Comments on: Habeas, Schmabeas

By: Positive Liberty » While I Was Away

Positive Liberty » While I Was Away — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:10:19 +0000

[...] the last few days Ed Brayton and Radley Balko have both covered a remarkable new argument justifying expanded executive power. Here’s the [...]

By: Steve Verdon

Steve Verdon — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:58:50 +0000

Rights have to protect everyone or they protect no one.

Why that is just un-patriotic nonsense. You need to drink deep fo the Powerline, Red State, Little Green Footballs kool-aid. Only once you have become one with the Body will you understand how subversive your views are.

Sheesh.

By: Zeb

Zeb — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:28:05 +0000

Seems to me that an “enemy combatant” should actually be engaged in some sort of combat to really qualify for the title. Enemy combatants are people with guns engaging in, well combat, with the US. Not people who we think might do something bad sometime in the future.

It is amazing what these people manage to accomplish by the clever use of provocative words. Start talking about the “war on terrorism” (or more ridiculously “war on terror”) and people actually believe that it is a real war. It is not. You cannot have a war on terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic used by desperate people. It always has been available and always will. It is like the “war on drugs”. The “war” part is supposed to be figurative, but people bought into it and think it is a real war. Hence the ridiculous, ilegal tactics allowed in both of these non-wars.

By: Edmund Dantes

Edmund Dantes — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:59:37 +0000

Uhhh… Tokin42. Jose Padilla was an American Citizen. So it has happened to an American Citizen. He was declared an enemy combatant. He was captured on U.S. Soil. He was basically disappeared until such time that his detention was forced through the court system (with the fact it was even allowed there fought every step of the way). He was tortured and detained incommunicado from human interaction to the point of mentally unbalancing him. The list goes on.

Luckily Padilla has bronwish skin so people can keep there heads in the sand, plus he may have been collaborating with the bad guys so he gets what he deserves.

Rights have to protect everyone or they protect no one.

By: Phelps

Phelps — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:30:35 +0000

Actually, he has claimed powers that had no prior precedent. The very scary thing is that he has set precedent for future presidents to claim these and other powers.

Just like FDR, Wilson, Lincoln, hell, Jefferson before him. They all claimed some powers that no else had claimed and also used past presidents as precedent for other powers. Which is exactly what you are arguing against.

GWB is not the “worst president ever”. He is by no means the best, but hyperbole just makes you look ridiculous and waters down the real message.

By: Chad Perrin: SOB » I am Joe's howling despair.

Chad Perrin: SOB » I am Joe's howling despair. — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:18:55 +0000

[...] “legal” basis for these events has already occurred here, however. People are already being disappeared. Maybe the people who never make it back out again [...]

By: Les

Les — Mon, 26 May 2008 05:38:15 +0000

Enough talk. Let’s get a revolution started.

I’ll bring the cheese dip!

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 26 May 2008 01:26:24 +0000

Enough talk. Let’s get a revolution started.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:36:43 +0000

Carter sucked all right, but at least he didn’t shred the Constitution. How you can compare Carter’s general stupidity with Bush/Cheney’s pure contempt for everything our country was founded on is beyond me.

By: nom de guerre

nom de guerre — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:46:43 +0000

like everyone else alive at the time, jeff, i suffered greatly through the carter years.

go sell that “worst president ever” bullshit somewhere else.

By: Radley Balko

Radley Balko — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:31:22 +0000

…contrary to what many on the left seem to believe, George W. Bush is not a uniquely wicked figure who somehow invented the idea of violating civil liberties himself and then got it into law without any sort of past precedent to justify it.

Actually, he has claimed powers that had no prior precedent. The very scary thing is that he has set precedent for future presidents to claim these and other powers.

I’d probably agree with you that there’s nothing “uniquely wicked” about Bush. He’s more of a dupe. Cheney, on the other hand….

By: Thomas Paine's Goiter

Thomas Paine's Goiter — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:47:40 +0000

…contrary to what many on the left seem to believe, George W. Bush is not a uniquely wicked figure…

Thank god someone else says the same thing. The only difference between Bush, LBJ, FDR, Lincoln is that he is *our* wicked figure.

By: Thomas Paine's Goiter

Thomas Paine's Goiter — Sun, 25 May 2008 20:39:42 +0000

I’m thinking there has to be somewhere I can move that is a democracy, and not influenced greatly by the US, but I cannot think where. Maybe Sweden; granted they are socialists, but I would much rather live in a free socialist country then the dictatorial mercantile one America is becoming. Is Switzerland still a real democracy?

Costa Rica has no standing army.

By: Mike Gogulski

Mike Gogulski — Sun, 25 May 2008 19:05:01 +0000

But but, if he wasn’t guilty, then WHY would he be a suspect?

Forget it folks, republican democracy is dead, yet the stinking corpse keeps a-shamblin’ on.

Can we try anarchy now, or at least declare a Sacred Spunk and go back to divine right of kings? At least then, everyone would know where power “comes” from.

By: Magnum

Magnum — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:10:17 +0000

I think that everyone has forgotten what the Constitution is. It is a set of rules for the US government. Where ever that government is, it operates under the Constitution. If Gitmo is under US control, the government is bound by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The only places I see citizenship as a factor is in the requirements for high office. Otherwise, it’s all “the right of the people”, and “Congress shall make no law.” Nowhere in there do I see “except for the outsiders.”

So, to answer the question: Yes, the Constitution applies, to the Government, wherever it is, no matter whose rights are being abused today.

By: mrk

mrk — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:08:56 +0000

I wonder what the GW Bush liberty meter would look like these days?

By: Unintentionally Hilarious Republican Political Attack Ad « The Bad Idea Blog

Sun, 25 May 2008 16:50:32 +0000

[...] Attack Ad Over at the Agitator, when he isn’t worrying about the tiny matter of the President now having the power to send the military into a US suburb, abduct a U.S. citizen, and det…, Randy Balko is a pretty funny guy. In this case, he’s identified one of the silliest [...]

By: Chance

Chance — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:38:48 +0000

Lee, since pure democracy doesn’t exist anywhere, and arguably never has, you’re just presenting a red herring argument. By your reasoning, a Constitutional Republic could be just as evil, depending on what that constitution says.

By: jeff

jeff — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:07:23 +0000

GWB- WORST PRESIDENT EVER

By: Fortinbras :: The Agitator » Blog Archive » Habeas, Schmabeas :: May :: 2008

Fortinbras :: The Agitator » Blog Archive » Habeas, Schmabeas :: May :: 2008 — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:23:34 +0000

[...] The Agitator » Blog Archive » Habeas, Schmabeas If the president gets these powers, it’s the end, gang. The writ of habeas corpus is 400 years old. The Bush administration is, rather incredibly, arguing that the “commander in chief” power of the U.S. Constitution authorizes them to vaporize it. [...]