Victory for the Constitution!

[Neinteen]

Originally Posted by latenight

Read a little Nietzsche, take some time to absorb and apply it. You'll see the truth. Someday you might even become o.k. with it

he mentioned Nietzsche. He wins.

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by latenight

Nope, I'm saying that nothing changes. The will to power is the core of what it means to be human. I'm saying that I find it laughable that anyone finds it surprising. I'm also saying that for someone to think that the US is somehow magically above such things is about equal to thinking that that Lucky Charms is somehow more than just magically delicious. It's great to have lofty ideals, but when push comes to shove, human nature is just human nature. Criticize me for it, call me heartless, but that is plain reality.

Read a little Nietzsche, take some time to absorb and apply it. You'll see the truth. Someday you might even become o.k. with it

So just because it happens, we shouldn't fight it?

When someone is stealing your car, do you say "oh, that's OK, people steal cars every day." No, you call the police. When the police hear your call do they laugh and say "boy, you sure are naive to think that your car wouldn't be stolen! Do you know how many cars are stolen every day!?"

Yes, humanity has intrinsic characteristics that are commonly identified as evil. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve on our government, and it certainly doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop injustices when they do happen.

If anything your argument supports rights for the Guantanamo prisoners, because it implies, as I think, that giving the government this power gives them the opportunity for abuse. And if someone has an opportunity to abuse power, they always will eventually.

[latenight]

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

So just because it happens, we shouldn't fight it?

When someone is stealing your car, do you say "oh, that's OK, people steal cars every day." No, you call the police. When the police hear your call do they laugh and say "boy, you sure are naive to think that your car wouldn't be stolen! Do you know how many cars are stolen every day!?"

Yes, humanity has intrinsic characteristics that are commonly identified as evil. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve on our government, and it certainly doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop injustices when they do happen.

If anything your argument supports rights for the Guantanamo prisoners, because it implies, as I think, that giving the government this power gives them the opportunity for abuse. And if someone has an opportunity to abuse power, they always will eventually.

I'm saying that if you want to fight it, that is your will and you should mold your world to do so.

I don't see "evil" in human nature, and whether something is commonly identified as evil means little to me. My argument is that if YOU find fault with the status quo, YOU should change it. Because we are all capable of it. As far as abusing power, and the eventuality of it, I disagree. No one has power over you unless you grant it. What is perceived as an abuse of power is the triumph of another's will. The real question is whether your will to change it is stronger. You create your world. Only you are responsible for your failures and shortcomings. The will to power is innate in humans. It drives everything. It is not something to be despised. It should be embraced.

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by latenight

I'm saying that if you want to fight it, that is your will and you should mold your world to do so.

I don't see "evil" in human nature, and whether something is commonly identified as evil means little to me. My argument is that if YOU find fault with the status quo, YOU should change it. Because we are all capable of it. As far as abusing power, and the eventuality of it, I disagree. No one has power over you unless you grant it. What is perceived as an abuse of power is the triumph of another's will. The real question is whether your will to change it is stronger. You create your world. Only you are responsible for your failures and shortcomings. The will to power is innate in humans. It drives everything. It is not something to be despised. It should be embraced.

I don't like feudalism, so I'm going to go ahead and oppose others' attempts at absolute power.

Also, people have power over you without you granting it. For example:

Prisoner: Hey, can I go outside?
Guard: No.
Prisoner: When can I leave or maybe get a trial?
Guard: When we feel like it. Probably never.

In that example, the guard has power over the prisoner. The prisoner did not grant this power, and I'm sure he'd like a trail where he can at least contest it.

[latenight]

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

I don't like feudalism, so I'm going to go ahead and oppose others' attempts at absolute power.

Also, people have power over you without you granting it. For example:

Prisoner: Hey, can I go outside?
Guard: No.
Prisoner: When can I leave or maybe get a trial?
Guard: When we feel like it. Probably never.

In that example, the guard has power over the prisoner. The prisoner did not grant this power, and I'm sure he'd like a trail where he can at least contest it.

Good, Just make sure you have no doubt that your oppostion will work and it will be so. Doubt is the destroyer of dreams.

Is the prisoner really powerless? If he thinks so, he is. I'm not convinced he is. His helplessness in your perception. If he submits to another's will he will be powerless, like a dog to his master. But we all have the ability to choose to shape our world. The question is whether he has the will to do it or not.


And it's time for me to get some sleep, I've got lots of travel tomorrow.

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by latenight

Good, Just make sure you have no doubt that your oppostion will work and it will be so. Doubt is the destroyer of dreams.

No. That's not how reality works.

It's a pretty easy principle to apply in retrospect, though, isn't it? "My idea didn't work." "well, you must have doubted it!"

Originally Posted by latenight

Is the prisoner really powerless? If he thinks so, he is. I'm not convinced he is. His helplessness in your perception. If he submits to another's will he will be powerless, like a dog to his master. But we all have the ability to choose to shape our world. The question is whether he has the will to do it or not.


And it's time for me to get some sleep, I've got lots of travel tomorrow.

And this is where I have a problem with philosophy. None of what you said here means anything at all concrete, and I would argue is irrelevant to our daily lives and certainly to this debate. Do we have to first establish that Guantanamo exists? Or its inmates? Perhaps Guantanamo is just a construction of my mind, and there is no habeus corpus in my head.

Also, I don't see how you have the ability to shape your world when you aren't allowed to do anything but eat, sleep, and be interrogated. Please enlighten me on a course of action he can take to change his current state.

[Philistine]

Originally Posted by latenight

{snip}
My personal opinion is that you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. So be it.

You know, I think the best response to that is, as someone said--"I've seen the broken eggs. Where is the omelet?"

--Philistine

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

1. Morals. The morals of our society dictate that government is required to show evidence of your crimes if you are to be convicted of them.

You mean, the morality of the authors of the Constitution? Note that this is no longer the same thing, exactly, as that of "society".

However, I grant you the premise---as far as it goes. Which is only to say that I don't believe we're talking about criminals. And certainly not common criminals. And not criminals who are US citizens or who committed criminal acts on US soil.

I also think that we're taking advantage of people with the Guantanamo situation. If there are no international treaties governing civilians, as some in this thread claim, what's to stop us from marching into France and imprisoning a bunch of French citizens?

Well, I could say "The French Army", but I'm trying to be serious here.

However, the countries many of the prisoners in Guantanamo come from (or were captured in) have almost no government, a government which is still directly under U.S. control, or a government that doesn't care about them.

Rather, they rejected government altogether, and saw themselves as soldiers of an army without a state. I think you give up the right to be treated as a citizen of a nation when you reject that nation and indeed engage in war against it...

In my opinion, this extends to foreign soil as well.

Here is where your argument---which has been all very well thus far---breaks down. You do not offer any sort of rationale for WHY it should do so, beyond personal opinion...which although it must be respected cannot have any real convincing force.

We're supposed to be freedom fighters, a bastion of liberty in the Middle East, an image that's hard enough to support when their day to day image of us involves machine guns and tanks.

Come on, now. There is not and never has been a chance in hell that "they" would ever see us in such a light, no matter what we do.

The US is not and should not behave like a love-starved adolescent willing to do anything just to get a little affection...

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by Philistine

Sure it's artificial--because it's not analogous--there's no agreement giving the robber the ability to hold hostages.

It wasn't meant to be an analogy. It was meant as an example of the fallacy of equivocation, into which I think you'd stumbled...

Another example of misapplication of the word might be:

The Queen of England is still termed a "sovereign", although she has little or no real power.

but I'd fully support a military response to a Cuban attempt to militarily force us to leave Guantanamo--including removing the current leadership.

I never said anything about a Cuban use of military force.

Cuba has already tried several things short of that to force us out of Guantanamo---such as cutting its water supply, which the treaties did not specifically grant. I would argue that the treaties do not address air space, either, nor do they grant the right to use of Cuban territorial waters beyond the narrow uses mentioned in the documents...and how do we supply a base which we cannot legally reach by air or sea?

Even these do not exhaust the panoply of pressures which could be brought to bear given the political will.

there is no international court whose decision will be binding or can be enforced on the US against its wishes.

Right...also due to the same issues of national sovereignty.

Based on this and other Supreme Court rulings, my understanding is that habeas corpus (which really just means the ability to force the government to justify its detention) extends to citizens no matter where they are held, and noncitizens held in the US, territories of the US and places subject to full and complete control by the US (analogous to Guantanamo--which are few and far between).

Which brings us back full circle: I feel that this was a very bad SCOTUS decision, which is not supported by Constitutional language or intent.

And that in fact it is impossible for a sovereign state to wield true sovereignty anywhere but upon its own soil---and certainly not upon that of a hostile state unless it is seized and annexed.

If we declared Guantanamo to be a part of Florida, or a separate state, perhaps matters would be different.

I really have two reasons. The first, is the general belief that the Country was really founded on the principal that the right to liberty really is a right inherent in all, and when being trammeled by the US, should be subject to redress.

And yet no Court has ever said anything close to this.

Certainly there's never been any intimation that the Bill of Rights---the preeminent declaration of liberties---applies to foreigners on foreign soil, merely because they are on, say, a US military base, or in a country "controlled" by the US, such as Iraq.

Should the recent decision on the 2nd Amendment be read to extend the RKBA to the aged Cuban nationals who work on the Guantanamo base? Ridiculous, no?

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by erik_blank

Sorry, the 'Japanese' internment camps were just as wrong then as the Guantanamo camp is now. Both were un-necessary and unconstitutional.

You aren't seriously comparing the imprisonment of American citizens---against whom there was no slightest hint of evidence of any harmful behavior---on American soil, to the imprisonment of actual foreign fighters, captured in combat on an inimical battlefield, on foreign soil? Are you?

[Philistine]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

{snip}
Which brings us back full circle: I feel that this was a very bad SCOTUS decision, which is not supported by Constitutional language or intent.

There is very little Constitutional language or (expressed) intent going either way.

The full text of the relevant provision is "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Historical extraterritorial uses of habeas corpus at common law were examined at length in the opinion, and were conflicting.

Again--personally--I think the Declaration of independence (which is, after all, a part of the organic law of the US)--does extend the right of liberty to all as a fundamental right. Clearly not something independently enforceable, but I think it is applicable to inform the meaning of the Constitution and other provision of law.

And yet no Court has ever said anything close to this.

Certainly there's never been any intimation that the Bill of Rights---the preeminent declaration of liberties---applies to foreigners on foreign soil, merely because they are on, say, a US military base, or in a country "controlled" by the US, such as Iraq.

Sure, there have been a number of lower courts giving extraterritorial effect to provisions of the Constitution--even to foreigners.

The practice was substantially curtailed by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Berdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990)

Should the recent decision on the 2nd Amendment be read to extend the RKBA to the aged Cuban nationals who work on the Guantanamo base? Ridiculous, no?

Well, I'm pretty sure the recent decision won't give American citizens the ability to carry guns on a military base, either....

--Philistine

[bxtr]

You aren't seriously comparing the imprisonment of American citizens---against whom there was no slightest hint of evidence of any harmful behavior---on American soil, to the imprisonment of actual foreign fighters, captured in combat on an inimical battlefield, on foreign soil? Are you?

Statements like that ignore the fact that many of the prisoners in Guantanamo have been proven innocent; some being released after years of custody with no charges having ever been filed, while many still remain imprisoned.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...print/asection

no system is perfect, and not everyone who is arrested is guilty. anyone charged with a crime, or even held without charges, should have some kind of recourse. that's just simple human decency. and one of the things the US ought to stand for.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by Philistine

The full text of the relevant provision is "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Which, BTW, rather takes the wind out of the sails of the 'habeas corpus is a human right' position, doesn't it? I mean, it says right there that it's a privilege, not a right...

Declaration of independence (which is, after all, a part of the organic law of the US)

Is it?

OK, which statutes are taken from it? What precedent rests upon it? Where has the Supreme Court ventured to interpret it?

IMO that's a bit like saying that the Referee Handbook is part of the rules of fencing...

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by bxtr

Statements like that ignore the fact that many of the prisoners in Guantanamo have been proven innocent

Why? It's a separate issue altogether as far as I can see.

No human practice being perfect, sometimes the innocent ( or 'innocent', as that's a relative concept ) get swept up with the guilty when nets are cast for the latter. AFAIK, though, no Japanese-American interned in the camps was ever actually guilty of anything except being of the wrong race. That was an entirely different sort of net...

[Philistine]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

{snip}
Is it?

Yes. Along with the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation and the Northwest Ordinance.

OK, which statutes are taken from it? What precedent rests upon it? Where has the Supreme Court ventured to interpret it?

You did note my statement "Clearly not something independently enforceable, but I think it is applicable to inform the meaning of the Constitution and other provision of law"?

That being said--the Supreme Court has often quoted the DOI, and stated the Constitution is to be construed in light of it.

For example:

The first official action of this nation declared the foundation of government in these words: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "While such declaration of principles may not have the force of organic law, or be made the basis of judicial decision as to the limits of right and duty, and while in all cases reference must be had to the organic law of the nation for such limits" yet the latter is but the body and the letter of which the former is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.No duty rests more imperatively upon the courts than the enforcement of those constitutional provisions intended to secure that equality of rights which is the foundation of free government."

Cotting v. Gottard, 183 U.S. 79 (1901) (My emphasis)

It is to be remembered, that the government of the United States is based on the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, by the congress of 1776; "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted."

In re The Aminsatd, 40 U.S. 518 (1841)

--Philistine

[Epee_Pox]

Originally Posted by bxtr

Statements like that ignore the fact that many of the prisoners in Guantanamo have been proven innocent...

Not "proven innocent." They were not defendants charged with crimes.

Instead, the military itself held hearing to determine whether it was okay to release them. The military determined that several could be cleared for release.

And the problem of their not being immediately released at the time was not because the military wanted to hold them indefinitely, but because they were still trying to get the arrangements in place, such as where to release each one to, and other diplomatic and logistical matters.

I really wish people would stop conflating the rights our military ought to give enemy fighters, with the rights that criminal defendants have while they are being prosecuted for violations of domestic law. They are totally different.