Elllson Compares 9-11 to Reichstag Fire

[Annie]

The president has never had that right. Each state's governor presides over that authority, until a tiny little provision in the John Warner Act of 2007, which i'm sure we all know most lawmakers didn't bother to proofread, changed that.



On what? It's very definition. When you step into this, or many other countries, whether you are illegal or not, you are protected under the Writ of Habeas Corpus. It is not only a US Citizen's right, its a HUMAN right in this country. By definition 'human' right cannot be limited to a country.

You say someone is a terrorist? Then charge him with something and let him have access to a lawyer, and Due Process. To not do so, and blindly just accept that the government is legit and truthful about their accusation, is Treason.

Most of the public doesn't really care much farther than that accusation. We've all been so programmed to accept terrorism and it's imminence, that we couldn't care less about the legal rights of someone who is accused, as long as they are accused of "terrorism".

I've seen very vague proof, if any - in many cases, that most people accused by the administration of terrorism are actually even viable terrorist threats to begin with.

What Bush has effectively done is set the table to declare federal martial law in the event that the public FINALLY becomes outraged enough to hit the streets in mass protest of the administration's actions.

We're one big event away from Nazi US.

I'm sure the establishment is counting on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" and "America's Got Talent" to keep the public's outrage sequestered.

I see many words, no links.

 

[Paulie]

I don't need to give you links you wouldn't trust anyway.

look at wikipedia, for starters. Should i hold your hand and read it to you, as well?

a human right in this country means that any human that sets foot on this soil is protected by it.

It's the job of the fucking beaurocracies that oversee people entering the country to make sure those people aren't a threat.

They haven't been doing a very good job...and a few peoples' "guts" seem to be telling them that as well.

If another terrorist attack happens on our soil, it's the sole responsibility of whoever left a key under the mat for them, and whoever argued that we should do so. We already know their intentions, and yet we are still utilizing more resources in countries that don't even have the logistical capability of executing an attack on our soil.

If they're sending them over here, then the fucking INS, Border Patrol, Port Authority, Homeland Security, all the fucking bureaus that our tax dollars are supposedly going to, better be on their fucking game...that's all i'm saying.

 

[Annie]

I don't need to give you links you wouldn't trust anyway.

look at wikipedia, for starters. Should i hold your hand and read it to you, as well?

a human right in this country means that any human that sets foot on this soil is protected by it.

It's the job of the fucking beaurocracies that oversee people entering the country to make sure those people aren't a threat.

They haven't been doing a very good job...and a few peoples' "guts" seem to be telling them that as well.

Lots of 'attack words', no substance.

Ellison apology:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251958,00.html

Whoops! Wrong bad.

correct current demand:

http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/5100_52.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Jul17/0,4670,CongressmanNaziComparison,00.html

Lawmaker Admits Error in Nazi Reference

Tuesday, July 17, 2007
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON —
The nation's first Muslim congressman said Tuesday that he erred in comparing the Bush administration's response to Sept. 11 to an event that led to Adolf Hitler's consolidation of power in Nazi Germany.

At an appearance before a group of atheists in Minnesota on July 8, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., called Sept. 11 "the juggernaut" that led to war, tolerating torture and increased discrimination against religious minorities.

"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," he said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."

Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag, the German parliament building, to suspend constitutional liberties.

"In hindsight, I wouldn't have used that reference point," Ellison told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday. "It was probably inappropriate to use that example, because it's a unique historical event, without really any clear parallels."

Ellison said he remains harshly critical of the Bush administration.

"I believe that they have exploited the fears that grew from 9/11, in order to pass legislation and even start wars they could have never gotten away with but for that tragedy," he said.

Ellison said he had gotten a call Tuesday afternoon from the Anti-Defamation League, an international group that opposes anti-Semitism, regarding the Hitler comparison.

"They told me they understood the point I was trying to make, but they didn't think it was the right way to use that historical example, because they thought any sort of comparison to the modern world we live in in some way diminishes the horror of the Nazi era," Ellison said. "I told them I feel they're right."
...

Note he manages to blame ADL for the problem.

 

[Paulie]

You know what...this is my fault.

I got off topic, and i shouldn't have.

You are still on the Ellison thing, and i've already moved on from that microcosm of current events...apparently you haven't.

If you would like to debate this in a different (new) thread, i'm all ears. But Ellison is not the be-all-end-all of the entire discussion about Bush's comparability to Hitler.

 

[Annie]

You know what...this is my fault.

I got off topic, and i shouldn't have.

You are still on the Ellison thing, and i've already moved on from that microcosm of current events...apparently you haven't.

If you would like to debate this in a different (new) thread, i'm all ears. But Ellison is not the be-all-end-all of the entire discussion about Bush's comparability to Hitler.

Well it was the header and all, perhaps you should start a new thread?

 

[Paulie]

Well it was the header and all, perhaps you should start a new thread?

Perhaps you should. I'm not that enthusiastic about it at this minute.

 

[Annie]

Perhaps you should. I'm not that enthusiastic about it at this minute.

It was you that derailed the topic. I stayed on.

 

[Paulie]

It was you that derailed the topic. I stayed on.

And then i conceded my mistake. I will say however that you debated me on a broad topic by using an acute aspect. Ellson Schmelson.

As far as us agreeing on that topic you repped me for, that's why i am conservative.

It also happens to be Ron's finest posititon. Let the state's decide, not the Feds. Not just with abortion though...with ANYTHING.

 

[Paulie]

This should help clear things up a bit on the whole "Bush is like Hitler" argument.

(snip)

A Democratic Dictatorship
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Amidst all the discussion and debate about whether President Bush has violated the law by ordering the National Security Agency (NSA) to record telephone conversations, we must not overlook an important fact: the United States is now traveling in uncharted waters, ones in which the ruler of the nation is exercising omnipotent power over the American people. A more appropriate word would be one that offends some Americans when it is applied to their system of government: dictatorship. But as uncomfortable as that term might make Americans, the fact is that ever since 9/11 Americans have been living under dictatorial rule.

What is a dictator? A dictator is a ruler whose powers are omnipotent, that is, unconstrained by external or superior law. A dictator has the power to take whatever actions he wants without concerning himself about whether they are legal. Anything the dictator does is legal because he is the law.

It wasn’t always that way in the United States. When the Constitution was enacted, its goal was not only to call the federal government into existence but also to ensure that it would not be headed by a dictator. To accomplish that, the Framers inserted language expressly limiting the president to a few well-defined powers. If a power wasn’t enumerated, the president could not legally exercise it. The Constitution was the higher law that governed the actions of all federal officials.

What if the president intentionally violated those restrictions? The Constitution provided two remedies. First, the judicial branch could declare the president’s acts to be in violation of the Constitution and order him to comply with its judgment. As the Supreme Court held in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison, the judicial branch’s determination of constitutionality trumped the president’s opinion of constitutionality.

Second, the Constitution gave the legislative branch of government – the Congress – the power to impeach the president and remove him from office.

What many Americans fail to understand is that it is entirely possible to have democracy and dictatorship at the same time. Democracy entails the use of elections to place people into positions of power. Dictatorship entails the extent of the powers that the ruler is able to exercise after he assumes office.

Therefore, it is entirely possible to have a democratically elected dictator – a person who has been duly elected to office who exercises dictatorial powers. This is exactly the case of George W. Bush.

Some Americans become offended whenever critics bring up the name of Adolf Hitler in discussing the dictatorial powers that President Bush is now exercising. They miss the point. When critics bring up Hitler’s name in the context of Bush’s exercise of dictatorial powers, they’re not suggesting that Bush and Hitler are somehow equivalent evils or that Bush has committed the horrors that Hitler committed.

What they’re instead saying is that Hitler sets a good benchmark for what dictatorship involves. Therefore, he provides a good means by which to measure the powers being exercised by another ruler. If George W. Bush or any other American president exercises the same types of omnipotent powers that Hitler exercised, that should serve as a powerful wake-up call for the American people, who have long wondered how the German people could have allowed Hitler to become a dictator (see my article “How Hitler Became a Dictator”).

Therefore, the issue is not whether Bush is a “good” man, as many of his supporters contend. The issue is whether this “good” man has assumed dictatorial powers in the wake of 9/11. The issue also is whether any man, good or evil, should ever be given dictatorial powers.

In fact, Vice President Cheney was making much the same point when he recently said that Venezuela’s democratically elected president, Hugo Chavez, was comparable to Hitler. Cheney wasn’t suggesting that Chavez had instituted concentration camps in which millions were being killed. What he was saying was that Chavez, albeit democratically elected, was “consolidating power.”

The question that the American people must ask is: Has President Bush been doing the same thing – “consolidating power” – ever since 9/11, especially as part of his “war on terrorism” and his invasion of Iraq? Everyone would have to concede that he has.

Dictatorial powers

Consider the specific powers the president is claiming:

1. The power to order the Pentagon to take any American anywhere in the world, including here in the United States, into custody and punish him, even execute him, without according him the protections of the Bill of Rights. Under this power, all the Pentagon has to do is place a document in front of the president labeling any particular American a “terrorist,” and once the president signs it the Pentagon has the omnipotent power to punish the “terrorist.”

Does the person who is labeled a “terrorist” have the right to appeal such a determination? No. Even if the designated terrorist is a newspaper editor, a prominent celebrity, or a well-known anti-war critic, the president’s determination is final. Keep in mind that, according to the president and the Pentagon, we are at war and neither the courts nor the Congress should be permitted to interfere with the military decisions made by the Pentagon and the commander in chief.

Are there any restraints on the particular type of punishment that the military metes out to a designated terrorist? No. Since the president and the Pentagon consider a terrorist to be an illegal enemy combatant, they refuse to be bound by the Geneva Convention, which provides long-established protections for prisoners of war. No one needs to be reminded of how U.S. military personnel have subjected the “terrorists” held in U.S. facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere to torture, sex abuse, rape, and murder. While Americans have not been subjected to the same mistreatment, that is simply owing to a discretionary decision by the president and the Pentagon; it could be changed at any time.

2. The power to record telephone conversations of the American people without first securing a search warrant from a magistrate in the judicial branch, as the Bill of Rights requires. In fact, under the president’s rationale, there’s nothing to prevent him from conducting any warrantless searches as long as they are part of the “war on terrorism.”

3. The power to send the entire nation into war against a foreign nation without a declaration of war from Congress, despite the fact that the Constitution expressly delegates that power to Congress, not the president.

No one can deny that those three powers are dictatorial in nature. But it’s important that they be considered in the context of the president’s own justifications for exercising such powers. It is those justifications that have sent America sailing into the uncharted waters of dictatorial rule.

The congressional justification

The president cites two primary justifications for exercising omnipotent power, which he interweaves. First, he says that Congress authorized him to take whatever measures he deemed necessary to seek out and arrest or destroy the terrorists who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Second, he says that since we are now at war – the “war on terrorism” – he is able to exercise omnipotent powers as the nation’s military commander in chief.

Bush’s first justification involves the congressional resolution that was enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which authorized him to use force against those who had conspired to carry out the attacks.

Ironically, Bush’s justification is quite similar to the one that Hitler used to justify his dictatorial powers. After the terrorist attack on the German parliament building, Hitler went to his legislature and argued for a temporary suspension of civil liberties. After heated discussion and debate, including Hitler’s suggestion that such legislation was necessary to protect the freedom of the German people, the necessary number of votes for passage was finally secured. The law granting dictatorial powers to Hitler became known as the “Enabling Act.”

How is this different, in principle, from Bush’s claim that the authorization-of-force resolution that Congress enacted immediately after 9/11 gave him omnipotent powers to deal with the “terrorists”?

There are two major problems with Bush’s reasoning. One is that, unlike Germany’s Enabling Act, which expressly suspended civil liberties, the resolution enacted by Congress did not do any such thing. Yet Bush is effectively interpreting it to mean that Congress granted him what the German Enabling Act granted Hitler – the power to override constitutional protections of civil liberties.

More important, however, is the fact that, under the U.S. Constitution, Congress is not empowered to pass laws that nullify the protections and guarantees in the Constitution. The only way that any provision in the document can be nullified is through constitutional amendment. A statutory attempt to nullify jury trials, search warrant requirements, due process of law, and right to counsel has no legal effect whatsoever.
The commander in chief justification

Bush’s other justification for the assumption and exercise of omnipotent powers is his role as commander in chief of the armed forces during a time of war. What war? The “war on terrorism,” which, again ironically, was the same type of war that Hitler declared after terrorists struck the Reichstag with a firebomb.

There is one crucial difference between Hitler’s claim of power and Bush’s claim of power, however. The Enabling Act was only a temporary grant of powers. Each time it was set to expire, Hitler would duly return to the Reichstag and secure legislation “temporarily” extending it.

Bush’s rationale for his omnipotent powers, on the other hand, is that, as the nation’s military commander in chief in the “war on terrorism,” his omnipotent powers will last as long as the war continues. Of course, since it is impossible to know with any degree of certainty when the last terrorist is exterminated or neutralized, that means that for all practical purposes the “war on terrorism” is perpetual, which means that Bush’s powers are perpetual as well (and will as well be held by his democratically elected successor in 2009).

There is no merit whatsoever, however, to Bush’s argument that the Constitution grants omnipotent powers to a president when he puts on the helmet of a military commander in chief. In fact, there is no suggestion whatsoever in the Constitution that war gives rise to the exercise of any powers that nullify any of the other restrictions on power in the Constitution, especially in the Bill of Rights.

What Bush is relying on is the old European notion of imperial dictatorial powers that were claimed by a ruler when he led his military forces into war against another nation. ....

 

[Annie]

Right. With all the noise of 'Impeach Bush', uh huh. Lots more if you search. I'm not too afraid of 'dictatorship.'

 

[Paulie]

I'm not too afraid of 'dictatorship.'

Yet you have an image of the Constitution as your avatar...

 

[Annie]

Yet you have an image of the Constitution as your avatar...

LOL! Diversion as not seen before. Better a Koran?