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Will ACTA Be Found Unconstitutional?
DustyShadow writes "Harvard's Jack Goldsmith and Lawrence Lessig have an interesting op-ed in Friday's Washington Post, arguing that it would be constitutionally dubious for President Obama to adopt the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as an executive agreement. '[T]he Obama administration has suggested it will adopt the pact as a "sole executive agreement" that requires only the president's approval. ... Joining ACTA by sole executive agreement would far exceed these precedents. The president has no independent constitutional authority over intellectual property or communications policy, and there is no long historical practice of making sole executive agreements in this area. To the contrary, the Constitution gives primary authority over these matters to Congress, which is charged with making laws that regulate foreign commerce and intellectual property.'"
What Obama is doing is sidestepping America's democracy, so that Biden's friends in Hollywood can get what they want.
Exactly. 0 is on a roll of ignoring the Constitution. It appears he views it as an outdated, inconvenient obstacle to be overcome.
Just as bad (or possibly even worse) the "Democrats", who're supposed to be the "party of the people" are ignoring the clear will of the people in many cases. For instance shoving healthcare "reform" down our throats which around 60% of the citizens don't want.
0 is shaping up to be one of the worst Presidents ever, and almost certainly a one-term wonder. I'm hopeful that the Dems will lose a lot of their power this coming November.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Eat a dick.
How eloquent. Nice job hiding as an AC, too. Man up and post so we know who you are, loser. :-)
No, seriously. I'm sure you were cheering when Shrub forced a trillion dollars of wars down our throats, wiretapped American citizens in direct violation of the FISA regulations, and illegally ordered prisoners of war to be tortured.
Nice talking points, with oh so little substance though. I guess you forgot there was broad bipartisan support for both wars, and almost every country's intelligence agency thought Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. Apparently many have forgotten that UN inspectors actaully observed both chemical and biological agents in Iraq.
I suppose you've also forgotten that 0, among his myriad broken campaign promises, has kept right on slogging both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And your claim regarding HCR isn't even accurate, not that it would matter given how many lies the Rethugs have put out there.
"Rethugs", how clever.
At any rate, you are dead wrong once again. Check out this Gallup poll, showing only 36% approve of 0's handling of healthcare. Even the most left leaning of "news" sources can't ignore the facts. Get yours straight next time.
How can an elected body pass legislation with a majority of the votes and NOT represent the will of the people? THAT'S HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS.
Your comprehension of English is abysmal. The "will of the people" is most directly what the majority of the people want. Of course, we don't live in a pure democracy, we live in a republic, but I'm sure you knew that. THAT is why our "elected representatives" have power instead of it being straight majority rule.
The idiocracy currently in power will find out about the true will of the people in November this year, and on election day 2012. That is if 0 doesn't ban elections in the name of some convenient crisis or another. I'd put very little past him given his narcissism, arrogance and hatred for America.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I actually started to rebut your comments one at a time then I found this one. I guess you don't have any clue what you're talking about so I'll just leave you to your own devices. California is governed as a republic.
OH SNAPS! Guess what! Every state is it's own republic! And that would make you.
1. Ignorant
2. Stupid
3. A liar
I'll let you pick.
Your snarky and insulting Glenn Beck-esque commentary on my breadth of reading knowledge and skill is completely out of line. If you're going to try to participate in a civilized discussion between reasonable adults then you need to act like one.
I suspect that you have some bizarre formalist definition of what a republic is. Obviously you didn't get it "from a book" because Kant is not a political philosopher (he deals in metaphysics) and Paine was the Emanuel Bronner of his age.
Have you read any of the classics on republic theory? This would include John Locke's Two Treatises and other works, Rousseau's Social Contract, Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, to a lesser extent Alexis De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, and Ernst Renan's essay "What is a Nation?". One of the big undercurrents in most of these works is the idea that a republic has to have the power of self-determination -- that's to say you can have a government with elected officials and a bicameral legislature and all the other appurtenances of government, but if you lack the power of self-determination with respect to other nation-states, you aren't a republic. This is a big distinction that historians tend to make about Rome after the rise of Augustus -- there was still a Senate and consuls and more or less every other political office that had existed a hundred years earlier, but Rome was no longer a republic because these state organs had lost their ability to determine the national will.
Sure, when the decisions are actually good that's fine. On the other hand, when the decisions are as wrongheaded as many the current Congress and President favor, it's not so good. :-P
Define good.
There's the rub, isn't it? For me, I strongly believe in personal freedom and limited government. Those are the things that made America what it is, and to deviate much from them is to "remake America" as a much worse place to live and excel.
So, for me the 0 idiocracy is anathema.
There are a lot of things you will probably think good, that I would think to be terrible mistakes, and, obviously, visa versa.
Which doesn't recognize that the choices are not "equally good". This seems to be the concept with which you have trouble.
This is well and fine, and there is room for both.
Nope, this is a misconception on your part.
Often the choices are mutually exclusive and a decision must be made.
When someone claims that there is only room for their version of "good" then I worry.
Like I said, a misconception. For instance, if healthcare is in fact nationalized, it will drastically reduce the quality of healthcare in America.
You can't always have your cake and eat it too.
Good often follows subjective political ideologies.
No. You're forgetting that there is objective reality. For instance, millions of people starving to death or losing their homes is "bad". The opposite is "good".
It's quite possible to identify "good" versus "bad" in virtually all cases, if you look hard enough.
You should meditate on your tagline for a while... LOL
I have. Country doesn't mean people who subscribe to the same line as I do. Country doesn't mean only people who agree with me. Country does not mean only the rich, or only the poor. Country does not mean only bankers, or overseers of the military-industrial complex. Country does not mean tea party folk or progressives. Nor republican or democrat. It does not mean socialist or sociopathic free marketeer. Country means ALL of these, and the land, and the people, and the various cultures contained therein, and all of the resulting conflicts.
This is as much my country, and its destiny is as much mine, as it is yours.
Country far transcends whether or whether not you want government controlled health care.
Nice job missing the point. I was referring to the 'defend his country against his government' part. The (Federal) government is the issue, and the biggest danger to a sane existence.
Anything done to restrain 0's out of control spending is "good for America". His fiscal policies are literally insane.
And who isn't?
Me, and lots of other folk. What 0 is doing is qualitatively different than GWB or other earler Presidents. It absolutely won't work in the long run, and even in the short run America may lose its AAA credit rating for the first time ever.
And no, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or biting off your nose to spite your face, is NOT good for America.
Nice strawman.
The right wing of Congress sitting around with their fingers in their ears screaming "nyah nyah nyah can't hear you!" is not healthy for anything.
You should pay more attention, that's not what they're doing. It's just that 0 has given up on bipartisanship and he's getting what he deserves for doing so. Republicans had many constructive ideas for healthcare reform, such as tort reform, but the Dems would have none of it.
You spoke of compromise, but 0 seems to not be a fan.
Perhaps the people on the Right could promote cutting some of the biggest bloat in the budget, military spending, or subsidies for agriculture and fossil fuels. Pe
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait