Well said, sir. I love the story of your upbringing and how it instilled a deep appreciation for what makes this country unique. “Only in America,” as we used to say. Keep fighting the good fight.
" Education becomes catechism." Yup. What's sad is the number of college graduates who believe they're all free thinkers and not captured psyches.
Adolf Hitler strongly promoted free speech. You were free to praise Nazis. On the ither hand, those who doubted him were strongly censored and jailed.
Those who believe that certain opposition speakers shouldn't be allowed to speak in public are totalitarians at heart. Totalitarianism thrives on absolutism, and dies in relativism. If you are sure your side is right, you are the problem.
Yeah history is replete with examples of countries where you can say “oh yeah that assassination REALLY helped that country out,” right?
Most people all hard charging to “fight the libtards” or “punch a Nazi” have never been exposed to much violence. Those of us who do it for a living aren’t a quick to pull that metaphorical trigger. Because we know you’re always a risk of losing something, up to and including your life, when you play that particular game
“What if this trend towards political violence continues on campus?” But I had to remember that the trend towards political violence had been steadily increasing for years.
Another thing well worth remembering is the wisdom of the warning in a fairly famous SCOTUS decision, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), quoting the wise and great Justice Brandeis (joined by the wise and great Justice Holmes) dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)) put it:
"Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
Trump is a great teacher. He's publicly killing people based on his ipse dixit that it's "self-defense" against a Venezuelan invasion force attacking the U.S. one tiny boat at a time.
Where were you when Obama was droning people -- including US citizens -- left and right?
Did you retire to your fainting couch then too?
For the record, I was fine with Obama droning terrorists and Trump zapping drug runners from cartels. Both are akin to pirates, on whom military force has been used without compunction -- until very recently -- for thousands of years.
Feargall, what does your question matter? What does it matter where anyone was? What matters is what conduct is constitutional, not whether every person who considers the current president's blatantly unconstitutional misconduct also addressed a prior president's conduct.
Since you asked, however, I'll say that I thought very little about the Obama conduct that you mentioned, in part, because it didn't seem as dangerously maniacal as Trump's killings. Unlike Obama, Trump is killing unidentified people because he merely thinks they will commit a crime (smuggling drugs) sometime in the future somewhere in the U.S. In part, I also wasn't worried that Obama was trying to drag the U.S. into a conflict without Congressional approval (as Trump obviously is trying to do).
If you think a constitutional argument can be made supporting Trump's conduct, please feel free to make it. But please don't join the people who pretend that violations of our Constitution are ok just because they seem somewhat analogous to something someone else did.
What makes you say I'm "a politically motivated hypocrite"? What do you know about what motivates my politics?
What (if anything) in our Constitution makes you think POTUS was given the power to blow up tiny boats and the people in them merely because he accuses unidentified people of planning to smuggle unidentified drugs into an unidentified part of the U.S. at some unidentified time in the future?
It's not enough for you to think someone is merely somehow "akin to pirates." That attitude shows you are overlooking (or ignoring) the principle underlying multiple crucial commandments in the Fifth Amendment. "No person" can be "deprived" by Trump "of life" or any "liberty" or any "property" before being afforded all "process of law" that is "due." "No person" whom Trump murdered could "be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury."
Your attitude also shows you are overlooking (or ignoring) the principle underlying the separation of powers. Article I was clear that the People vested in Congress, alone (not the President) the following powers:
"To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water."
Article II is clear that Trump's duty here is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Our Constitution simply did not vest in the President the power to kill people as Trump is killing people.
"Akin to pirates" is perfect. There is a middle ground between the guy stealing hubcaps and war vs. Japan. They are armed, organized foreigners, bringing harm to our country under no overt national flag. Pirates.
The Constitution gives the POTUS the authority to defend the country, which means killing groups of foreigners -- pirates, drug smugglers -- bringing harm to it.
Fearful, again, what you think is merely “akin to pirates” is irrelevant. The People and our Constitution vested in Congress, alone, the power to make the determinations I quoted above from our Constitution. Your unwillingness to accept that self-evident truth only destroys your potential credibility.
Well said, sir. I love the story of your upbringing and how it instilled a deep appreciation for what makes this country unique. “Only in America,” as we used to say. Keep fighting the good fight.
" Education becomes catechism." Yup. What's sad is the number of college graduates who believe they're all free thinkers and not captured psyches.
Adolf Hitler strongly promoted free speech. You were free to praise Nazis. On the ither hand, those who doubted him were strongly censored and jailed.
Those who believe that certain opposition speakers shouldn't be allowed to speak in public are totalitarians at heart. Totalitarianism thrives on absolutism, and dies in relativism. If you are sure your side is right, you are the problem.
"At least, ideally that’s what we do."
That ideal seems to be waning.
Yeah history is replete with examples of countries where you can say “oh yeah that assassination REALLY helped that country out,” right?
Most people all hard charging to “fight the libtards” or “punch a Nazi” have never been exposed to much violence. Those of us who do it for a living aren’t a quick to pull that metaphorical trigger. Because we know you’re always a risk of losing something, up to and including your life, when you play that particular game
“What if this trend towards political violence continues on campus?” But I had to remember that the trend towards political violence had been steadily increasing for years.
Another thing well worth remembering is the wisdom of the warning in a fairly famous SCOTUS decision, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), quoting the wise and great Justice Brandeis (joined by the wise and great Justice Holmes) dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)) put it:
"Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
Trump is a great teacher. He's publicly killing people based on his ipse dixit that it's "self-defense" against a Venezuelan invasion force attacking the U.S. one tiny boat at a time.
Where were you when Obama was droning people -- including US citizens -- left and right?
Did you retire to your fainting couch then too?
For the record, I was fine with Obama droning terrorists and Trump zapping drug runners from cartels. Both are akin to pirates, on whom military force has been used without compunction -- until very recently -- for thousands of years.
Feargall, what does your question matter? What does it matter where anyone was? What matters is what conduct is constitutional, not whether every person who considers the current president's blatantly unconstitutional misconduct also addressed a prior president's conduct.
Since you asked, however, I'll say that I thought very little about the Obama conduct that you mentioned, in part, because it didn't seem as dangerously maniacal as Trump's killings. Unlike Obama, Trump is killing unidentified people because he merely thinks they will commit a crime (smuggling drugs) sometime in the future somewhere in the U.S. In part, I also wasn't worried that Obama was trying to drag the U.S. into a conflict without Congressional approval (as Trump obviously is trying to do).
If you think a constitutional argument can be made supporting Trump's conduct, please feel free to make it. But please don't join the people who pretend that violations of our Constitution are ok just because they seem somewhat analogous to something someone else did.
It matters bc you are a politically motivated hypocrite, which undercuts your flimsy argument.
A Constitutional argument? What is to argue? The POTUS is using military force to defend the US from foreign incursions.
What makes you say I'm "a politically motivated hypocrite"? What do you know about what motivates my politics?
What (if anything) in our Constitution makes you think POTUS was given the power to blow up tiny boats and the people in them merely because he accuses unidentified people of planning to smuggle unidentified drugs into an unidentified part of the U.S. at some unidentified time in the future?
It's not enough for you to think someone is merely somehow "akin to pirates." That attitude shows you are overlooking (or ignoring) the principle underlying multiple crucial commandments in the Fifth Amendment. "No person" can be "deprived" by Trump "of life" or any "liberty" or any "property" before being afforded all "process of law" that is "due." "No person" whom Trump murdered could "be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury."
Your attitude also shows you are overlooking (or ignoring) the principle underlying the separation of powers. Article I was clear that the People vested in Congress, alone (not the President) the following powers:
"To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water."
Article II is clear that Trump's duty here is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Our Constitution simply did not vest in the President the power to kill people as Trump is killing people.
^Super verbose. No content.
"Akin to pirates" is perfect. There is a middle ground between the guy stealing hubcaps and war vs. Japan. They are armed, organized foreigners, bringing harm to our country under no overt national flag. Pirates.
The Constitution gives the POTUS the authority to defend the country, which means killing groups of foreigners -- pirates, drug smugglers -- bringing harm to it.
Fearful, again, what you think is merely “akin to pirates” is irrelevant. The People and our Constitution vested in Congress, alone, the power to make the determinations I quoted above from our Constitution. Your unwillingness to accept that self-evident truth only destroys your potential credibility.