The Glade 4.0

seconded.

Simple cloth bag over head, bullet, gun.

Bag makes for no mess no fuss.

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"None is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people safe as they are the
ultimate guardians of their own liberty."- Thomas Jefferson

"Yeah, I'm rehearsing my poker face. I don't handle stupid well. *sigh*" - Farsky

Ooh, sweet. The President can declare war on its own citizens, now. Yay, Terrorism for undermining the Constitution TWICE in once sentence!!!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yay for overwrought hyperbole! That would be an assassination, not an execution, and like it our not, it was carried out in the pursuance of war. It's a wrongful death matter, not a justicable question of executions, or criminal procedure, and certainly not a matter of any Constitutional undermining nor declaring war on our citizens. The Constitution is far more likely to be undermined by the legions of people in this country trying to declare anything they disapprove of unconstitutional than it is by a drone strike in Yemen.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Wait a minute. Who's bringing hyperbole into the discussion? Hannibal pointed out that the drone strike on the citizen had not afforded the citizen due process or a jury of his peers, and wondered what that should be called, since it's not an execution.

You're the one who called it war, Diamondeye. I was simply responding to your answer. If we call that war, then we can now declare war on our own citizens. Without a Congressional vote to do so.

I, for one, certainly hope we can't legitimately call it war. Because that's a terrible notion, for the above reasons. I'd rather call it an assassination of an American citizen, and haul the President before Congress to be impeached, and then tried before a jury of his peers for murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Because targetting American citizens for death without due process is just that -- murder, not any legal function of the government.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

When did you become a pansy, terrorist-sympathizing liberal?

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

It's part of a war that has been ongoing. There's no hyperbole involved. As I then pointed out, it would be an assassination, conducted in pursuit of overall military and national security goals. He's right, it's not an execution. It's also not a murder.



Except that it isn't terrible at all, nor is it a cause for impeachment. It's a cause of action for wrongful death against the government. There is no reason whatsoever to be impeaching anyone, or hauling anyone in front of any criminal trials. The idea that it could is far more dangerous to our liberty and existence as a free nation than some guy in Yemen getting killed.

It is certainly not murder. It has nothing to do with "just functions of government". National defense is a legitimate function of government.

The first function of government is defense against outside attack. The government must do this. In point of fact, no point of law can ever be allowed to prevent it from doing so. The courts have ruled on this; U.S. vs. Tiffany explains the concept quite well. Mining of Vietnamese harbors was explicitly stated by the courts to be beyond the bounds of what is a justicable question.

Similarly, a person killed by military action during the conduct of actual national defense activities is not murdered. Ever. Actual national defense conducted against outside enemies is beyond the reach of the courts to review and beyond the power of law to constrain. (Note that this does not mean everything, or even most things, the military does are immune to law. In fact, most things can be constrained by law because most military activities, like training or purchasing things are not actual defense against an outside enemy)

Now, the fact remains, however, that killing a citizen still constitutes a seizure without due process under the 4th amendment and thus the government cannot simply use the fact that a U.S. citizen is abroad to kill them with impunity. This creates a contradiction; the killing of the citizen is not a crime, but it also is not a legal act.

Fortunately, we have a way of dealing with that: civil law. The President cannot be held civilly or criminally liable in his own person for an action taken in the national defense; it is his obligation to defend the nation against attack. The government, however, can be held liable for the loss of life without due process.

It is, however, an assault on the Constitution of the highest order to suggest that the rights of citizens are a shield behind which they can go abroad and act in concert with our military enemies. The government deprived him of his rights; his estate is therefore entitled to fair compensation, but trying to claim that the act was in any way criminal is the worst sort of cherry-picking.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Where in the Constitution is the President given authority to create a military mission with the express intent to kill an American citizen, DE? Because, you know, unless you can point to a place in the document that specifically calls that out as acceptable and the duty of the President and/or his appointed heads of military, then the explicitly defined Constitutional right to due process trumps anything you say, in a legal context.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

The Constitution makes the President Commander in Chief of the armed forces, without limitation except insofar as Congress must authorize things. He does not need any highly specific "authority to create a military mission to blah blah blah..." This is a common tactic when one does not like the simple fact that the Constitution authorizes something. Simply announce that it does not fall under the section applicable, and demand to know where it contains some ridiculously specific authority.

The document is purposefully broad in order to apply to any situation.

So no, the "explicitly defined right" does not "trump" anything I say, especially since I already agreed he was denied due process under the 4th amendment. This is a cause of civil action. That's it.

The rights of citizens never ever prohibit the government from acting in the national defense. They only create a right on the part of the citizen to compensation if the government purposefully denied them their rights in the process.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Oh, okay. So the government can do as it pleases, so long as it pays the weregild the civil courts deem appropriate.

God it's a frightening country you want to live in. Who defends the nation against the government?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I realize this runs counter to new age thinking, but not every opinion is equally valid. Freedom of speech only means those people are free to express their opinions, it doesn't give them worth.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

No, only in actual confrontation of a foreign enemy. No one said anything about bkanket permission to do as it pleases.



Certainly not people tilting at windmills on the internet to occupy their spare time. If there were any actual need to defend against the government boogeyman, you would not be on this website expressing this nonsense so cavalierly.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I disagree with the idea that the primary purpose of government is to defend its own sovereignty. The primary purpose of government is to protect the rights of its own citizens, and given the nature of the world, that oftentimes does involve establishing sovereignty. The idea that the government exists simply to perpetuate its own existence is a silly notion.

Now, where many of these extended foreign conflicts and the resulting drone strikes fall along that spectrum is not for me to say as I don't have an intelligent opinion on the matter just out of ignorance.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

There is a big difference between what the government is supposed to do, what it should do, and what it actually does...

Then it's a good thing no one said that, because the government isn't there to defend its own sovereignty; it's there to defend the sovereignty of the nation. The nation and the government are not the same thing. A government's primary purpose can never be to defend the rights of the citizens; absolutely first and foremost it must prevent any outside force from creating conditions where the government cannot defend the citizens.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This is the crux of the matter. Just because it is not criminal to assassinate citizens who are outside the country working with military enemies does not mean the government should do so. In point of fact, the costs of doing so far outweigh the benefits as this case clearly illustrates.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It needs to defend outside forces from compromising the rights of the citizens that constructed it. The entire term outside force implies a force that intends to deprive the citizens of a nation of their life or property by conquering it. Our national defense doesn't exist to protect citizens from Chinese buying US Sovereign debt or from OPEC nations from selling us petroleum.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Actually, it does exist to protect us from those things. It does not at all imply that only being invaded and conquered is worthy of defense, especially since both of those things greatly affect our ability to defend ourselves against outside invasion (which, I will point out once again, is not limited to defense of the CONUS). There is also the question of defense of our allies, and while it's very eaasy to get on the internet and screech "that's not our problem!", the simple fact is that it is our problem if we want to be able to conduct business, not to mention that having allies makes defense cheaper and more effective in the long run (theoretically; the antics of particular allies to shove costs off on us notwithstanding).

National defense is not, however, limited to military action. Things like your examples, for the most part, constitute the normal course of international business and the sole role of the military is to make sure that everyone else is not using their military to force or intimidate international business and trade into circumstances more favorable for them. We simply sail our aircraft carriers around and everyone knows what they can do, if we feel they ever need to do it. This is deterrence, and happily, that state of affairs works most of the time.

There are many ways to attack a nation. Prior to the 6-day war, there was a scheme on the part of the Arab nations to divert most of the Jordan river which would have greatly reduced the quantity and quality of Israel's water. This would have obvious negative effects on Israel's citizens and agriculture and would weaken the nation against subsequent invasion. Even if Nasser had not already been planning to invade prior to Israel's pre-emptive strike, that diversion alone would have been Cassus Belli.

The simple fact is that the responsibility of ever government is to look out for a nation's interests, not merely its rights because the interests of the nation are what drive its ability to utilize and defend its rights. Rights exist for the material improvement of the citizens in the manner they see fit. They do not exist so that impoverished citizens can sit around congratualting themselves on how free they are of government influence, and government can piously avoid dealing with real problems in pursuit of abstract ideals. More importantly, it can never be assumed that any other nation gives a **** about our rights, interests, or ideas of what government ought or ought not to do. The government is obligated to deal with the world as it finds it, not as our political philosophy tells us it ought to be.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

We do Kaffis. We must defend it against men like Diamondeye.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Then tyranny and absolutism are wholly and entirely justifiable in any context.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Everything is "justifiable." Justifice is itself a subjective human construct that we constantly redefine as we individually see fit.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

And in the case of assumed nihilism, nothing is justifiable.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Philosophy without goal is like masturbation without climax.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Ethical subjectivism is not nihilism at all.

My point is, your opinion on what is "justifiable," my opinion on the same, Elmarnieh's opinion, Diamondeye's opinion -- they only matter to the extent the person who committed the action cares about our opinions (or the results that those opinions have on their actions.) The person committing the action has their own opinions on justice, which will take precedence for their own views.

No two people are likely to ever have held identical opinions on "justice," there is no objective state of justice. Saying "That's unjust!" as an argument is much like saying "I don't like that!" It is nothing more than your own opinion. That doesn't make it invalid; your opinion is as valid as anyone's. It may, however, be irrelevant.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That's a total non-sequiter. It's also unimportant. You can't prevent tyranny or absolutism by constructing a system of law or thought where it's unjustified; the tyrant will just say "**** you" and take over anyhow. You can't prevent it by letting anyone simply decalre something tyrannical and start shooting people; you create a system where lots of people have different parts in deciding what is acceptable, and most important of all, you accept that some things you fundamentally disagree with will simply have to be. You do it by creating a system that provides materially better benefits to actual people, and then pointing out that tyranny and absolutism aren't justifiable because they provide materially worse results.

Why do you think the USSR fell apart? It was because they couldn't compete materially. That was a result of their lack of freedom; their citizens realized they were putting up with the KGB and the politburo and getting food lines and nuclear reactor meltdowns to boot while Americans were getting Levis and Walkmans and plenty to eat.

Freedom is good and works because people go about their business more productively and efficiently. It is not good just because it's freedom. If absolutism worked better and communism actually fulfilled its promises of utopia, we wouldn't be worried about protecting freedom because freedom would suck.

That's why we're having this argument on the internet and despite people's talk about secession, revolution tyranny, and so forth, all these fashionable malcontents sit at home watching their DVDs, eating their General Tso Chicken, playing on their Playstations, and bickering about the merits of whatever the latest TV drama/action/sitcom series is, while in Syria people are rioting and worried about getting nerve-gassed. Because we have freedom and it works better than dictatorship. It's fashionable in this country to worry someone is going to seize your rights; it allows you to pretend you're right there with George Washington fighting tyrannist British, while never leaving the comfort of your home with your heating and air conditioning. We are spoiled brats when it comes to freedom. We whine about tyranny and oppression, whether it's tax rates or an imaginary "war on women" like teenage girls, because "you ruined my life!/we're on the brink of tyranny!" sounds much more convincing that "but these are the shoes everyone has!/I want <insert policy here> and my fellow citizens have had the gall to vote for politicians that won't grant my every whim."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Where does the Constitution give the federal government the power to execute non-citizens?

The Constitution outlines and and places limits on the federal government's power. It does not grant rights to citizens. It merely prohibits the government from violating the natural rights of the people. The fourth and fifth amendment make no mention of citizenship, they instead describe "persons." So why should a US citizen who is abroad be given special protection, where a citizen of another country would not? Either it's okay to kill terrorists in drone strikes as an act of war, or it's not. It doesn't matter what citizenship they hold.

I know that the USSC has interpreted the Constitution differently. This post isn't for those of you who believe "The Supreme Court says this is legal so therefore it is." This is for all the board libertarians who interpret the Constitution strictly and disagree with the recent expansion of powers by the federal government. Why is it illegal to assassinate a US citizen but not a non-citizen?