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Vindithor
@pacbell.net
| reply to amigo_boy
Re: Fair enough..
Suggesting cannibalism was not my intent with that allegory, but rather the elimination of a competitor. Though my imagination did not make that leap, it is interesting nonetheless; perhaps even freudian.
The argument that, "amending the law is situational ethics," is inherently flawed. The law represents the ethic that is intended to be static until such time as it is altered through legitimate means in accordance with the law. It is not to be circumvented or swayed.
One could correctly assume that I laude consistent ethical standards in accordance with law. But one would be incorrect in presuming that an adherence to the constitution, which simply for the fact that it allows for a redefinition of law, is somehow synonymous with excusing someone who resorts to criminal activity because it is "necessary" or "common".
If a leader wishes to do something that is currently illegal by federal law, they push for a repeal or an amendment. The fact that the law can change is not a justification for illegal activity. It never has been, and rationalizing as such is exceedingly hyperbolic.
"In order to achieve the most noble accomplishment, a leader may have to enter into evil." -Michael Ladine, one of the architects of the Iraq fiasco, and strong believer in Machiavelli's "The Prince". | |
amigo_boy
join:2005-07-22
Tempe, AZ
 ·Cox HSI
 ·magicjack.com
| said by Vindithor :
The argument that, "amending the law is situational ethics," is inherently flawed. The law represents the ethic that is intended to be static until such time as it is altered through legitimate means in accordance with the law. It is not to be circumvented or swayed. You're not making a lot of sense. Now you're saying that if society votes to turn Jews into bars of soap *that's* ok because it was a majority view, enacted in law? But, if the President takes emergency, ultra-legal measures in what is a rare attack on our soil, that's "situational ethics" and equivalent to "killing someone so you'll have more food?"
Your distinction has been lost on me.
Bottom line: What happened after 9/11 (from accessing ISP information to grounding air travel for days, severely limiting individual freedom of movement) is qualitatively no different than other pragmatic and moderating balances upon rights which change based upon society's (legal or ultra legal). If you're saying he should had "asked permission" first (or issued an executive order), that's true. He could have done either.
Mark | |
Vindithor
@pacbell.net
| Turning the Hebrew people into cleaning products seems an unlikely legal venture. The reason I believe in the law, and yes, because it is a majority view, is because I believe people are capable of making distinctions between "invasion of privacy" and "left hands are illegal". If I thought that most people would be okay with lathering up with Yawehwash, I would probably think differently. Though it should be said that your subtle attempt to bring the emotional topic of geneology into the discussion is extremely Rovesque, even if equally ridiculous.
"Asking permission" is exactly what the president must do when he would otherwise be circumventing the law. Issuing an executive order is a limited power that does not apply to these circumstances. The result of not changing the law is to violate the law. Violation of the most basic right to privacy is wrong in this country, no matter what Irving Kristol says.
Obviously he "can" go with either the legal avenue or with the illegal avenue. However, going with the illegal avenue has side effects like "punishment". And in this case, the punishment should be dealt to the telecom companies involved.
I keep seeing 9/11 as though it is a relevant basis upon which to predicate the invasion of privacy against all United States citizens. This is a farce. The commonly-offered explanation is that terrorists on our soil are buying untraceable temporary cell phones and then shipping them to their allies in the Arab world. This is also a farce, and since this is DSL Reports, I shouldn't think I would need to explain the technical reasons why it is a farce.
This invasion of privacy is illegal; going against our oldest laws. That should be enough to disuade any rational resident of the United States from supporting it. It is for me. But to anyone else foolish enough to buy into these anachronistic, neo-conservative views, I would say this: If you are capable of operating a radio and a television set, then you are capable of making the determination that the widespread wiretapping of United States citizens is not an attempt to keep you safe by letting the government hear you have phone sex with your girlfriend. It is a method of control.
Those who do not believe in civil liberties can never understand that their ability to shirk their freedoms comes by virtue of their freedoms. | |
amigo_boy
join:2005-07-22
Tempe, AZ
·Cox HSI
·magicjack.com
| said by Vindithor :
Though it should be said that your subtle attempt to bring the emotional topic of geneology into the discussion is extremely Rovesque, even if equally ridiculous. I'm glad that we've settled that you would be opposed to "kill your neighbor" whether it was legal or not. And, that presumably something less (legal or not) is, well, something less. Hopefully we can dispense with the emotional extremes to define the other person's position.
As an aside, I wasn't the person who raised the extreme "kill your neighbor" logic.
said by Vindithor :
"Asking permission" is exactly what the president must do when he would otherwise be circumventing the law. Issuing an executive order is a limited power that does not apply to these circumstances. I believe you're wrong there. If Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution provides Habeus Corpus may be suspended when public safety requires it, and executive orders are premised on Article I, Section 1 and 3 ("take care that laws are faithfully executed") a logical argument can be made that emergency eavesdropping measures (to seize someone for cause) are no worse than seizing someone without cause and denying them judicial review (loss of habeus corpus). In the former case there is essentially no time limit to the complete deprivation of judicial review. In the latter, we're talking about an emergency response to a surprise attack on American soil by those legally on this soil.
said by Vindithor :
I keep seeing 9/11 as though it is a relevant basis upon which to predicate the invasion of privacy against all United States citizens. Which amendment to the Constitution recognizes a right to privacy? The 4th amendment recognizes that you be secure in your person and papers. But, that's not the same as the broader "privacy" right you've referred to. As far as I know, a right to privacy didn't exist until the Supreme Court "discovered" it in the 1960s (Griswald v. Connecticut regarding birth control). That's fine. I'm not opposed to a right of privacy. Just amused how those who are the most quote-invoking of the founding documents also referring to things the founders would have been violently opposed to (the 14h amendment and to some extent a right to privacy).
said by Vindithor :
Those who do not believe in civil liberties can never understand that their ability to shirk their freedoms comes by virtue of their freedoms. You'll have to define which civil liberties we're talking about. The ones like applying for a permit to demonstrate? Or, seeking approval to buy a gun? Civil liberties are civilly moderated *all the time*. What the President did (grounding air traffic or requesting internet data) had no more impact than what we regularly subject ourselves to every day (in the sense of photo radar, etc.). It was certainly less intrusive than suspending Habeus Corpus (which he has a right to do, and has been done before).
Mark | |
Vindithor
@pacbell.net
| "I believe you're wrong there. If Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution provides Habeus Corpus may be suspended when public safety requires it, and executive orders are premised on Article I, Section 1 and 3 ("take care that laws are faithfully executed") a logical argument can be made that emergency eavesdropping measures (to seize someone for cause) are no worse than seizing someone without cause and denying them judicial review (loss of habeus corpus)."
Suspending the ability to appeal a sentence is not the same as finding reasons to indict. But it isn't even that ridiculous. With the current administration's ideals, given the Patriot Act, people can be taken out of their homes for any reason whatever without notifying anyone, and imprisoned without ever prosecuting them. Furthermore, there is no evidence to imply that this is or was ever a public safety concern. And even further, as if the previous wasn't a silly enough excersize, the president never made an executive order as such. He didn't even pretend that it was legal. Anyone who would assert that this mess of illogic is anything but a farce is one of two things: Either they are ignorant of the law, or they are aware and willfully deceiving others. Since you have knowledge of the law, I do not think it presumptuous to accuse you of the latter.
I know that you are not lying to yourself. You know exactly what rotten views you are spinning. After all, lying is essential to the survival of nations and to the success of great enterprises, right? I have thousands of years of human history to show that the greater the emphasis on personal liberty, (which includes a people deciding by what laws they should be governed), and the less emphasis on the authority of the state, the greater the success of mankind.
But who cares about the progress of our species? Who cares about facts and reality? We create those by what we think. Just like we can do whatever we want and play devil's advocate to pretend that we are always right. But here's the real trick: My way works. Authoritarianism does not and never has. Machiavellians are anathema to a free society and the enemies of free people. That is exactly why we are going bankrupt as a country, are hated around the world, and are losing the lives of our soldiers every day. If you're speeding downhill toward a crevasse, only a fool mashes the accelerator.
This is my country. Those who espouse these depraved ideas of yours are allowed to be in my country because of the liberties we enjoy, though they are ideologically miscreant. I shall let you have as many last words as you like, for to continue arguing with he whose arguments are merely a cloak for unpalatable intent is an excersize in futility. But my countrymen who remember the following will never heed a word you say when it comes to what rights you think it's acceptable to take from them.
"Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -Abraham Lincoln
"The means of defense against foreign danger has historically become the instrument of tyranny at home." -James Madison | |
amigo_boy
join:2005-07-22
Tempe, AZ
·Cox HSI
·magicjack.com
| said by Vindithor :
Suspending the ability to appeal a sentence is not the same as finding reasons to indict. The Fourth Amendment protects against "unreasonable" searches. So, I'd say that the Constitution's grant of power to suspend Habeus Corpus is very much the same as the Fourth Amendment's non-absolute protection. They both provide for inabsolute rights.
said by Vindithor :
Authoritarianism does not and never has. Machiavellians are anathema to a free society and the enemies of free people. Again, I'm not arguing an absolute position (freedom or authoritarianism). I've already established that we made a big step toward what you would call authoritarianism 220 years ago when the Articles of Confederation were abandoned in favor of a stronger federal government. This resulted in the kind of pragmatic, inabsolute treatment of individual rights mentioned above.
Ironically, that event took was precipitated by someone exercising their rights too freely, quoting the founder's rhetoric from just a decade earlier. Just a few years after the founding of this country the Articles were abandoned in favor of the kind of pragmatic grant of power to the government (at the expense of an absolute view of individual rights).
Whether what's happening today is right or wrong, it's very much the same as what has happened for the past 220 years. Much less of an intrusion on individual liberties than ratification of the Constitution was 220 years ago.
So, it's very ironic that the purveyors of liberty use the Constitution to define liberty in absolute terms, conveniently forgetting that it was a huge step back from the more absolute rights that existed at that time. And ironic that they can't see the reality that rights are very much dependent upon the society that recognizes them and protects them. They do expand and contract based upon society's views of how those rights are being abused. Which is why the Constitution provides for limits on the protections of those rights.
said by Vindithor :
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -Abraham Lincoln
"The means of defense against foreign danger has historically become the instrument of tyranny at home." -James Madison
Remember, President Lincoln suspended civil law in the territories, Habeus Corpus in the states, and forced majorities of people in states to remain in the Federal union against their will.
Madison supported the creation of the new Federal government (with all it's reductions in personal rights), and authored the Bill of Rights as a sop to the anti-Federalists (who wished to remain under the Articles of Confederation), protecting rights from Federal infringment but not State and private infringement! The rights protected by the BoR were regularly infringed by states. It wasn't until the 1920s that the BoR began to be applied to State and private infringement through selective incorporation of the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment would have been hugely rejected by the Founders (both federalist and anti-federalist).
So, it's odd that you speak of rights in an absolute sense, quoting historic leaders as if they didn't engage in their own pragmatic reduction in rights.
Mark | |
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