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I try to imagine some burly Marine, covered in dust and blood standing in front of some towel-head reading a little white card, “You have the right to remain silent…” What a joke.

Did you hear on Rush the sound bite of Barack Obama referring to a Navy corpsman as a corPsman? Sheesh.

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Diann, Being an old Fleet Marine Force Corpsman myself, that doesn’t irratate me as much as being called a Sailor. I did my “sea duty” in rice paddies. I don’t know the first thing about being a sailor, that was all purged from our memories at Field Med School.

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I would think that if a president doesn’t know the first thing about the military — even little things like different branches of service or different ranks, shouldn’t he, as someone who is about to be Commander-in-Chief, have to take some class or courses at West Point or SOMETHING? “The Armed Services For Dummies?”

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Speaking of Mark Steyn (what the hell do you mean we weren’t?!), my “Viva Steyn” T-shirt came in the mail today!!!! Yay.

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Good – send all the lefty ACLU shithead lawyers to Afghanistan to defend mohammedans. Maybe we’ll be treated to videos of them getting their own heads hacked off – while reading Miranda rights.

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Why is it that no one read the 911 victims miranda rights before they were murdered? These friggin’ progressives make me sick with their feigned concern for human rights. The following message is intended for them:

You progressive piece of excrement We are onto you and your Alinsky bullcrap games. We the American People will not let you get away with it. We outnumber you and We will triumph. You will not hamstring our armed forces with your slimy ivy-league lawyer tactics. Don’t forget that We are “The Right Wing” and we have plenty of guns but are running a bit low on patience.

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giving these sh!thead terrorist Miranda Rights make me want to puke.

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We have met the enemy and he is US. Our country is losing its identity. When idiocy like this goes on it makes one realize that the end is near. Sadly, never in our history have we experienced such a total lack of leadership and common sense.

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[...] at iowntheworld.com Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Contraindication: VolleyballI Heart Dean [...]

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There was a time not long ago when the United States were looked up to as a unique, and uniquely good, society that had found a way to eliminate the worst elements of other forms of government from monarchy and dictatorship to mob rule. The foundation of our philosophy of government was that all people are equally subject to the same laws, and all Americans were expected to take an active part in making those laws.

There was a time not long ago – in my own lifetime, in fact – when the very concept of holding captive indefinitely any person for any reason with no transparent and equitable process to determine their guilt or innocence of any crime or inhumane act would have rightly been considered blatantly un-American and have been rightly condemned by any and all patriots.

Well, damn me, but times sure have changed, and for the worse. John Woo is the epitome of the new view, namely that, as the Supreme Court decided last December, some of the people we hold in captivity and isolate are not even persons as far as our laws are concerned. I had the misfortune of being in the same room as John Woo last year, and heard him speak and saw his expressions and body language. I went home and took a long shower afterward, for John Woo left me with the feeling of being deeply soiled. He is a despicable excuse for a human being; a totalitarian elitist egomaniac. Ask yourselves why he is employed at “progressive” UC Berkeley of all places.

To all those who believe it is acceptable behavior to hold any person (legally recognized or not) indefinitely under any conditions whatsoever, you should be ashamed.

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Could it be stated any more clearly and succinctly? Any rational person could not possibly disagree with such clarity.

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@Papadoc: “Any rational person could not possibly disagree with such clarity.” If I were a Progressive, I could.

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Yes, it is “Yoo” and not “Woo.” Not that it’s any excuse, but I work with two people named Wu and one Woo.

I didn’t really expect or want to shut down this thread but I did have to speak (type?) my mind on this subject.

Regarding Progressives, some might be surprised to find that the whole idea of foreign intervention and preemptive military action was a foundation of the early progressive movement in late 19th century US politics. Conservatives, on the other hand, preferred non-intervention and if if they were to lead, wanted to lead by example only.

@Wyatt – I have a hard time regarding any progressive as rational!

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This thread reminds me so much of the current public school system! None of you listen to your elders anymore, do you??

I have said it before, and I will say it again…perhaps until I am blue in the face!

This nation’s WORST ENEMY is currently living in the White House! All of this civil court trials, Mirandizing prisoners of war crap, this is all part of his plan to totally shut down any bit of national security our people have. obama is out to destroy the protection that gives us security first, outside the country, and then, inside our own borders. We, as individuals, will eventually be the only security we know. The confusion our protectors feel when they are trying to defend our nation, is just the beginning.

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Grandma, this nation’s worst enemy is always living in the White House and has been since about Grover Cleveland.

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Strange as to how I don’t feel the slightest bit ashamed of the fact that we are holding some people for an indefinite period of time. These people are enemy combatants who are waging war against the United States. We have every right to hold them as prisoners of war until this war ends. Has the war ended?

The only standard for judging our policy is a historical one. And in the previous 2000 years, the policy for dealing with stateless warriors who don’t don recognizable uniforms is to put then to death on sight. And this goes double for warriors whose only goal is to kill unarmed civilians. In any other society that has ever existed, these people would have been torn limb from limb by howling mobs

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Lennie, you and your howling mob have a grand old time together, now, y’hear? I’ll fight the enemies of civilization in a more moral and effective fashion, one that dos not repudiate the very civilization I’m trying to protect.

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Uncle Al, I disagree. Ronald Reagan lived there once.

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@Grandma, Ronald Reagan was a good man, worthy of respect. However, he was a modern American president well into the era when that office had assumed such power that holders of the office inevitably and inexorably did more damage to an individualistic society than good. The problem, in his case, was definitely the job and not the man doing it.

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So where do you want to take this, Uncle Al? Give us some vision here. Where in the nation’s history do you see perfection, or the closest we ever came to it? People who can only find fault in things ought to be able to offer positive suggestions.

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OK, Grandma, the best we ever did as a society was from the mid 1770s to the late 1780s. The second paragraph of Jefferson’s Declaration is the near-perfect distillation of what a government, if we have one at all, should be: an institution to secure rights that inhere to human beings by their very nature, an institution deriving its powers from the consent of the governed, an institution liable to alteration, replacement, or abolition if it fails to achieve the goal.

Things started going downhill towards the end of the Revolutionary War, with the statist Hamiltonians hijacking the Philadelphia Convention to create a Constitution that betrayed Jefferson’s ideals and laid the groundwork for the behemoth we have now. Enough of the original thinking was left that the devolution took quite a while, dropping off the cliff to destruction with Lincoln’s hideous war (which was started for purely economic and power politics reasons and only as an expediency involved slavery towards the end of the conflict).

I hope that answers your question adequately. You may not agree with me, but I do have more to say than finding fault.

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A follow-up: Not explicitly stated in the Declaration but implicit in that wonderful second paragraph is the concept that government is essentially nothing more than a group of individuals, and that rights inhere only to those individuals. The group, any group, has no more right or power than each member of the group.

The practical implication of this is that government cannot do anything that individuals cannot do. In terms of current events, because I as an individual do not have the right to imprison someone whom I believe to be an unlawful enemy combatant, neither does any government that claims to be acting on my behalf.

Kindls note that this does not make me a pacifist nor an apologist for evil-doers. It is my belief that the perfect application of the death penalty is when the intended victim blows away the aggressor. Some people do, as they supposedly say in Texas, need killing.

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So Al, what civilization would that be? Isn’t civilization based on the collective wisdom of all prior civilizations. If that is the case, then the unanimous agreement of all previous civilizations is that these individuals are undeserving of continued existence.

So what is your rebuttal to this — that ALL previous civilizations are barbaric because they differ from you personally. But that is the epitome of moral preening, which is the fundamental flaw of liberalism.

All human arrangements are based onthe notionof the bargain — you get something in returnfor giving something. You get certain protections as long as you observe some norms of behavior. These modern day terrorists are waging war without observing any rules of warfare whatsoever. Therefore they forfeit any protections that civilization offers

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Lennie, you seem to think that the embodiment of past societies and civilizations must be in a government with the power to force people to do what it dictates. Have you insufficient imagination to consider that there are non-coercive ways to continue to build on the good things we have learned over the centuries?

I am certainly not a liberal in the current corrupted sense of the word. If you squint I bit, I may look like an 18th century liberal. You know, someone who recognized that the root of that word “liberal” is the same root that gives us “liberty.” That’s not true today, of course. Today’s liberal wants to give you what he thinks you need, and give it to you good and hard.

I leave you with this thought: Civilizations do not offer protection to anybody or anything. They cannot, because only the individuals in that civilization act, and only actors can offer protection.

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Uncle Al- I read through your posts and I must respectfully say that you seem to have great wisdom. I’m by no means as adept at expressing myself as you seem to be here. It’s obvious that you have done your homework and posses a high degree of historical knowledge about our nations founders and their original intent. That said, I wonder how persuasive your arguments would be to the Jihadist with a knife at your throat?

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I’m trying to think of what an 18th century liberal would have done about a stateless warrior whose only goal was to kill as many civilians as possible, even if it meant that he was guaranted to die in the trying.

Here’s what they would have done. They would have killed them on sight. this is based on the ancient Roman distinction between “bellum” (war against legitimate enemies) and “guerra” (war against pirates, brigands, and other common enemies of mankind)Those engaged in “bellum” are afforded some protections for engaging in honorable combat. Those engaged in “guerra” have no honor and as such are afforded no protections.

The America of Thomas Jefferson observed these distinctions. FDR observed this distinction when he ordered the execution of German saboteurs in WWII. This distinction, frankly, didn’t break down untilthe last thirty years when “modern” (meaning liberal) jurisprudence began its absurd innovations. There is simply no way that a conservative should be making the arguments that you are making

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@Lennie- It’s a liberal tactic to get bogged down with all this altruistic minutia. You hit the nail on the head here man. We know what we know because it’s in our hearts. Anything that people are involved with will inherently be imperfect. It’s time for people to deal with reality rather than detailed interpretations of history. We are all under the gun because of who we are. Our enemy hates us based on their corrupt interpretation of their religion. It’s not about our history or intentions. They want to convert or kill us…period.

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Multiple partial replies to Ray and Lennie

Yes, indeed, we are all imperfect, including the people who act as our government. What sense does it make to allow them powers and privileges that are not ones we can exercise individually?

It is a mistake to conflate American society with American government. The two are quite distinct, and I am generally highly grateful for, respectful of, and supportive of our society. Except insofar as our society has allowed the metastatic growth of a welfare/warfare Leviathan state.

I would not attempt to argue with a Jihadist with a knife at my throat. That would be suicidally crazy. I would do my best to kill him before he got that close.

Lennie, I agree that such people should be killed on sight once they are identified as such beyond any reasonable doubt (see my immediately previous comment). I say “beyond reasonable doubt” because I cannot easily come up with a worse action than killing an innocent person. Sure, mistakes are human, but that doesn’t mean you should get a pass for making such a bad one as that.

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@Ray – It is a liberal tactic to avoid debating substantive issues by declaring, and I quote, “We know what we know because it’s in our hearts.”

You don’t really want to take that position, now, do you?

Wikipedia, being a product of human beings, is imperfect but it is a decent place to start looking into some things. May I suggest that you may gain some insight here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

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