The Tea Party Should Oppose Latest Terrorist Bill of Rights
The reckless crew is at it again.
Libertarian extremists, who purport to be the face of the tea party movement, and their pals on the Lawyer Left, whose obsession is more rights for mass-murderers, are again making common cause. Their target, once more, is the detention procedure codified in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This time the ringleaders are Representatives Justin Amash (R., MI) and Adam Smith (D., WA). With a new NDAA up for consideration, these congressmen are reprising the starring role played a few months back by Sen. Rand Paul (R., KY). I argued in opposition to Sen. Paul’s gambit here and here.
Under the Smith-Amash amendment, if al Qaeda were to dispatch the second coming of Mohamed Atta & Co. to execute another 9/11-style atrocity in the United States, but this time the FBI managed to apprehend them, they would be given the full rights of American civilian defendants. They could not be detained under the laws of war, they could not be held at Guantanamo Bay for trial by military commission. Instead, they would be treated like garden variety crooks: given Miranda warnings, quickly assigned counsel, held in a civilian prison, eligible for prompt bail hearings, entitled to the full breadth of discovery mandated by civilian due process, and given a full-blown, Grade-A civilian trial in a civilian federal court – just like the trial the Obama administration tried to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other surviving 9/11 plotters until public outrage and congressional opposition induced the administration to back down.
Naturally, you won’t be hearing that from the congressmen and their allies – like Rep. Ron Paul, who has come out in support. They know if the wages of their bill were properly understood, they would swiftly be dismissed, including by most Tea Partiers, who are not anti-government but pro-limited government and thus appreciate that national defense is a paramount federal role.
So instead, the congressmen repeat Sen. Paul’s pitch, claiming to be defending the rights of American citizens. They maintain, as Senator Paul did, that the 2012 NDAA expanded the powers of the president to designate American citizens as enemy combatants, to have the military round them up, and to lock them up and throw away the key. Their hysteria is amplified by the likes of the John Birch Society’s outlet, The New American, which asserts that, under the NDAA, Americans could “be subject to military tribunals such as the one currently considering the case of the so-called ‘Gitmo Five’” – i.e., the ongoing military prosecution of KSM and his cohorts. Not to be outdone, Rep. Paul chimes in, “I don’t believe a republic can exist if you permit the military to arrest American citizens and put them in secret prisons and be denied a trial.”
Andy,
Welcome to PJM. I do not always agree with you but I do enjoy your work. It seems to me that you must have been the sort of AUSA with whom agents enjoyed working complex cases.
You are to be commended for starting off w/an issue which will challenge many PJM reads and hopefully generate debate. I hate it when conservatives fall into the “me-tooism” trap.
it’s also to your credit that you are not a Yankees fan
It’s not conservative to argue for more government power and fewer restraints, credulously accepting that anyone designated by the president as an enemy combatant is really an enemy combatant. Does government ever make mistakes? Is power ever politicized?
Rand Paul is making the conservative argument, here, and Andrew McCarthy is making an argument for an area of little-restrained government power. Conservatives believe in limited government, the rule of law, and the Constitution.
It’s not conservative to treat non-citizens like citizens. Treating unlike things alike is fundamentally foolish.
I’ve asked about this before.
Why do “conservatives” not trust government to oversee their health care, but they do trust government to wiretap, indefinitely detain, and even murder U.S. citizens without trial or due process?
Count me as a Libertarian extremist!
Want to know how to lock people up for War Crimes? Step 1: Declare War!
Otherwise, “I don’t believe a republic can exist if you permit the military to arrest American citizens and put them in secret prisons and be denied a trial.”
Old Soldier, I too am an old soldier, and you need to adjust your headspace and timing, my friend. “Declare war,” you say? Against whom, pray tell? Let’s stick with the late and unlamented M. Atta. With which country would you declare war? Afghanistan? Atta wasn’t an Afghan. Saudi Arabia? Atta wasn’t operating under the direction of the Saudi government. And your mindless repetition of a clearly erroneous quote doesn’t support your position. The military isn’t being empowered to arrest anyone, so how does that quote apply?
David Ross, how do you propose to purge anyone from our society? Doesn’t that just make you a controller of a different stripe? I think it does.
Old Bull: You’re right insofar as responding to the brevity and confusion of my comments — we can’t purge individuals from society without ourselves becoming the statists that we abhor.
We can purge our governments by open and honest elections of these wannabe elite rulers attempting (and with a lot of success to date) to shape and control society as they believe is their destiny. As we purge such wannabes from government we can be exposing the fallacies of their governing principles and eroding support for their philosophies of governmental control over all aspects of our lives.
Rather than purging individuals from society I advocate purging the philosophies from society. That will remain a constant battle especially as the citizenry is enjoying the ruling elites philosophies of providing a bread and circus environment attempting to keep the sheeple from actual critical thought concerning their predicament, and especially the predicament they are leaving their kids to deal with under servitude.
Never propose adding any powers to the Presidency which you wouldn’t want in the hands of the opposition party someday.
What if some time in the future, a President Hillary Clinton or a President Barbara Boxer decided to declare pro-life demonstrators “terrorists” for allegedly “terrorizing” women seeking abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics?
Always ask yourself how you would feel if your political enemies used that power against you someday.
It’s a corollary to the old saying that what goes around, comes around.
Call me a Libertarian extremist as well Old Soldier.
And….OldFan, see RC Dean’s iron laws, one of which is; You today, Me tomorrow.
The main argument that get from this article is that Mr. McCarthy is against alleged criminals being able to challenge their detention in a court of law.
From a Man For All Seasons
——————————————————————————–
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
one hundred billion times THIS!
Agreed. The last word on the subject.
Really? You think that “the last word on the subject” is a play by Robert Bolt?
Truth is Truth, no matter what format it is in.
I’m glad to see so many opposing views to Andrew McCarthy’s “what’s wrong with giving the exec branch more power” argument.
The Man for all Seasons dialogue is perfect in many respects for exposing the fallacy that laws are only for one group of people and not for everyone.
Ron Paul and others in congress have often repeated the words of the Founders: that “rights come from God” and that government’s main job is to protect those rights. The fallacy spread among conservative circles by people like Mr. Andrew McCarthy is that the “government’s job is to make us safe.” This argument was the same argument King George the Third tried to use on the colonists and they didn’t buy it! The founders were mistrustful iof executive power that they bound the framers to amend the Constitution protecting the states from federal government encroachment. These men weren’t histerical and neither are today’s defenders of the due process provisions afforded all men on this planet with the Bill of Rights!
The states in the post 1787 convention were worried that men seeking power would use any excuse to deny him these basic civil rights. The histeria is with those people in Congress like congressman Allen West who by the way was a Tea Party favorite. He waves a copy of the Constitution around and then votes for granting the exec branch power the framers never intended that branch to have!
Amash and Smith and Ron Paul and others can see plainly the language of the NDAA (sections 1021 and 1022)is an attack at the bill of Rights. The language of the NDAA is vague and any lawyer can twist the sections mentioned to mean anything they wish it to mean and go after anyone including Americans. What would stop Obama’s team of lawyers from finding the power in those two sections of the NDAA to go after Americans selling and displaying items at say a gun show?
It’s one thing to use disengenuous rhetoric that The New American and The John Birch Society are “anti-government” when it was they who reminded conservatives and liberals that America is a republic (a rule of laws)system and it needs an informed electorate to elect men and women to government to defend it!
Paul, Amash and others understand the purpose of the republican form of government and it is a welcome sign that change is coming to Washington with the election of these men.Unfortunately along with Tea Party supported candidates like Justin Amash come the fuzzy headed type Tea Party enndorsed candidates like Allen West who need a good course in James Madison and Thomas Jefferson 101! West needs to begin with the Federalist Papers.
I won’t hold out much hope for Andy McCarthy ever coming around however.I expect that he believes that the men who signed their names to the language of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” was to all emcompassing and too generous! Too many lawyers like Andy use this silly logic that only the “garden variety” criminal should be afforded innocent until proven guilty rights. The rest can go to the dogs or to the military tribunals never to be seen or heard from again, because remember “we are at war in perpetuity” now and those kinds of pre-9-11 days are long gone when we could afford to give trials to the accused. That wrongheaded reasoning is “anti-government” and anti-American!
“Welcome to the NFL.” -= Mr.McCarthy
I don’t often disagree with Andrew McCarthy, a true patriot and a conservative leading light, but:
What makes it absurd? That it hasn’t happened yet?
Even those accused of the most heinous known crimes, if planned, attempted, or committed in the territorial United States, are supposed to face an invariant, objective judicial procedure. In the case of a planned or attempted deed, you must argue that the gravity of the deed — broadly speaking, how many people it would kill if it were brought off — can be used as a rationale for setting aside existing judicial procedures.
If we’re talking about a completed deed — the planes have hit the rebuilt Twin Towers, but this time, we’ve managed to apprehend some of those responsible while they’re still alive — then the questions would become:
– Are we already at war with some identified actor, whether state or non-state?
– If not, is a post hoc declaration of war justifiable on the evidence, as it was with Pearl Harbor?
– If so, can we establish that that actor is affiliated with the perpetrators?
Those are the legitimate routes toward treating the perps as combatants in service to an enemy power. I fail to see why they’re not adequate.
Even those accused of the most heinous known crimes, if planned, attempted, or committed in the territorial United States, are supposed to face an invariant, objective judicial procedure.
No, they are not supposed to have that right. Not morally, and not as a matter if existing US law going back at least to WWII. Enemy combatants out of uniform can be out up against a wall and shot. They have been put up against a wall and shot.
Provided they are not US citizens. US citizens get to be tried for treason instead.
I believe that according to the Laws of War, a hearing is required to determie if a prisoner is in fact a Spy or Saboteur. Once that is determined, execution is the proper remedy.
Even the Nazi Saboteurs got their day in court before they got the chair.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-saboteurs-executed-in-washington
Andrew, your example provides ample display of the fact that your argument is fatuous in the extreme.
“if al Qaeda were to dispatch the second coming of Mohamed Atta & Co. to execute another 9/11-style atrocity in the United States, but this time the FBI managed to apprehend them,”
- The means that the justice department had enough evidence to arrest them on charges. This means that they would have some kind of evidence showing them to be terrorists who planned mass murder. I don’t think you’re going to get a good bail hearing on that.
Also, by your example, THE ATTACK WAS PREVENTED.
To err on the side of our rights, be be hostile to a government demand for more power, used to be the mark of a conservative.
You are not a conservative at all, Andy. You are nothing but another neo-con fist pumper who has a fetish for increased government power. But I fear you will get quite a cheer squad around here. There are few things most pjmedia readers seem to love more than those who promote government power (all in the name of PROTECTING us, of course…)
At the risk of being revealed as “another neo-con fist pumper who has a fetish for increased government power”, may I remind you that the evidence necessary to arrest is much less than the evidence needed to convict? In this scenario, how would you go about collecting more evidence admissible in a civilian court (esp. since the process of presenting any such evidence could reveal intelligence sources and methods)?
“if al Qaeda were to dispatch the second coming of Mohamed Atta & Co. to execute another 9/11-style atrocity in the United States, but this time the FBI managed to apprehend them,”
- The means that the justice department had enough evidence to arrest them on charges.
It means nothing of the sort. It most likely means that somebody noticed that our later say Atta, like the original, was in the country illegally. “Arresting somebody on charges” of overstaying their visa is a far cry from convicting them of terrorism.
OK, so you deport him. How can a deported Atta, by definition not in the country, hijack a plane in the US?
OK, so you deport him.
That is your brilliant solution? Deport him?
Deportation is an appropriate response to illegal Mexican construction workers. (Though I suspect you don’t agree with this either) It’s not an appropriate response to Mohammad Atta.
Under the NDAA, Mohammad Atta cannot simply be deported. As a foreign criminal he is entitled to “due process”. You’d be aware of this if you had read the article you are supposedly commenting on.
You said in the above comment:
““Arresting somebody on charges” of overstaying their visa is a far cry from convicting them of terrorism.”
So I simply said deport him. To which you say I didn’t read the article? I was responding to you, genius. If you don’t have evidence of terrorism and the only thing he is picked up for is being in the country illegally, then use the process and deport him.
You followed up with “Under the NDAA, Mohammad Atta cannot simply be deported. As a foreign criminal he is entitled to “due process”.” Which tells me that in our hypothetical situation he was arrested for something BESIDES overstaying in the country, as simply overstaying your visa is NOT an act of terrorism.
You can’t seem to keep your hypothetical story together. Which is it? Was he simply arrested for overstaying his visa? Or was he arrested for attempted terrorism?
I think it is you who is not understanding the conversation thread.
So far, I seem to be wrong: people have not been in favor of what you’re posting here, Andy. That is a good thing and gives me a bit of hope for the Conservative cause.
OK here is the solution. Here is where the conflict, I think, exists. Mr. McCarthy wants to be able to detain indefinitely anyone in this country – clearly if they are not a citizen – IF they are found to be an enemy combatant and to through away the lock and key. Mr McCain punted on a question Rand Paul asked which was if it was possible under this law to same above to happen to an American Citizen. While I cannot be sure, I think McCain was saying it wouldn’t matter – an enemy combatant is an enemy combatant.
Since we are Conservatives I will not argue their point. But I will criticize our position. For there is a simple solution to all of this but you have to really want to defend out country.
If an American citizen becomes an enemy combatant, and if we are punctilious about that person’s due process rights – any why not? – then try them for treason and execute them.
If a person is a naturalized citizen and they are an enemy combatant they have clearly renounced, and doubly clearly, forfeited their citizenship. So try them for treason as well and execute them.
I know you aren’t going to like to hear this – but Conservatives won’t do it. We didn’t execute Alger Hiss and we ought to have. We did execute the Rosenberg’s, but that was only two out of two hundred (Sobell, Salant, Barr.
Why won’t Conservative’s do it? Bad answer – they are romantically geared to the domestic fight against our traitors, and not its American Sovereignty issues.
Its fine to debate Conservative versus Libertarian positions – but who defends America? Not to mention that our War on Terrorism has been a failure. We are not more secure today.
Oh, but we ARE more secure! We are secure in the knowledge that no 90 year old airline passengers will take anything on their trips with them that could possibly be of any use. We are certain we will be abused by stinking unemployables groping us at every turn. We are absolutely convinced that all of this money that’s been spent on useless police forces and their toys will not do one thing to stop any attack, unless that attack, as has become the custom lately, is organized and supplied by the FBI, so they can bust it in the nick of time and prove how useful and important they are.
Fire 2/3 of all law enforcement. Start with the TSA. Then the DEA. Then trim the FBI. They’re all underworked and overpaid. I’ll take my chances with the criminals who DON”T wear uniforms.
lawrence, I agree with your comment. Good job. If we would simply start executing known traitors and convicted terrorists, It would stop a lot of this nonsense. One thing I’ve noticed over the years violent criminals , murderers etc. don’t fear for their lives therefor they have no incentive to stop. You notice you never see a school shooter type person attack a police station where everyone is armed. They would be dead in an instant.
Just listen to the rhetoric of Michael Moore, Bill Maher, and Rosie O’Donnell, and imagine a couple more decades of this. The idea that Americans could be prosecuted under such a thing is of course ridiculous, as long as they have anglo-saxon sounding names and aren’t goofball Muslim terrorists–now. In the future, maybe public opinion will change, and if so, political dissent could become illegal, and people could be prosecuted without trial, held indefinitely.
If you’re going to tell me it hasn’t happened in thep past, then you’re going to have to in addition say it hasn’t happened *here*, *yet*. Elsewhere…well, look at South America.
Libertarian ‘extremists’, this article is laughable. The NDAA is the truly extremist policy, especially with its indefinite detention clause. Rand Paul and Adam Smith represent the very few men of honor and of truth in that otherwise putrid institution we’ve allowed to run away with our civil rights as they’ve desecrated the United States Constitution over the course of the past dozen years.
How very fitting (your surname). The true extremists who have been getting what they want by terrorizing the population through fear mongering are people like Obama, Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain. That there is a slate of ‘leaders’ representing interests, not of us citizens, but rather of special interest groups—including prominent defense contractors who stand to benefit from never-ending war abroad and repression domestically, Wall Street, and AIPAC.
The argument here seems to be that short of setting up a police state type tyranny on the American people, their defense becomes too problematic. We must submit to naked scanners and molestation of wheelchair bound 90 year olds, 6 year old children, and known members of congress, else we become globo-leftist, making the defense of of the population impossible.
Never mind the wide open borders though.
Tell me again who the leftist is in this line of reasoning? Perhaps Sharia would be an improvement?
I just overheard the President say Andrew C. McCarthy is a terrorists. Now Andy would you care to rethink your position?
I guess I have joined the cabal of the “lawyered left” and Libertarian extremists. Because I just do not trust any politician when they say “yes, this bill gives us the power to do that, but, we never would”. If you don’t want a government to have the power to secretly arrest detain and try its citizens. The first step is not to give it to them, ever, for any reason, no matter how noble the goal seems at the time, ever, for any reason, ever. Because, they will use it, they always have, they always will.
I cannot believe this author. Mr. McCarthy do you hear that sound, it is the wailing and gnashing of teeth crying out from the prisons, the gulags, the killing fields and the ovens. Begging, why, why did you let them do this to us?
Well, for ordered liberty and security of course.
Those that support the NDAA are traitors. Period. If the government can come and take you without due process simply because they use the terror word then we are indeed a banana republic and all of the remaining laws are also null and void.
It’s amazing how many people post without reading. From McCarthy’s article:
“It is true that American citizens may be detained, but – aside from the fact that this was the law before there was an NDAA – it is not true to claim that due process is denied to the handful of Americans who join our jihadist enemies’ war against us. All enemy combatants are entitled to have their detention extensively reviewed in habeas corpus proceedings – just like Padilla. Not only do they get a combatant status review proceeding in the military justice system, they may appeal their designation as enemy combatants in the lower federal courts, the federal appellate courts, and ultimately, the Supreme Court. That is to say, if the government does not satisfy the federal civilian courts that there is an adequate legal justification to hold a person under the laws of war, that person – whether or not a U.S. citizen – may not be detained as an enemy combatant. If the person is an American citizen, he must at that point be charged with a crime in the civilian system or released.”
So, at what point can the government come and take us without due process?
Extremes meet. The Left is the Right. Now Republicans have become pro-Iran.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/u-s-senate-republicans-block-new-iran-oil-sanctions-1.431148
Have to respectfully disagree with you Andy. The Constitution is pretty specific about giving permission to the military to grab people from their homes and detain them without due process of law! This kind of events occurs in totalitarian states. I have a problem with giving one person the power to determine who is the enemy of the state in a country that our Founding Father took great pain and effort to place checks and balances to avoid this kind of situation and to protect Rights of the individual. The fact that a large majority of the people believe that Obama already feels that he is above our Constitutional laws and therefore, will not comply with the ones that interfere with his agenda, justly causes great concern that this will become an abused tool to regulate/silence opposition. The language in section 1021 is vague as to define a terrorist. Is a terrorist someone who is planning or is caught in the act of committing a violent crime against the nation or is it someone that is speaking out against Obama’s political ideology or his agenda? I do not trust the man to be on the side of the law; especially after observing his DOJ for three long years. I do not believe that any one person should have untold power over 314+ million people; especially the man now residing in the White House. I know that you must be extremely frustrated by the practice of law. It is equally frustrating to all of us that justice seems to move at a turtle’s pace. Still, one does not give up liberty in the name of security, and then no one is truly safe; just less free. We live in a free society and unfortunately, it lends itself to the opportunity for bad people to do bad things. It would be a travesty to curtail the rights of the innocent and subject them to the terms of lawful tyranny for what appears to be a small percentage of the human race willing to commit unthinkable atrocities!
our Founding Father took great pain and effort to place checks and balances to avoid this kind of situation and to protect Rights of the individual.
Our Founding Fathers took great pains to protect the rights of Americans. Not of “individuals”, that libertarian fantasy.
“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.”
It doesn’t say “all colonials” or “all Americans”. Rights are Rights, and due-process is one of them.
It also says none of that in the Constitution, which is the law of the land.
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”
No person… not “No colonial”, “No American”, or “No Citizen”.
The argument here seems to be that short of setting up a police state type tyranny on the American people, their defense becomes too problematic.
Why do I get the impression that not a single one of the critics of this article have bothered to read it before venting their emotions?
What part of “the NDAA does not authorize the military to arrest American citizens inside the United States” are you nitwits having troubling understanding?
The part where it says says “the requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States”
as Amash said, the language is carefully crafted to mislead the public.
“Note that it does not preclude U.S. citizens from being detained indefinitely, without charge or trial, it simply makes such detention discretionary,”
Call me paranoid if you like, but I don’t like anyone having that power discretionary or no.
If this law merely codified existing constitutional jurisprudence as the author states, what then is the need of it? Is it not just redundancy then?
The Constitution is pretty specific about giving permission to the military to grab people from their homes and detain them without due process of law!
Sweet Jesus, what is wrong with you people? READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE COMMENTING ON IT!
Then, if you disagree with something said, quote the part in question and explain the basis of your disagreement. But stop responding to your own hysterical delusions of what was argued.
Funny because I re-read all your comments and that’s exactly what you do.
Rand has a point, and so do the people who post here that are in support of this law, yet every comment you made was nothing but childish remarks. You said in one of your posts “it seems that “thinking conservatives” are functionally illiterate.” It’s ironic that you of all people said that as all you have done in this discussion is call people stupid in the most thinly veiled of ways for daring to disagree with you.
Don’t just read the article, read the NDAA itself: “the REQUIREMENT to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States” emphasis mine.
I read this as syaing that if the person is not a citizen then they are required to detain, but if the person is a citizen they are not REQUIRED to detain which means that they can if they want.
A simple change of wording to protect American Citizens, even if it you believe it is only to ally fears, would put this issue to bed. But without that I am now a Libertarian Extremist.
McCarthy, a worthwhile fellow, if ever there was one, has the prosecutor’s disease. Not by any means as badly as Patrick Fitzgerald, but he has it, nonetheless. Hammer, meet nail.
Prosecutors today do not overly concern themselves with justice or right. It’s what they can get away with. After years in the game, they can’t see how power can be bad, and, since they intimidate people with their office all day long, they don’t find the concept all that repellent.
Mr. Adams is just as bad. The thought that prosecutors can’t just go out and intimidate people frightens him, too. They are so steeped in the slimy ooze which now masquerades as law in this country that they can’t even see the problem.
God bless them both. They’re really trying. But PJM is the home of the thinking conservatives, who rarely show knee jerk allegiance to what law has become. You’re both pretty brave guys to come here. Try to take our sometimes forceful comments to heart, and perhaps, one day, you too will really be a conservative. Of course, it WILL be a painful experience.
Good luck, Andy. We’ll hear what you have to say. You just might not be thrilled with what we have to say in return.
Based on their display in this comment thread, it seems that “thinking conservatives” are functionally illiterate.
Why don’t you make the effort to read what McCarthy wrote and offer a serious, fact-based rebuttal if you disagree with it?
We already have protections for terrorists under the Geneva Convention. That is why they are called “enemy combattants” under the rules of war. They are not common criminals like the bank robber or the stick up guy and should not be treated as such. Nothing more, nothing less.
You hang with trash, you can’t come out clean. That’s what Lucinda Williams sang, and the same applies to Moslems. If demographic Jihad takes hold here and we get a substantial minority of Moslems, the choice will be to lower the law or pay the price in other ways.
Remember that Holy Prophet Mohammed (Tim Russert’s words)sent the infamous Letter to the Kings, a vile tract filled with threats and predicting doom upon the readers. Turns our, Mo was right and all fell to what he put in place in relatively short order.
There’s always a price with them; sooner or later the decision is lower oneself nearer to their level, or pay the price. They’ve been demanding payment for 1,400 yrs now so why should anyone think it’ll be different this time.
Wishful thinking, maybe. Like Dubya and his great TV speech after 9/11.
This is sort of like the time that somebody noticed that clearing the brush around houses in California disturbed the habitat of a rare species of mouse. The “endangered species” mafia sprang into action to prevent the clearing of this brush, thereby making destruction of people’s homes by brush fires a certainty. The word got out and, amazingly, this species of mouse became extinct virtually overnight, sadly only weeks before the mandate could be put into effect.
Well, the boys (and lately girls) out in the field have also figured this out. Don’t worry there will be NO terrorist prisoners if this type of attack occurs again. And since lawyers are quite scarce on actual battlefields and/or firefights, no one will find out (although we will have to watch out for our surveillance drones).
“Out here on the Veldt, Leftenant, we use Rule .303″ – Breaker Morant
Just remember – Democrats think Tea Party members are “terrorists”.
Yes, I was about to mention that.
The power to declare an American citizen an “enemy combatant” and detain him without charging him in a civilian court of law (i.e. denying him habeas corpus) should NEVER be left up to the President alone.
There have been far too many abuses of power by various past (and present) Administrations already.
Joining the Democrats in believing the TEA Party movement is a terrorist organizations are the neocons. While they still tip toe and dance around wooing the TP they are stealthily working against the principles of small government and individual liberty which the TP represents. The neocons like McCarthy are no better than their “professed” enemies, the progressives.
Both are big government statists who desire control so that they can shape and direct society as they believe their philosopher kings so dictate.
Seems lots of folks are worried about the wording of the law. If an American citizen can be detained without trial, then all is lost and that particular law was not the cause. If the law is Unconstitutional and yet held up by the SCOTUS, then the failure is still not the law, but the American people electing one too many Presidents, who in turn nominate Justices who use penumbras rather than words to justify their position.
And no conservative should advocate for rights for non-citizens.
I’ll take McCarty’s view on the subject, this is not a time to “criminalize” terrorists.
That said, the TSA, DEA and huge chunks of Homeland security should be abolished.
I am missing something. A Military tribunal and a blind fold *is* the application of law. Its Military law applied to non citizens.
And this will not be a popular point. But the enemy is not a criminal. He is a man engage in in an act of war. He got caught behind enemy lines and he has to hang. But its not required to say he is a criminal. It is not required to try to coerce some kind of apology as is done in civilian courts.
Just shoot and be done with it.
Very glad PJM has extended an invitation to you Mr McCarthy. I found the National Review DEC link (read it completly) the best rebuttle to the follies of folks like Mr Paul and Napolitano on such issues.
Are they sincere in their belief that ‘big brother’ has been molesting their freedom from both the right and the left in the executive since 9/11 – I absoultely believe they are.
But then I have seen such conflating en mass from libertarians on immigration here up close – (particularly the linking of Cato with similar leftist orgs determined to gift open borders ‘guest worker’ agendas to american business large or small) – so highjacking ‘constitutional principles’ rhetoric to mask what is basic constituency politics is hardly novel.
With these national security issues it boils down, as Mr McCarthy amply describes, to the same old same old the left was claiming from ’04 on – that its a ‘criminal, albeit international criminal problem’, thus criminal law not law of war.
The same tactics are used regarding illegal immigration – and hardly limited to the narco war to the south in Mexico. Libertarians likewise like to use the problems corporations face retaining highly skilled highly educated workers (many who come here to gain that education) as a ruse when likewise supporting the importation of millions of uneducated illegals whose costs are absorbed locally – making a mockery of the claim they are ‘cheap’ labor.
Folks like Rand Paul and the Judge forget something fundemental, however. It’s one thing to stand on the soap box when encouraged and paid, either on the floor of the Senate or on TV.
It’s an entirely another thing to live with the consequences daily out in the audience.
Thank you again Andrew. I believe you get what they, and some here as well, entirely miss.
Looking forward to hearing from you regularly here at PJM.
Count me as a “Libertarian Extremist” too. The Founding Fathers would say “Why did we bother” to a federal government and a President with this much power over it’s own citizens. And that is exactly what it does.
As far as I am concerned, anyone, and this includes Mr. McCarthy, who resorts to name calling those with whom he whom he disagrees “extremists”, and right out of the box no less, has just pretty much lost the argument. I would not trust any president with this much power and our military has no credibility in trying anybody anymore, not after their kangaroo trials of many of their own troops and their uber kangaroo trial of LTC Terry Lakin. Mr. McCarthy, name calling like you do is for the 6th grade.
Apparently some consider an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution as frivolous.
I think that OBL is laughing his ass off in hell right now. Mr. McCarthy, tell us, do you also support TSA?
i think some people here need to watch “the pathway to 9/11” and discover how granting a suspected terrorist civilian legal rights may have prevented law enforcement from discovering the 9/11 terror plot.
Sure, law enforcement is easier in a totalitarian state. That doesn’t mean I want to live in one.
Got news for you — Obamacare is a faster road and surer road to totalitarianism than the NDAA.
So. . . if you oppose NDAA then you support Obamacare and if Hillary floats like a duck, she’s made of wood. . .
I like to read Andrew but I’m also very skeptical of the type of Conservative that unflinchingly supports anything the Imperial Judiciary and the Imperial Presidency exalts. Personally I want to see every law in this country investigated and justified before even 1 more law is laid on top of the citizen by all 3 bankrupted branches of US Gov!
So, two articles so far; China shouldn’t be regarded as our enemy and a totalitarian US government is our friend. . . got it.
I’m so distressed to see this decidedly unconservative statism in PJmedia, and heartened at the pushback here in the comments.
It’s been truly said that neocons are just another flavor of progressive.
It’s been truly said that most everyone using the term “neocon” is a fool and ignoramous.
Nice ad-homonym, proves HappyAcres point about neo-cons = progs to a “T”, well done.
Doug Feith is a “neocon”. Doug Feith is the man Tommy Franks called the dumbest f ing man on the planet.
The only people who react negatively to the term neocons are the neocons themselves. They justify empire building abroad and tight control over the citizens by invoking “national security” when it’s just about holding the reins as real America gallops toward oblivion.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of their propaganda is the fact that like their “adversaries,” the progressives, who have duped useful tools on the left into buying their social justice crap as they seek to control society, the neocons have duped useful tools on the right into believing that state control by them is actually liberty and a better life under tyranny from the right as compared to tyranny by the left.
Many good people who believe themselves to be conservatives have been duped into following a course leading away from the Constitution and the ultimate destruction of the American dream and into a neoconservative wet dream of societal control. The only thing “conservative” about neocons is their weak claim to the name based on deception.
Dear Friend of Liberty:
You may remember all the work we did last December to try to stop the
passage of the National Defense Authorization Act because of
provisions it contained which allowed for the indefinite detention of
US citizens by the military in violation of due process and posse
comitatus. Supporters of that act tried to hide the offending parts of
the bill by changing the section numbers and they denied the intent
and the significance of the wording of the problem sections, and they
managed to pass it through the House and Senate despite the heroic
efforts of leaders like Rep. Justin Amash and Sen. Rand Paul.
Today we have a rare second chance to fix that mistake.
The proof that we were right about the NDAA became conclusive this
week. The Federal District Court in New York granted a temporary
injunction against the use of the provisions in the bill which allow
for indefinite military detention. Apparently the legal experts on the
federal bench read the language the same way that we and dozens of
pro-liberty groups did. The problem is that the injunction is only
temporary.
The permanent solution to this problem is the Smith-Amash amendment
(HR4192)
which is being debated in the House right now. It will remove the
sections from the bill which allow indefinite military detention of
our citizens and guarantee the right to a trial and due process.
It’s buried among other amendments to the NDAA, some of which make a
pretense of fixing this problem, but none of them actually remove
military detention from the bill except the Smith-Amash amendment.
The challenge here is that the vote on the Smith-Amash amendment will
take place some time Friday, so we need to take action right now. Use
our tool to email your Congressman and tell them you want them to
stand up for liberty and the Constitution and pass the only amendment
which genuinely fixes the problems with the NDAA. No later than Friday
morning, please come to our site and use our handy tool to email your
Congressman and urge them to support the Smith-Amash bill.
TAKE ACTION NOW
I can almost hear Mr. McCarthy calling you an extremist right now.
Terrorists captured making war on the United States are not properly subject to the civilian justice system. Rather, they are more closely analogous to prisoners of war — who are neither tried in any court nor held for a definite term, but who are instead held for the duration of the conflict until hostilities cease. When the Islamo-fascists quit making war on America, then their brethren can be set free — but not until.
Not if they aren’t in proper uniform, shoot ‘em after a brief, enthusiastic interview.
This speaks to a different set of values. Andrew McCarthy and SteveM value the lives of a few Americans here and there (out of a nation of over 300 million) over the preservation of our constitutional system. Terrorists are not enemy combatants anymore than someone who shoots up a public school or mall with an AR15 or shotgun is an “enemy combatant.” They are murderers and what they do is not war anymore than what the columbine killers or the VA Tech shooter did is an act of war. War is fought between standing armies, not handfuls of men and women here and there with a violent vendetta.
What an incredibly stupid position. It’s a perfect example of neoconservative, lock-stepped love of a carefully constructed and controlled society.
It further exemplifies the incestuous relationship between neocons and progressives — both want to control society in accordance to their respective “intellectual giants,” or put another way, their philosopher kings. Both assume that the poor benighted individual is incapable of governing their own live. They only differ in some of the minor details, but are both just the embodiment of the new American national bird — the vulture; with neocons like McCarthy are the right wing of the bird, while the Obamessiah and those of his ilk are the left wing. Both are destroying the remaining carcass of our once powerful nation in their lust to control us.
America, to rebuild to a strong prosperous nation, to once again achieve true American exceptionalism, needs to purge the wannabe controllers, whether progressive or neoconservative, from our government specifically, our society in general.
Both insidious philosophies want absolute control (that’s why McCarthy and other neocons want to be able to declare anybody a potential enemy of the state and lock them away) over all aspects of our lives.
When the government’s boot is on your neck, whether it is a right or left boot is of no consequence. You are no longer a citizen, but a lowly subject of the kingdom.
That’s right. Well said.
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
-Thomas Paine
I’m not commenting on the substance of the article, I just want to point how TIRED I am of the ignorant, throwing around of the term “neo – con” like it is some sort of argument stopping pejorative. Just cut it out, we can do so much better than the lazy “let’s just call them a name that means nothing to them” attitude. I get so weary of the one – true – conservative mindset of “purging both… progressives and neo – conservatives”, the neo – conservatives are actually on your side. But geez I sound angrier than I am, I just think the phrase neo – con is dumb. It means nothing and in my opinion it isn’t intended to mean anything other than a expression of an individuals general attitude.
Unfortunately, the attitude holding neoconservatives as a myth is what has allowed that philosophy to corrupt the true conservative philosophy. There are many studies published exploring and comparing neoconservatism with conservatism. Some of them are proudly written by neoconservatives. You can find them in depths ranging from simple overviews to academic studies done by both neoconservatives and non-neocons.
Rather then dismiss neoconservatism because you don’t understand it, I suggest you pursue some study of the subject. You may even find yourself to be a proud neoconservative who can then defend the philosophy.
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Thank God for people like Amash & Paul,
Rand Paul’s speech today
http://youtu.be/GvuhVu0z9p4