quote:If you offered somethings substantive to a discussion other than to pick apart every argument and call it worthless, then I could more easily recognize when your opinions are being expressed. As it is all you do is ridicule others for having opinions at all
If you were at all familiar with me, you would realize that I deal with opinions based on how they are presented. When they are presented in the fashion prevalent on the first page of this thread, I treat them with the respect they deserve: not much. One line condemnations of Bush don't elicit my detailed thoughts on the administration. It's not worth my time or effort, because the person throwing out a one-line condemnation hasn't expressed or implied a willingess to discuss anything.
I do, however, do the quick and dirty refutation, and for a single reason: silence implies consent, and I'd hate people to think I'm consenting to a single line conclusion about a subject that invokes every single important aspect of our government.
If you haven't seen my posts involving detailed discussion, or not had them addressed at you, you can draw your own conclusions based on what I've said in this post.
If you want detailed reason as to why I have that opinion, just look to "your troubling surrender to the will of a malevolent despot" and your perception that I "consistently argue based on the ever changeable law, even when questions of obvious right and wrong are at the heart of the issue." You're flat out not worth the time or effort to invest in in-depth discussion as long as you have those perceptions.
The sad thing is that Tom is worth the effort if he would just engage instead of interrogating or tossing out the one-liners. Still, there's more content in a single sentence from Tom than in most posts of yours I've bothered to read.
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quote:posted by Lyrhawn: First of all, less than a hundred years ago, there was a free Kurdistan. There are still people living there who remember what it was like to be an independent nation and not part of Iraq or Iran, or Turkey. Their land was stolen from them by the world's worst cartographer, Britain, and summarily made into other nations. You'd be forcing them to donate land that should never have been there's to begin with.
Besides, we supported Kuwait as independent nation when historically southern Iraq included both Kuwait and the Basra region of Iraq. So how is it okay for us to support Kuwait as an independent nation, but an independent Kurdistan is suddenly all fraught with worry and wrongness? Looks hypocritical to me.
Possession is 9/10s of the law, neh? A seceding nation of people is something Americans can identify with. That's quite different from us taking the land and giving it to the Kurds. And I hope you didn't expect to go to Iran and Iraq and say, "The Brits wrongfully gave you this land 100 years ago. Their bad. Please give it back now." They'd laugh in our face. It'd just come down to invading Iraq AND Iran.
quote:The pros so massively outweigh the cons it's a featherweight vs. a heavyweight match.
It's not about pros vs cons, it's about the feasibility.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: The accusation wasn't that he did something wrong. It was that he "abused power."
He did no such thing.
And, in fact, I didn't say that what he did was correct or moral. Merely that it wasn't an abuse of power.
I think your assumption that "abuse of power" implies illegality is poorly founded. We do not speak of someone who robs a convenience store as being guilty of an "abuse of power", because he never had any rightful "power" to get money from the store in the first place. Similarly, Bush having Democrat Senators shot so they could be replaced by GOP governors would *not* be an abuse of power, because Bush doesn't have such authority. It'd be plain old murder, no different from it would be if committed by someone else. It is arguably impossible to abuse power that one doesn't possess.
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quote:It is arguably impossible to abuse power that one doesn't possess.
Then FDR couldn't have abused power in the court situation, because he had no power to change th number of justices.
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quote:Then FDR couldn't have abused power in the court situation, because he had no power to change th number of justices.
I'm willing to concede this, for given definitions of "power." It was arguably an abuse of power, but not an abuse of presidential power.
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quote:First of all, less than a hundred years ago, there was a free Kurdistan. There are still people living there who remember what it was like to be an independent nation and not part of Iraq or Iran, or Turkey. Their land was stolen from them by the world's worst cartographer, Britain, and summarily made into other nations. You'd be forcing them to donate land that should never have been there's to begin with.
When would this have been? In the 7th century, the Kurds were conquered by the Arabs. Over the following centuries they were occupied by Seljuk Turks, the Mongols, the Safavid dynasty, and, beginning in the late 13th century, the Ottoman Empire. Kurdistan was part of the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century until the end of WWII, as were Turkey, Iraq, Iran and all of the middle east. In 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres proposed an independent Kurdistan but this treaty was never accepted or implemented. In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne created the modern countries of Turkey, Iraq and Iran and divide Kurdistan between them.
Kurdistan has not been an independent nation since the 7th century. Although they were promised an independent nation following WWI, it never happened.
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quote:Besides, we supported Kuwait as independent nation when historically southern Iraq included both Kuwait and the Basra region of Iraq.
Once again, I ask at what point in time Kuwait was part of Iraq. Prior to WW I, Iraq and Kuwait were part of the Ottoman empire. The modern boundaries between Iraq and Kuwait were established by the Treaty of Lausannne in 1923. At what point was Kuwait part of Iraq and when did we (the US) support its succession from Iraq?
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: [QUOTE] The sad thing is that Tom is worth the effort if he would just engage instead of interrogating or tossing out the one-liners. Still, there's more content in a single sentence from Tom than in most posts of yours I've bothered to read.
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I think one od the greatest allies of the Bush administration has been it's opponents seeming inability to maintain focus on many of the awful things that it has done as opposed to engaging in hyperbolic distortions and getting drawn into irrelevant tangents.
There are reasons, for example, why Dag has been mostly successful in supporting the President without almost ever offering any positive statements in support of him. I think they're many of the same reasons why George Bush could run a successful re-election campaign as an incumbent President while largely avoiding any mention of his record as President.
To me this is more of the same. Who cares if he's the worst President ever? That he is a very bad President is, at least to me, what is important. I don't need to compare him against Jackson or Taft or Harding.
I still think a winning strategy, even now although especially during the 2004 campaign, would be to say something along the lines of "There have been many allegations of dishonesty, irresponsibility, and drastic mistakes. The President and his people have denied all of them. For myself, I'll say I agree with that. I think that this is the best President Bush could have done."
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: There are reasons, for example, why Dag has been mostly successful in supporting the President without almost ever offering any positive statements in support of him. I think they're many of the same reasons why George Bush could run a successful re-election campaign as an incumbent President while largely avoiding any mention of his record as President.
How very sad that is too... Its true that the opposition to the president has no unified and standard set of grievances, and we are mostly not experts on the law, or government beaurocracy. I obviously approach it a little differently, for example: I think the idea of torturing detainees and holding prisoners without counsel is morally repugnant. I think Dag feels much the same way, however its also clear that I am not competent to argue the legal points which allow the U.S. government to get away with doing this. I know they must at least seem to be there, since these things are happening and the public is aware of them, however it seems that something has left us paralyzed to argue rationally against that. Part of it is: Yes I have no law degree, and I don't know enough about it to tell you why its a crime. But I know its WRONG, and though I wish I knew legally why its wrong, I fear that it may not be illegal. If it isn't, then the law is wrong, or it has been interpreted badly, and I have to say something about that.
I think people are so often baffled by this administration because it seems that the spirit and intent of the law is less important than how it can be interpreted to the advantage of a policy which allows the president to do something. This is to me, an obvious breach of trust between the president, and congress and the people. I have no doubt that sound and reasoned precedent and interpretation of the law allows the president to seem to have the right to do many things I don't like, and which I think are morally wrong. However that seems to make the law meaningless (at least to me). Certainly if it can be manipulated to allow the government to do what is clearly inhuman and un-american, then what good is defending that interpretation? This, you will have to forgive as the observation of a non-expert.
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posted
It's not the non-expert angle that I was talking about, but rather the hysterical nature of many of the accusations thrown at the Bush administration. Their actions and the results of these actions have been bad enough that even taking the "I believe they did the best they could." route is incredibly damning. Their best defense has been to allow their opponents to shoot themselves in the foot by making overblown accusations and going down irrelevant tangents.
The failures, both moral and practical, of this administration need no enhancement. And yet, time and again, we see people going to the extreme with them, trying to make them sound as bad as possible. Not content with him being a poor president, Bush's opponents try to make him out to be a monster, an idiot, or a tyrant. It's this very extremism that makes it so, when the milder facts turn up, their impact is greatly diluted. In addition, the behavior of many of the President's opponents makes them seem largely irrational as well as personally undesirable.
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What if I really do believe he is an idiot, a tyrant, and a monster? I really honestly have come to that conclusion. I haven't offered any idiotic reasons for it (I haven't offered any reasons here), but is that immoderate claim in itself too much to take?
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It depends. Are your criticisms aimed at affecting him negatively or making yourself feel better? If the former, I'd suggest you consider the effects of your criticisms at least as much as how much you believe them.
I've little doubr that many of the people whom I'm decrying for making overblown accusations believe those accusations.
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I keep thinking about the confrontation between Will Roper and Thomas More in Man for All Seasons. I wish I could remember all the dialogue, because it's very relevant. Roper challenges More, saying "I suppose you would give the devil the benefit of the law." To which More replies he would, because the law, specifically the words of the law, are precisely what protect us. To say the words are irrelevant, and only mean what you think they should mean and not what they say, is the doorway to true abuses of the law.
<edit> I looked it up:
quote: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!
quote:To which Moore replies he would, because the law, specifically the words of the law, are precisely what protect us.
Specifically, I think the words of the law offer no protection at all. It's respect for the intent of law that protects us.
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My roomate is one of those "bush planned 9/11" types. I don't go that far, it would be ridiculous. However I continue to express my dissatisfaction with most of what he has done or tried because I disagree with it, and I wish he would resign or be impeached. I certainly can't make myself feel better or smarter by trashing him, quite the opposite in fact, I feel dumber every time I think about him .
Edit to add: I completely agree with Tom on that.
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Of course, Moore was talking about convicting someone of a crime, not about evaluating the conduct of the most powerful member of your representative government. I'd suggest that the latter position should involve somewhat stricter standards than "We can't be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that he broke the law." and "Though damaging to the country and, if not immoral, at least unethical, ultimately not technically against the law."
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This is why we need to be more careful about checking the power of the President. Its this feeling of wide authority which might allow him to act and then find legal justification for it later. Plus if he is the one writing the laws.... then he can just do whatever the heck he wants, right?
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Specifically, I think the words of the law offer no protection at all. It's respect for the intent of law that protects us.
Is "no protection" hyperbole? I think the only protection we can or ought to expect is in the words. I don't much believe in the intent abstracted away from actual text. Applehood and mother pie is all well and good but it's not a predictable or stable method of governance.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I still think a winning strategy, even now although especially during the 2004 campaign, would be to say something along the lines of "There have been many allegations of dishonesty, irresponsibility, and drastic mistakes. The President and his people have denied all of them. For myself, I'll say I agree with that. I think that this is the best President Bush could have done."
I would be very inclined to listen to that (presumably this opening would be followed by a list of why Bush's fundamental positions resulted in poor choices wand how the candidates choices would be better). I could see Joseph Lieberman doing this.
Unfortunately for both sides I don't think you're going to hear it. Or at least not past the point where Lieberman withdraws from the primary (if he's even running again).
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Of course, Moore was talking about convicting someone of a crime, not about evaluating the conduct of the most powerful member of your representative government.
He was specifically talking about an indictment of the conduct of Henry VIII, his chief executive. I find the two situations more similar than not. Roper was arguing what the king had done was unethical, even if not illegal, and that the citizenry should reprimand him through revolt. More was urging him to caution, to a realization that we might not like the ways the laws protect activities we don't like, but it's the bargain we enter into by being part of a civil society.
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Of course, that's not the only quote from A Man for All Seasons that is applicable to this discussion. Here's another I particularly like:
quote:Sir Thomas More: I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
posted
Yet again we see a call for impeachment from someone who thinks this isn't a legal discussion, and we saw one two days into the NSA disclosure from the other primary opponent of applying the words of the law.
Impeachment is a criminal charge, removal is a conviction, and the standards for that should require proof that the law was violated, not some nebulous "spirit" of the law.
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quote:He was specifically talking about an indictment of the conduct of Henry VIII, his chief executive. I find the two situations more similar than not. Roper was arguing what the king had done was unethical, even if not illegal, and that the citizenry should reprimand him through revolt. More was urging him to caution, to a realization that we might not like the ways the laws protect activities we don't like, but it's the bargain we enter into by being part of a civil society.
I fear we must have very different versions of the A Man For All Seasons. In my verision, the part you quoted follows Roper and Alice urging More to arrest Richard Rich on the grounds that he is a dangerous and bad man and More refusing to because he hasn't broken any laws.
Or at least, that's what I remembered, so I went looking for it and found a more complete account of that section:
quote:(RICH exits. All watch him; the others turn to MORE, their faces alert)
Roper: Arrest him.
Alice: Yes!
More: For what?
Alice: He's dangerous!
Roper: For libel; he's a spy.
Alice: He is! Arrest him!
Margaret: Father, that man's bad.
More: There is no law against that.
Roper: There is! God's law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.
Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!
More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact -- I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forrester.I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.
Alice: While you talk, he's gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
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's 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.
I think the version you're describing must have, besides a very different preceding section to what you quoted, a very different conflict between More and Roper and a very different situation with More vis-a-vis the law and the king. Not having read yours, I have to admit I have a biased preference towards the version I've read.
(edit: I looked it up in the book version I have and found that the quote I presented, although not differing substantively, didn't completely jive with that version, so I made the necessary changes.)
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It's certainly one of the ironies of the Bush reelection. He screws up a bunch of stuff, then tells the nation to have enough faith in him to fix his own mistakes, and America believed in a second time, this, after going back on most of the campaign promises he made the first time around. America has only itself to blame I think, for falling for it.
Emphasis mine. Do you wanna back that up, Lyrhawn? I think it's more likely that he kept more campaign promises then he broke. If you want to jump on Bush, that's fine. Just please do it with the facts handy instead of just dogpiling.
I'm going to point you back to the post I made maybe three or four posts after that one:
quote:As for campaign promises, are you serious? Serious? Bush campaigned as a small government, domestic policy president who started a bunch of losing foreign wars aimed at a Christian themed nation building after specifically saying in the second debate in 1999 that he thinks nation building is wrong, and NOT the correct use of American troops.
He said he would eliminate the "death tax" and when Congress failed to kill it right out of the gate he let it die without so much as a mention at a press conference. He's overseen the greatest expansion of federal power in the last fifty years. If he had campaigned on the positions he actually took, on the surface you'd think he was a 1940's democrat. He most certainly did not live up to the majority or hell, even a minority of his major campaign promises.
Maybe if you just looked around more...?
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quote:First of all, less than a hundred years ago, there was a free Kurdistan. There are still people living there who remember what it was like to be an independent nation and not part of Iraq or Iran, or Turkey. Their land was stolen from them by the world's worst cartographer, Britain, and summarily made into other nations. You'd be forcing them to donate land that should never have been there's to begin with.
When would this have been? In the 7th century, the Kurds were conquered by the Arabs. Over the following centuries they were occupied by Seljuk Turks, the Mongols, the Safavid dynasty, and, beginning in the late 13th century, the Ottoman Empire. Kurdistan was part of the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century until the end of WWII, as were Turkey, Iraq, Iran and all of the middle east. In 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres proposed an independent Kurdistan but this treaty was never accepted or implemented. In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne created the modern countries of Turkey, Iraq and Iran and divide Kurdistan between them.
Kurdistan has not been an independent nation since the 7th century. Although they were promised an independent nation following WWI, it never happened.
Ehh, err, my bad. Alright, so there has never been an official nation of Kurds. But I don't think that hurts my overarching theme at all.
As for Kuwait, before the British got there, Kuwait was a part of the province of Basra. Historically those people were regionally part of the same area, but then the British came along, carved out Basra from Kuwait, made Kuwait its own nation, then combined Baghdad, Basra and then the southern area of the area thought of as Kurdistan and created Iraq out of nothing. In the same way that they helped deny Kurdistan statehood.
So far as a war with Iran/Iraq. So what? We were willing to invade and attempt to occupy Iraq anyway weren't we? So what's the big deal with invading just a small portion of the country, with a mostly docile population who would ACTUALLY greet us as liberators? And so we take a little bit of Iran, that is almost entirely composed of ethnic Kurds whose families have been there for literally thousands of years. Hell we might end up invading them too, why not do it the safer way? They couldn't stop us militarily.
Regardless, it still strikes me as the safest, easiest, best plan for all.
Edit to add: The US supported it by giving them legitimacy, and by defending them from invasion against Iraq. Give how Iraq went about doing it, I think it was the right decision to make, but that doesn't change the results.
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quote:Is "no protection" hyperbole? I think the only protection we can or ought to expect is in the words.
Again, the words provide no protection whatsoever. Respect for the intent of the words provides any protection implied by the words themselves, and justifies the application of force to those words. Concern for the WORDING of law is not, as far as I'm concerned, the same thing as concern for law.
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posted
I don't know if Bush is the worst president ever; the Great Depression was too tremendous an event for Hoover's dismissal, and I'm not an ace student of all periods in American history.
I do feel that he's the worst in my lifetime. Unnecessary wars, massive deficits, strong suggestions of corruption, and a generally vindictive outlook that defies the need to justify anything it does to anyone. For a start.
But the real tragedy is that with all evidence of the above in plain sight, we allowed ourselves to elect him again. I see the polls of his falling ratings and want to shake people. "What could have changed your mind that wasn't readily evident before? Hello?!"
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Impeachment is a criminal charge, removal is a conviction, and the standards for that should require proof that the law was violated, not some nebulous "spirit" of the law.
I have to abide by what I feel is the spirit of the law, even if Bush hasn't. The legal recourse of the people is clear, we have the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
If Bush abuses his power and changes the law so that he never actually violates it, and if he makes impeachment truly an impossible undertaking, even if he has violated the trust of the people and the spirit of the constitution, peaceful non-cooperation, and then violent rebellion would be a solution. Thankfully I don't see it coming to that.
This is what I don't get about your argument though Dag, do you think that despotic leaders haven't altered laws in the past so that they can continue to rule as they please, in effect, above legal reproach? Do you think for some reason that an American president is somehow above trying this, or allowing it to happen? It seems that if he can manipulate the law enough, we shouldn't object to it, since nothing he does is illegal... and why does it surprise you that I find this to be utterly lacking in logic?
Please, present me with a way that I can effect change in a system where the opponent rewrites the rules as we go along.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I fear we must have very different versions of the A Man For All Seasons. In my verision, the part you quoted follows Roper and Alice urging More to arrest Richard Rich on the grounds that he is a dangerous and bad man and More refusing to because he hasn't broken any laws.
I sit corrected. Thanks, Squick.
quote:I think the version you're describing must have, besides a very different preceding section to what you quoted, a very different conflict between More and Roper and a very different situation with More vis-a-vis the law and the king.
I'm not sure what you mean by "very different." I'm also not sure how tongue in cheek this statement is. My "version", or at least the moral I take from the play and movie as I've seen them performed, is that our role as individuals is to follow our private consciences within the law, not to rewrite law or rebel against law based on our belief of what was intended. To again quote More:
quote:Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind. If He suffers us to come to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle as best we can, and, yes, Meg, then we can clamor like champions, if we have the spittle for it. But it's God's part, not our own, to bring ourselves to such a pass. Our natural business lies in escaping.
All this business of nitpicking and arguing over semantics is, I believe, exactly what makes a civil society viable. The intent, or spirit, might make a society livable, but the words are what make it viable.
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quote:For the last time, I've never said we shouldn't object to actions that aren't illegal.
I guess the problem here, Dag, is that while I think people are aware of your belief in this principle, it's rare to actually see you object to actions that aren't illegal.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Impeachment is a criminal charge, removal is a conviction, and the standards for that should require proof that the law was violated, not some nebulous "spirit" of the law.
I don't know. Clinton committed felony perjury and we have it on videotape; he took money from the Chinese and provided them with secret US military technology. Bush prosecuted a war Democrats voted to authorize, and agreed with them about things they later changed their minds about. Which is the greater crime?
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From what I am reading in this thread it must be the accusations made against President Bush. Not that the accusations are true, or proven at all, it's enough just to accuse him and that makes him guilty of whatever crime you want him to be guilty of. Like Domestic Spying for instance
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WIll B: last I checked, what Clinton lied about wasn't material to the trial, making it not felony perjury. And I suspect you'll find we still sell arms tech to the Chinese under Bush.
As for Bush, I have yet to catch the man himself in a lie, but I can easily prove several important people in his administration lied or were entirely incompetent, misrepresenting evidence to (among others) the Democrats in Congress in order to persuade them to go to war. One is Vice President, and the other got promoted to Secretary of State.
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quote:I guess the problem here, Dag, is that while I think people are aware of your belief in this principle, it's rare to actually see you object to actions that aren't illegal.
1.) My principle position in free speech threads is a combination of 1) in general, it should be legal to say almost anything, and 2) given that it should be legal to say X, it is often wrong - even immoral - to say X. There's also a heaping helping of dislike for the idea of government funding for purely expressive activities, something which is constitutional yet that I think shouldn't be done. I've written on this topic extensively.
2.) Going at it from the other direction, I support the legalization of several things I consider to be immoral. No one seems to mind when I stick to the legal sides of those issues, and I say with a small amount of both pride and discomfort that my posts on certain subjects fitting that description have caused people to either change their minds or at least be far more open to the idea of legalization of certain things. Pride (again, small amount) because it means I have been an effective advocate, and that my focus on understanding objections to legalization and addressing rather than condemning them has borne fruit at least a few times. Discomfort (again, small) because it demonstrates that what I say matters, and if I'm wrong there are consequences.
3.) Do I even need elaborate on why the abortion topic demonstrates your statement to be false?
4.) I haven't heard you condemn the practice of keeping immigrants in household slavery. I am assuming you don't think this is an acceptable practice nonetheless.
Perhaps it would help if you were to remember that I don't post everything I think, post count notwithstanding. I don't post about every post I disagree with nor about every post I agree with. I also don't participate in every single possible facet of any given discussion. Nor do I expect that anyone else here has done so. Therefore, it is probably inaccurate to assume one knows the beliefs of anyone on a topic they haven't posted.
Another helpful reminder - not one I think you need yourself but which others seem to - is that refuting a particular attack on position X does not mean that one supports position X.
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Senoj, I was being tounge in cheek, but also somewhat serious. I've always regarded A Man For All Seasons as sort of an anti-tragedy and I really don't think it fits with your interpretation at all.
In a classical tragedy, a person of great prominence in brought down by his fatal flaw. In Seasons, Sir Thomas More is brought down by his virtue of integrity.
What happens to More is not right, not just. But it is all legal (excepting the perjury on Rich's part). More is not a free actor. He is rather trapped by forces he has little control over. The king commands and he has no choice but to obey, no matter the rightness of the king's commands. He uses strict adherence to the technicalities of the law as a defense, but it is a feeble one. Through the workings of the legal system, they take away his home and fortune, then lock him away, and then kill him. I don't see how you can come away with the play thinking that this is the way things are supposed to be.
The president, as I seem to have to keep reminding Bush supporters, is not a king. His power is theoretically derived from the people who choose him to represent them. King Henry was a power unto himself, more or less beholden to no one but himself and theoretically God. Not so with the President of the United States. Rather, the President, due to the responsibilities of his position, is obligated to follow some pretty high standards. He does not hold power in and of himself, but only so much as he represents the interests of the people he represents.
To take an example from a previous discussion, it may be technically legal for the President to give all the names of our undercover agents to China or aL Queda or whomever, but him doing so is a gross betrayal of the public trust and would lead to him almost immediately being thrown out of office.
Now obviously, that's just a minimum bound. There is certainly much more expected of a President. For myself, I'd count acting in the best interests of the country, taking responsibility, and demonstrating trustworthiness as the central obligations of the President.
And, the wonderful thing is, the President is not a king. As such, even by the barest minimal "follow the law" standards, there are a whole ton of things I can legally do to make his life hell and his Presidency ineffective if he does not fulfill these obligations. If you're going to say that the only standards that the most powerful person in our government has to live up to is to technically not break the law, surely I as a private citizen should be held to the same standard.
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I certainly agree with your assessment, but I see it less as an indictment of an unfair society than an ode to the quality of the man. More himself never laments the unfairness of his own situation. When Cromwell threatens him, he responds by saying "You should threaten like a servant of the court; with justice." When Cromwell replies, "It's with justice you are threatened," More states, "then I am not threatened." He understood the law, and understood that despite the immorality of what was happening, the law would protect him.
He never spoke to the morality of the society or the law, until the very end. At that point justice didn't fail him, but rather an external agent (Rich) thwarted the system by undertaking a manifestly unjust and illegal action. Until then More operated within the system. But the system only serves the individual as long as the individuals within it obey the rules. When Rich broke them, then More was sunk and thus was free to declare the inherent immorality of what was happening. Until then he would not, not because he didn't think what was happening was immoral, but because he believed it to be immaterial.
Your point about the difference between a monarchy and democracy is well taken, but I think it's unfair to characterize the President as only having power in "so much as he represents the interests of the people he represents." The President holds power of himself, at the discretion of the people he represents. He can exercise that power as he sees fit, and the people are free to vote him out of office if they disagree with the usage of the power they've invested in him. The standards of conduct to which we hold the president with regards to reelection are exactly those you outline; the standards of conduct we should hold the president to for impeachment are the legality of his conduct. Thus if it's legal for the President to give the names of our undercover agents to China, he should not be impeached and immediately removed from office for doing so; he should be voted out of office at the next election cycle (assuming "the people" believe his action did not serve the nation's interests). Impeachment should be reserved (IMO) for illegal actions, not immoral ones.
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Senoj, When Rich committed perjury, everyone in the courtroom knew he was lying. However, there was no actual proof that he was lying. From the standpoint of the technicalities of the law, everything the members of the system did was legal. But it was hardly only the perjury of Rich, an individual, that was to blame. More's defense in law failed, not because these people didn't follow the letter of the law, but because they didn't respect the spirit.
And, keep in mind, that was only on the matter of whether or not More was to be executed. He had already sufferred greatly through workings of the legal system free from any corruption. The system had already taken away everything he owned and thrown him in jail. Perhaps you saw that as justice, but I did not.
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I'm not willing to accept any system of government that is willing to countenance one its members flagrantly working for the destruction of the people he is supposed to serve so long as that person doesn't break any laws. If the President were found to have contacted al Queda and given them a list of all of our undercover operatives working to inflitrate their organization, I'd vote to recall him in a second. As you apparently support waiting until he's up for re-election, I honestly don't know where to go from there. I just don't see winning an election as a blank check to do whatever you want for the next 2, 4, or 6 years, so long as you don't get caught breaking the law.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: But it was hardly only the perjury of Rich, an individual, that was to blame. More's defense in law failed, not because these people didn't follow the letter of the law, but because they didn't respect the spirit.
Fascinating. I would say that the perjury of Rich was precisely what was to blame for the failure of the system. That until that point the system worked as it should have, admittedly imperfectly and non-ideally, but as it was designed to work nonetheless. That the system was unfair was a reason for attempting to change the system, not for trying to avoid the consequences of it.
quote: And, keep in mind, that was only on the matter of whether or not More was to be executed. He had already sufferred greatly through workings of the legal system free from any corruption. The system had already taken away everything he owned and thrown him in jail. Perhaps you saw that as justice, but I did not.
More gave up everything he owned, it wasn't taken from him. He could have chosen to take the oath, but chose not to, knowing the consequence of this would be his inevitable resignation as Lord Chancellor (?). He never complained about this or the other penalties, IMO, because he believed in the law, he believed it was the foundation of the nation, even when it treats us unfairly. It was when the law was finally broken (by Rich) that the system broke down, and then More finally stood up and spoke his piece about the immorality of it all.
quote:If the President were found to have contacted al Queda and given them a list of all of our undercover operatives working to inflitrate their organization, I'd vote to recall him in a second.
If there is a law that allows us to vote to recall the president, I think that's a perfectly reasonable and appropriate response. But impeachment isn't a vote to recall the president, it is an allegation of illegal behavior. If giving a list of our operatives to al Qaida is illegal, the (hypothetical) president should be impeached. But impeachment, and judicial review in general, should only answer the question of illegality, not attempt to arbitrate morality.
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In as much as we wouldn't be riding a massive deficit while trying to fund multiple military operations and disaster relief projects, yes, we would be better off.
Do I think the "Internet Bubble" would have continued if Clinton/Gore were still in power? No.
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: In as much as we wouldn't be riding a massive deficit while trying to fund multiple military operations and disaster relief projects, yes, we would be better off.
You think Gore would not have reacted militarily to 9/11? Or that, had Gore been elected, he wouldn't have attempted to provide disaster relief in Indonesia, Pakistan and New Orleans? I think the primary difference between Bush and Gore would be the tax cut; whether Bush's cut ultimately helped or hurt the economy is debatable, but I think these other investments (with the probable exception of Iraqi war expenditures) wouldn't have changed with Gore in the presidency.
quote:Do I think the "Internet Bubble" would have continued if Clinton/Gore were still in power? No.
That's a pretty safe bet since the bubble began to burst while Clinton was still in office. IIRC, the first quarter of the eventual recession was Clinton's last in office.
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Gore wouldn't have been as spend crazy as Bush is. He would have pushed major environmental reform, and probably would have made energy policy a priority, instead of something to foist off on Congress and whine about from the White House press briefing room.
He would've vetoed overspending. He wouldn't have spent hundreds of billions on a war in Iraq, which in itself I think is a key enough difference.
And he would have chosen far different judges for the Supreme Court bench. His reactions to 9/11 probably would have been far less militaristic. I could see him attacking Afghanistan, and staying there to secure it, instead of pulling most of the troops out and leaving it for the warlords.
Let's not pretend that Gore would've done the same thing, and certainly not pretend that he would've been WORSE than Bush. We'll never know, but we can make some judgement based on his policies and speeches since 2000.
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It's what I've been saying all along, but it's nice to have people smarter than me tell that I'm right.
wow! you think the rolling stones are smarter than you., I'm sorry.
If you had bothered to read the article, you would recognize that author of the article is a Princeton history professor, not the Rolling Stones (either the band or the magazine editorial staff).
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quote:And he would have chosen far different judges for the Supreme Court bench.
Yep.
Perhaps Dag, you should wait and see what the Bush appointees do before you smile. Supreme court justices are notorious for disappointing.
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