We Are All Potentially Enemy Combatants

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:31:10 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

John W. Whitehead at LewRockwell.com - why we should be scared, and filled with rage, over the power of the President to declare someone, citizen or not, an "enemy combatant", denying that person due process, within a court of law, to determine his guilt or innocence. Our liberty is defended by four boxes: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. Take away the first three, Herr President, and the fourth will be our only choice. [irc]

First, we must recognize that, at a minimum, the accused has the right to present his side to a judge and jury. We must remember that our Constitution protects "persons," not just citizens. Indeed, the Fifth Amendment guarantees that "no person" will be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The Sixth Amendment secures our right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, to be informed of the charges brought against us and access to a lawyer. Together, they ensure that the government cannot take our freedoms away unless they charge us with a crime, place us before a judge and jury and give us a fair opportunity to confront the witnesses and evidence presented against us.

Second, we must remember that America's reputation as a defender of the rule of law is worth preserving. At one time, the Statue of Liberty symbolized our commitment to fairness and liberty. Today, our military commissions and secret military detention camps represent America's hypocrisy.

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Persons? Bah! The Supreme Court upheld Dred Scot

Submitted by Rick Fisk on Tue, 26 Jun 2007 06:37:16 GMT

The 14th amendment to the constitution has been totally bastardized by the courts.

It was passed allegedly to "fix" the erroneous Dred Scott decision.

The court has gotten hung up on that stupid word "Citizen" - derived from Dred Scot as being the thing we must consider when interpreting the protections laid out in the bill of rights.

Any moron should be able to understand that the bill of rights protects the rights of people, not just citizens.

But the judges appointed to the Supreme Court are not just any morons, they are Supreme Morons.

In US V Verdugo Urquidez they said this:

(b) The Fourth Amendment phrase "the people" seems to be a
term of art used in select parts of the Constitution and contrasts
with the words "person" and "accused" used in Articles of the Fifth
and Sixth Amendments regulating criminal procedures. This suggests
that "the people" refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.

This piece of shit ruling essentially stated that a non-citizen has no 4th amendment rights.

That is what the court ruled in Dred Scot. Mr. Scot, being black, wasn't a person; he was just a non-citizen. I really loove (not) how the various gun organizations hold up this case as somehow being a proof that the second amendment was part of the "incorporation" doctrine of the court. It is, like Dred Scot, one of the worst examples of the fox watching the henhouse handed down by the supreme morons.

But it should illustrate why common sense arguments about us being people do not apply in the 10 square miles surrounded by reality we call D.C.

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