Of the Bill of Rights?

[revelarts]

Obama , the constitutional scholar, uses STATES SECRETS EXCUSE AGAIN USED TO COVER ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING.
This time it's the Attorney client privileged.
Not surprising really, if they claim the right to kill you -in secret- listening to your phone conversation is a light thing.





AP: Court: NSA doesn't have to say if it has records

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court won't make the super-secret National Security Agency divulge whether it has records of the warrantless wiretapping it did of lawyers representing Guantanamo Bay inmates.

The court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from detainee lawyer Thomas B. Wilner.

Wilner and other detainee lawyers filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the NSA asking whether it has warrantless wiretapping records on them. But the NSA won't say whether it does or does not, saying that revealing this information would endanger national security.

Federal courts have agreed with the NSA, saying that the FOIA does not require the divulgence of sensitive national security information.

The case is Wilner v. National Security Agency, 09-1192.

[LuvRPgrl]

Don't look now, but you just admitted that some rights ARE given by the government...unless you intend to argue that a god would bestow rights based on nationality.

THIS IS A GREAT ILLUSTRATION OF YOUR BASIC PROBLEM IN UNDERSTANDING ISSUES.
The job of the govt is not to give rights, but to SECURE, OR PROTECT, the God given rights from those who wish to take them away, how much, or how far OUR govt will go to secure those rights does vary depending on a persons citizenship

[LuvRPgrl]

Not all rights are 'natural rights':



We have the 'right' to vote, yet there are restrictions. Same with driving a car.

Now to get to 'problems' with natural or expected restricted rights-see the rest of 2/3 regarding the 'wrongs' done and listed in Declaration.

Seems to me that those two cant be natural rights partly because they are not even natural actions.

Some countries dont have voting, and of course until recently nobody was able to drive.

I would say driving is a privledge, you have to prove your ability to do so
Voting is a dicier matter. I believe only property owners could vote, the basic idea being they would have a minimum level of education

Due to the racism displayed by many, we have gotten to the point of basically no restrictions because the racists would use restrictions to unfairly use them against blacks or minorities in particular, rather than using those restrictions against ONLY those they were intended for (the uneducated)

which is one of the reasons I no longer have faith our country will continue to be successful for much longer.

I am in Mr P's court, and when I have the time, Im changing my avatar to what he has

Our main voting base in this country is so uneducated and base their vote on little TV snipetts and it is so destructive. Its so easy to distort the truth and the Dems have been excellent in portraying conservatives as slave mongering evil monsters, of course they have the help of the main stream media, example Keith Olberman the GREAT DELUDED LIAR he is

[Pagan]

THIS IS A GREAT ILLUSTRATION OF YOUR BASIC PROBLEM IN UNDERSTANDING ISSUES.
The job of the govt is not to give rights, but to SECURE, OR PROTECT, the God given rights from those who wish to take them away, how much, or how far OUR govt will go to secure those rights does vary depending on a persons citizenship

Says it all right here -

10th Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Government has no power that is not granted to it by the Constitution.

[LuvRPgrl]

Yes, there are restrictions. I'm not sure the driving restrictions are quite valid myself.

"Certain" rights yes ...."that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

those are pretty broad concepts.

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, "


Liberty is the concept that comes into play with the current conflict and discussion over Gitmo,

Among the complaints about King George
"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:"
Sounds like what we are doing now.
"For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences"
Yeah that's what we are doing. Maybe not pretended but still some are.

I really like the way you present your side of the arguement, unlike some who only present an erroneous myoptic view of their own (MM),who is not capable of seeing anothers pov and reconsidering their posistion (the true definition of closed minded) And I think being open minded to this issue is good.
I currently believe what they are doing is fine, but Im confident there is a lot of info Im not aware of at this time.
That being said, re traffic tickets and a jury, a traffic ticket isnt technically a crime
As for your comparision to the complaints about King George, one big difference is the terrorists are in no way linked to citizenship of our country, or a "colony" of ours.
If they were a citizen, I would agree, Gitmo would be wrong for them, as a citizen of some arab country, well I doubt even their own govt affords them the rights you are subscribing they deserve from us
This is a new and unique situation, previously in warfare, if one was captured fighting against us, then we only had to afford them Geneva rights, and they would remain interned until the end of the hostilities. But this is a different situation as it is not very conceivable to ever seeing an end of the hostilities with terrorists anymore.

This clouds the issue to me to the point I have to say, hold them, but I do so with trepidation

[LuvRPgrl]

Says it all right here -

10th Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Government has no power that is not granted to it by the Constitution.

This quote does nothing to illustrate the extent of the powers of the govt, IT ONLY gives definition as to who has what powers in the struggle between State and Federtal govt.
The country existed long before the current COTUS. The cotus was written to define the powers of the FEDERAL govt, the DOI declared us an independent and soveirgn nation, LEGALLY. THe DOI made the country independent and the COTUS merely defined division of and delegation of powers of govt. IT DID NOT CREATE THE GOVT

AND YOUR last ;statement should lead with the word "federal" govt has no power.....

NOT TO MENTION, by your reasoning, if govt doesnt have the power to give or deny rights until a written document (the COTUS), then obviously we had those rights before it was written, and hence, it is not the document or the powers it delegates that has the power to grant rights, but the document actually defines which rights the govt cannot deny, or if they can, under what circumstances they have the right to deny such rights.

[Pagan]

This quote does nothing to illustrate the extent of the powers of the govt, IT ONLY gives definition as to who has what powers in the struggle between State and Federtal govt.
The country existed long before the current COTUS. The cotus was written to define the powers of the FEDERAL govt, the DOI declared us an independent and soveirgn nation, LEGALLY. THe DOI made the country independent and the COTUS merely defined division of and delegation of powers of govt. IT DID NOT CREATE THE GOVT

AND YOUR last ;statement should lead with the word "federal" govt has no power.....

The "Federal" Government has no power unless it is granted to it by the Constitution. The 10th clearly spells it out.

There "IS" no Government without the Constitution, the Constitution defines the ONLY power the Government has. States have their own Constitution and they also do not have any power beyond what their Constitution grants their State Government.

[Missileman]

THIS IS A GREAT ILLUSTRATION OF YOUR BASIC PROBLEM IN UNDERSTANDING ISSUES.
The job of the govt is not to give rights, but to SECURE, OR PROTECT, the God given rights from those who wish to take them away, how much, or how far OUR govt will go to secure those rights does vary depending on a persons citizenship

Your entire premise is based on an assumption. If and when some deity comes down to earth and declares I have the right to an attorney for instance, THEN you can claim my rights are god-given. Until that occurs, my rights are derived from the COTUS which was written by men.

Hell...you can't even produce a Biblical reference for half of the rights we enjoy as citizens of the U.S. If all these rights are god-given, they should be found in the Bible, no?

[Missileman]

I really like the way you present your side of the arguement, unlike some who only present an erroneous myoptic view of their own (MM),who is not capable of seeing anothers pov and reconsidering their posistion (the true definition of closed minded)

So disagreeing with your assinine position makes me myopic? Let me guess...you don't think that disagreeing with mine makes you myopic and close-minded. You really are a tard!

[revelarts]

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, "

LLUv

I think that quote pretty much sums it up.
the gov't, any gov't derives it's just powers from the consent of the governed.

you say that you allow for the gov't to hold prisoners in this new indefinite undeclared war .. basically forever without trial and again NOT PICKED UP FROM the "field of battle", not a hot field anyway, by the old definition, but i guess the new field defined as the whole world.

You allow for it with trepidation. I'm glad you see some danger in it. I'd like to hear what causes you some mild concern with that. Personally I'm sorta freaked out about it.

But your point that it's a new situation is interesting but it seems it really should force the "governed" to come up with new rules to deal with it. Since the constitution does not define the boundaries, the gov'ts hands should have been tied. No Authority no action. Instead. what has happened is Ad Hoc supra constitutional, supra legal executive, legislative and judicial orders and actions. All without the peoples consent.

taking it back a step from there, just because a person is not a citizen doesn't give our gov't the right to indefinitely imprison, torture and or kill them. Where's that in the constitution? Human right at least mean the rights not to be put in prison, and in the U.S. even the worse murders get a trail citizen or not. the idea that the only people on the planet who have rights are Americans seems to me to be, well, unamerican.

[Pagan]

Your entire premise is based on an assumption. If and when some deity comes down to earth and declares I have the right to an attorney for instance, THEN you can claim my rights are god-given. Until that occurs, my rights are derived from the COTUS which was written by men.

Hell...you can't even produce a Biblical reference for half of the rights we enjoy as citizens of the U.S. If all these rights are god-given, they should be found in the Bible, no?

AGAIN our rights are not derived from the Constitution. The Constitution lists the ONLY rights/power Government has as clearly emphisized by the 10th Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

[Missileman]

AGAIN our rights are not derived from the Constitution. The Constitution lists the ONLY rights/power Government has as clearly emphisized by the 10th Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The rights I enjoy ARE derived from the COTUS as it restricts the government from denying them to me. A Chinese citizen has no freedom of speech, for instance, because there is nothing restricting the Chinese goverment from putting a bullet in someone's head for speaking out.

[Pagan]

The rights I enjoy ARE derived from the COTUS as it restricts the government from denying them to me. A Chinese citizen has no freedom of speech, for instance, because there is nothing restricting the Chinese goverment from putting a bullet in someone's head for speaking out.

We're born with Natural Rights, Government takes them away.

As for Chinese Freedom of Speech -

Constitution of The Peoples Republic of China
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/co...stitution.html

CHAPTER II. THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS
Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

But then again the Government just ignores it as that is what Government does unless the People DEMAND adherence to the rule of law.

[Kathianne]

Seems to me that those two cant be natural rights partly because they are not even natural actions.

Some countries dont have voting, and of course until recently nobody was able to drive.

I would say driving is a privledge, you have to prove your ability to do so
Voting is a dicier matter. I believe only property owners could vote, the basic idea being they would have a minimum level of education

Due to the racism displayed by many, we have gotten to the point of basically no restrictions because the racists would use restrictions to unfairly use them against blacks or minorities in particular, rather than using those restrictions against ONLY those they were intended for (the uneducated)

which is one of the reasons I no longer have faith our country will continue to be successful for much longer.

I am in Mr P's court, and when I have the time, Im changing my avatar to what he has

Our main voting base in this country is so uneducated and base their vote on little TV snipetts and it is so destructive. Its so easy to distort the truth and the Dems have been excellent in portraying conservatives as slave mongering evil monsters, of course they have the help of the main stream media, example Keith Olberman the GREAT DELUDED LIAR he is

Umm, read my post again. I stated not all rights granted are 'natural rights.' At any time those 'unnatural rights' are amendable. There was a time that there were no driver's licenses. There was a time that voting was much more restricted than now.

Natural rights, whether from God or just accepted by Deists and agnostics long ago, are what is referred to in the DoI, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, (i.e., wealth/property)

[Missileman]

We're born with Natural Rights, Government takes them away.

As for Chinese Freedom of Speech -

Constitution of The Peoples Republic of China
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/co...stitution.html

CHAPTER II. THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS
Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

But then again the Government just ignores it as that is what Government does unless the People DEMAND adherence to the rule of law.

I agree there are natural rights...but there are also rights given by the government. The right to vote, for instance, doesn't exist unless the government you live under allows it.