Law vs Lives

[Wiseacre]

There's a thread in the Politics forum about closing Gitmo and releasing the detainees. For this issue and related ones, does the question come down to following the law or risking lives?

Laws exist to protect the citizenry; that is their purpose. No right is more important than the right to life, how can a responsible government allow an avowed terrorist to be freed to continue to do murder?

No society has 100% civil rights, there must be limits for the common good. Free speech is a great thing, but you can't go into a crowded theater and holler "FIRE"!". And so it is that an individual's right to due process can and should be limited if there is a reasonable chance that the person may engage in harmful activities. It is that reasoning that allows us to imprison enemy combatants in a declared war. The same reasoning should apply to enemy combatants in an undeclared war, which describes the Gitmo detainees.

It may be that we have no good alternatives here. It's true that the right to due process should not be abridged, whther the accused is an American citizen or not. But it is also true that lives are worth more than laws; laws exist to protect lives, not the other way around.

 

[justathought]

Lives are worth more than laws you say? That sounds like the motto of drug dealers I used to know in explaining their behavior when it comes to feeding their children.

 

[Wiseacre]

Lives are worth more than laws you say? That sounds like the motto of drug dealers I used to know in explaining their behavior when it come to feeding their children.

C'mon dude, there's a big difference between upholding the law for drug dealers and keeping terrorists in Gitmo without a trial.

 

[HUGGY]

Lives are worth more than laws you say? That sounds like the motto of drug dealers I used to know in explaining their behavior when it come to feeding their children.

C'mon dude, there's a big difference between upholding the law for drug dealers and keeping terrorists in Gitmo without a trial.

Fear mongering is so Bush era Sport. Lots of things kill people. You should be more concerned with automobiles and dangerous conditions in the home... or lightning...,accidental drowning,.....forgetting to take prescribed meds..or drug and alcohol abuse.

Now that it is darn near impossible to hyjack an airplane and we know that the real reason the 9/11 guys succeded was ineptitude on the part of the FBI, CIA and the State department... you should try to scare everyone with something more practical....like drunk drivers....which have killed a couple hundred thousand Americans since 9/11..I mean if you are really concerned about Americans un-neccessarily dying violent deaths.

 

[Wiseacre]

So it's fearmongering to be concerned over terrorist attempts to kill hundreds or thousands of innocent Americans? I see no reason to increase the odds any, but that's just my opinion.

Maybe you should address the central question of the thread: laws are created by a society to protect it's citizens. Some limits may need to be in place for security reasons. If the tradeoff is denying a person due process vs a bunch of dead Americans, I'd rather save lives.

 

[justathought]

This isn't minority report with Tom Cruise. If there is no evidence, then a prisoner of war goes home when the war is over. Did the vietnemese release our soldiers at the end of the war or did they go through due process?

 

[justathought]

Obviously if it's a 911 conspirator, it is different than a foot soldier of Fallujah.

 

[HUGGY]

So it's fearmongering to be concerned over terrorist attempts to kill hundreds or thousands of innocent Americans? I see no reason to increase the odds any, but that's just my opinion.

Maybe you should address the central question of the thread: laws are created by a society to protect it's citizens. Some limits may need to be in place for security reasons. If the tradeoff is denying a person due process vs a bunch of dead Americans, I'd rather save lives.

In a word...yes.

Our maximum security prisons located all over the continental U S are totally capable of holding dangerous people. I for one had had enough fear mongering by 10/11. But that's just me. There will always be reasons for the frightened among our population to be persuaded to throw away rights for perceived safety.

Benjamin Franklin had cowardly punks like D*ick Cheney in mind when he
said that those who trade liberty for SAFETY deserve neither liberty nor safety

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Laws exist to protect the citizenry; that is their purpose. No right is more important than the right to life, how can a responsible government allow an avowed terrorist to be freed to continue to do murder?

A responsible government would have tried suspected terrorists timely, in Federal court. An irresponsible government forfeits the authority to hold detainees indefinitely – if released and terrorist do harm again, it’s the fault of the irresponsible government, not the terrorists.

It may be that we have no good alternatives here. It's true that the right to due process should not be abridged, whther the accused is an American citizen or not. But it is also true that lives are worth more than laws; laws exist to protect lives, not the other way around.

The concern for due process and the rule of law has noting to do with those accused, it is to benefit law-abiding citizens and ensure their civil liberties. Strict adherence to due process and the rule of law gives society the moral authority to punish those convicted of committing a crime, to take away their freedom, or even to take away their lives.

 

[Care4all]

So it's fearmongering to be concerned over terrorist attempts to kill hundreds or thousands of innocent Americans? I see no reason to increase the odds any, but that's just my opinion.

Maybe you should address the central question of the thread: laws are created by a society to protect it's citizens. Some limits may need to be in place for security reasons. If the tradeoff is denying a person due process vs a bunch of dead Americans, I'd rather save lives.

we are a nation of laws....a nation built on law....not a nation of lives.

if they are as dangerous and as guilty AS CLAIMED, then what's the problem with trying them for their crimes? What have I missed?

 

[Care4all]

one reason for our Revolution was that the King was arresting and imprisoning Americans here, without cause or trial....that was labeled tyranny.....and NOW you are asking us to be just like the king of england???

 

[eots]

There's a thread in the Politics forum about closing Gitmo and releasing the detainees. For this issue and related ones, does the question come down to following the law or risking lives?

Laws exist to protect the citizenry; that is their purpose. No right is more important than the right to life, how can a responsible government allow an avowed terrorist to be freed to continue to do murder?

you mean an alleged avowed terrorist as he has been denied all proper legal rights to a defence

No society has 100% civil rights, there must be limits for the common good. Free speech is a great thing, but you can't go into a crowded theater and holler "FIRE"!".

well you can but there are laws under which you can be charged and liabilty involved depending on the results of your actions proven in a court of law

And so it is that an individual's right to due process can and should be limited if there is a reasonable chance that the person may engage in harmful activities.

oh really comrade...so for how long have you been an enemy of the Constitution ??

It is that reasoning that allows us to imprison enemy combatants in a declared war. The same reasoning should apply to enemy combatants in an undeclared war, which describes the Gitmo detainees.

well for party members skilled in double think... perhaps it does

It may be that we have no good alternatives here. It's true that the right to due process should not be abridged, whther the accused is an American citizen or not. But it is also true that lives are worth more than laws; laws exist to protect lives, not the other way around.

laws exist to deter, punish and hopefully rehabilitate those that have been found guilty of violating anthers person or property in a court of law

 

[Bfgrn]

So it's fearmongering to be concerned over terrorist attempts to kill hundreds or thousands of innocent Americans? I see no reason to increase the odds any, but that's just my opinion.

Maybe you should address the central question of the thread: laws are created by a society to protect it's citizens. Some limits may need to be in place for security reasons. If the tradeoff is denying a person due process vs a bunch of dead Americans, I'd rather save lives.

WOW, can anyone be more blind? What purpose is there for due process? You have already labeled them as terrorists. So the judge, jury and executioner is the people who captured them. But we know now that many of them were bounty hunters.

New Statesman - How Guantanamo's prisoners were sold

How Guantanamo's prisoners were sold
The president of Pakistan's (Pervez Musharraf) attempts to publicise his memoirs throw light on the flawed and dishonest processes that the US uses in bringing "terrorists" to justice
by Clive Stafford Smith - NewStatesman - 09 October 2006

The payments help us see why so many innocent prisoners ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Musharraf writes that "millions" were paid for 369 prisoners - the minimum rate was apparently $5,000, enough to tempt a poor Pakistani to shop an unwanted Arab to the Americans, gift-wrapped with a story that he was up to no good in Afghanistan.

 

[FurthurBB]

So it's fearmongering to be concerned over terrorist attempts to kill hundreds or thousands of innocent Americans? I see no reason to increase the odds any, but that's just my opinion.

Maybe you should address the central question of the thread: laws are created by a society to protect it's citizens. Some limits may need to be in place for security reasons. If the tradeoff is denying a person due process vs a bunch of dead Americans, I'd rather save lives.

In a word...yes.

Our maximum security prisons located all over the continental U S are totally capable of holding dangerous people. I for one had had enough fear mongering by 10/11. But that's just me. There will always be reasons for the frightened among our population to be persuaded to throw away rights for perceived safety.

Benjamin Franklin had cowardly punks like D*ick Cheney in mind when he
said that those who trade liberty for SAFETY deserve neither liberty nor safety

I think people misunderstand that quote. It is not only that they do not deserve it, how can you ever be safe if you have no rights?

 

[Wiseacre]

Interesting. So if we don't have enough evidence to convict 'em in a court of law, let 'em go. No matter how many more Americans will be murdered as a result, hundreds, maybe thousands. Fearmongering, let's call it that; even though these people have dedicated their lives to killing as many Americns as possible. We're not a nation of people, we're a nation of laws and lives don't matter. It's okay for the president to ignore any laws he doesn't like, but by God we can't hold detainees indefintely in Gitmo who want to kill us. Amazing.

 

[justathought]

Prisoners of war don't have American legal rights. Let's not forget that we were attacked from inside of America at the beginning of this mess. I don't plan on taking a vacation in Afghanistan anytime soon, so I'm not really worried what Alflowawal is going to do. Karzai can deal with them. Prisoners of war can be detained until there is a declaration of the war being over. Oh yeah, we never declared the war. So many legal violations in this mess, why start now on what is the correct legal procedure.

 

[Wiseacre]

Prisoners of war don't have American legal rights. Let's not forget that we were attacked from inside of America at the beginning of this mess. I don't plan on taking a vacation in Afghanistan anytime soon, so I'm not really worried what Alflowawal is going to do. Karzai can deal with them. Prisoners of war can be detained until their is a declaration of the war being over. Oh yeah, we never declared the war. So many legal violations in this mess, why start now on what is the correct legal procedure.

SCOTUS said it was legal didn't they?

 

[justathought]

To be or not to be, that is the real question at hand? It depends on what the definition of is is. We better get Bill to answer that one. We shuffle legal dissertations of awesome word speeches while they shuffle their feet with bombs and bullets. Get out of the desert, Osama isn't there. If they come set trippen back in America, we can always do some more destruction, I mean reconstruction.

 

[Bfgrn]

America Locked A Children’s Humanitarian Aid Worker In Gitmo For Seven Years

Lakhdar Boumediene: "I left Algeria in 1990 to work abroad. In 1997 my family and I moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina at the request of my employer, the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. I served in the Sarajevo office as director of humanitarian aid for children who had lost relatives to violence during the Balkan conflicts. In 1998, I became a Bosnian citizen. We had a good life, but all of that changed after 9/11.

When I arrived at work on the morning of Oct. 19, 2001, an intelligence officer was waiting for me. He asked me to accompany him to answer questions. I did so, voluntarily — but afterward I was told that I could not go home. The United States had demanded that local authorities arrest me and five other men. News reports at the time said the United States believed that I was plotting to blow up its embassy in Sarajevo. I had never — for a second — considered this."

Boumediene was not simply arrested and imprisoned for years despite no evidence that he was a terrorist, he was arrested while he was working as a humanitarian aide worker. For children. The man devoted his life to helping the youngest and most vulnerable victims of a terrible conflict, and we locked him up and tortured him.

Sadly, America still has not learned the lesson Justice Louis Brandeis tried to teach us 85 years ago: “Men feared witches and burnt women.”

 

[Wiseacre]

America Locked A Children’s Humanitarian Aid Worker In Gitmo For Seven Years

Lakhdar Boumediene: "I left Algeria in 1990 to work abroad. In 1997 my family and I moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina at the request of my employer, the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. I served in the Sarajevo office as director of humanitarian aid for children who had lost relatives to violence during the Balkan conflicts. In 1998, I became a Bosnian citizen. We had a good life, but all of that changed after 9/11.

When I arrived at work on the morning of Oct. 19, 2001, an intelligence officer was waiting for me. He asked me to accompany him to answer questions. I did so, voluntarily — but afterward I was told that I could not go home. The United States had demanded that local authorities arrest me and five other men. News reports at the time said the United States believed that I was plotting to blow up its embassy in Sarajevo. I had never — for a second — considered this."

Boumediene was not simply arrested and imprisoned for years despite no evidence that he was a terrorist, he was arrested while he was working as a humanitarian aide worker. For children. The man devoted his life to helping the youngest and most vulnerable victims of a terrible conflict, and we locked him up and tortured him.

Sadly, America still has not learned the lesson Justice Louis Brandeis tried to teach us 85 years ago: “Men feared witches and burnt women.”

That's his side of the story. You seem pretty quick to believe it, without hearing the other side of it. I do not believe people are locked up at Gitmo with no evidence, it may be that the evidence was wrong, maybe somebody fingered this guy to protect a guilty person. There is a review of that evidence in each case, to determine if the risk involved warrants detention.

Mistakes are made, no question. No system of justice is perfect, but we're talking about terrorists here, people that want to kill us by the hundreds or thousands. Which leads me back to the central question of the thread: do we follow the law even though many lives may be lost? Laws were created to protect us, their goal is to keep us safe in so far as possible. They are not an end unto themselves, what good are laws if everyone is dead?