Do you believe in the Constitution of the United States? Do you believe in the constitution and when the President acts contrary to that constitution he should be made to pay? Yes or No?
I believe the Constitution has major flaws, but I also believe it should be upheld because it is one of the few impediments stopping the natural progression (that all governments have) towards tyranny.
Well I put this in there because a lot of people seem to argue that it is ok to wiretap citizens if our national security is at stake. However this is a quote from the constitution. There is nothing in the constitution that makes the president PLEDGE to defend our national security. But the constitution does make the president pledge to uphold and defend the constitution. That is the one and ony thing that the constitution mandates the president must pledge to.
Do I believe in the US Constitution? Yes Do I believe that when a President violates the Constitution, he should be held accountable? Yes "Made to pay" is a bad choice of terms, IMHO.
while i dont think the constitution is immaculate, i do believe that if we as a people give it the right to govern us, then we should uphold it at all times...
After 222+ years, the Constitution is as symbolic as the Queen of England. Some of its original meaning has been stripped away or judicially interpreted into something else. In the upcoming digital age, rights will be even more hazy and scetchy to the parchment.... leaving politicians and judges to write the laws that matter the most. I'd support a referendum to scrap the thing because it'll force people to see whether privacy issues, criminal rights such as due process, gun control, really matter to them. It'd cost a lot and fail, but it'd sure wake up the voters.
they can't, but they can "interpret" what the 2nd admendment was suppose to say according to liberalistic thought. The everyday common man is "the people:", yet you have hedonistic Shumers, Feinsteins, Clintons, and Kennedys who care not about the true nature of your bill of rights, but they will hark on wiretaps when there is no specificity on this as to intrusion of non-potential threats in the sanctity of national security. If national security meant nothing, then why we don't march to area 51, and evoke freedom of the press to report everything that occurs on land or air. We hope we can trust the government enough to identify threats, and if you don't then the 2nd admendment becomes more symbolic ever more...
The preamble to the Constitution says: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Since one of the purposes of the Constitution is "to provide for the common defense", one cannot defend the Constitution without providing for the common defense.
I'm a lot more worried about the slippery slope of gay marriage than that of normalizing illegal domestic wiretapping.
sadly, i think this is true, as well. what is "constitutional" changes such that there is no standard. the words are twisted to mean whatever is expedient at the time.
Could you link to or otherwise highlight the part of the Constitution that addresses, abortion, stem cells, music piracy, nuclear weapons, affirmaitve action, teflon coated bullets, p*rnography, sexual orientation, automobiles, airplanes, the Internet, penicillan, peanut butter, Walmart, alternative minimum tax, drilling in ANWR and so on... The Constitution is not only open to interpretation it is meant to be interepretted to deal with all sorts of things that didn't exist at the time of the writing or could've been imagined. If it hadn't been meant to be so then there wouldn't have been a USSC to interpret the Constitution.
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/doj122205.pdf The above document demonstrates how the President has acted in faithfully keeping with the constitution... Dare I say,...CASE CLOSED!
Don't you have it backwords. If you don't trust the government then wouldn't the 2nd Ammendment be less symbolic?
Its interesting but as it is produced by the DOJ and the executive branch it doesn't close the case because of course they're going to say it is right. Even reading through it there are a few key issues that are skirted. First as noted in other threads nowhere in Article II of the Constitution does it grant the President dictatorial powers "all necessary authority" as Commander in Chief. The seperation of powers exist even in wartime and in previous wars the actions of the Executive branch were still subject to review by the Judicial Branch, oversight and authorization by the Congress. In the letter from DOJ they state that in the case of foreign invasion that the President may respond with force without Congressional authorization or judicial review. In terms of clear and present danger yes this is true and the War Powers Act allow the President to commit troops for something like 50 days before Congressional Authorization is needed but the issue at hand isn't repellign a clear and present danger but essentially fishing expeditions conducted to find danger. Not a bad thing but clearly different than the intent of the act. The problem with the situation now is that this has been going on for almost 5 years and the President's argument is for it to go indefinetly. Clearly a violation of both the letter and spirit of the War Powers Act. The DOJ letter states that the AUMF directs the president to use "All necessary and appropiate force" but again the AUMF doesn't give the president to act as dictator and supercede the Constitution because not even Congress can grant that power. The problem with this is what is meant by the terminology because the broadest interpretation would essentially mean do whatever he feels like. IE If the President chose to confiscate all privately held firearms then he could. Powers like that though have never been granted to any President. The argument that the USSC has allowed the government to conduct warrantless searches regarding foreign threats is an interesting one but hard to evaluate since they're citing sealed court cases but even in their own citation they cite that the USSC has said warrants are needed regarding domestic threats. The problem with the situation here is that warrantless wiretaps have been conducted on both foreign and domestic targets. A US citizen in the US is by definition "domestic" even if they are in league with foreigners. Another problem with this argument is that we know for a fact that FISA courts were created to deal with this very situation but the DOJ's argument is essentially that the FISA courts aren't needed. That's a hard argument to swallow considering that up until now even the President has been emphasizing the need and importance of the FISA courts. The argument regarding reasonableness is a good argument but one that is also limited. The use of terms like "reasonable" in the Constitution are relative terms like "Cruel and Unusual" and are very open to interpretation. The very fact that warrants are granted by courts implies that courts and not the Executive who decides what "reasonable" is. Obviously the Executive will feel that what they are doing is reasonable just as they might feel that drawing and quartering someone isn't cruel or unusual but that isn't their call. Finally there is one legal error that I caught in the letter. They cite the case of Youngstown Steel and Tube vs. Sawyer as supporting that in time of war the President's power is at a maximum. The problem is that the opinion of that case essentially reinforces that there are limits to the President's power in wartime and Truman's position was defeated. So the letter from the DOJ is very compelling and makes a good argument its not one that is foolproof.
