On tracking terrorists and other unwanted individuals

As a policeman you don´t have the right to shoot whoever you want because you don´t like them. For police to use deadly force, they need to be facing a lethal force that puts their life in danger. That is the reason every police shooting has to be investigated and if the police has not acted correctly then they should face the consequences. The people who were killed by drones were not facing soldiers who needed to defend themselves. It was a planned execution which is against the US constitution.

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta

Please use the link in my previous post and try to learn about US constitution by reading it. It is an important document.

 

I guess we will just continue to disagree about how flexible the laws really are. I already outlined the circumstances that need to be aligned to activate a drone killing. It isn't as simple as a guy with a joystick killing whoever they want. It takes the approval of high level officials who have determined, just like the policeman you talked about, that trying to capture this person puts lives in danger, therefore giving them the right to use deadly force. If a wanted terrorist fleas to Pakistan do you suggest we just let them go? When they go hiding in the mountains shall we just say forget about it? Lets not forget about personal choices here. If the drone strike guys didn't want to die, and wanted their due process of law, they just had to turn themselves in. As far as the policeman being involved in an investigation after shooting a criminal, the same applies to drone killings. Except the investigation is done prior, and they then determine that a strike is the right move. But since you are a constitutionalist now, I expect you to argue in favor of owning guns. Especially those machine guns you always talk about. Nowhere in the 2nd amendment does it say that machine guns are not legal.

 

High level officials can not approve something that is against the US Constitution. Even USA president cannot do that. This is the oath of office for U.S. President before taking the office.

It doesn´t say, I do as I please and sometimes will consider to obey the constitution.
The killings were not in the battlefield and no one was in danger. It was an illegal execution which is against the US constitution. Once people accept that the constitution and the rule of law is only valid some of the time, it opens the floodgate to all kinds of tyranny.

 

Obama refers to the constitution as, "A Deeply Flawed Document", so his disdain for its rules is no surprise.

What I find humorous, watching the back and forth between you two, is that the professional left in America has taken up the president's view on this issue. Often, phrases such as "There are no absolute rights", and "The constitution is an outdated 18th century document" are bandied about in reference to the constitution, especially when disparaging Tea Party types.

If a self proclaimed Marxist like yourself can get behind the Constitution, perhaps there is hope for those on the left. Or, perhaps you are just getting behind it to be confrontational with redtarget.

For what it's worth, the right of an individual to face his accusers in a court of law is every bit as much of an absolute right as the freedom of speech and religion. I agree that these rights can be suspended in a time of war, but we are on year 11 of this war against a non-nation state, and the enemies list is bigger than ever. Wasn't this the "change" people thought they were voting for in 2008? Isn't this why our idiot in charge received a Nobel Peace prize prior to beginning his work? What a joke.

 

Ok Mr. Constitution. I will make sure to quote your post in every gun thread from now on. I am convinced now that you would argue that the world was flat if I said it was round.

 

Never forget your audience, my friend.

 

If he had said that then he is a liar because he has taken an oath to defend it. The second part shows that you do not know very much about Marxism. Read the quotes below from newspaper published by Marx and Engles and notice the similarity between their thinking and ideas in US Constituation.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1974/xx/democracy.html

Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, armed militia, protection of the people against government overreach,... does these sound familiar to you?

I was defending the constitution in 2005. Later USA supreme court agreed.

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/sad-day-for-america.27898/

 

The problem is your lack of understanding. Did I say that I was against people owning guns? If I say that I think people should have a driving license or their cars should be road worthy, does this mean I am supporting driving ban or I want to remove people right to own a car or drive?
I think every person of legal age should be trained in the use of guns and people who want to own one, should be able to get one but under conditions that secures the safety of others. I think that a gun is an evil but necessary tool that have many uses while you think it is a piece of metal that you can use as penis extender and shoot empty beer cans with.

 

Marx had lovely things to say about many things. As we know from history, his economic ideas had a fatal flaw. They lead to brutal autocracies where all those rights he supposedly supports were eliminated.

 

LOL. Can you tell me what was the flaws in economic ideas?
Marx and Engles were actually actively fighting for those lovely things that they were saying.
If you are talking about the old Soviet block, that had nothing to do with Marx and it was Lenin which implemented a form of Capitalism (State Capitalism). Engles many years before Soviet become a reality predicted that State Capitalism is the harshest type of Capitalism which is actually what we are seeing more and more today in the Western world. Even if you want to call the old soviet block socialism then what was worse, their system or all the dictatorships that USA has installed in Asia, Africa, South America which have killed so many under the Capitalism system.

 

Sure. His ideas require a large central government to distribute wealth. Large governments employing millions of bureaucrats controlling the flow of wealth isn't just sclerotic to an economic system. It guarantees corruption, and corruption guarantees abuse. The needs of the collective, by definition, outweigh the needs of the individual in a collectivist society. The USSR is not a failed or poor example of implementation of Marx's ideas. It is the poster child.

No question that the US is moving heavily in the direction of State Capitalism, and its being pushed there by both parties, which is why you are seeing a libertarian uprising. It will be very difficult to put that toothpaste back in the tube, and actually cut back on government contracts to private companies, the revolving door between Wall St. and Washington, and the size of our government bureaucracies, but here is to hoping.

Like the Khmer Rouge? Hard to beat Joseph Stalin when it comes to genocide. Even Hitler, with his methodical and organized German nature was unable to kill anywhere near as many people. Killing people en-masse and stepping on their civil rights comes naturally to an atheist communist state. All in the name of the greater good, mind you.

 

Have you ever noticed that when I post about Marx, Capitalism, Constituation,.... I have always pointed to the source while you just make it up as you go along? If these are Marx ideas, why don´t you give us a source for your claims? Leninism has got nothing to do with Marxism and in fact many of the revolutionaries that were insisting on Marx ideas and why Socialism is not possible in one country, got killed by the Soviet government.

 

I didn't claim they were Marx's ideas. I claimed they are the unwanted side effect of Marx's ideas.

Marx's ideas, on principal, are beautiful. They go right into the same category of "Why cant we all just get along" and "Wouldn't it be nice if there were no bad people". Idealism has killed more people than cancer. You'd be much better off betting on people to be petty, corrupt, greedy, and self interested. That is human nature.

There it is, the old saw. The only reason the USSR failed was because the evil non-socialist states brought it down. If only every country had moved to unproductive and corrupt communist societies, it would have been a glorious success.

If you want to see communism succeed, you have to shrink the experiment not expand it. Shrink it to something, lets say, the size of a Kibbutz or an Amish community. In those small, tight knit(and therefore accountable) communities, communism works like a charm. Sure they aren't moving society ahead with any great advances, but they are probably quite happy.

The USSR is an example of what expanding the experiment yields. The bigger you make it, and the more diverse and unrelated groups you put into it, the bigger the failure will be. Even the functioning socialist societies in Northern Europe have practically no racial diversity, and closed borders. Social engineering, like any other type of engineering, requires us to learn from our successes and failures.

 

Again, you are making up things as you go along to hide your lack of knowledge about the topic. Nobody said that socialist country failed because other non-socialist countries were bad. There was no communist country because communism is world system only possible by Capitalism reaching its limit and changing to a new system. Why do you think that Marx and Engels predicted the world market? Have you seen the news about the free trade agreements in North America? Have you seen the start of new discussions about the USA and EU for a free trade agreement? In a previous post you mentioned that you have at least noticed the rise of State Capitalism, do you know that Engels predicted this as last stage and the harshest form of Capitalism? Communism has got nothing to do with the good nature of humans and in fact Marx and Engels criticized the Utopian socialist movement that wanted to build ideal communities and said that these communities are going to fail because communism is an economic system which is only possible when Capitalism has developed to its limit.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm

Try to learn about these subjects by reading a book instead of watching old Hollywood movies about bad Russians.

 

I'm not sure how you misread what I wrote. Communists always claim communism failed in the USSR because "communism is a world system" or as I said, "because [evil] non-communist countries brought it down". You repeated it in the quote above. We are saying the same thing. You need to reread the rest of my post explaining why such an argument is ridiculous. Communism has only been successful in small sealed communities without diversity or open immigration. Communism has always failed outside of those environments, usually in the form of an oppressive dictatorship. That is history. Those are facts. Your assertion that it would work better as a "world system" is completely contrary to all existing historical, evidence.

I'm not sure what a world market has to do with State Capitalism, but the world market existed long before Marco Polo and the silk road. I'm also not sure why it would matter if Marx predicted the rise of State Capitalism. Predicting something that seems possible or even likely doesn't mean your economic theories are any good.

The very premise of communism, each works according to his ability, each receives according to his needs, is Utopian. To compete and excel over your peers is very much human nature. To want to have more is human nature. It would work great if we could only conquer human nature. Not Utopian at all.

 

You are still making it up as you go along without referring to any source. I suppose as long as you refuse to read and just want to make up stories based on what you think Marxism is, based on your understanding of old Hollywood movies about bad Russians, it is no point to try to explain it to you.
Just as an example of your type of reasoning, I will make one about the USA.

"What happened during Bush government and the killing of hundreds of thousands of people through unnecessary wars was the fault of the founding fathers of the USA because they made the constitution a utopian document. We all know that it is impossible because of human nature to have free speech or give legal rights to people we don´t like."


End of making it up as I go along like you do.

 

I was practicing Photoshop. I'm trying to make Obama look like chocolate. I don't know. It's not quite right. It needs something. I'm not sure what?



Anyway - On topic of this thread, Obama has already announced that the government is completely transparent. So, I guess that answers that. Nothing to see here, move along, move along...

 

Is there a function in Photoshop that you can change that picture that picture to this one?

 

ROFL..looks like someone has shit on his head..probably not for the first time...

 

If an dead people in Iraq were the only thing you could attribute to the US, perhaps your analogy would work, but as you know there is so much more. The US,even in it's early days, was a destination for the poor and oppressed to escape the very rigid class structure and persecution of Europe. In terms of quality of life, personal freedoms, religious freedoms, etc, the US stood alone.

Stalin's murder of 10s of millions of his own countrymen isn't the only thing that makes the USSR such a terrific example of the failure of communism. It is the USSR's abject failure to deliver on ANY of the other promises of Marx at any point in it's existence, including and especially improving the lot of the working class.

If you don't like using the USSR as an example, feel free to use any of the oppressive Communist regimes in Asia or Central America. Brutal dictatorships ruling over impoverished workers, to the last of them.

By the way, I love the Uncle Tom book cover:



Until now, I was under the impression that Ruckus came from original art. Not sure if you are a Boondock's fan.