This more or less sums up my thoughts as well. I wouldn't impeach Obama for it. To be fair, lest we get ahead of ourselves, he says impeachment is a possibility. Not "he is moving to impeach Obama." I particularly agree with this comment: "this is obviously a step in the wrong direction". This does have certain implications for the future. It's simply a question of how concerned should we be. Certainly not enough to impeach anyone, I say. One benefit of Ron Paul is that his staunch consistency does stir the pot and invite national self-examination. Sorry to inject positivity into all of this.
some president should be impeached for killing 10000 Iraqi civilians. not the one who killed a terrorist.
On the surface this is a true comparison, however this is classic, silly, fallacious political thinking. We need not consider how bad past presidents were when holding our current president to constitutional standards. Again, I don't favor impeaching Obama.
I see Ron Paul's point and where he's coming from but wtf is he smoking? This is coming from a huge Paul supporter too.
I don't think this has anything at all to do with your personal definition of "American", but that's what everyone seems to think it is. This has everything to do with the US government's basic commitment to people once they become US citizens. What is that basic commitment? Believeing that due process wasn't followed doesn't mean you don't want to get the terrorist.
sorry new yorker, that was rand paul - the kentucky mention gave it away, but i looked it up for confirmation. and the key word there is "foreign" terrorist as opposed to "american citizen". that is the entire point of what ron paul is saying. http://www.dailypaul.com/115368/rand-paul-try-convict-and-lock-up-terrorists-in-guantanamo if you think he has a point about assassination of u.s. citizens then why are you criticizing him over his comments - is this just another new yorker social experiment?
Sweet Lou, forget for a moment you wrongly attributed a quote to Ron Paul, but come on man...I know you are smart enough to realize the key difference between a foreign terrorist and a US citizen. Also, speaking of hypocrisy, Obama and Holder have argued that terrorists who are foreign born actually do have Constitutional rights. They've argued that terrorism is a "law enforcement issue" and not a war issue which is why they need to be tried by civilian courts. Strange then that they believe an American citizen doesn't qualify for the same protections.
Exactly. Just like Bush got impeached for his targeted killing of an American citizen without due process rights being afforded. Just like that...
Impeachment isn't going to go anywhere because of political reasons which is why it is laughable that people in the other thread offered it up as an effective "check and balance" against a President violating the Constitutional rights of an American citizen. Democrats/Republicans are not going to boot out their own party member and Republicans don't have the stones to every speak the truth about anything relating to terrorism/national security because their base is so stupid about the issue that they are hamstrung. This is why no serious Republican presidential candidate can say anything to dispute the idea that "Muslims attacked us because they hate our freedoms!!!1!"
Just a minor point. Obama and Holder did not argue that terrorism wasn't a military issue, just that law enforcement had it's place in fighting terrorism and it was wrong to out them. Obama has always said that he would use the military to combat terrorism.
i thought it was the minutemen? these minutemen... not these minutemen... and i think a case could me made for impeaching the last 5 presidents. as far as impeaching obama, id go after him for warrantless wiretapping, going to war w/out congressional approval and his TSA sexually molesting innocent americans before this.
It's laughable, but there are only 4 checks available to us: (1) impeachment (that's not going to go anywhere), (2) civil rights lawsuit (Awlaki's father was already ruled to not have standing, and the govt would claim confidentiality anyway, so that's not going anywhere), and (3) elections (but if Obama is voted out, it won't be over Awlaki; and the precedent will stand regardless) (4) revolution (lol) So, while I still don't think there was a Constitutional violation here (though I admit it's gray), I agree that our protections from executive power are flimsy at best. Can you think of a check that would work? I think the courts need to get rid of this Presidential confidentiality business so that abuses of power can be tried. That seems like a long-shot. QFT.
So if we decide to call you a terrorist, would you like your day in court like any other American would reasonably expect, or should we just have you killed without any kind of balanced examination of the facts? I honestly think they knew what they were doing and that the dude was a badie. But the precedent -- that we can just kill one of our citizens without any due process -- is incredibly chilling.
This is the point. I am not shedding any years for the man in Yemen. I do not doubt that he is guilty any more than I doubt that Timothy McVeigh was guilty. Someday maybe you and I will grow up B-Bob and realize that we are not a democracy, we are a Republic and therefore have no protection against executive power except the vote!
