Comments by ANonnyMoose
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Posted on July 2 at 9:41 a.m.
Ms. Sweder's sixth paragraph sums up the situation beautifully. The piece wasn't a warning article (although that was a really clever idea, AmyO), or any kind of probing, hard-hitting investigative effort. This was a newspaper editor with stars in his eyes sitting at the guy's feet like an adoring puppy. His own follow-up rationalization column surely supports that view. Newsworthy or not, it was pathetic.
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Technically, Simpson wasn't found "innocent" in the criminal case. "Innocent" and "not guilty" are two different things. He was let off, found "not guilty", because of the jury's perception of prosecutorial and police incompetence, not because he didn't do anything. And there's no such thing as being "guilty" in civil court. He was sued by the victims' survivors and was found "liable", meaning he's not guilty of a crime, but is responsible for their deaths in a financial sense. I know that's splitting hairs, but that's the way the system works, and it's always helpful to know the difference.
Posted on July 1 at 2:02 p.m.
Part 2:
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"Please remember that many [Germans] in WW2 were taken and brought to Fort Indiantown Gap PA. for internment as POW's. They had no [legal] right to contest their [detention]..." -- You offer that statement as evidence that Gitmo detainees must suffer the same fate. Do you have evidence that such camps were properly set up under legislation passed according to the Constitution? If they were, then you can't compare them to Gitmo. If not, then they were as flawed as Gitmo is.
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"The government is not violating the Constitution rather they are following international law via the Geneva Conventions." -- According to the Supreme Court, who is the ultimate body to decide such things, the government HAS been violating the Constitution by not properly suspending habeas corpus and thereby denying the detainees due process. The GC doesn't address that concern.
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"Also Bush tried to get around the Geneva Conventions because none of our enemies [followed] it." -- That gives you some idea as to the recklessness of the current administration. America should hold itself to the highest possible standard of conduct and follow the GC no matter who else does.
"I was in Iraq and had the pleasure of helping transport these pow's to several [detention] facilities and we always treated them with care and consideration when in our custody." I commend and thank you for your service. You were setting the correct example of how we should behave in the international community. If our government had taken that much care in establishing Gitmo, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Posted on July 1 at 2 p.m.
Point-by-point, Part 1:
"Lawful combatants do not have the same rights as the average [A]merican." -- The Court's ruling was that YES, Gitmo detainees DO have the same rights as the average American, because the Gitmo system is legally flawed. It had to be set up according to U.S. laws before combatants were ever detained, and THEN those detainees could be subject to the military tribunal system of appeal. But since it wasn't, detainees get to appeal in court just like you and I would.
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"I believe that the constitution and the bill of rights were meant for Americans and a model for the rest of the world." -- The Constitution does more than guarantee rights to Americans. It also places legal limits on the actions of our government in everything that it does, both here and abroad. That function applies here.
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"That [doesn't] mean that the rest of the world has to follow those ideals nor adhere to the rights guranteed therein." -- Correct. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone did?
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"Just because they are on what's considered US territory does not make them American [citizens] and therefore not subject to our rights, freedoms or laws." -- Unless they have diplomatic immunity, foreigners ARE subject to our laws while they're here, just like we're subject to other nations' laws when we leave. Some rights, such as the right to vote in U.S. elections, are only available to U.S. citizens. Other rights, such as habeas corpus, are granted to everyone, including foreigners, as long as those rights aren't specifically legally suspended.
Posted on July 1 at 12:48 p.m.
Amen, Ms. Sweder. Well said, and thank you.
Posted on June 30 at 3:21 p.m.
"Finally, the military and our judicial system was kept separate for a reason so that our American rights were not trampled on by the government using the military on us when we disagreed, and that is why we must not use anything except the Geneva Convention when dealing with 'detainees' [in G]itmo."
Hometown -- Your argument in this sentence makes no sense. You are correct in saying that the military (being part of the executive branch) is separate from the judicial branch. However, that has nothing to do with whether or not the Geneva Convention (GC) applies to the detainees, or whether or not it's the ONLY standard that applies. (You may recall that the Bush Administration at first tried to argue that the GC does NOT apply to the detainees, but the Supr. Court ruled in 2006 that it does.)
You are suggesting that ONLY the GC applies here, and that U.S. laws do not, meaning the Supreme Court should butt out. That is simply not true. Keep in mind that Gitmo is not only a military program; rather it's the U.S. Government itself -- the Bush Administration (executive branch), acting under the authority of special powers granted by Congress (legislative branch) -- who is responsible for Gitmo. With Gitmo, just like with everything else it does, the government must follow its own laws, and the Supreme Court has the authority and the responsibility to determine whether the other two branches of government are proceeding according to the guidelines that are laid out in the Constitution. Again, this has nothing to do with whether the detainees are U.S. citizens or not; the question before the Court was whether or not the government is acting legally.
The GC applies to prisoners of war once they're held. This issue pertains to whether or not they're being held properly in the first place, going above and beyond the guidelines set out in the GC. The question was, do these detainees have the right to contest their imprisonment in a court of law like anyone else who's been imprisoned by the U.S. Govt? The Constitution states that habeas corpus rights (which, by U.S. law, apply to everyone, not only Americans) may only be suspended by an act of Congress enacted during a time of "rebellion or invasion". The Court's ruling was that the military tribunal procedures that have been set up by the Bush Admin., by the authority of the Detainee Treatment Act passed by Congress, are legally inadequate, not sufficient to meet the standards required by the Constitution. Therefore, habeas corpus has not been legally suspended; therefore, the detainees have the right to contest their imprisonment in U.S. Courts.
As long as the detainees are being held, the rules of the GC must be followed. But it is simply not true that U.S. laws can be, or must be, simply ignored in the meantime, as you seem to be suggesting. Our government does not have the legal right to violate the Constitution whenever it wants to.
Posted on June 27 at 8:58 a.m.
Freda -- The Constitution is not just about guaranteeing rights to US citizens. Perhaps its most important function is that it puts limitations on what our government can do to people, and those limitations MUST be in effect not only on our soil but anywhere else, too. Furthermore, those limitations are meaningless if they only apply to American citizens, or if they can be sidestepped whenever the administration feels justified in doing so. While it's vital that we fight terrorism, we simply cannot bypass our most fundamental laws in the name of national security. We CHEAPEN America when we do so.
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As conservative columnist George Will wrote last week, "No state power is more fearsome than the power to imprison. Hence the habeas right has been at the heart of the centuries-long struggle to constrain governments, a struggle in which the greatest event was the writing of America's Constitution, which limits Congress' power to revoke habeas corpus to periods of rebellion or invasion.... As the conservative and libertarian Cato Institute argued in its amicus brief in support of the petitioning detainees, habeas, in the context of U.S. constitutional law, 'is a separation of powers principle' involving the judicial and executive branches. The latter cannot be the only judge of its own judgment."
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The Supreme Court acted correctly in this case.
Posted on June 25 at 5:18 p.m.
The ruling was a correct one, reinforcing the Constitutionally-guaranteed right of writs of habeas corpus. It was not a political reinterpretation of the document. Good grief.
Posted on June 15 at 10:56 a.m.
Thanks for the clarification, TKay!
Posted on June 13 at 4:05 p.m.
drknow--
If the marching band program is anything like it was when I went to good ol' FFHS, it's NOT extracurricular. If you're in band, you WILL play in concerts, you WILL play in contests, you WILL play in the pep band at games, and you WILL march in parades. They're all part of your participation grade, and they all need to be conducted (pun intended) by a licensed/certified music teacher.
That's an awful lot of time and responsibility that has to be divided up by music department staff. If you cut one of those teachers, there simply aren't enough hours in the day for the remaining staff members to absorb all that work. The marching band is the easiest component to cut. It's just that simple.
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Posted on July 2 at 9:43 a.m.
BRILLIANT post, Bloop! Thanks!
On Less said about O.J., the better