinterpreting some of the arguments but I don't think most people are saying enemy combatants should be tried in a civilian court but I thikn the issues are these: Many of the basic rights of due process are missing in the tribunals this act sets up. I know in military courts many rights which you may have in a civilian court are curtailed or absent. But even in a military court isn't a defendant accorded the right of habeus corpus, heasay is not permitted as evidence, and the defendant has the right to confront all the evidence being used against them? I don't know about the right to a speedy trial, but I imagine there is some time limit - not indefinate detention. I don't know the answer here (if all of these rights are availabale in a military court) so I stand to be corrected, but they are all absent from the tribunals this bill sets up. This coupled with the fact that the president alone determines who will be subject to these rules is what is worrying I think.

The president or the tribunal can "classify" any evidence they see fit.  Defendents are not allowed access to "classified" information even if it is requested for their defense case.

Well put.

This argument was brought up in the argument in the SCOTUS about sodomy in texas. Well, not that we coudl define who was an enemy of the state, but what could be defined as normal sexual behavior and taht arguments from pedophilic, pederastic, necrophilic, and beastiality orgs would surface to make their case that their practice was normal. Never happened. Hypothetical arguments don't work.

So saying if this situation existed, and it was a 3rd tuesday in a month that didn't end in an "r" and if a male bisexual congressman that was a republican was wearing a blue tie that myabe, just maybe, they could  define this person as an enemy of the state. I am rambling.....

Here is another issue that nobody has brought up. None of us, unless we were ever there, know what goes on in the field. I have been around guys from vietnam taht said when they found VC in the field, they would take two up in a helicopter. They would ask questiosn and when they wouldn't answer, they would push one out from about 300 feet up and they couldn't get the otehr one to shut up.

If they ever caught the same guy twice, they made sure to never catch him a 3rd time, if you cathc my drift.

Stuff like that does happen, and we are not going to stop it. All this coupled with beheadings against our civilians as we hear that waterboarding is harsh. They guys from do that to setlle down. Give me a break.