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Leaked: Obama's Rules For Assassinating American Citizens
cathyreisenwitz writes "For over a year now journalists, civil liberties advocates, and members of Congress have been asking the Obama administration to release internal memoranda from the Office of Legal Counsel justifying Obama's targeted killing program. While the White House continues to deny that such memos exist, NBC is reporting that it has acquired the next best thing: A secretish 16-page white paper from the Department of Justice that was provided to select members of the Senate last June." Spencer Ackerman at Wired says the leaked rules "[trump] traditional Constitutional protections American citizens enjoy from being killed by their government without due process" by redefining the concept of "imminence."
Governments involved in clandestine assassinations. Who would have thought? And of course, it only happens in other countries, to Al Qaeda and the like. Surely. Oh, and if you believe this, I have a bridge or two I can sell you....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I'd like to think that this is going to change or this leak will help but I've pretty much given up on that.
Most people don't care and even if they did, they couldn't do anything. AND if they got to a position to do something I think they would become an imminent threat.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
This calls for Impeachment and trial of everyone involved. It will not happen of course, because murder is not as big a deal as getting a blowjob from an intern.
Then they have declared they can do whatever they want. If the standard is they just "determine" who is a member of al queda and whether there is some vague emminant danger, the big question is, who, either before or after the fact, has standing to question these determinations?
If there is nobody who can bring this to court, and no way to have oversight, then this is nothing more than a declaration that Due Process is optional in their eyes and they can suspend it whenever they determine they have the need.... because assasination is de facto denial of due process.
These standards should be considered criminally negligent.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Which party exactly is the party of limited government and civil liberties? It sure isn't the Democrats or the Republicans, and it sure isn't the Libertarians either as they are now thoroughly politicized.
There's one-party rule in the United States, and it comes in two subtly different flavors. No matter who you vote for, you're ultimately voting for the Banks, the Healthcare industry, the Military Industrial Complex and a few unions thrown in to make it all look fair.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Why would the GOP ever impeach him for this when they're quite happy to have this power if and when they retake the Oval Office?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
And they said we don't need to bear arms.
1. That US citizen has been convicted of murder in a fair trial, has been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and was found guilty by a jury of his/her peers.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/04/someone-just-leaked-obamas-rules-for-ass
1. The person who leaked this memo.
.
.
.
Have gnu, will travel.
Like when Bush said he could declare Americans, Enemy Combatants, and unilaterally take them out.
1. When someone makes a comment supporting MicroSoft.
2. When someone makes a comment bashing Apple.
3. When someone responds to their own post.
4. When someone screws up tags>br.
5. When someone suggests Cowboy Neal as an option in Slashdot polls.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
This doesn't surprise me considering how far removed the US government is from understanding her primary function - to protect her own citizens. What's to stop them from declaring a leader of a political movement as dangerous, having “recently” been involved in “activities” posing a threat of a violent attack - for example, declaring that the government has no right to interfere with private enterprises, or even supporting 2nd amendment rights?
US citizens relinquished citizenship and due process if they joined an enemy army of the US, whether it was the Redcoats, Germans, or Al Cada.
Its important to set clear boundaries. Joining the US Communist party or neo-nazis should not have had the same consquences because it never declared war on the US.
Plus I am concerned about growing use of domestic drone technology like for the in the Alabama kidnapping this week. Only a short step to arm them.
This is the country that sings "Land of the free and home of the brave". Talk about second amendment and the right/duty of the citizens to guard against tyranny. Then we go to our airports to be gate raped by TSA agents. The lunacy of the procedure is beyond comprehension. There was a picture of a returning war veteran removing his belt and boots to place on the conveyor belt, while a friendly smiling helpful TSA agent was holding his service rifle for him. The stupidity of the situation seemed to escaped both of them.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
My experience has been that whenever this comes up in conversation with actual adults who, while not brilliant, are not stupid either ... they get this dismissive look on their face. It is obvious they are thinking "oh, you are one of those conspiracy nuts, there is no way this could be real".
Most people don't believe this has actually happened.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
The Bush policy was extraordinary rendition and a stay at Guantanamo until guilt or innocence could be determined -- and that was for non-citizens!
When they take two parking spaces so that their expensive car doesn't get a scratch. Double parking too.
When they refuse to tip the waitress AND leave a smug, self righteous remark.
When they commit a violent crime with a weapon
When they have committed up to 9 violent crimes without a weapon
When they engage in malfeasance with investor funds in any bank or financial institution
When they engage in bribery of ANY public official (federal, state and local) anywhere at any time (Both the public official and the bribee). Campaign funds should explicitly be considered bribes.
That'll do for a start.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Can anyone recommend a good forum for technical and interesting stories regarding the advancement of knowledge in this day and age. And not political rhetoric that's just slanted either left or right.
I want to cry when this is the type of stuff at the top of my once beloved slashdot.
On the condition that pigs grow wings and fly, then.
The death penalty is the same degree of tyranny as willy-nilly assassination.
And thankfully this power is not systematically abused with no fear of reprisal or any chance of the abusers being held to account for their actions...
Right?
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
The difference is, "American Citizens" are protected by the US Constitution, a document the POTUS has sworn to uphold. ... at the very least, people should care.
Depriving a US citizen of their life without due process of law is a direct violation of that oath.
Yes, it should be an offense worthy of impeachment
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Do you really think that republicans will try to attack Obama for putting something they really want in place? In few years, they will be pulling the trigger, so no point in breaking the joystick now, just to spoil other kid's fun.
In any case, it is interesting to see that rather than be concerned about "We can kill random people in the world without the trial" - people are very much concerned about "We can kill Americans, who we strongly suspect of terrorism, without the trial". I can assure you, they won't misuse this capability (because of political backlash) anywhere near the way signature strikes etc are misused now. Before American will die, they will check for 300% if he is terrorist. For foreigners, 80% is ok. Unless these foreigners have beards and are in desert, then even 20% is good enough.
Want to be safe - shave, rather than try to impeach the president.
This type of logic was a guaranteed end-game once we declared War on Terror. After all, in a war, no one asks courts whether the military can take out some high-level commanders, who the troops can shoot, or even what to do with anyone taken from a battle field. Seriously, this should not be a surprise.
The only thing that can change this if we ramp down our rhetoric, and turn the War on Terror into a basic police action against criminals. Then we can go to courts to ask for oversight, request due process for any type of action against any target, and complain that drones really are creepy tools to use.
So you have a choice: start writing to your congress critters and complain about the War on Terror. Tell your friends what the logical consequence of this kind of war is. Lobby right and left to have terrorism be treated as a criminal event, and to have the FBI go after it - not the CIA. Or, you can put up with things like drone-killings done without over sight. Your choice. Will you actually do something about this issue, or will you just complain on the Internet that the War on Terror isn't quite turning out to be as clean as you hoped?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The problem is, what do you do when a suspect flees to another country and refuses to come back and appear in court, like most assassinated people did? Shooting an escaping fugitive is legal in many countries.
All governments redefine words and phrases to change the original intent of laws and violate the people's freedom.
If you didn't know that, it's time to read Animal Farm by George Orwell. It will open your eyes, but probably depress you at the same time.
"[trump] traditional Constitutional protections American citizens enjoy from being killed by their government without due process"
Except the Constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land. Nobody is supposed to trump it, not the executive, not congress, nobody. If congress should start impeachment proceedings against Eric Holder today.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
non-american citizens
Illegals. Look into the drive in window at Mcdonalds next time, thats all they hire around here. They're citizens, just not of here, citizens of mexico, d.r., etc.
american non-citizens
Couple thousand per year renounce citizenship. Practical reason is to make the IRS leave them the F alone. Stated reason is they married a foreigner who isn't moving, or moved to Israel, or they just plain ole want to immigrate. I'm kinda thinking of becoming a Canadian, I almost have enough money to just buy in, and I've got the .edu paperwork and job experience to get in, but I donno if they'll let me in, what with my blood type being O and canadians blood type having to be maple syrup. They've got a better everything, where everything is defined as everything but military and ... that's pretty much it. However I just can't bring myself to eat poutine with every meal.
non-american non-citizens
Come on man, how hard is it to figure that out.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The American government has strayed so far from its own guiding principles as to be rapidly becoming everything they're fighting against.
All of this claimed moral superiority of the last century or so is mostly lost, and you're fast becoming tyrants and asshats.
I give it a few decades at most before modern society collapses and we're either living in the cyberpunk dystopian future, or the Mad Max dystopian future.
When America starts killing her own citizens, complaining about other countries doing the same thing is a joke.
You're working on being worse than the cold-war era Soviets ever were. The Constitution has become "whatever the president wants it to mean".
The fall of the empire is nigh.
From page 6 of the whitepaper:
"In the circumstances here, the interests on both sides would be weighty... An individual's interest in avoiding erroneous deprivation of his life is "uniquely compelling."...No private interest is more substantial. As the Hamdi plurality observed, in the "circumstances of war," ''the risk of erroneous deprivation of a citizen's liberty in the absence of sufficient process .. . is very real," id. at 530 (plurality opinion), and, of course, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of a citizen's life is even more significant.
"But, ''the realities of combat" render certain uses of force necessary and appropriate," including force against U.S. citizens who have joined enemy forces...
"In view of these interests and practical considerations, the United States would be able to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen, who is located outside the United States and is an operational leader continually planning attacks against U.S. persons and interests, in
circumstances: (1) where an informed, high-level official of the US Gov't has determined the target individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; (2) where a capture operation would be infeasible-and where those conducting the operation continue to monitor whether capture becomes feasible; and (3) where such an operation would be conducted consistent with applicable law of war principles."
Also, try to remember the SOURCE of the commentary. Reason.com is one of those very partisan places (though not as bad as the Free Republic) that produces and distributes highly questionable material with the intent of "stirring up the base".
I wonder if Obama will find the people at NBC who are responsible for this leak and give them the same inhumane torture as other recent whistleblowers have gotten?
Bullshit. The 5th Amendment protects US citizens, PERIOD. You really have no fucking clue, do you?
for much of the rest of world to think that US is going even more nuts:
a - murdering with drones, collateral murders don't matter, no court system/laws involved, no war declared (endless war), getting more pissed off, keep the mill going
b - TSA shows at airports
c - 2-class humans - NON-Americans, Americans perceived as arrogant/bullies,
(leaving the Israel/nuclear/Iran next theater show out)
Actually this policy originated during the Bush administration.
If anything, the department of justice simply codified the policy and circulated the memo to select members of the senate. The memo being leaked is a legal framework for considering when it's applicable to assassinate a US citizen. It basically gives the authority of the state department to kill a US citizen if that citizen poses an immediate threat to the US or its other citizens. It rehashes article 3 section 3 of the US constitution where the conditions of the treason act is described in relation to Al-Qeada and circulating the memo to select members of the senate to grant the power to declare punishment. They will probably justify all this secrecy as "state secrets".
I would consider this more constitutional than just having the CIA do it and just keeping the act classified.
Think of it as something similar to what your local law enforcement does when it kills a suspect that posses an immediate threat like a mentally ill man with a child buried in a bunker.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Maybe. This is what disturbs me:
-- Largest prison system in the world (and "for profit" to boot).
-- Legal authority to kill you without trial.
-- Legal authority to detain you indefinitely without trial.
-- Rampant domestic eavesdropping.
-- Rampant military worship.
-- Militarization of the police forces.
-- Differential application of the law based on whether you are an elite.
-- A government essentially owned by the mega-corps and which consistently and unfailingly kowtows to those interests.
Things look seriously bad.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Really you think its the same thing for the state to employ the death penalty after a trial where:
both sides are allowed to present evidence
you are assumed to be innocent until the state proves beyond a reasonable doubt you are guilty
A jury of regular citizens your peers of is convinced of your guilt
; as it is for some guy in an office to decide to have someone killed?
I am not sure even many anti-death penalty activists would adopt such a position.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
obey the government, and work within the system to gain power. Don't bother trying to overthrow the Matrix.
The US Government, like all governments, has the exact same power structure as any other government, and that is: the strong get to rule over the weak.
You freedom-loving libertarians need to understand this concept. It really is a flaw among you libertarians to think that you somehow live in a "free" country. No, you do NOT live in a free country. You never have. Try breaking a law, and see how much freedom you have.
You're better off accepting that you have no power, rather than thinking you have any sort of power under a democracy. The key is, if you accepted how powerless you were, you would form different methods of gaining power, instead of through silly methods such as through the 2nd amendment, which was designed to help government control you...
Nobody at this point actually thinks their pathetic handgun is going to protect them against tyranny by a government armed with SWAT teams, drones, and nuclear missiles, do they? And their power was actually demonstrated via a civil war where Gen. Sherman burnt down half the south to clear out the rebellious traitors..
It really is shameful that Americans are taught that they have any sort of power, and it's sad seeing them come to the conclusion that they actually don't. The "freedom"-loving libertarian's ego is apparently the hardest thing to destroy, but it must be destroyed for them to actually gain real freedom and power.
Again, we have to make sure people understand that American do NOT have freedom, and that any attempt to make it look that way is the powerful attempting to control the weak by giving the weak an illusion of power.
In summation:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
1. When someone makes a comment supporting MicroSoft.
2. When someone makes a comment bashing Apple.
3. When someone responds to their own post.
4. When someone screws up tags>br.
5. When someone suggests Cowboy Neal as an option in Slashdot polls.
He's got them on the list. And they'd none of them be missed. They'd none of them be missed.
I am not a crackpot.
So does the Govt have to prove the said person did whatever they did which led to their relinquishing citizenship?
I don't think you'll find many libertarians who believe they live in a free country.
You can probably find many who believe this was originally intended to be a free country, and that it could become one by following the original design.
Unless you have been deemed an unlawful combatant or otherwise stripped of your citizenship.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Bullshit. The 5th Amendment protects US citizens, PERIOD. You really have no fucking clue, do you?
You're the clueless one here, bud.
The Constitution is adhered to when it suits those in power and
when it doesn't suit them they ignore it.
Obviously you didn't learn anything from Kent State, Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc.
This is all nonsense. By most people's reckoning and the US Government's own declaration, every Confederate killed at Antietem or Gettysburg was a US Citizen. By what legal authority did the Federal Government kill them? Shall the ACLU and their decendents sue the Government for killing them without due process?
Oh wait.. they were in open rebellion and waging war against the Republic. Citizens who join Al-Qeda are in open rebellion and are waging war against the Republic. The simple fact is, when you join the enemy and wage war, you can be killed. War is War. No convoluted legal reasoning is needed to kill the enemy in war. If you think otherwise, your mind is clouded with nonsense and you are lost in non-reality.
The whole falacy with your argument is that you probably think the word "imminent" means "about to take place" or something like that. Imminent is an excellent word for lawyers because it's so slippery and can mean just about anything. And that's exactly the case here.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/leaked-memo-drone-strikes-us-citizens.html
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
The US government should authorize the killing of US citizens when:
1. Resisting arrest with deadly force.
2. Attempting to escape from lawful imprisonment.
3. In the process of attacking another citizen.
I am officially gone from
Bullshit. The 5th Amendment protects US citizens, PERIOD. You really have no fucking clue, do you?
It's just a piece of paper that people lie in their oaths about protecting.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Shoot -- should have made it clear. That's a quote from the memo, not a pundit.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
"Nobody at this point actually thinks their pathetic handgun is going to protect them against tyranny by a government armed with SWAT teams, drones, and nuclear missiles, do they?"
Yes. Actually taking out an entire army strike team is pretty easy with the right stuff. Full armor, It's not hard at all to injure the lot of them and then use them as bait to get more. Drones are zero effort to take down. 30-06 hunting rifle will down one in seconds. Or are you brain dead and think the US army drones are like what you see when you play Black Ops II.. Sorry kid. But a lot of hunters have guns that make the army's M16 a girly gun. I hunt bear and use a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.700_Nitro_Express 700 Nitro Round in my rifle. That round will kill someone in armor because it will be the same as a sledgehammer to the chest. Buddy of mine has a Barret 50. That will take out most helicopters and hit a target behind a brick wall by shooting through it.
I suggest you look at how the Taliban has pretty much spanked the US army really hard in Afghanistan with only rocks and mules. In the USA there area LOT more resources for an uprising to decimate the Military and police. Plus you have the problem that it's hard to make a soldier kill his own family and friends, so the US army sent in against the American citizenry will end with a lot of officers accidently killed by grenades. In viet-nam officers were fragged by the troops quite a bit.
So the fools like you that have zero education in history and negative education in combat or even firearm use have no clue at all.
I'm no expert, but I assume driving or riding a supply truck in WWII Germany makes you a legitimate target for US fighters and bombers.
What is the punishment for treason?
Or did you not read the memo?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
The "pre-emptive" Nobel prize for peace given to him should be withdrawn, lest the prize itself become devoid of meaning, let alone prestige.
Here the Department of Justice concludes only that where the following three conditions are met, a US operation using lethal force in a foreign country against a US citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force would be lawful;
This is not a memo on how to "assassinate" just any US citizen. Rather, it is a memo on how when lethal force can be applied to a "citizen gone bad" if you will -- if one could even call "a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force" a US citizen (see: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1481). What's really sad is that the memo is plastered with the NBC logo all over, making it hard to read. Given this, and the apparently lack of reading comprehension and cherry picking of words, it seems NBC was too eager to up their readership with bold claims of assassinations of US citizens.
Download it without having to sign in to Facebook here.
www.wavefront-av.com
No they wouldn't, they'd put you in a certain prison camp in Cuba.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
While your statement about 'imminent' may be true. It still doesn't invalidate my argument which that in my opinion this doesn't quite rise to the level of impeachment since (1) this is a legal framework for consideration, (2) select members of the senate was privy to the information, and (3) this isn't an actual execution order. Nor does it invalidate my opinion that this is more constitutional than the tradition of letting the CIA handle it and just make it classified. Also it doesn't make the fact that this is a continuation of Bush's policy a fallacy.
A single word doesn't invalidate an entire argument... except maybe on slashdot
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
So, do Democrats consider this a corroboration of the Bush policy (which means they'll have to admit they were wrong about Bush), or a corruption of their leader (which means they'll have to admit they were wrong about Obama)?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Submit a "We The People" White House petition with a list of people we'd like to see offed? Like the Kardashians, Beyonce, the Phelps family, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, the Koch brothers, the entire roster of Fox News on-air personalities, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Dubya, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and of course, Donald Trump? Certainly we can come up with some kind of "imminency" for each that would qualify, right?
Which is the crux of the matter. These people have NOT been stripped of their citizenship (which is a judicial process) but deemed unlawful combatants by (secret) executive decision. No due process, no "cease and desist" letter, your first hint "you're on the list" is a smoke trail moving rapidly towards your window. What is fine for a guy building bombs, but becomes very weak for someone making speeches on the internet.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Which shows just how ideologically blind many libertarians are, given how intimately the "original design" of this country depended on the labor of certain "3/5 people".
Doesn't the burden fall on the government? If they want to press a case against this guy, they are required to grab him, present the evidence against him in a court of law, and let the laws as we've established them do their job. When we accept that the government can kill us, rather than give us a trial, because it's more expedient to just kill us, instead, we're all in trouble.
There's even more cause for condemnation of Obama on this score: The Bush policy was a stay at Gitmo until guilt or innocence could be determined. The Obama policy, in the case of about 2/3 of the people currently in Gitmo, is that you stay there even if you've been declared innocent (they recently shut down the office that was handling sending innocent prisoners back to their homes).
Oh, and you'll notice I call them prisoners. Calling them "detainees" was nonsense, when they've been locked up for over a decade.
I am officially gone from
It will take people like you, voting against this kind of stuff, instead of everyone's current policy of constantly voting for it, every election, by a 99-to-1 overwhelming supermajority.
Congress can only impeach presidents for activities that go against what Congress wants. And even if a President goes against what Congress says they want, they can't really reasonably do it for things that Congress approved and encouraged (even if they felt bad about it, changed their mind later, or make up some other excuse). That's why it was so hilarious when people wanted Congress to impeach Bush .. over the useless expensive war that Congress authorized! ;-)
If you would like to live in a country where Presidents get impeached for this sort of thing -- where this is reasonably seen as struggling against the other branches of government rather than acting in concert with them -- then you need to start voting against Republicrats in Congress. Get people in there who will say "no, don't do that," instead "I demand that the president do that."
If you're not willing to do that (and to be fair, lots of people have lots of excuses for why they vote for Republicrats) then seriously: STFU about impeachment, treason, etc. Those are "advanced topics" for people to use after they've voted, in the event they don't get the government that they voted for.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
A good set of rules already exists:
1. No poofters.
2. No member of the faculty is to maltreat the "Abos" in any way whatsoever—if there's anyone watching.
3. No poofters.
4. I don't want to catch anyone not drinking in their room after lights out.
5. No poofters.
6. There is no... rule six.
7. No poofters.
Just replace poofters with "imminent threat."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I honestly believe that the exact same thing would have happened with McCain or Romney as president. I also think Bush would probably have done the same thing if he'd had the drones available at the time. I can't prove it of course, but i do feel the fact that a bipartisan group of Senators were asking for the criteria used to kill Americans rather than demanding that it not happen at all kind of supports the idea. For the same reason i don't think Obama will be impeached or even seriously criticized by Congress over this. (If all the Republicans get together and try to pass a law that would effectively stop things like this i would get behind them on this one issue. But it ain't gonna happen.)
I voted for Obama in both of the previous elections. I didn't vote for him because i honsetly thought he would Change anything. One can always hope, but i didn't believe it would really happen, so i wasn't that disappointed when it didn't. I voted for him because i believed he wouldn't do _most_ of the things the Republicans said they wanted to do, and _maybe_ he'd actually manage to do one of two good things. And that's pretty much what happened. He's managed to do a couple things i view as good, and _mostly_ hasn't done the things the Republicans said they wanted.
I would rather have had a president who didn't do _any_ of the crappy things i believe the Republicans would do, but realistically there was no way to achieve that. In game theory terms i got the best outcome (from my perspective) that was possible under the current system. Under any kind of instant run-off system Obama would not have been my first choice. He might not even have been my second or third choice.
And both the Republicans and the Democrats know they can get away with a lot of crap exactly because of the two party system. "What are you going to do, vote for the Greens or Libertarians instead? Ha ha, go ahead, see how well that works out for you."
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I don't think you'll find many libertarians who believe they live in a free country.
Define "Freedom".
Some folks think freedom is just riding a motorcycle or owning some mass produced, stamped steel piece of shit assault rifle.
Others believe it is to do what the fuck they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.
And there are others who think they can do whatever they want on their own land - even if that means down the road it hurts others. - like dumping toxic waste on their land that eventually poisons the water table.
Where Libertarianism fails: the commons. (See the sea)
> I don't think you'll find many libertarians who believe they live in a free country.
As a foreigner who admires their idealism, I don't think American libertarians will believe they live in a free country, when put in ANY country in existence today.
I suggest you look at how the Taliban has pretty much spanked the US army really hard in Afghanistan with only rocks and mules. In the USA there area LOT more resources for an uprising to decimate the Military and police.
So... YOUR neighbors celebrate weddings by firing off rapid-fire weapons into the air? Go around all day toting RPG launchers? THEY do.
Plus you have the problem that it's hard to make a soldier kill his own family and friends
Better go back and study the War Between the States. An awful lot of families did exactly that.
The rules for assassinating American citizens were one word? "Don't" I was going to end with a pepperidge farm joke, but this isn't a topic for levity.
Even accepting your thesis, the handgun enables certain resistance tactics which are far more difficult without it.
Some American citizens are Muslims. Think about it
Oh, lord, not this asshole again...
We get it, Chrisq - you're bigotted against Muslims. Good for you.
Now please do us all a favor and go take a long walk off a short pier.
Realistic, not bigoted. Muslim clerics self-proclaim their aim to destroy democracy, end equality and replace Justice with a system where non-Muslims cannot testify against Muslims. Many other Muslims try to enforce this with acid attacks against unveiled muslims, bomb attacks against unbelievers, and so on. Those idiots who think that a Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist are as likely to riot and kill if someone burns a book they like, or throw acid in the face of someone who dresses in a way they find provocative are the idiots.
Doesn't the burden fall on the government? If they want to press a case against this guy, they are required to grab him, present the evidence against him in a court of law, and let the laws as we've established them do their job. When we accept that the government can kill us, rather than give us a trial, because it's more expedient to just kill us, instead, we're all in trouble.
What a quaint old fashioned notion. Next you'll be saying that people shouldn't be drug-tested until there's reason to believe they are actually taking drugs. We haven't had that attitude about "innocent until proven guilty" since Reagan was president.
Why just the Senate? there are members of the House that should have also made the list...
The "original design" did not depend on the labor of certain "3/5 people". It's easy to document that most founders, including Jefferson, opposed slavery. The situation they were in was that the Constitution needed to be ratified by all the colonies so that the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts. So, while they wrote the Constitution with certain compromises so that they could get citizens to ratify it, they incorporated sunset clauses to certain parts of slavery.
You need to do some deeper research rather than make broad assumptions based on certain, pragmatic, compromises.
I don't see why this is marked overrated or troll.
The easiest way to blow up the castle is from within.
Use evil to fight evil. Individualism is taught in America in order to divide and conquer. Learn how to gang up and start doing things.
New Economic Perspectives
I'm no conspiracy theorist, nor do I typically give a damn about politics. For the most part, I like Mr. Obama. However, combining this with the changing gun laws just sounds down right marshal law-like.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
Just like the Rule of Law, colors don't mean anything anymore.
There's a difference between expedience and casualties.
If the police come to arrest you, and you pull a gun on them, they are not going to risk getting shot and are going to shoot you instead. No trial.
If you have a 5-year-old in a bunker, and the police think you're about to cause harm to them they are not going to risk it and they're going to shoot you instead. No trial.
If you are hiding out in enemy territory where any American coming to get you is going to be shot on sight, there's no reason for us to risk the lives of Americans to come force you to trial when you don't want to go.
When you make it clear that you would rather kill the people coming to arrest you than be arrested, you're going to get killed. This should be obvious.
If you want to remove yourself from the rule of law, you can't complain when you lose the benefits of the rule of law you removed yourself from.
paintball
There are no US citizens captive in Cuba. We did put one in the brig in South Carolina for a while, which was absolutely a violation of due process. That was the last President, not this one.
paintball
So What? They still exist and some branch of our goverment must deal with them. Leadership of an army located outside US soil is not going to turn themselves over to a trial. Do you want a show trail where the accused is convicted without them being present? Do you want Congress to vote on who we assasinate? Some sort of assasination warrent process where the courts approve assasinations proposed by the president? None of those is legal.
Jefferson opposed slavery so deeply that he remained a slave-owner (and slave-raper) for his whole life, while hammering out compromises to make sure others could do the same (including "sunset clauses to certain parts of slavery", aside from the "total ownership of another human being" parts). Obviously a fundamental commitment to the core of human freedom!
Where in the US constitution does it say that it only applies to American citizens (not counting voting rights)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
No, it's worse than that. It's "OMG WE LIVE IN A TYRANNICAL SOCIETY AND IT WILL ALWAYS BE THUS! DESPAIR, SHEEPLE! DESPAIR!!!!"
AC evidently sees the world in black and white, free or oppressed. "Try breaking a law, and see how much freedom you have," is particularly precious.
Elect a woman as President; problem solved. She probably wouldn't want it anyway unless she was a simple puppet like Palin or Bachman.
Not weddings, but in many American cities, celebratory gunfire is becoming more common. (It's a tremendously stupid thing to do, and people are killed. Don't shoot your gun into the air.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So the President has given the DoD the power to kill a US citizen abroad who is threatening US lives, and can't be safely captured? Our cops already have the power to kill US citizens in the US who are threatening US lives and cannot be safely captured (arrested). That's why cops carry guns. If you are threatening someone's life, they will arrest you if they can, and kill you if they must. If this document is genuine, it is giving US citizens abroad rights similar to what they would have here. In either case, the rule is simple: surrender the gun (or IED, or strike force), and nobody gets hurt.
I am not a fan of our current President, but this is a sane policy. If we don't claim the right to kill US citizens under these circumstances, we give them more powers to kill us than they had when they were within our borders. If a US Al-Qaida member doesn't like being on a US hit list, they can come out with their hands up, just like any other suspect.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't walk and text.
Welcome, Comrades! Welcome to the glorious Union of Soviet Corporatist Republics!
Yes that was the Bush policy, except you couldn't see a lawyer and you would never actually get a trial (maybe a military tribunal aka kangaroo court)
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
The original design was sovereign States who delegated a small, well-defined subset of their powers to a common body
That common body was structured so as to make it somewhat self-limiting, somewhat difficult to expand its reach..
It was also structured with layers of increasing responsibility that theoretically would help elevate the finest people to higher offices, even as it filtered out to a degree some of the more extremist voices.
"...high ranking individuals in an organization actively engaged in war measures against the US." ?
The problem with your statement is that you've already drawn a conclusion. In the USA, these sorts of conclusions are only supposed to be made in a court of law.
The issue here is what(if any) EVIDENCE does the government have to demonstrate these people are engaged in any of the activities they are being accused of?
If the government has this evidence, why don't they go before a grand jury, get a criminal indictment and have a judge issue an arrest warrant?
I still don't think the next step should be a death sentence, but come on. At LEAST get an indictment for one or more crimes.
One gets the impression these days that the bulk of Slashdot's current participants are young libertarians who did not pay attention in school while 20th century history was being examined and discussed, and have little or no living memory of any of it. These seem to be libertarians who think regulation of any kind is absolutely bad and that anyone should do whatever they want, as if there were no criminals or abusive citizens anywhere to be found. The mobsters who are in possession of our nation belie this childish and idyllic view of the world. Oddly, they seem to think it is just fine for governments to perform extra-legal executions without any legal consequence.
Your list describes the Soviet Union and Maoist China. It now also describes us. Yes, things do indeed look seriously bad. All the more disturbing are the numerous posts in support of our glorious Union of Soviet Corporatist Republics.
Excellent comment. The idea of selective prosecution/selective legal immunity is the piece of this puzzle that a lot of people miss, but it goes directly to the issue of justice and the rule of law. One person gets persecuted for leaking documents, others go free after thousands of instances of fraud, forgery and perjury.
By "police forces", I hope you include federal law enforcement as well. They're buying military weapons and ammunition just as fast as the citizens have been.
The willingness of the police to use force against peaceful political protestors is another sign that things look really bad. OWS was just a nuisance. I can only imagine the response if they were perceived as a serious threat.
With all of those abuses in your list, I can't believe anyone would entertain the idea of more anti-gun legislation.
How can anyone defend this? I don't care what side you are on politically this is flat out wrong. This is not how America is supposed to lead the free world. We pride ourselves on our laws and how each American citizen has rights. This memo takes away those rights without any oversight or review. I can't believe anyone on here would support such an egregious breach of our rights. Yes, maybe some terrorists who are intent on harm will be killed, but we will never know if they were or not because they don't have to tell us and of course there is no trial, no evidence and no judicial review. Is this what we call a democracy? The question being, "What do we want this country to be?". We can't lead the free world if don't follow those ideals which we espouse to. Indifference, denial and willful ignorance will be the downfall of this country. Right now we are the frog in the frying pan. Do we hop? Or do we die?
Why the secrecy then? Why not legislate for this type of killing out in the open if it's all so reasonable and dandy?
Mistakes happen. Death is irreversible. Oopsies, sowwy.
Besides, the Global War on Terror is open-ended, the battlefield is everywhere.
And one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
And ... finally, who trained Osama Bin Laden - former head of al Queda - so conveniently disposed of without a day in court, hmm? Oh yeah, fealty is so fickle ... Might makes right, nothing to see here, move along, say ... you sound sympathetic to the enemy, don't want to end up on our list now ...
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
Please link to the original version of the story, rather than a more politically biased magazine's reporting on the original version of the story.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans?lite
Reason Magazine is the libertarian Huffington Post. I know you like to think that your political view is smarter and more reasonable than others, and you love to have a trillion people pigheadedly arguing that they're right and everyone that disagrees with them is stupid, so you can go through the comments and cherry pick the 'zingers' that reinforce your world view, but it's a meaningless exercise.
A few observations:
Some people, with reasonable cause, do not trust Obama. Their suspicions have been vindicated.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Small nit. As I understand it, one of the main reasons the US is not returning people declared innocent back to their homes, is that those countries don't seem to want them back, and we don't want them here, and we haven't found a country willing to take them... Therefore... That's where we stand today.
For example, apparently 40 were cleared for release by Bush Administration, and another 47 were cleared for release by the Obama Administration. Of those 87, 23 are known to be from Yemen. Yemen has apparently demanded payment of $200M to repatriate their citizens, but the US has only offered $20M to Yemen. In contrast, nearly all of the 133 Saudi detainees that had been cleared for release have been returned to Saudia Arabia during the Bush Administration.
It is not known much about the situation with the other detainees, but many assume similar negociations with other countries for their repatriation have been stalled on similar issues (mostly monetary). I think of it as a reverse-ransom. That isn't an excuse for continuing to hold them, but it is apparently one of the big reasons.
ALL of human interaction is trust based. Once you realize this, it gets much easier.
Every single construct of humanity is based on trust of the parties. Where trust does not exist, we create additional parties to verify the conditions. And we then must trust that those additional parties are trustworthy, else we set up yet another layer of verification. It's turtles all the way down.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The policy makes no distinction between outside the US versus inside the US. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before we see drone strikes inside US borders against US citizens becoming commonplace.
Just so we're clear on a couple of things: the states with larger slave populations wanted slaves to be counted as whole persons in the census and vice versa for states with smaller slave populations. This is because the original Constitution required taxes to be apportioned (paid out based on a state's population). So the 3/5 clause actually worked to reduce the amount of money a state received in federal tax dollars for its slave population.
The Constitution, fondly remembered as the document that allowed slavery, also allowed abolishing of slavery because the Constitution was actually completely neutral on slavery. When Vermont, the 14th state, joined the union, it had already abolished slavery and it was not required to reverse that position in order to join. Also, the final, complete abolishing of slavery was done with, you guessed it, the Constitution!
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
"power to kill a US citizen abroad who is ACCUSED OF threatening US lives and cannot be reasonably captured"
FTFY
It is implied also that said citizens will not submit to questioning or interrogation voluntarily, as is also the case with those same "problem" citizens in the US who are accused of a crime.
Actually, I wish I hadn't commented on this thread earlier, as the GP post may be the most insightful of the entire thread.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Nobody at this point actually thinks their pathetic handgun is going to protect them against tyranny by a government armed with SWAT teams, drones, and nuclear missiles, do they?
You completely miss the point with this statement! Tyranny never starts with the government using the military to impose its will on the people (though it sometimes reaches maturity that way). Tyranny starts with "brownshirts".
The tool of the tyrant who is not yet firmly in control is unofficial (but government sponsored) armed gangs of thugs. They rely on terror and inability to resist to project power, but there are few people in modern culture willing to act that way. With an unarmed populace, 1-2% willing and eager to use violence to suppress dissent will win. But it only takes a similar number to be willing to fight back, to put themselves at risk when the browshirts come for their neighbors, and shoot the fuckers dead. Since most of us are not as brave as we'd like to be, that means you need ~20% of the population to be armed and have a strong moral compass, so that the bravest 5-10% of them actually act.
That is possible. That works.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's an investigative document, not a declaration of capability. Someone asked the question, "If we found an American terrorist who we know to be planning imminent action on the US, can we kill him?" and this white paper is the exploratory response.
It's the same as if your boss asked, "What would the costs of outsourcing business processes A-B and what are the expected benefits?" and then you responded with a 16-page report.
The fact the salves were 3/5 of a person was an abolitionist move. It helped ensure that slaves could not be compelled to vote for their own slavery.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
You are responding to an A.C. troll. I don't know where anyone would get the idea that Jefferson had anything to do with the Constitution. He was an ambassador to France at the time. Also not involved was John Adams (who, by the way, was not a slave owner).
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Nice bit of revisionist history. The 3/5 compromise was forced by the non-slave states to reduce the power of the slave owning states, not out of some secret desire to help the slaves' votes from being used against themselves.
> You freedom-loving libertarians need to understand this concept. It really is a flaw among you libertarians to think that you somehow live in a "free" country. No, you do NOT live in a free country. You never have. Try breaking a law, and see how much freedom you have.
This illustrates several basic misunderstandings of libertarianism.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If Obama says "We missed you," it might not mean what you think it means.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
So what's your answer then when an elected US official abandons the rule of law? Are they above the law and thus able to act with complete impunity? Are they subject to the law "by the people" and thus eligible for enhanced expedited impeachment by any interested party?
Are we not to complain when the rule of law has abandoned us?
Can we count on you to withhold your objections when someone you DON'T like is wielding this power against someone that you do like?
Now, is that because libertarians are simply hard to please, or because, according to various definitions, we don't really have any free countries in existence today?
Now, did you jump to respond to my above posting, with an almost reactionary "Of course we live in a free country, STFU ur a moron" or did you spend several moments asking yourself what metric we use to decide the magnitude of freedom in a country today, then draw a conclusion? Was your response to vapid reflexive programmed response, or the thinking response? If either, why?
I am John Hurt.
Somalia with its several competing gang-based governments is a free country? When I say the word free, this is what comes to your mind?
Such a fascinating word association. No doubt if I asked what word came to mind if I said 'love,' you might respond with 'rape' or 'slavery.'
I am John Hurt.
If being in the vicinity of known terrorists justifies a death sentence, then anyone who's ever take a tour of the White House or Congress is fair game.
Talking to people -- even to "terrorists" -- doesn't earn a death sentence, and it certainly doesn't create an exception to due process.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Actually, given the history of human-based evil, it has a nasty habit of imploding from the inside, given enough time. Its hierarchical structure is something which consumes way too much energy for the human beings involved, leading to all sorts of unhappy endings.
I am John Hurt.
Here are the key statements; read it and you will quickly learn that many people in the US government can issue the command to execute. The US citizen does not have to be in or on al quaeda base, and it does not have to be DOD forces.
"Here the Department of Justice concludes only that where the following three conditions are met, a U.S. operation using lethal force in a foreign country against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qaida or an associated force would be lawful: (1) an informed, high level official of the U.S. government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the US; (2) capture is infeasible , and the United States continues to monitor whether capture becomes feasible; and (3) the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles."
Clearly, Obama has become a constitutional violating ruler. Time to impeach his statist ass.
The original design was sovereign States who delegated a small, well-defined subset of their powers to a common body
That common body was structured so as to make it somewhat self-limiting, somewhat difficult to expand its reach..
It was also structured with layers of increasing responsibility that theoretically would help elevate the finest people to higher offices, even as it filtered out to a degree some of the more extremist voices.
The U.S tried that. It was called the Articles of Confederation. And it was so dysfunctional they scrapped it for the U.S. Constitution.
I agree with much that you state on people's not understanding history, but I cannot make sense of your use of the word 'libertarian'. While a high percentage of libertarians are young, most young are far from being libertarian as they usually have strong beliefs in government entitlements (education, health care, etc) and regulations (banks, food, drugs, etc).
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
I'm no fan of Reason, but can you elaborate on your claim that they produce and distribute highly questionable material? And what 'base' are you referring to? They are a Libertarian (beltarian, really) rag, and there isn't anything more to Libertarians than the base.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/04/someone-just-leaked-obamas-rules-for-ass I want to know his rules for ass!
Utterly pointless, as people of the time considered themselves citizen of their state first. As such, they were fighting foreign soldiers. If you want an historic analogy, use the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Stalin's agents in Mexico. The paper could be used to justify that deed.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Remember when pouring water on a detainee's face was unconscionable torture, circa 2007?
Yea because this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946) clearly never happened and didn't work according to your logic.
Orwell was an optimist.
but deemed unlawful combatants
Which is another stupid area, as being an "unlawful combatant" doesn't remove either your rights as a citizen, xor your rights as a POW. The only thing it removes from you is the ability to choose which case happens to apply.
The answer is, it depends. My current answer is wait for other elected US officials to act. That's worked pretty well for hundreds of years. Somebody acts outside the bounds of the law, they eventually get removed from office, possibly put in jail, etc.
The nice thing about democracy is it's a structure that resists consolidation of power. If one person starts getting too much power, other people will use democratic mechanisms to reduce that power. It's not like the Republicans would allow George Bush to become a dictator, or the Democrats would allow Obama to become one, because then no one else gets their turn in 4 or 8 years. And consolidation of power means a Senator who used to be able to leverage his vote for consideration of his pet projects (or donors or whatever) doesn't want to find himself where he's only leveraging his vote to not get arrested. And all those corporations who finance political campaigns don't want to be in a position where a dictator can come seize their assets either.
And even the President himself doesn't have a whole lot of incentive to become a dictator - he's going to be rich whether he stays in power or not, so best not to get in a position where the only option people have of getting rid of you is killing you.
The idea that any single entity is going to consolidate power across 50 states, each with their own military and police apparatus, and with the cooperation of the members of our volunteer military, is just plain ridiculous.
What we're talking about here is a very sensational, but very minor, topic. More American citizens live or die on changes in DUI laws than the drone use policies. George Ryan (former Illinois Governor) killed more American citizens as a result of taking a single bribe than Obama has killed with drones.
Like all issues with what should, and should not, be legal actions by the government, this one will get settled through legislative or judicial process. We're not talking about the arrest, jailing, or killing of political opponents. These are people who have specifically declared a desire to destroy the political process entirely.
paintball
Trooool!
Just thought you should know.
(Thump)
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Typical DarkOx post.
Yes, governments should never murder their citizens. It is all equally indefensible, whatever its "justification". That is my exact position. It should be yours too, being the "small, limited government" advocate that you are; or are you an apologist for just some types of state-administered murder?
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you're saying, but: If a politician goes around saying one thing and doing another, then it's appropriate to judge the (wo)man. We don't want liars in charge (we have liars in charge, but that's another topic), because it becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to tell where they actually stand on a given issue. Ideas aren't terribly useful unless/until we have politicians we can trust to do what they say they'll do.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
I think you're mistaking my post as an agreement with the parent, as opposed to the sardonic dig it actually is.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yes that was the Bush policy, except you couldn't see a lawyer and you would never actually get a trial (maybe a military tribunal aka kangaroo court)
Not to mention the fact that even if you were found innocent, you wouldn't necessarily be released from Gitmo! I remember my disbelief at hearing senior Bush administration lawyers testify under oath that this was so: innocent verdicts would not mean the prisoner would be released. I knew then that the USA I grew up in and believed to be the best place in the world had long since begun to go bad. It's difficult to get all exercised over Obama's current failings, real though they be, the man is merely presiding over the festering corpse of a once great nation. The manner in which it rots seems relatively unimportant.
Now, is that because libertarians are simply hard to please, or because, according to various definitions, we don't really have any free countries in existence today?
That's the same argument marxists make. You can't judge marxism as not working in practice, because there are no true marxist states.
Sure. It means you can hold out in a bunker for a few days, if you have a child hostage. Until they decide to kill you anyway.
Let's cut the crap about totalitarianism. Do you think Obama wants to be a despot? Do you think Bush did? The real issue here is that the America people have given their president a mission that he does not have the powers to complete. The world is changing. We can't declare war on our enemies anymore. We can't identify them by the colors they're wearing. Now we're directing our government to put down organizations that exist in many different countries and feature people of many nationalities (even American citizens!). Our institutions were not designed to fight this kind of war. We must design them. We should be passing a constitutional amendment that handles these sorts of situations. There should be a dialogue going on where we the people determine what values should be involved. We need new, big ideas for a new world. Unfortunately, we don't want to discuss big ideas anymore. Everything needs to be pushed away while we stick to talking points and bureaucracy. As a result, the president is making these decisions on his own behind closed doors. This is unacceptable. It's a shame too, because I'm sure we could reach a broad consensus. But until we're willing to have adult conversations about these things, our government will continue to change in the shadows.
Use evil to fight evil.
Ah, the approach of Stalin, Hitler, Pol-pot...
No mass murderer ever thought his evil wasn't justified by some perceived greater evil.
If you...
If you...
When you...
If you...
So you've laid out a number of hypothetical fantasy scenarios. It seems you think you're constructing an argument, but it isn't clear what that argument is.
The central criticism of this violation of due process is that it is precisely leaving out the important step of determining if anything similar to your hypothetical fantasy scenarios pertains in cases where the person in question is not an "imminent threat" to anyone.
If you wanted to remove yourself from the argument you really couldn't have done a better job of it. Do please come back when you have something relevant to say about the quite clear criticisms that have been leveled at this policy of extra-judicial killing by those of us who support the rule of law.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Article I section 8 of the US Constitution proves that this isn't a free country, and was NEVER intended to be one. It is reinforced by Article I Section 10, and slightly modified by the 10th Amendment, though not enough to matter.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
No, this was more about the apportionment of Representatives, which was based on the census.
The Free States didn't think that slaves should count for purposes of representation in Congress, the Slave States disagreed.
As is true in most of politics, a compromise was reached that satisfied noone, but didn't annoy anyone enough to toss the Constitution out over the issue....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Somebody give that man a Nobel Peace Prize.
Margaret Sanger....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Some knucklehead in my neighborhood shot off a gun to celebrate the New Year.
They had it timed right to the second, smart enough to figure that out, but stupid enough to do it.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I don't think you'll find many libertarians who believe they live in a free country.
You can probably find many who believe this was originally intended to be a free country, and that it could become one by following the original design.
My question about 'free country' would be; 'free' as in 'freedom' or 'free' as in 'beer'? Because from where I'm sitting its not obvious.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_compromise
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
No , it qualifies with what YOU believe libertarians define as "free". However, since you're defining someone else's beliefs, it's hardly objective or even logical.
I just KNEW those UPS guys were up to something...
The president is just a puppet in this game of power....we are ignorant to think this is a democrat and or republican issue....this is an issue of power and the powers that be....behind the scenes....I truly think they feel we are all fools....for one we non stop argue with each other about things that arnt even the true issue....so never any resolution. We are sheep being led to the slaughter!! This country was built upon a constitution that was written with the freedom of the people in mind....the government seeks to destroy that....so instead of arguing we need to stand together and stop being fools!
You're an idiot. We have something in the House of Representative called proportional representation. Obviously, outlawing slavery when the Constitution was ratified would have been ideal. Short of that, not counting slaves at all, in other words 0/5 of a person would have been far better than 3/5. This would have further limited the power of pro-slavery states instead of allowing them to increase their power in congress by counting enslaved people as partial citizens, who had no representation.
As a lone gunman, sure.
If everyone in a neighborhood believes that the swat team is immoral, and perpetrating evil, then they go from "having him surrounded" to being surrounded.
It's already happened. LA riots. Funnily enough it lasted exactly the same amount of time. 6 days.
The state will hold off from ending it initially. Minimise casualties, that sort of thing. But when they decide to end it, it's all over for the people opposing the state.
Nothing in my post was meant to imply that the 3/5 compromise was a "bad thing" (especially in comparison to representation by full proportional representation) --- you seem to be projecting some assumptions onto my post. My intent was merely to provide a reminder that the wonderful "original constitutional" system that libertarians lust after was no freedom utopia --- though with many good points, it was a deeply compromised system that integrally embraced terrible oppression, which cannot simply be brushed aside to leave some perfect "Jefferson's real intent" guiding document. With gaping "liberty flaws" in the system as big as slavery, it takes a particularly strong kind of ideological blindness to think that our society's problems will be (mostly) solved by reverting to a mythical, purified version of the constitution.
I agree it is an extension of GWB's due process free indefinite detention policies likely rooted in the same theories. I agree that just having the CIA "handle" things is a rotten system too. I also agree that merely writing the memo, like expressing any opinion, should not be the basis for any kind of legal proceeding (certainly not execution as Al Alwaki was subjected to for youtube vids). However, we are not talking about an abstract discussion -- this has been and continues to be used to kill people in violation of fundamental principles in our Constitution that go all the way back to the Magna Carta.
One point of disagreement I do have, is that it is not a legal framework of any sort. This memo is merely the opinion of Obama's lawyers and although it is treated as a secret law (a huge can of worms on the side as ignorance is no excuse etc. etc.), it ought not be. As Glen Greenwald put it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." Obviously, the question is how you determine an enemy.
Mencius Moldbug much?
Somalia is not what libertarians want, but it is the result of what most libertarians say they want.
In theory what libertarians want is to given the country without allocating their power to a representative. That is to say they want to be free to make all their own decisions, and fit everyone else to be the same. The problem is that like anarchists they have no suggestions on how this would work. They don't all agree on what the actual rule of government would be, they don't have as mechanism for arbitrating conflicts between different ideas of the role of government, and they tend to believe you can have relationships with people without mutual obligation.
tldr; libertarians believe in as postcode we would all want to live in, but which wouldn't work.
First off: thank you for a serious answer. I appreciate when people invest the time to make /.'s comments useful and thought provoking.
My point is that it shouldn't have to be settled through the legislative or judicial process. When we're talking something as serious as killing a US citizen (or really anyone) our policies should have originated in the legislative process, not be an afterthought that we hope reigns in an executive power grab. It's as much a comment on how the process for developing the policies of the US should work as it is about the morality of using deadly force without due process.
As I mentioned in another thread, and as I think the Wired article covered, this stretches the definition of immediacy to absurdity and practically speaking it means that the position of the Executive is: we can kill anyone, anywhere, so long as we think they might be plotting against the US. To take someone's life, I think you need to raise the bar higher than that.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/17z9pp/any_contact_with_the_chamber_floor_will_result_in/
Nah bigoted, you cherry pick the few bad apples and use them to paint every muslim as evil.
I really don't see why they couldn't submit it to a judge for rubber stamping. That is all the due process the constitution requires really. Basically convict the person of treason in absentia. And it really would be little more than rubber stamping but perfectly legal.
I do on the other hand have a little trouble with using a guided missile to target a low level PR defector that happens to be American. I in fact have trouble with targeting anyone that to a high degree of certainty has a direct hand in hostile actions. It's one thing to advocate and another to pull the trigger. But if I were in change and had some convincing intelligence someone was a direct participant I would have no problem signing a warrant for their death.
I also think that many such warrants should be public to give the person a chance to defend themselves and or turn themselves over.
I have no problem with assignation but there does need to be due process.
The Constitution's fairly clear about it. "No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court." That's quite different from "decided by a high-level official".
On the other hand, if making war against Americans is treason, and you're using the US military to send drone strikes to kill specific American citizens who aren't convicted traitors, that's making war against Americans.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The decision-making authority isn't just in the hands of ONE man - the Justice Department's memo says that it has to be a "high-level official", with no footnotes about the definition of "high-level", so presumably it needs to be at least a FIRST lieutenant.... And while you're quite right about the "no checks and balances" part, there's no guarantee that Obama has always been involved, though he does officially have first dibs.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
> Somalia is not what libertarians want
Of course not.
> but it is the result of what most libertarians say they want
Often, but not necessarily. But I agree that it is inevitable in those particular regions of the world with existing poverty and illiteracy. More stable societies will gradually transition to some form/level of liberalism once libertarianism hits its scalability limits.
All libertarians want is that contracts are respected and beyond general security, nothing else is enforced. I can understand how this can work when resources are plentiful and the resource is of such nature that hogging them is hard - such as a relatively small number of pre-industrialization farmers on a surplus land-mass (like frontier US, if you ignore slave and native-American perspectives).
The libertarian problem is that sooner or later power centers develop and abuse almost necessarily follows (unfortunately, libertarians at this stage resort to teleological justifications of that abuse - one is rich, therefore he must have deserved it) and there arises a need for a body that can contain everyone else, but one that operates by a set of principles, for the health of the overall system, rather than the self-interest that everyone else is expected to follow.
The liberal problem then necessarily follows in that the principles of this arbitrating/governing power is almost necessarily directed by those in economic power and to their advantage. At this stage, we don't have further answers. Hopefully, a better, more scientific system will evolve in the next century thanks to better availability of economic and behavioral data and greater transparency and literacy.
"Nobody at this point actually thinks their pathetic handgun is going to protect them against tyranny by a government armed with SWAT teams, drones, and nuclear missiles, do they?"
Yeah, you are right. Guerrilla warfare has been proven easy to put down. So why bother.
You're right.
Jefferson wanted to be wealthy, but how could he have immense wealth if he freed his slaves? It seems that he had to make certain, pragmatic compromises.
He wanted to get laid, but he promised Martha that he would never remarry and he had a hundred women who were legally bound to obey his every order! It seems like a certain, pragmatic compromise was indeed necessary. After all, we can't all follow our own moral creeds all the time. That would be damn inconvenient.
I think the Founding Fathers exemplify American society and government *perfectly* in a way that we often miss when we glorify them and the Constitution. They talked a whole lot about freedom, justice, God and high morality but at their core, the way they truly acted, they were just rich white men that wanted to get their rocks off and not pay their taxes. Some folks in America seem to think that is a new development, but that has always been the American Way.
... but some are finished sooner than others?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
It is not just 'the government' it is 'the power'. Power corrupts ultimately.
If you look back into history, many of the streams that went bad were started by people wanting to 'do good' (often, or at least not as bad as they turned out). But then the wrong people took control and it became radicalised. Even the bad were subverted by the really bad.
While they still continued to shout the same messages, their goals they were no longer. They now had power and were able to use the goals as carrots for the masses.
And people, once they have power, never want to let it go.
Mind you, power does not mean government. Governments everywhere are tightly linked to the real powers, such as banks, insurances, oil, 'defence' et al.
And like the meme from the Princess Bride: "That word [freedom], I do not think it means what you think it means."
Yours may be the first articulation of the ‘protect us from tyranny’ gun defence I’ve read which actually makes any kind of logical sense!
The argument previously struck me as very silly for two reasons:
I’m still not persuaded by the argument (because I think that by the time you get to defending yourself against government-backed thugs, things have already gone too far, the democratic checks and balances have failed, and the cost of widespread gun ownership is too high to justify keeping guns for that small eventuality) —but at least it’s a coherent point.
or are you an apologist for just some types of state-administered murder
The truth is I am not sure. I don't like the death penalty but part of me also sees some value in it; so I am not so sure I want to take a position totally opposed to its employ in every case.
I do think killing someone is very final. So if it is ever to be done by the state it needs to be using an open, per-defined, clear, accountable process. I think its completely unacceptable the way DOJ currently seems to argue in favor of going about it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
When do these drone assassinations cross the line into genocide against the people of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Jefferson fought many battles against slavery. No doubt his ownership of slaves was wrong and hypocritical, but certainly worth noting that he did fight against it.
I haven't read much about the "raping" from Jefferson, are you referring to Sally Hemings?
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
The policies did originate in the legislative process.
The issue is that some people are claiming the legislation says something different than other people claim it says.
And that's a very common occurrence in our government - the executive always attempting to take the broadest interpretation of executive power as possible.
It's a big reason we have that whole judicial branch.
paintball
Nobody at this point actually thinks their pathetic handgun is going to protect them against tyranny by a government armed with SWAT teams, drones, and nuclear missiles, do they?
Actually, there is a precedent. Ever heard of the battle of Athens?
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." -- Albert Einstein
Casteism
It's more about a war just not being winnable by force more than anything else. I don't know that the military is getting beaten in Afghanistan so much as they just can not possibly win against a guerilla underground with enough popular support. So long as we try to maintain an occupation there we might as well be burning stacks of cash and throwing in the occasional soldier.
I think the issue of having to fight against ones relatives is a little over blown simply because very few military people end up stationed anywhere near where they grew up. On the other hand though our bases here in the states are usually tightly integrated with the communities around them. Most troops don't even live on post anymore. What percentage of the troops would simply not show up for duty if they knew they were going to be ordered to arms against the civilians they live among?
You freedom-loving libertarians need to understand this concept. It really is a flaw among you libertarians to think that you somehow live in a "free" country. No, you do NOT live in a free country. You never have. Try breaking a law, and see how much freedom you have.
This just shows that you don't know what "libertarian" means. It's not the same as anarchist. Libertarians believe in being restrained by laws. The difference between libertarianism and more intrusive governmental philosophies is the KIND of laws it prefers. The kind of laws generally supported by libertarians are ones that protect people from coercion and harm.
Standard policy states that the other party sucks. We are against sucking. We prefer bending over.
Government assassinations? They've been happening since governments were first formed. All of a sudden
there's a whole slew of dainty little flowers who want to pretend that there aren't really bad people
out there and opt for sending nastigrams to such people via email or Social Networking and pretending they
will just go away. Unfortunately, most terrorists, especially those acting from a so-called "religious"
zeal would like to kill you and your entire family, your neighborhood, city or country and laugh about it.
"But they're AMERICANS!"
Right. Americans who want to kill you and your entire family, neighborhood, city or country.
For that they deserve a special pass, because we all know that they can't be bad because they're "Americans".
Anyone who lives on the North American or South American continent is an American. It's just a label. A
person's true nature is revealed by their actions, not a label applied to them.
"But what about the Rule of Law?"
While the Rule of Law is an amazing and desirable standard to live by, it unfortunately won't shield you
from someone shooting at you or detonating an explosive device next to you.
We should be capturing them and bring them to trial!
Wasting resources and possibly MORE lives attempting to hunt them down in the far corners of the world.
Exactly how many other people have to die to make killing them an acceptable option? Are YOU willing to be
a victim? How about a family member? A friend? Whom are you willing to sacrifice in the terrorist's place?
What about "collateral" casualties?
What about them? The people who allow the terrorists to live amongst them know who they are and what
they do. Do you think they give one iota of thought about you and your family, friend, coworkers, neighbors and
so on who are killed when the terrorist's bomb goes off or they mow people down with a machine gun?
We depend on our government to protect us and to do what is necessary for that cause. If you don't like it,
your choices are to vote in a different government, fight the government or leave the country. Everyone will have
to accept that the world isn't a perfect place and is only going to get more dangerous, or continue to live in their
self-imposed la-la land until reality comes knocking on their door. By then it will probably be too late.
That's not the use of a handgun I was thinking of. I'm not going to mention my use, because those who have suggested it publicly have been disappeared.
Well, first of all, that's not an argument against letting citizens have small weapons, it's an argument FOR letting them have big ones.
A common repsonse to that point is along the lines of "but the framers of the Constitution didn't anticipate all these new weapons". Those who say that forget that there were more weapons in those days than just muskets. They had grenades back then. They had cannons. They had fully-armed warships. And ALL of those things were held by private citizens. The framers were fully cognizant of the concept of people having access to the same kind of firepower that the government did, and they were not only okay with it, they insisted upon it. So yes, citizens should be allowed to have rockets and tanks and such. If that makes you think we'd be seeing epidemics of guys driving around in tanks blowing up everything they see like a GTA game, it's because you're erroneously assuming that having a weapon equals using that weapon at every possible opportunity. People in the colonial days owned cannons but didn't go off shelling their neighbors all the time.
Furthermore, the quoted argument fails to take into account the complexity of the nature of armed conflict. Victory doesn't automatically go to the side with the biggest gun; just look at Vietnam for proof of that. There are matters of terrain, morale, initiative, local support, etc. Also, you can't bring every weapon your side has to bear in every conflict; cruise missiles aren't going to help you flush out a cell of insurgents hiding amongst the locals. Additionally, the government would have to worry about ruining its own infrastructure if it tried to brute-force its way through an insurgency with pure firepower, so it would have to choose between fighting with one hand behind its back or crippling its own ability to prosecute the very war it's fighting. Either of those narrows the gap for an insurgency. Not to the point where victory is assured, of course, but dismissing it on that basis is a classic nirvana fallacy.
Finally, the mere possibility of an armed revolt - even a hopelessly outmatched one - acts as a restraining influence upon the government. Putting down rebellions is risky and expensive, particularly for a first-world nation that is heavily invested in trade. An armed populace is unlikely to have serious need of its arms precisely because it has them. It's easy to forget this because you can take it for granted, and also because the fact that it's imperfect (Patriot Act, NDAA, etc) can fool you into thinking it's not happening at all.
In instances where the police are the bad guys, we should want exactly that. People have a right to defend themselves from criminals who attack them, and that right doesn't disappear if the criminal in question happens to wear a badge. As for cases where the cops get shot at even when they're the good guys (and I will freely state that this is by far the more common case), this is going to happen regardless because criminals don't care about gun laws.
Well, that's like saying that by the time you get to using a fire extinguisher, things have gone too far and adherence to fire-safety protocol has failed - it's correct, but it misses the point. The case when checks and balances have failed are exactly what that defense is for.
The question you should ask yourself is why gun ownership appears to have s
The death paper has loopholes you can drive a truck through.
Where this is going is that computers will decide the country would be better off without you (based on network analysis, plus all your miscellaneous data trails), and have you killed without human intervention, under some secret, fuzzy White House authorization. You won't need to do or intend anything wrong.
People will wise up that privacy is important again, as it can save your life. We need space to think and explore, without asking what could get us killed by displeasing some inscrutable Big Other.
Nobody at this point actually thinks their pathetic handgun is going to protect them against tyranny by a government armed with SWAT teams, drones, and nuclear missiles, do they? And their power was actually demonstrated via a civil war where Gen. Sherman burnt down half the south to clear out the rebellious traitors..
Actually, Korea, Vietnam, Libya, and Afghanistan have proved that an armed populace can be an effective weapon against such a government. On a domestic front, Christopher Dorner proved the same thing just recently, as he single-handely killed 4 and injured 3, many of which were armed police.
If one person can do such a thing, an entire armed populace IS something to fear. Of course, arming a populace has other downsides (Adam Lanza, etc).
-=Lothsahn=-
Yours may be the first articulation of the 'protect us from tyranny' gun defence I've read which actually makes any kind of logical sense!
Try checking out the Eureka Stockade, a small lightly armed rebellion in Victoria, 1854 (then a British colony, now a state of Australia). To sum up: the rebels lost the battle against the better armed police, won in court due to popular support (jury nullification) 10,000 people marched in support of the first acquittal. Peter Lalor, the leader of the rebellion, was elected to Victoria's Legislative Assembly in 1856.
Not a bad result for people who lost the armed battle in about 10 minutes. In a country with free press and open courts you don't necessarily need overwhelming firepower, just enough to force the government to show it's hand.
As for not wanting people shooting back at police: when they are enforcing law that the majority of the population sees as oppressive then you do. If you get to the point where you do want people to shoot back and you've disarmed the population you are in a very hard place. Also consider that historically the tendency of governments to become oppressive seems more like an inevitability than a "small eventuality".
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You freedom-loving libertarians need to understand this concept. It really is a flaw among you libertarians to think that you somehow live in a "free" country. No, you do NOT live in a free country. You never have. Try breaking a law, and see how much freedom you have.
Wow, you have a really warped idea of what Libertarians (big L, not little l) are about.
We do NOT believe in breaking the law. In fact, we appear to want to hold ppl to a MUCH higher level of responsibility compared to what dems/pubs/neo-cons/tea-baggers do. That is why it is possible with Libertarians to sue the gov, while with dems/pubs/neo-cons/tea-baggers they way to allow the gov to have ZERO responsibility on their favorite subjects.
And wanting Liberties is another way of saying that we do not want an irresponsible gov. trying to put limits on us.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hitler: 6 million deaths
Margaret Sanger: 55 million deaths.
She belongs in the list.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm pretty sure it was Heinlein that mentioned that use in one of his books. One character was explaining to another how a particular war was won before it was even officially started, and that the largest weapon used was a .22 pistol.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...