Government spying

[speeder]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
The Framers, as you are probably unaware, were envisioning treaties amongst states, not foreign treaties. They surely and quite obviously were not offering authority to foreign powers, although that part of the Constitution has been misinterpreted to read such.

I think that you are confusing the Constitution with the Bible, where people take wide latitude extrapolating what the writers were "envisioning".

If this was a creative writing class here, you would get an "A". Since it is a discussion of the laws of the land, you get a flag and have to do 7th grade over again.

Then again, you get points for gonads, just like your heroes in the WH, for staring straight into the camera and justifying the Iraq invasion on the basis of broken UN resolutions while at the same time explaining why we do not have to abide by their authority. Hey, maybe that will be Saddam's defense; that he did not recognize the UN's legitimacy because of the oil-for-food scam. He could call you for a character witness. Or Dick Cheney.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by fastpat
It's not legitimate power, it's stolen power.

Bush's law breaking has become legion. Here's two.

Both are stretches, Pat. Both rely on the authority of the UN, an authority with no teeth or credibility...That said, the only links I can find for your allegations of "Bush's law breaking" are communist websites and neo-communist websites. Do you have any credible links to Bush crimes?...From what is common knowledge in these here parts, Bush committed no crime; certainly if he did we would hear no end of it from your liberal strange-bedfellows.

Do you have any credible links to Bush crimes?...This should be really really easy, Patty me' boy [/irish accent]

[fintstone]

You guys are confused. What "treaty" are you talking about? There is no “UN Treaty”, there is only a charter. Ratifying it did not relinquish our sovereign right to declare war as provided in our Constitution. Even if we needed UN approval (which we do not)...Not only did Saddam violate the terms of the ceasefire in the first Gulf War, but the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483 essentially determined the Iraq War as a legal/legitimate war. If you are looking for a truly “illegal war” by the definition of the UN…look no farther than our (Clinton’s) war against Yugoslavia.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by fintstone
You guys are confused. What "treaty" are you talking about? There is no “UN Treaty”, there is only a charter. Ratifying it did not relinquish our sovereign right to declare war as provided in our Constitution. Even if we needed UN approval (which we do not)...Not only did Saddam violate the terms of the ceasefire in the first Gulf War, but the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483 essentially determined the Iraq War as a legal/legitimate war. If you are looking for a truly “illegal war” by the definition of the UN…look no farther than our (Clinton’s) war against Yugoslavia.

Patsy has a bad case of headuptheassitis.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Not only did the UN fail to enforce the 16 resolutions violated by Saddam Hussein, but they were complicit in the criminal enterprise that was the "oil for food" scandal. We, certainly, are not obligated to adhere to a treaty when that partner entity was acting criminally or less importantly, impotently.

Not relevant. Iraq's violation of UN resolutions is between the UN and Iraq; the US government has no authority from the US Constitution nor US law which authorizes enforcement of UN resolutions outside the UN. Israel has violation over 60 UN resolutions, care to invade them next? Based on your assertions, that would have to happen. However, there is nothing in US law, nor I'm happy to say, in American common law which is more important, that would authorize such an undertaking against any foreign nation. What is important is that George W. Bush unilaterally decided, in violation of US law and international law, to invade a sovereign foreign nation, Iraq, and should stand trial for it.

The Framers, as you are probably unaware, were envisioning treaties amongst states, not foreign treaties. They surely and quite obviously were not offering authority to foreign powers, although that part of the Constitution has been misinterpreted to read such.

That's simply not true, Benjamin Franklin had already concluded the Treaty of Paris as a diplomat under the Articles of Confederation in 1783; foreign treaties were well known and understood to be a power granted to the federal government by the compact of states.

Keep in mind here, I'm not advocating either UN power nor dissolving sovereignty via the treaty power of the federal government; merely pointing out that the treaty power is in the Constitution and that the US government signed said UN treaty and agreed to abide by it. The Un allows declarations of war against and invasion of a member state if said member state commited an act of war by the declaring or invading state; none of which pertains to Iraq. Iraq never committed an act of war against America, and still hasn't. Iraqi's can kill every American on their soil lawfully because the US government is there illegally.

As an aside, if a country were to invade America I'd kill everyone of them I could, brutally I might add, for as long as I could, until they left, or I was dead.

"A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes any express exceptions to the power of the Constitution..." -- Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton, who I might add was killed just a few years too late by Aaron Burr, was a sleazy criminal. He wrote much of the weasel words in the Constitution, such as anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding which basically grants the federal government precedent over state law. That power was removed by the Tenth Amendment, but the Supreme Court nullified the Tenth Amendment during the monster Franklin Roosevelts administrations.

"I do not conceive that power is given to the President and the Senate to dismember the empire, or to alienate any great, essential right. I do not think the whole legislative authority to have this power." -- James Madison

Yes, I agree with Madison, too bad the federal government does not, and routinely enacts legislation in violation of the Constitution. The National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 both violate the Constitution, yet the Supreme Court has refused to take a Second Amendment case since 1938.

The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Endangered Species Act, and the authority of the Army Corps of Engineers to declare the mud puddles in your backyard a navigable waterway are other blatantly unConstitutional laws; yet they are enforced at gun point daily.

"I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson[/i]

I certainly agree with Thomas Jefferson, one of the fathers of American libertarianism; but you must deal with federal government courts who do not. For example, where do you think the federal government gets the power to regulate migratory waterfowl hunting seasons? It's via a treaty signed in the 1920's with Canada. And no, I don't care if you don't believe me, I've seen the Supreme Court decision, and that's what it says.

This all returns to my point, which is Bush, the current sitting president; is commiting war crimes under US and international law; do you want a country wherein the law is enforced, more so against the government than the individual citizen, or do you want a country wherein the law is what some government thug says it is today, that might say it's different tomorrow?

Civilization or the abyss; that's your only choice here.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Both are stretches, Pat. Both rely on the authority of the UN, an authority with no teeth or credibility...That said, the only links I can find for your allegations of "Bush's law breaking" are communist websites and neo-communist websites. Do you have any credible links to Bush crimes?...From what is common knowledge in these here parts, Bush committed no crime; certainly if he did we would hear no end of it from your liberal strange-bedfellows.

Do you have any credible links to Bush crimes?...This should be really really easy, Patty me' boy [/irish accent]

No, they aren't stretches at all, they're facts.

You can find links on several libertarian/conservative web sites:

1. http://www.lewrockwell.com/
2. http://antiwar.com/
3. http://www.amconmag.com/2005_02_28/index1.html

Treaty Power Cases
1. http://fly.hiwaay.net/~becraft/TREATIES.html
2. http://www.originalintent.org/edu/federaljur.php
3. http://ipl.unm.edu/cwl/fedbook/psalmon.html

None of the above are in the slightest left wing, they are all conservative in the same sense that William F. Buckley, Senior and John t. Flynn were Conservatives.

More bibliographies:
1. Lew Rockwell's http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/reading.html
2. joseph Stromberg's http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg23.html

Come back when you've finished your reading, say, in about two years.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by fintstone
You guys are confused. What "treaty" are you talking about? There is no �UN Treaty�, there is only a charter. Ratifying it did not relinquish our sovereign right to declare war as provided in our Constitution.

The UN Charter is a treaty and was entered into under the treaty power granted the federal government, otherwise there's no power to sign such a document. Further, since the treaty specifically precludes unilateral declarations of war against a member state with specific exceptions (which I stated above) the invasion of Iraq did in fact violate US law, which the UN Charter became when it was ratified.

Even if we needed UN approval (which we do not)...Not only did Saddam violate the terms of the ceasefire in the first Gulf War, but the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483 essentially determined the Iraq War as a legal/legitimate war. If you are looking for a truly �illegal war� by the definition of the UN�look no farther than our (Clinton�s) war against Yugoslavia.

Clinton's, and now George W. Bush's, war against Serbia was and is, in fact, a war crime. You conveniently overlooked the fact that Bush has continued to prosecute the war against the Serbs, why did you do that?

Further, upon reading Resolution 1483, written after the fact of the Bush'ist invasion of Iraq to deal with thee status quo two months later, did not declare the invasion legal, it authorized the US government to clean up the mess it created by the invasion, something else entirely. It's why the citizens of Iraq may kill US government soldiers, and any mercenaries they may hire, lawfully, and by any method they may devise.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by fastpat
Not relevant. Iraq's violation of UN resolutions is between the UN and Iraq; the US government has no authority from the US Constitution nor US law which authorizes enforcement of UN resolutions outside the UN. Israel has violation over 60 UN resolutions, care to invade them next? Based on your assertions, that would have to happen. However, there is nothing in US law, nor I'm happy to say, in American common law which is more important, that would authorize such an undertaking against any foreign nation. What is important is that George W. Bush unilaterally decided, in violation of US law and international law, to invade a sovereign foreign nation, Iraq, and should stand trial for it.

Iraq's violation of UN resolutions IS between Iraq and The United States. We are the only credible force in the UN and they have descended into corrupt chaos that we are not bound by. Kofi's and the UN's hands were so dirty with the prostitution of Iraq that any perceived credibility that they had was lost long ago. We are not bound to abide by the UN. They are not our government. The Founders NEVER envisioned our national security or sovereignty to be handed over to a collection of foreign dictators and other socialist scumbags; although the Constitution has been MISINTERPRETED to read that it has (something you formerly were against, but your pendulum seems to swing in favor of for this particular issue), it hasn't. The Founders did not envision this perversion of the Constitution, and you and I both know it...So save your wishy-washy schizophrenic interpretation of the Constitution for someone more gullible.

Bush broke no Constitutional mandate or law. I don't care how many far-right nobodys or communist websites say it. We are not bound by the UN's corrupt dictates (forgive the pun). Our President is invested with wartime powers, by the Constitution, with the approval of the Senate, under the procedures set forth in the FISA rulings.

Saddam was harboring and funding international terrorists, terrorists involved with 9-11. These terrorists not only had a safe-haven in Iraq, but they had a willing accomplice (Saddam Hussein) who would love nothing more than to anonymously detonate a nook-u-lur bomb in the US or Israel...Al qaeda had a track record of being able to deliver an effective long range throw...BINGO!!!...Justification.

Pat, buddy, you are walking arm-in-arm with the anti-American communists in liberal drag, does that not concern you in the slightest?

[cool_chick]

There is so much misinformation in the above post, where to start......

Man, that's some funny chyt.

[Rodeo]

fastpat is handling Mul pretty well I'd say. Its been interesting to watch.

I think I actually saw some faint spark of recognition in Mul's eyes once or twice, which is pretty amazing!

[t951]

I gave up. It was like peeing into a fan. Sure you got to go, but look at the results.....

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by Rodeo
fastpat is handling Mul pretty well I'd say. Its been interesting to watch.

I think I actually saw some faint spark of recognition in Mul's eyes once or twice, which is pretty amazing!

Have you ever had a conversation with a schizophrenic homeless person?...This is what I am getting from Pat. He goes off on half-cocked tangents grounded in fantasy and then out of the blue returns to sanity and sounds coherent and intelligent. He takes both sides of an issue (eg. "We should abide by the UN"/"we should take a wrecking ball to them": or, "the Constiution should be strictly interpreted"/"except in the case of Article VI's misconstruction which should be obeyed as law of the land")...The faint spark is the fascination with the rollercoaster of reality ebbs, and fantastically fabricated flows.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by t951
I gave up. It was like peeing into a fan. Sure you got to go, but look at the results.....

Total of 16 posts and you are already battle weary?...lol

[t951]

Just with this issue. I seems clear that neither side has any intention of changing their opinion.

The definition of insanity is performing the same behavior over and over but expecting different results.

I think that what makes america incredible is the ability to voice your opinion and the fact that the government was designed not to interfere with that. Its clear that this discussion has shown that somepeople feel its ok to give up their rights a little bit of a time, and eventually our country won't be great.

The president of our country has been an incredible disaster. Our reputation in the world is even more tarnished, we are spending billions on a war when we could be working on our education, roads, healthcare.

What americans dont get is that we are a short memory people, after 10-20 years its ancient history to us. The people that we are engaged with have LOOOONG term memories. We have opened a can of worms that will take decades to deal with. And for what, to say we killed some bad guys. That we took a leader out of power (Already done, and we are still there. And don't kid yourself, the people dont want us there. We are not welcome). The stuff you see on the news with thankful people, they are there to for spin control....to show us brilliant americans that we are doing good. Go over there sometime, I have, and you will see that we are not wanted.

The countries that are there with us are there for business reasons, dont offend the US or you will lose money. Simple as that.

Our president is off the ranch. He thinks he is a cowboy and wants to shoot em up. He is a moron. He is a puppet being led by his staff and couldn't lead ants to a picnic with a trail of jelly.

Whenever a president is in office some people will be unhappy, but this president takes the cake. He has received the lowest approval rating in history (according to CNN), he has spent billions on his wartime folly. Our economy is still in tough shape, the dollar is getting weaker, our jobs are being outsourced, our educational system gets worse every year, our healthcare is in shambles. The only companies that did well were his friends, the oil companies.

If he were a true man of character he would step down. And withdraw the troops with the admission of what his real mission is.

Anyway....I'm out. Im going to back to porsche discussions!

[Rodeo]

tk, You should continue to post on politics, you clearly have your eye on the ball!

[Tobra]

No, he just appears to agree with you on this one, and he is flatly mistaken that our immediate withdrawal and the resignation of the president would be a good thing for the country, but he has his eye o the ball!

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Iraq's violation of UN resolutions IS between Iraq and The United States.

No, it's not. Iraq signed a ceasefire with the UN. It's completely up to the UN membership to enforce that treaty. Not only do I oppose the UN and it's one world government aspirations, I oppose any involvement by the US government in UN treaties with other countries.

We are the only credible force in the UN and they have descended into corrupt chaos that we are not bound by. Kofi's and the UN's hands were so dirty with the prostitution of Iraq that any perceived credibility that they had was lost long ago.

That's the way the UN, and it's predessor the League of Nations, has always been. Indeed, since both were the dreams of various socialists worldwide, it's not difficult to know why the UN is so muddled up.

We are not bound to abide by the UN.

The current, and past, US governments like the fig leaf the UN provides; and use it routinely for whatever it's pleasure d'jour is. If you want to use the UN, abiding by the UN Charter (a treaty) is a must.

They are not our government.

That's correct. However, since you want a UN-Iraq treaty to be enforced by the US government, Resolution 1441 I believe, then you'd be in full support of the UN and all of its warts.

Either you want the UN, or not, there's no in between.

The Founders NEVER envisioned our national security or sovereignty to be handed over to a collection of foreign dictators and other socialist scumbags;

Well, actually Hamilton did, but as I've stated, he was a criminal scumbag. Aaron Burr is one of my personal heros.

although the Constitution has been MISINTERPRETED to read that it has (something you formerly were against, but your pendulum seems to swing in favor of for this particular issue), it hasn't. The Founders did not envision this perversion of the Constitution, and you and I both know it...So save your wishy-washy schizophrenic interpretation of the Constitution for someone more gullible.

It's not my interpretation, M-dose, it's the federal government interpretation. I refer you to Marbury vs. Madison and then McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) for further evidence of the federal government expanding it's powers on its own.

Bush broke no Constitutional mandate or law. I don't care how many far-right nobodys or communist websites say it. We are not bound by the UN's corrupt dictates (forgive the pun). Our President is invested with wartime powers, by the Constitution, with the approval of the Senate, under the procedures set forth in the FISA rulings.

No, the president has no specific increase in power during a war. His limits remain the same, war or no war.

Saddam was harboring and funding international terrorists, terrorists involved with 9-11.

No, that's a lie. There has been absolutely no credible evidence of involvement by the Iraqi's in the terrorist attacks against America. Terrorist attacks against other nations aren't relevant or applicable under US law.

These terrorists not only had a safe-haven in Iraq, but they had a willing accomplice (Saddam Hussein) who would love nothing more than to anonymously detonate a nook-u-lur bomb in the US or Israel...Al qaeda had a track record of being able to deliver an effective long range throw...BINGO!!!...Justification.

So Al Qaeda has intercontinent ballistic missiles, better call your guy in the White House with this new information.

In fact, beyond what we know about the criminals involved in 9/11; we know little about any conspiracy by others to aid them. The government in Arabia is a prime suspect in the funding of those on the aircraft in 2001; yet the Bush'ists have done nothing about that. Further, there's abundant evidence of at least peripheral Israeli involvement, about which not only has Bush done nothing, he's sheltered Israeli spy's in Washington.

Pat, buddy, you are walking arm-in-arm with the anti-American communists in liberal drag, does that not concern you in the slightest?

Yeah, well, when I'm done with them, I'll cast their sweating bodies aside.

The problem here is that you see black and white, and no other colors. You think you're a conservative, yet you advocate a wide range of internationalist (communist) views; particularly that of international military adventurism.

You like to claim that those that oppose Bush's swelling of government; and demand for smaller government, as dupe's of the left; yet when I point out how socialist Bush actually is, you make apologies for that (at best) or simply press on with your no holds barred support for this most corrupt administration.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Tobra
No, he just appears to agree with you on this one, and he is flatly mistaken that our immediate withdrawal and the resignation of the president would be a good thing for the country, but he has his eye o the ball!

So, you know that the president lied the congress into war, has killed over 30,000 Iraqi civilians with more dying everyday, 2200 already and more young American men and women will die in Iraq for absolutely no reason; and you want to stay "the course"?

What sort of immoral monster are you?

[RoninLB]

"Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger." (TR:1894)

[snowman]

Originally posted by fastpat
So, you know that the president lied the congress into war,.....

The BIG LIE, that Bush lied, he did not. Still no proof presented to support that wet dream by Bush haters.