Recently it has been all over the news that B. Hussein Obama is toying with allowing his Attorney General to prosecute for crimes committed by Bush administration officials in relation to torture techniques pursued during the Bush administration.
Now, I have little doubt that the Bush administration is guilty of all kinds of crimes during their time in office, though I’m more concerned about the crimes committed in the run up to the war. I think that if there was such a thing as justice in Washington D.C. many of the Bush administration officials would end up behind bars.
However, the idea that Democrats are qualified to bring justice to the crimes of Republicans is like believing the Stalin communists were qualified to bring justice to the Nazi fascists. Bush administration officials may be guilty but their potential jurors are equally guilty. It would be a mockery of justice to see Democrats putting Republicans on trial.
Now, if we could have a trial were Democrats and Republicans alike would be put on trial I would be all for it. But we all know that is not going to happen.
However, in the end there will be no trials for the simple reason that Washington is a den of thieves and they honor the code of thieves. That code teaches that the group of thieves called the Democratic party does not go after the group of thieves called the Republican party in any significant large scale way, if only because everybody has the goods on everybody else. Significant large scale justice will never happen because everybody knows where all the bodies are buried and how to expose their accusers.
So what we get instead is a great deal of public self righteous pontificating about how despicable the guy in the other party is.
Thesis>antithesis=synthesis.
Hegel would be proud, they keep telling us that one is worse than the other and we forget where the pea is. The pea being justice, liberty, and freedom.
However, the idea that Democrats are qualified to bring justice to the crimes of Republicans is like believing the Stalin communists were qualified to bring justice to the Nazi fascists. Bush administration officials may be guilty but their potential jurors are equally guilty. It would be a mockery of justice to see Democrats putting Republicans on trial.
Absolutely brilliant.
I know what our Founders would do and Who they would beseech for the justification – but, alas, we’ve long passed that point. Imagine something more disorderly than war. (not a question)
What you avoid explicitly stating is that Bush committed treason. If not treason, then you are merely disagreeing with policy. If the latter, then I again disagree. Criminalizing policy disagreements undercuts the Constitution, rather than protecting it.
Criminalizing policy disagreements subverts law making it subservient to the power of politics. Let me think, I think we’ve seen that in the last century in several different forms.
I don’t think you can make a legal argument that Bush committed treason under the Constitution. Sure, you could make an argument from a pre-ratification, anti-federalist perspective, but they lost and thus their arguments, sound as some of them may be, have no legal authority.
High Paul
I believe all I have to prove is “High crimes and misdemeanors.” Maybe that is all that one needs for impeachment.
I am of the persuasion that Bush lied about Weapons of Mass destruction. Of course that would have to be proven but I think that putting Colin Powell in the Witness box might go a long way towards doing that.
If the Democrats get their wish, we may find out if Bush can be successfully tried.
Little hard to impeach someone not in office.
If the Democrats get their wish, we’ll be one step closer an authoritarianism that we both would abhor.
I’m a reasonable man. I’m willing to forget criminal charges if I can get a ex post facto impeachment.
The Democrats won’t do this. To many skeletons would fall out of their own closets.
Ours is a soft authoritarianism. All the effects without any of the draconian measures.
The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.” So unless you are taking the line that we must subvert the Constitution in order to save it, I’ll simply assume you were joking.
Statism is here and growing in depth and breadth, all the more reason to oppose criminalizing policy differences.
I was joking.
But wasn’t there a guy named Lincoln who did subvert the constitution in order to save it?
This is a worthwhile dialog; please continue.