Grad Student Humanist

He must be naive enough to believe that the GOP really does believe in limited government, personal responsibility, the rights of the individual, and so on and so forth, when they would like nothing more than to turn this country into a Xtian empire with no regard for the rights of non-Xtians, here or abroad.

The GOP has become nothing more than a reactionary religionist party which is chomping at the bit to make Xtian morality the standard by which the country governs itself (atheists, heathens, and others be damned).

Fr.Andrew

(Fromtheright): My question, first of all, is what is the baggage, and secondly, does it matter whether the accusations are true?
(Fr Andrew): I hope your first question has been answered...the CounterPunch article linked by Toto was slanted in it's commentary, of course, but the facts are there.

I think the answer to your second question is probably "no". It's the perception that counts, and the GOP is perceived (fairly or not) by the vast majority of blacks (and, to a lesser extent, women) as the party that has gone out of it's way to impede their social progress.
The Trent Lott episode re-opened some wounds that were in the process of healing--and the battle looming over the Pickering nomination is bound (almost by design) to keep them open.
Actually, I read today that it may be by design. Dubya will get to look loyal to his Ol' South constituency, and if Pickering fails to win confirmation in the full Senate (which is by no means assured) after a bruising partisan fight, the Democrats will be vulnerable to continued charges of "obstruction".

faustuz

What especially scares me is what I see as the convergence of two trends in the last two years. First of all we have an incremental weakening of the separation of church and state with such things as the faith based initiative, etc. At the same time, since 9/11 we have the weakening of the various protection clauses of the constitution. It is now apparently legal to detain citizens without due process as long as the executive branch classifies these citizens as enemy combatants. Apparently, based on the recent court case, the executive branch itself determines what constitutes an enemy combatant and is not required to justify it’s determination to the judiciary.

Any non-theist who can’t put these two trends together and see the writing on the wall is seriously burying their heads in the sand. Currently the executive has their eyes on people of a Muslim background and these are the people being denied due process. I hope that the non-theist Republicans out there will realize that, given its predisposition, the eyes of the executive might next be turned thither.

Grad Student Humanist

I really don't think that most of the people that voted for Bush are fundamentalists, nor do they support the far-right's social agenda. But still they voted for him so they are at the very least enablers.

What is more worrisome is that I do think that the majority of people in this country support this ridiculous expansion of American military power around the globe under the guise of a "War on Terrorism." Suddenly after 9/11 the average American is a jingoistic thug who thinks we should take on the world, making Pat Buchannan seem like the voice of reason in comparison.

pug846

It’s a nit-picking point, but I don’t remember reading anywhere that it’s legal to detain citizens without due process of law. To say so is to misrepresent the Bush administration’s position. They just differ from you on what they believe the proper amount of due process is in these types of situations.

Danya

Pug, Your post reminded me of some headlines from yesterday.

link

This story is from today but the news was all over the place yesterday. So, the question might now be if the 'war on terror' in itself is enough to be considered 'wartime'? If it is than any of us can be held without due process as long as they utter the magic words, 'enemy combatant'.

faustuz

Well, if they are saying that the courts have no jurisdiction in these cases, then what is there that could possibly constitute due process? I agree with you that the Bush administration is probably arguing that they are not advocating denial of due process as guaranteed in the constitution in this case, because they are arguing that due process as guaranteed in the constitution does not apply in the case of enemy combatants, even if they are citizens. Nonetheless, if the court does not have jurisdiction in these cases then by my definition there is no due process, and if there is no due process applied then I would say due process is denied.

Lets boil this down to avoid any double speak. Yaser Hamdi was detained. The Bush administration has argued that the courts have no jurisdiction in the case of his detention. The constitution guarantees certain judicial rights to citizens who are detained by the government. Yaser Hamdi is a US citizen. How exactly is it that that the Bush administration is not advocating that it is legal to detain the citizen Yaser Hamdi without due process of law? I’ll tell you how, it’s called double speak.

Pee Pee Poodle

http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/pic...ess-Codini.jpg

{image replaced with link by Toto until such time as PPP makes some logical connection between these images and the discussion at hand. PPP - check your PMs.}

Toto

I glanced at the opinion. It looks like the court held that it did have jurisdiction, and that American citizens have rights, but that under the circumstances, it was okay to hold this American citizen without charging him or letting him see his lawyer, based on an affidavit signed by an American official who is not subject to cross examination. You can't get much less due process than this, but the court did confine their ruling to the facts of the case. It would not justify the FBI showing up on your doorstep with an executive order declaring you an enemy combattant and taking you away. . . yet.

Ab_Normal

It's justified because "we're at war", to which my answer is, "Since when?" All I've heard about is a Congressional resolution to let the President do what he wants, not an actual, "Iraq, we're coming to kick your butt!" declaration of war. Am I deluding myself? (Do I want to hear the answer? )