David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s chief strategist, is working overtime to douse the fires caused by Obama’s condescending comments about the culture and values of Americans who live in “small towns” in Pennsylvania and the Midwest:
“Did he choose his words poorly? Yes,†Axelrod said. “Does it reflect something larger? Absolutely not. Those who are trying to portray it that way are disingenuous.â€Â
Yet the Politico story reporting Axelrod’s spin contains a number of examples where Obama has come off as an elitist. For example:
At a New Hampshire roundtable in December, Obama betrayed little emotion as one participant sobbed while describing her situation: She lost her job on her 65th birthday, struggles to afford her $2,900 monthly prescription drug costs, and lives in 30-year-old trailer where the thermostat is set at 64 degrees.
At the same event, he later mentioned how the success of his book had allowed him to buy a big house. He was making a point about inequities in the tax system, but the story felt misplaced in the midst of such dire tales.
At RCP, David Paul Kuhn — an expert on white men as a swing vote — catalogs still more examples where Obama has been culturally tone-deaf, as well as looking at what’s the matter with a party that has accepted Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? as gospel. Kuhn also adds some telling remarks about Obama’s claim that small towners cling to anti-immigrant sentiment for economic reasons:
[O]f course people struggling economically care more about the competition born of labor-class immigration, just as the Irish were concerned about the competition from freed slaves following Reconstruction. It is why today many blacks are equally concerned about competition from Hispanic immigrants. Those who are struggling know the brutality of the bottom, as John Updike describes it, and therefore they will take almost any stance and most any step to keep one step ahead of that bottom.
But that does not mean that there are not valid law and order concerns over illegal immigration, or that it is not advantageous to emphasize English immersion for cultural cohesion and to empower immigrants to rise up the economic ladder.
Kuhn correctly notes that many blacks are equally concerned about competition from Hispanic immigrants. A recent poll sponsored by New America Media found that half of blacks feel threatened by Hispanic immigrants because “they are taking jobs, housing and political power away from the Black community.â€Â On some issues, blacks more sympathetic to the plight of immigrants than are whites, but according to a recent Pew poll:
[M]ore blacks than whites say they or a family member have lost a job, or not gotten a job, because an employer hired an immigrant worker (by 22% vs. 14%). Blacks are also more likely than whites to feel that immigrants take jobs away from American citizens (by 34%-25%), rather than take jobs that Americans don’t want.
Like the attitudes of white Iowans, the attitudes of blacks about immigration may differ by geography and history. The black-brown divide is increasingly evident in the greater Los Angeles area, where South Central and Compton have turned majority Hispanic, groups battle over quotas for public-sector jobs, and interethnic violence is mounting. The Pew poll has interesting stats from Obama’s home city:
In Chicago, where 80% of blacks say jobs are difficult to find, there is a widespread perception among African Americans that immigrant workers are damaging local job prospects. Fully 41% of African Americans say they or a family member have lost a job, or not gotten a job, because an employer hired an illegal immigrant instead. That is nearly double the number of blacks nationally who say this (22%), and almost triple the number of Chicago-area whites (15%) who say an immigrant worker has cost them or a family member a job.
Nearly half of Chicago-area African Americans (46%) favor decreasing the level of legal immigration into the U.S. This percentage is significantly greater than the fraction of blacks nationally expressing this opinion (34%). On most other immigration issues, however, blacks in Chicago have attitudes similar to those of blacks in the national public…
Is Obama — a resident of Chicago — aware of these sentiments in his local black community?  Obama’s big speech on race issues does not mention it, though Obama repeatedly referred to white people being angry about losing their jobs to non-whites through affirmative action or free trade. He did not discuss black attitudes at the San Francisco fundraiser which has landed him in hot water. To the contrary, he got a big laugh from the crowd by claiming that these “small town” people had an extra layer of skepticism when being urged to believe in the power of big government “by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama.”
Obama is rapidly gaining the image of an elitist. He will be able to count himself lucky if such incidents do not cost him his already shaky image as a post-racial candidate.
“Did he choose his words poorly? Yes,â€Â
Like when you’re starting pitcher gives up back-to-back-to-back homers 3 outings in a row, “Does he throw porkchops? Yes. Does that mean he’s not our best pitcher? Absolutely not.”
Obama’s success has never been the strength of his ideas, but his ability to connect on a personal level with a wide variety of people — “I’m black and I’m white; I was a hip college student; I’m a unifer;” etc. But stuff like the “bitter” flap and the New Hampshire roundtable incident expose just how few “connections” Obama has to middle-class people. Over the past years, he’s been listening to Jeremiah Wright, hanging out with the Congressional Black Caucus, and reading Democratic Underground. All that is needed to sink his candidacy now is a some footage of him trying to figure out how to hold a shotgun.
Why yes, Karl, he is worse than an elitist. Baracky was specifically talking about white people. He’s so racist and gross like that. It’s like he needs elaborate justifications to explain white people not liking him. He gets all racial about it when maybe it’s just his socialist policies and the fact that he doesn’t have enough experience or acumen to lead this country. But no… he has this list of specific white pathologies that explain why he’s not universally heralded as teh Hopey One. Lame.
Well, we know from Bush that if people disagree with you, you’re de facto dividey. So I don’t want to hear any of this guff.
You know: “antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
The black-brown divide is increasingly evident in the greater Los Angeles area, where South Central and Compton have turned majority Hispanic,…
Adds a whole new layer of nuance to Straight Outta Compton.
But post-racial, D? What he did was evince that he is very much operating on a supposition that some percentage of whites will simply have to be shamed into voting for him.
To the contrary, he got a big laugh from the crowd by claiming that these “small town†people had an extra layer of skepticism when being urged to believe in the power of big government “by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama.â€Â
Barack denies his “whiteness”, because he hates it. Or doesn’t find it useful.
When he stuck by the “essential truth” of his snotty comments, he told white people they were just gonna have to own them. He figures he can reach some percentage of whites who will want to escape the white-trashy signifiers he wants to pin on them. It’s definitely a novel approach to getting elected I think. At least at the presidential level.
Is Obama an elitist? Well I hope so. Obama better consider himself higher on the food chain than my plumber or some rehab counseler if he wants to be my President. Jimmy Carter sucked.
I want an elitist. He better believe in his elitness and be able convince me of his elitny, damnit.
O!
He figures he can reach some percentage of whites who will want to escape the white-trashy signifiers he wants to pin on them.
Kaus has related thoughts.
#10
See? That’s what I’m talking about.
“Did he choose his words poorly? Yes,†Axelrod said.
—————————-
Funny, I thought that our current President was the only person in the world who made verbal flubs. We all remember those verbal flubs, which, we are told, are supposed to be a sign of low intelligence.
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Am I the only one who wears an ascot while mowing the back 40?
#16 alpuccino — yes. One wears the ascot for somewhat informal activities, like lawn mowing. The back forty calls for white tie.
Regards,
Ric
Thanks Ric. No wonder the Yokelshams have been pointing and laughing. Do apologize to them for me, would you old bean? Now, how ’bout a Fresca?
s Obama an elitist? Well I hope so. Obama better consider himself higher on the food chain than my plumber or some rehab counseler if he wants to be my President.
Well, that fits in with their socialist agenda. After all, our betters should be making our important decisions. To each his abilities and all that.
I’d be careful with that ascot. You saw what happen to Michael Johns, right?
The real elitists are the pickup driving bigoted rustics of America who look down on anyone with a dark complexion who has all their teeth and no gum disease.
You saw what happen to Michael Johns, right?
A mistravestation of xenophobic injustice if I’ve ever seen one. In their bitterness, rustic American Idol voters clung to their Christy Lee Cook and their antipathy for anyone different than they.
The real elitists are the pickup driving bigoted rustics of America who look down on anyone with a dark complexion who has all their teeth and no gum disease.
No, just stupid people.
How ya doin’ down there Ardie? Your helmet’s a little crooked. Could put some unwanted pressure on that soft spot. You need some spare change? For a sandwich of something? To get rid of the bitterness?
Geez, Ardie, are you trying to be a parody?
a very amateurish elitist I think maybe
Don’t make eye-contact Rob.
Don’t make eye-contact Rob.
Don’t worry, the nystagmus precludes that possibility.
Oops, that was Ardie? I missed that and thought he was making a joke, not being one.
There is no real cultural divide in America except when it comes to having read the U.S. Constitution, and understanding the views the Framers were interested in who set up the Constitution. The rustics I have met can’t even write a check much less read the Constitution. They don’t read books–and they don’t like libraries. They compensate for their illiteracy by bluffing patriotism; a patriotism that is not a love of liberty so much as it is a demand for “group think”. These are the same yokels who have prejudices of every kind; who have no sense of fair play and tolerance. In light of this, the America of the rustics is not the America George Washington envisaged: “I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.”
It’s parody all right. To the question of whether it’s intentional I reply, “Does it matter?”
Yep, parody.
Ah, Ardie, your sort only think that the Commerce Clause and the “General Welfare” part of the preamble. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t exist, the ‘separation of church of state” taken from one of Jefferson’s letters, adapted by an anti-Catholic former Klansman Senator (Hugo Black) substitutes for “Freedom of Religion” Defense is a luxury. And in the latest encarnation, the courts can amend law without resorting to the long amendmen process
12.
Kaus is doing the best on this, because he’s intimate with the rhetoric, but he keeps missing the same thing, because he thinks too well of those who use it.
Obama’s attributing working-class whites’ antipathy toward elite cultural and policy preferences to their displaced economic anxieties is a less condescending and dehumanizing attitude than he shows toward their black economic equals, whose same-and-similar cultural tendencies and anti-government attitudes (their conspiracy-mindedness) he speaks of as purely reactionary, caused wholly by other people — by racism, by their being “churched” (note the passivity compared to white “clinging”), by entrapment in the obsolete rhetorics of past generations’ leaders, etc. He never grants them agency, even the defective one he allows to whites. If the way he speaks of white “resentment” is “sociological,” the way he speaks of black “anger” is zoological.
He talks like a white racist — beause he is one.
Methinks that Ardie is for reals.
happyfeet!
HAPPYFEET!!!
We missed ye!
Thanks, K! Vacation’s over. It’s nice to be back.
narciso, I would guess that your type hardly knows which Amendments are included in the Bill of Rights and even less about the important IXth Amendment which gives a woman the right to be in charge of her own body. And surely you must know that the war in Iraq is illegal based on Article. VI. You see–this is all that divides us. I know something about the Constitution and your ilk doesn’t care about it. Didn’t President Bush say: “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face…It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!†In light of this, when someone burns my sacred American flag they are just burning cotton…right? I mean the President said the U.S. Constitution is just paper–this reasoning applies to the flag as well–that it is only what it is made of. Again, this is the place of the divide between us. Otherwise we are brothers.
psycho,
I had the same general thought in re-reading BO’s race speech. I didn’t get into it in the main post because it may be as you say, or it may be BO’s desperate need to be seen as black precludes him from from being any more critical than he already is. Having said that, I am just reminded of BO’s “Day of Cosby,” with his fried chicken remark…
Ah, the ‘I’m absolutely right, and you’re all drooling idiots’ ploy.
This should be good.
No.
Fess up … who is playing Ardie. ‘Cuz that kind of stoopid just ain’t possible.
Does Ardie have the same disdain for populations living in cities like Detroit? Do they qualify as rustics as well?
psycho, “wholly other people”…”agency”? Yes surely these foolish African Americans trapped themselves. They’ve always been free–they elected to come here as captives, too. There was never any “red lining” going on in America or Jim Crow laws, either–or lynchings. And at no time in America’s history has their been racism and nativism.
What does the Supremacy Clause, have to do with the Iraq War? How does one read the 9th Amendment as an argument not only to extinguish life, but to contravene the Hippocratic Oath. Oh I remember now, the famous ‘penumbras of emanations” Here’s another passage from Justice Jackson; “the Constitution is not a Suicide Pact” As much as you’d like it to be. Under the organic constitution, you favor speech is actually a rationed commodity (FederaL Communication Act) that’s why the whole uproar over Stern & Janet Jackson fines, I found kind of humorous; “camel not only under the tent,” but the tail is sticking out. You probably approved of the Fairness Doctrine, too, right
Carin, I had in mind the more proactive species of self-righteous rustic: those, in particular, who easily become rabid over such base issues as gay marriages and whether or not a woman’s sex organs are her own.
Bitter? Angry? Biased? Uneducated? Gun-totin’? Chaw smackin’?
How about your type?
I’ve got to go with clueless. And nice rant about psycho wherein you argue against a buch of marching strawmen, none of whom exist in psycho’s post.
Yup. I’ll just go with clueless.
Bingo.
I drive a pickup, live in a red state, and have bad teeth.
My doctor is from British Guiana, but his ancestry is from India — not all plantation hands came from Africa back in the Day. My optometrist abandoned New Orleans in disgust; he’s two shades darker than Baraky, maybe three. One of my neighbors is a (legal) immigrant from Mexico; his opinion of the illegals couldn’t be printed in any of three languages (English, Spanish, Quechua). Across the road are two people who hire a lot of illegals, one for concrete work, the other for septic tank installation and service. The people who run the convenience store I trade at are Pakistanis; before 9/11 they used to sponsor post-high-schoolers and twentysomethings for vacations lasting up to a month in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Another neighbor has lots of cash because he spent two years “tool pushing” in remote areas of Saudi Arabia; he speaks fluent Arabic and watches al-Jazeera, if only to curse at it; I could find you five more people with similar experience given two hours to inquire. The church I sometimes attend has fewer than 200 members, but gives upwards of $200K a year for missions, mostly in Africa; five of the members (that I know of) have spent a year or more in Central Africa (and have nothing good to say about “UN-sponsored aid”). The proprietor of my favorite restaurant is from Shanghai (as he still spells it), and has adopted Texanisms with enthusiasm — he wears boots and jeans, drives a pickup truck, and closes the restaurant down for a week to go deer hunting in season. I’m a consultant and technician, now self-employed, and I’ve been to most countries in Europe and South America, not as a striped-pants diplomat but living and working “on the economy”; my current best customers are in Mexico. I’m not a standout among my peers, either. And no, none of those people is “best friends”, but I would give long odds that either I or a randomly-selected one of my neighbors has, and has had, more direct contact — in the sense of each of us wanting something from the other, rather than cocktail-sipping — with immigrants and non-Americans in a week than Ardie and his so-sophisticated, ultra-cosmopolitan ilk manage in a year.
It is a total and comprehensive error to dismiss small-town and country folk as lacking knowledge and experience in international affairs. The gap-toothed redneck you’re dissing is highly apt to speak fluent Spanish (or Arabic, Urdu, Pushtun, Xhosa, Russian, Chinese…) and have spent up to a year living there, drinking their beer, sharing their bull sessions, and loving their women (or men), some of whom they bring home. A randomly selected pine-board country church is likely to have more aggregate knowledge of “furriners” than a bank building in Boston, if you discount cash-flush tourism with hired drivers and concierges.
And yeah, we tend to be a little “elitist”. We (Americans) have done it our way for two and a half centuries, and we’re so damned rich we can do that sort of thing with no problem; they have been doing it their way for ten millenia, and if it cost a nickel to shit they’d have to vomit; so we do tend to feel a little superior. We would, by and large, be happy to teach them our way of doing things, believing that that would make them rich too — after all, it worked for us. And we get pretty damned contemptuous of smug ignorant nonentities like Ardie who preach that they shouldn’t adopt our ways, instead kowtowing to the same old gang of aristocrats who’ve been bleeding them for centuries, and they’ll tax us so they can generously make up the difference.
Regards,
Ric
And what type are these, oh clueless one? Divine for us the inner bigot so that we may be properly framed and codified.
Yeesh! The pot and the kettle are dancing the Lambada.
Carin, I had in mind the more proactive species of self-righteous rustic: t
Yea, I figured so. I just love selective outrage over the lack of intelligence of different populations.
Those stupid dumb-fuck rednecks.
And, the poor, under-privileged inner city populations. Let’s give them more money.
Am I the only one who wears an ascot while mowing the back 40?
No, but most rednecks wear ours around our head and call it a “do-rag.”
narciso, According to the XIth Amendment, I have the right to roll over and sleep on my left side because the listing of certain rights in the Constitution is not meant to suggest that these are the only rights I have. Indeed, I have the right to sleep on my left side, the right of privacy, the right to buy a Ford; while a woman has the right to use birth control measures. Oh, in case you are unaware, the U.N. Charter is a treaty thus it is the “supreme Law of the Land”. President Bush never received authorization from the Security Council to invade Iraq. Now you can say f#$%& the Constitution and burn my flag in protest. But it doesn’t make you right.
Ric:
That post just got cut and pasted into my hard drive. Thanks for that and, no, I’m not paying you a dime. :-)
The rustics I have met can’t even write a check much less read the Constitution. They don’t read books–and they don’t like libraries.
Having worked in academia for 20 years, I’d rather be governed by the first one-hundred names in any Kansas phone book than 100 faculty members of the best American university.
#45 – the part about treaties being the Supreme Law of the Land is probably what Ardie is refering to, thinking the UN charter prevents the US from declaring war. That this is untrue doesn’t stop the delusion. A treaty is treated as a statute, and has the same effect as a statute. A treaty, like a statute, can be invalidated by the next act of the legislature, and a treaty, like a statute, cannot invalidate any part of the Constitution. Article I gives Congress the enumerated power to declare war (which means all levels of public war, from formal and solemn ‘perfect war’ with a declaration to various ‘imperfect wars’ without declarations that are limited in persons, scope, and place). To remove that power, to alter it would require an amendment. That process is laid out elsewhere in the Constitution and is not part of the treaty power; no statute can alter our form of government (such as change the term of a representative from two years to four years, or add conditions to running for office that are not in the Constitution), alter the relationship of the states to the federal government, not may a mere treaty.
The fact that Ardie would even entertain the thought that a treaty could remove Congress’ war-making powers proves that he hasn’t a clue about what he is saying.
They don’t read books–and they don’t like libraries.
And they’re always making sweeping generalizations about people who are different from them. Damned rustics.
Incidentally, my father is, by every definition of the word, a rustic. He was born in a tin-roof shack, grew up on a farm, dropped out of high school, and started doing construction work when he was 16. My mom had a similar background, except she was poorer, and she worked as a seamstress in a clothing factory instead of doing construction work. She taught me to read, though, before I started kindergarten. Both of them read a lot as I was growing up, but my dad was the more voracious of the two. He has an extensive library that far out numbers his very extensive gun collection.
So take your stereotype and shove it.
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And #52 proves I was right. Ardie, you better do a little more research on that old supremacy clause, because that argument is so old it has moss on it. And so discredited.
Sure he did. They authorized the Gulf War; Iraq repeatedly violated the cease-fire they signed at the end of the Gulf War.
BJTexs TW: Well, I am not going to say all Texans are proactive rustics (my fav is Sam Houston who said before Lincoln “A nation divided against itself cannot stand”). Again, the divide is not really cultural. I once had a very nice pickup, a fully loaded 57 Chevy that could redline at almost ten grand. I lived on a ranch for years. My cousin is married to a vary famous country western singer. And I live in the South. Nope, the divide between us, if there is one, is based on the Constitution; that some wish to ignore it.
The Eleventh Amendment says that?
Ardie, you’re such a rustic. You want me to write out that check for you?
Mikey,
Thanks for bringing that up. I was wondering where in the Constitution the Founding Fathers stated that this nation required the authorization by an as-yet non-existent organization to go to war.
It is interesting that Ardie isn’t complaining too much about the fact that Bill Clinton did not receive UNSC authorization to conduct a bombing campaign in Serbia. I have it on good authority though that the Serbs were none too happy, and still aren’t.
Even if that wasn’t there, Rob, he wouldn’t need it. Article I, section 8 is not invalidated by a treaty. No more than Article IV section 3 can be invalidated; a treaty between the USA and Canada cannot make Jennifer Granholm Empress of Michigan. Article II, section 1 cannot be overriden by a treaty between the USA and Austria to allow Arnold Shwarzenegger to run for President of the United States.
No treaty can amend the Constitution.
Ardie – You ought to try reading it first. After doing that, you can then attempt reading for comprehension.
I once posted theis at Cold Fury, but I can’t find the archived post. so I am going to paste this in.
Forgive me.
Illegal Wars
This is an accusation that gets flung around a lot, that the US “illegally went to war†with Iraq. This is not true; the war was legal. I’m going to explore this in a question and answer format to demonstrate how I’ve reached my conclusion. Note to all, I’m not going to address the question of the president committing troops to combat without a declaration of war. That subject has been covered by the courts ad nauseum and is pretty much settled, or as settled as a political issue can be. (If you think otherwise, you really need to get out more.) And no, this isn’t as complete as a law review article and I’m not providing a cite for every bloody concept (my last name is not DenBeste). I’m citing enough cases that a quick read through them should cover everything that I’m discussing.
(N.B. I am not an expert on international law, but I’m certain I got the general concepts down. Any experts are welcome to chime in.)
What political body in the United States has the authority to declare war?
Congress. Article I, section 8 of the US Constitution grants to Congress the power to declare war, amongst other war related powers, such as to raise armies and navies, appropriate funds for them, set up rules to govern them, and so on.
Is a formal declaration of war necessary for a legal state of war to exist?
No. This question was addressed in The Eliza, 4 US 37, 40 (1800). In that case the US was at war with France, an undeclared naval war. Justice Washington stated that contention by force between nations is a public war. If there is a formal declaration, then it is a solemn and perfect war in that every citizen of the nation is authorized to commit hostilities against all members of the other nation. “But hostilities may subsist between two nations more confined in its nature and extent; being limited as to places, persons, and things; and this is more properly termed imperfect war; because not solemn, and because those who are authorized to commit hostilities, act under special authority, and can go no farther than the extent of their commission. Still, however, it is public war, because it is an external contention by force, between some of the members of the two nations, authorized by the legitimate powers.†(A public war is between two nations, as opposed to a civil war).
A declaration of war is the equivalent of sending your visiting card to your enemy on his butler’s silver salver challenging him to a duel. You really don’t see much of that, mostly its two guys insulting each other until one throws a punch (or one guy sucker punching another).
Are there any restrictions on Congress’ power to declare war?
No. Congress’ power to declare war is plenary – full, entire, complete, absolute, perfect. Ullman v US, 350 US 433, 436 (1956) [overruled on other grounds].
What if the United States signs a treaty that prohibits itself from declaring war?
I’m glad you asked that question. First thing, though, we have to determine the scope of a treaty’s power, and that means wading into the Supremacy Clause. A treaty is a contract between two or more nations. Article VI, section 2 states that the Constitution, the laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under the authority of the United States, are the supreme law of the land. Okay, what the hell does that mean?
Simple.
Vis-a-vis state law and constitutions, the US Constitution, laws, and treaties, win out. This only makes sense. Congress can declare war. It wouldn’t do to have Massachusetts, for example, say “Sorry, we’re opting out of this one,†or have Alabama refuse to abide by a peace treaty. “Sorry, but we still want to kick their asses.â€Â
But if a treaty is the supreme law of the land, is it on par with the Constitution?
Okay, that’s a dumb question. If a law is passed that violates the Constitution what happens to it? Upon challenge it is declared unconstitutional and is void, a nullity. What makes you think a treaty would be treated any different?
Look, here’s some case law that goes over this – United States v. Selkirk, 258 F. 775, (District Court, SD Texas 1919) and US v Thompson, 258 F. 257 (District Court ED Arkansas 1919). Both of these cases dealt with a treaty protecting migratory birds signed by Great Britain and the US, and the resulting legislation signed by Congress to implement the treaty. The petitioners argued that Congress wouldn’t have the authority to pass such a law under the Constitution and therefore it couldn’t ratify a treaty to do what it couldn’t do by statute.
Well, no. The treaty power is extremely broad, and that flows from the particular wording of the Constitution. Treaties are enacted under the authority of the United States, unlike statutes which are enacted pursuant to the Constitution, and thus must have some bearing on one of Congress’ enumerated powers, or an amendment, or something in the text Congress can point to. Treaties aren’t limited like that and can cover subjects that the US Constitution doesn’t cover. State statutes and state constitutions give way to treaties. A small section of the nation cannot thwart the will of the whole when it speaks to other nations, as John C. Calhoun put it: “Here the states disappear. Divided within, we present, without, the exterior of undivided sovereignty.â€Â* If it didn’t work this way, what nation would ever bother to pen a treaty with the United States?
So, what things that normally we think as exclusively state issues that treaties have overrun?
• state statutes of limitation
• ownership of real property
• inheritance of real property
• employment laws
• fishing rights in state waters
You get the idea.
Ah, but doesn’t this actually attack your argument that a treaty can’t violate the Constitution?
No. Let’s go back to the case law, back to US v Thompson. The Thompson court quoted Mr. Justice Field when he said:
“That the treaty power of the United States extends to all proper subjects of negotiation between our government and the governments of other nations is clear. The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited, except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the actions of the government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the states. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government or in that of one of the states, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter without its consent. But with these exceptions it is not perceived that there is any limit to the questions which can be adjusted touching any matter which is properly the subject of negotiation with a foreign country.†Geofroy v Riggs, 133 US 258 (1907).
Let’s also go back to John C. Calhoun, whom the Selkirk court quoted as the most satisfactory expression of the situation:
“Whatever, then, concerns our foreign relations, whatever requires the consent of another nation – belongs to the treaty power – can only be regulated by it; and it is competent to regulate all such subjects, provided (and here are its true limits) such regulations are not inconsistent with the Constitution. If so, they are void. No treaty can alter the fabric of our government; nor can it do that which the Constitution has expressly forbidden to be done; nor can it do that differently which is directed to be done in a given mode, and all other modes prohibited.â€Â
Calhoun was speaking in 1816. So I would argue that it is a pretty longstanding concept of our law.
But what in the US Constitution talks about migrating ducks, and how can Congress pass laws on that when such power is reserved to the states or the people?
As the Selkirk court stated, if a state itself could regulate something (duck hunting) then all the states, speaking through the national government to another national government, could do so. It sounds like a hard concept, but it simply means that the US government speaks for all of the states at once in a treaty with another nation, and we are bound by treaties and state law has to conform to them.
So, since treaties can do things like that, protecting Canadian geese and ducks, couldn’t the national government sign and ratify a treaty with Canada making Jennifer Granholm Empress of Michigan?
God forbid. No, Article IV, section 4 of the Constitution guarantees each state a republican form of government. Such a treaty would be void as it would alter the fabric of our government. See old John C. above; see the Supremes in 1907.
Wow, treaties are powerful. How do you get rid of them once they are signed?
Some treaties, like the old ABM treaty with the USSR, contain provisions allowing any of the signatory states to leave. Otherwise, under the principle that the last act of the sovereign controls, Congress can pass a law that nullifies the treaty either explicitly (like a declaration of war would – every commercial treaty between the USA and the Kingdom of Spain went null and void on April 25, 1898) or implicitly by doing something or stopping something that the treaty did not allow for.
So a treaty can’t sign away the power of the US Congress to declare war?
No. That would alter the fabric of our government, that would take away one of Congress’ enumerated powers. That can only be done by amending the US Constitution and that can only be done as laid out in Article V.
What about international law, doesn’t that outlaw war?
Um, no. International law consists of treaties and the customs and conventions that are universally recognized by nations, such as diplomatic immunity. International law is binding on US courts if Congress hasn’t passed a statute on the subject, but international law must defer to the US Constitution; that is, if it violates the US Constitution it cannot be enforced by a US court. Congress, however, is not bound by international law and, like with treaties, can pass statutes that nullify international law as it applies to the US.
With regard to the United Nations, the UN Charter is a treaty, and while the US is obligated to follow it like any other treaty, the rules for construing treaties apply to the charter. And war is not outlawed, as is shown by those agreements that deal with warfare, such as the Geneva Conventions, and Congress’ Article I, section 8 powers.
So, a legal war can exist without a formal declaration, and the US can declare war and wage war whenever it wants, and on whomever it wants, for whatever reasons, be it for good cause, bad cause, mistake, or just sheer “oh what the hell, it’s Tuesday, let’s invade someoneâ€Â, and it is always perfectly legal to do so, and international law isn’t a method that can declare such an act illegal?
Exactly. Going to war is a political question, and courts avoid those like most men avoid radium-lined underpants. Moral questions? Again, take that up with the deity/supreme being/personal guru of your choice. Oh, I’m sure that a bunch of nations could get together and get the world court to rule that it is illegal for the USA to go to war, but what French Army is going to be able to enforce that judgment? And anyway, it wouldn’t be a decision under US law, no matter what Justice Ginsberg says (and she’s on Father Time’s list anyway), as it would be an attempt to abrogate one of Congress’ enumerated powers.
Then what the bloody hell is international law good for if it can’t be used to tie down the Chimpler’s Fascist Empire?
International law consists of treaties (and you just learned how good they are) and customs and convention. They provide nations with a social code to follow, but unless a nation wants to do something about it, there really isn’t any way to force a nation to behave or follow the customs. Observe this exchange: Great Britain: “Hey! You can’t invade Belgium! Get out!†Kaiser Wilhelm: “Make me, you limey sitzpinklers.â€Â
Practically speaking, nations abide by international law as other nations can take reprisals towards a violator, such as economic boycotts, loss of recognition, suspension of diplomatic contacts, freezing and seizure of assets, and so on. However, if a nation sees more advantage in ignoring a custom of international law than in following it, say good-bye to that custom. Observe North Korea as an example of what can happen, though in that case that poofy-haired little sociopath wants to be isolated so that he can rule his people with the old iron fist inside of a mail gauntlet holding a battle axe.
I don’t like this at all! I want the US military to be under the control of the United Nations Secretary General!
Well, you better get the US Constitution amended because it can’t happen otherwise, and good luck with that one, Trotsky. Wishing won’t make it so.
Thanks for bearing with me.
*John C. Calhoun said that in 1816, and that man was no transnational liberal by any means!
Mikey NTH, what your submitted seems to be a farrago. Nothing in the U.N. Charter says the U.S., if attacked, cannot retaliate. Implicit too, there is no doctrine of preventative or preemptive war to be found in the Framer’s writings–nor is it implied. Undermining the Constitution by rationalizing a war based on such junk notions as preventative or preemptive war, is criminal. This leads to despotism.
Nope, the divide between us, if there is one, is based on the Constitution; that some wish to ignore it.
The divide is a difference in interpretation.
That said, I agree with some (not all) of your interpretations, even though I own guns and live in a trailer out in the sticks of a red county. Then again, I read books, so you obviously weren’t referring to me. I know the rustics you were talking about. They’re assholes. Both of them.
Ardie I think the “rustics” have you cornered, frankly I think your out of your league. And its pretty obvious you know very little about “The Constitution Of the United States”.
Was Thomas Jefferson a Founder?
Sorry Ardie, but the Congress has the power to declare war – there is no restriction as to what type of war or for what reason.
Congress can declare war at anytime, on any place, from full and formal to limited. That’s what the term ‘plenary’ means. All the power, all the bells and whistles, related to that power.
Implicit too, there is no doctrine of preventative or preemptive war to be found in the Framer’s writings–nor is it implied. Undermining the Constitution by rationalizing a war based on such junk notions as preventative or preemptive war, is criminal.
Congress has the power to declare war. The constitution does not limit or specify the conditions upon which Congress may exercise that power. They have used thinner pretexts for it in the past. You may disagree with Congress’s action, but they approved the use of force in Iraq. I would have preferred an outright declaration of war also, but we haven’t had a Congress with the balls to take that kind of responsibility since WWII. They give the president the responsibility for fighting, while they sit around and carp. Such is our Congress.
Mikey NTH: You seem to be shadowboxing with yourself. By the way legal scholars used the authority of the U.N. Charter under Bush I, in this wise, that he didn’t have to go to Congress to declare war and merely had to seek the approval of the Security Council, which he did. Very simple. Bush II did not follow in dad’s footsteps. He violated Articles 51 and 39 of the United Nations Charter according to some.
royf : You must be a big biased fanboy of the rustics. Right now they are essentially pounding the table for lack of warranted evidence with which to back up their silly claims.
Yawn…
Geez, you mean Ardie’s for real?
You need to start offering citations, Ardie. I believe you’re talking out your ass. I remember the lead up to the Gulf War pretty well, and Bush 41 most particularly did get Congressional approval. If anyone argued he didn’t need it, he apparently didn’t accept their advice.
The Congressional Authorization & the support of 26 countries, trumps the cards held by Oil for Food beneficiaries in Russia, France, Germany,
China et al; trying to hold on to their oil concessions
Ardsgaine: I am not walking down that trail–maybe some other time. I raised the issue of Article. VI and the U.N. Charter with regard to Bush II’s invasion of Iraq. I hold the opinion that his invasion was illegal. I would add, too, I suspect that GIs have the right of combat refusal as implied in the UCMJ with regard to unlawful orders.
Rob Crawford: I don’t think you understand what argumentation entails. There is a claim and then the warranted evidence comes in support of the claim. I claimed the invasion of Iraq was illegal. My evidence was Article. VI of the U.S. Constitution with regard to treaties, one such treaty being the U.N. Charter.
Article 39
The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.
What a joke. The UN is worthless.
He also planned 9/11, “according to some.”
It would help if you cited someone more knowledgable on the matter. When someone cites case law and you dismiss it with “Mikey NTH, what your[sic] submitted seems to be a farrago”, it doesn’t inspire confidence in your depth of understanding.
You’ve also made a number of unsupported assertions of facts, such as your claim that Bush 43 dismissed the Constitution as “just a piece of paper” and that Bush 41’s advisors said he didn’t need Congressional approval for the Gulf War. It’s generally considered good form to support those assertions, especially when they’re far outside what is known as, well, “reality”.
But given that your primary contribution to this discussion has been bigotry, I guess I should expect all that much from you.
Sorry, Ardie you lose. The US Supreme Court has already ruled as to whether a treaty can alter the US Constitution and treaties cannot. The UN charter can not take away Congress’ (not the President’s) plenary power to declare war. I provided the cites, the cases are still relevant, the opinions haven’t been reversed.
You have provided nothing but your unsupported opinion. Bye, Ardie;you better get yourself on lexis or Westlaw and do some research first.
Oh really Ardie there is someone not offering citations but its not the rustics.
No Ardie the facts are that “The House Joint Resolution 114 of the 107th Congress” (you should actually read it sometime) cites all the legal justifications for its passage. Such as the fact that after the ceasefire agreement which halted the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was in complete violation of that agreement. He was also in violation of 17 other UN Resolutions which had been passed by your favorite The UN Security Council. He was also shooting almost daily at USA and British aircraft flying the UN mandated “No Fly Zones” (that in and of itself is a “Act of War”). You know the zones established over Northern and Southern Iraq in a attempt to keep Saddam and his Sons from killing more Iraqis than the hundreds of thousands he had already killed. Many of those murdered Iraqis were killed by chemical weapons which some people now claim he never had.
By the way Ardie “The Iraq War Resolution” is a legal document authorizing the use of the military to force Saddam into compliance with its stated 26 violations. If you think for some reason the H.J. Resolution 114 is somehow unconstitutional then by all ways file a lawsuit and take it to court you have that right, but be aware your throwing your money away because it will never be found to be unlawful.
I raised the issue of Article. VI and the U.N. Charter with regard to Bush II’s invasion of Iraq.
But you also conceded that the treaty does not abrogate Congress’s right to declare war. The first Gulf War was sanctioned by the UN, which means it was lawful by your notion of lawful. For the second Gulf War, Congress voted to sanction the use of force against Saddam for failing to live up to the treaty that ended the first Gulf War. How is that unlawful?
Saddam agreed to disarm as a condition for ending the first war, and to allow inspectors to establish his compliance. Once the threat of force appeared to be removed, he refused to cooperate. The argument that we should not wait for a threat to build was an argument for why it mattered whether he was living up to the treaty. The fact that he did not live up to the treaty was enough to justify restarting the war. Everyone who was involved in the coalition that fought him in the first war had a stake in ensuring his compliance. That some countries allowed themselves to bribed with oil rather than enforce the terms of the treaty did not mean that the US had no national interest in seeing him disarmed. Recognizing that fact, Congress gave the president the sanction to compel Saddam’s disarmament.
Ardsgaine,
Even better, there was not a treaty ending the Gulf War. There was a ceasefire agreement, which Saddam routinely violated. The Iraq invasion can be seen as merely a continuation of the Gulf War occasioned by Saddam’s violation of the ceasefire.
McGehee: The current theory is that Bush had a huge amount of Intel about bin Laden preparing a terrorist attack and may have purposely allowed it to happen needing a pretext by which to invade Iraq; an invasion that was already in the planning stages before 9/11.
And, don’t forget Bush wanted to get pay-back for his daddy.
Oh, God. A LIHOP Twoofer.
(BTW — of course there were plans to invade Iraq and remove Saddam before 9/11. For one, there are plans (to varying degrees of detail) for invading everyone, and for another, Clinton signed the Iraqi Liberation Act!)
I like Ardie. What a verbose little moonbat. Barking moonbat, even.
BUSH LET 9/11 HAPPEN SO HE COULD ILLEGALLY INVADE IRAQ FOR THE BLOOD OIL AND CRONIES !!!!!!!!!!
Even better, there was not a treaty ending the Gulf War. There was a ceasefire agreement
Thanks. I stand corrected.
@85,
Do you espouse this theory or are you just suggesting that “some” believe it?
Before you frame your answer, please consider that I drive a pickup truck, live on a small farm, and regularly use a tractor.
I like Ardie. What a verbose little moonbat. Barking moonbat, even.
I find him rather rustic.
I wish he’d pick another name though.
Including Canada and Great Britain.
I wonder what pretext Chimpy McBushitlerburton will use to implement those?
Odd that Bush L9/11HOP so he could invade Iraq and then invaded Afghanistan instead.
#87 Rob, indeed, the US has had war plans dealing with every conceivable situation since the end of the Spanish-American War, at least. There is a book, ‘War Plan Orange’, which details US war planning for a war with Japan from the early 1900’s on to WWII. Japan was Orange, as the US was Blue. IIRC correctly, Great Britain was Red, and there were plans for a Situation Blue-Red. Domestic insurrection was Situation Blue-White. Until the end of WWI there were plans to deal with an Imperial German attack in the Caribbean/South/Central America. Most plans were mere outlines; some were more detailed. The Orange plans were the most detailed.
As I noted, going to war is a political question, and there were political reasons to go to the UN, both domestic and with regard to various potential allies and their reactions. But legally speaking, Congress does not need UN permission to go to war. Seriously, what nation would permit an enemy such as the former Soviet Union, or a rather hostile power such as the PRC, restrain it from taking such an important step? Which nation would provide another nation with a formal veto over itself?
The League of Nations didn’t stop war; the Kellog-Briand Pact didn’t; the UN cannot no matter what the charter says.
Why would we need plans to invade Canada? Seems like it would be a cakewalk. I guess we’d have to work out the logistics and all.
“#Comment by Ardie on 4/14 @ 10:43 am #
McGehee: The current theory is that Bush had a huge amount of Intel about bin Laden preparing a terrorist attack and may have purposely allowed it to happen needing a pretext by which to invade Iraq; an invasion that was already in the planning stages before 9/11.”
Any further communications from ardie may be automatically dismissed.
He’s insane.
LIHOP insane.
Not quite as bad as MIHOP insane, but still nuttier than squirell shit.
BTW, IIRC, in the Situation Blue-Red, the Dominions were given names such as Scarlet, Crimson, Ruby, etc.
You need to figure out where all the Tim Hortons are. Once you’ve neutralized those, you’ve paralyzed the Canadian population. Consider it a form of “shock and awe”.
If we have a plan to wage war on a nation that’s bad; if we have no plan to deal with a situation, that’s bad.
Can’t satisfy anyone.
Mainly, how to keep our rapacious mass-murdering milbots from pillaging every beer cooler in the country.
BTW, is Ardie’s LIHOP comment still his last appearance in this thread?
#99 Rob, that’s good. I have it on authority that the plan is called ‘Operation Leaf-Blower’. All your Tim Bits belong to us.
Ardsgaine : Bush II didn’t need the war powers act if the U.N. Security Council gave him the green light to invade Iraq. The Bush Administration tried to plead their case to the U.N. but failed.
Doing an end run, the Bush Administration kicked in the War Power Act through the Republican sponsored Iraq War Resolution so that the Bush Administration might effectively ignore the U.N., i.e., Constitutionally, the “supreme Law of the Land” (Article. VI).
Thus, the U.S. elected on its own, in violation of the U.N. Charter, to invade and occupy Iraq in order to secure their oil reserves, some 526 years worth.
BECAUSE OF THE OIL !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which we conveniently forgot to divert for our own personal use.
ARDIE (not to be confused with the imminently more reasonable Ardsgaine) – Do you, or do you not, give greater power to the UN Charter as compared to the US Constitution?
Yet another tempest in a teapot (or shotglass, for those “real Americans” in the “heartland”)….
Yawns.
This has to be some atrios/koskiddie/oliverwillis reading memebot. Because seriously, this rises to the level of painfully stoopid.
Yes, Lisa. It is clear that is the way the media and Baracky want this to be viewed. Unfortunately for them, they let the veil slip just a bit, and actually told the truth about how they view a substantial number of voters. The backpedalling has simply made it worse.
“Thus, the U.S. elected on its own, in violation of the U.N. Charter, to invade and occupy Iraq in order to secure their oil reserves, some 526 years worth.”
Ok, genius, if we invaded Iraq FOR TEH OIL!!!!!!!!!11!!!eleven!!, then why the fuck is gas over $3.00 a gallon, and the average return on investment by TEH BIG ERL COMPANEES hasn’t moved a smidgen?
[snicker. this should be good]
So how does the UN charter supercede the US Constitution, Ardie? Got any cites anywhere, from the US Supreme Court, that hold a treaty can supercede the US Constitution or strip away an enumerated power from a branch of the US government?
Can a treaty between the US and Iceland change the Constitutional requirements to hold elected office in the US government? Could such a treaty establish a national church? If not, then why is the one unConstitutional and a treaty stripping away Congress’ power Constitutional?
Really, do you have any support other than your opinion?
N. O’Brain: I guess you don’t know how police investigations work. It has never been ruled out that Bush was either incompetent or let 9/11 happen, in light of the fact that more than 40 presidential briefings were presented to him from January 2001 through to September 10, 2001, with explicit references to bin Laden.
I have this vision of Ardie sitting in a basemnet, lit only by a bare, CFC lightbulb. He mutters to himself while obsessively flipping, flipping, flipping, 3X5 talking point cards. You know, where UN charters have plenipotentiary powers over the US Government (I’m sorry, the Bushhitler Regime, since Clinton isn’t held to the same standard), evil Republicans enabled the illegality (albiet abedded by unnamed war mongerers like John Kerry, john Edwards and Hillary Clinton), that 9/11 attacks were completely known ahead of time but Bushhitler needed the horror to invade Iraq (after invading Afghanistan?) so that the oil reserves are secured, even though we aren’t getting any income from them.
He mutters to himself, flipping the cards, searching for another, unsupported talking point, never bothering to check the catheter.
The Bush Administration tried to plead their case to the U.N. but failed.
To the infamy of the UN.
Doing an end run, the Bush Administration kicked in the War Power Act through the Republican sponsored Iraq War Resolution so that the Bush Administration might effectively ignore the U.N., i.e., Constitutionally, the “supreme Law of the Land†(Article. VI).
You keep repeating this even though it has been counter argued a dozen times that no treaty can abrogate the Constitutional power of Congress to declare war. Are you going to engage that argument, or are you going to keep parroting this line?
Ardsgaine: See #112 above. 3×5 cards, real or virtual. It matters not.
Mikey NTH, I am not here to give support to your Constitutional theories by answering your loaded and distracting questions–that is not the way good argumentation proceeds. You have yet to knock down my claims and my evidence. So let’s review the matter. Is the U.N. Charter a treaty? Yes. Is it the “supreme Law of the Land” under Article. VI of the U.S. Constitution. Yes. Did Bush II break this law of the land? Most likely. Ergo, the invasion of Iraq was more than likely illegal.
Jeff G., Karl, Dan, and others:
Again, I am sorry for the cut-and-paste bomb I left on this thread, but I was really having a hard time finding the archived post over at ColdFury; so I dropped in my saved document.
If someone with more skill couldfind it and replace it with a link, I’d be happy.
You have yet to knock down my claims and my evidence. So let’s review the matter.
LOL. “It’s only a flesh wound!”
You obviously did not see where I told you what ‘supreme law of the land’ meant with respect to treaties. I provided the counter to your argument and stated that treaties cannot alter the Constitution, I provided cites to support my argument.
Your turn – what cites say that a treaty as ‘supreme law of the land’ is more supreme than the US Constitution or its amendments?
JD, when they walked around with their cameras asking voters what they thought of it, the voters seemed to “get” what he was saying a lot better than the media or those of us sitting around on our MacBooks discussing how “terribly elitist” Obama is.
I mean really, who is reality-based here? I feel like WE and the media are trying to convince these people to be insulted (which they are now starting to wonder if they should have been insulted) when they seem to have been quite understanding and in agreement with him.
Who the hell are the elitists here?
Sorry, Mikey! He hasn’t found that flip card yet. Perhaps he;ll take a break and empty the catheter because, damn, you can get some kind of an irritation if you don’t take cvare of those things.
Ards: Ha! Perhaps he still has the head butt? :-)
Ardie: “Alright. We’ll call it a draw then.”
Lisa must have posted that before those poll numbers a few threads away. She’s very bitter. Perhaps, as an Obamaite, she would like to explain why Obama never talks about the anti-immigrant attitudes in the black community?
Sorry this got side-tracked Lisa. I plead mea culpa, and only offer Ardie’s misstatements as an extenuating circumstance. I know my profession, I acknowledge my limitations in that profession, yet I could not let that pass; pride, you know, one of those seven sins we’re warned about. Mea culpa, maxima culpa.
The war powers of the United States serve and are answerable to the People of the United States and NO ONE else. Period. The UN ain’t got shit to say about it.
Not that you could tell, what with the “NWO” idjits telling us all about what THEY think WE should do for THEM… On OUR dime, mind you.
Then why did Obama say he misspoke? Why didn’t just stand up and say “I meant what I said and no matter how you try to twist it to your own ends, it stands alone?” Why try to weasal out of it by saying that and then saying it was “badly phrased” and offer an unapology apology?
Lastly, why didn’t he make this speach in Hazelton, or Scranton or Johnsonburg or Altoona?
I live in PA and already know the answers to those questions. But you keep checking your Macbook for all of those voters who knew exactly what he was saying and why. Good luck with that.
Mikey NTH, having that long entry in here was just fine. It was worth reading, and clarified some things for me. The fact that troll-boy calls it “your theory” is both interesting and par for the course.
#Comment by Ardie on 4/14 @ 11:21 am #
N. O’Brain: I guess you don’t know how police investigations work.”
What does that have to do with anything?
“It has never been ruled out that Bush was either incompetent or let 9/11 happen,”
Damn, a world’s record in constructing a straw man. WTG!
“…in light of the fact that more than 40 presidential briefings were presented to him from January 2001 through to September 10, 2001, with explicit references to bin Laden.”
Of which exactly NONE contained actionable intelligence.
So, when you construct an aluminum foil deflector beanie, do you use chin straps?
mojo: thank you for your rustic remarks about the U.S. Constitution despite the fact the the U.N. Charter is to be taken as the “supreme Law of the Land”. And how supreme is the supreme law of the land? According to the Framers if such laws, using the example of the U.N. Charter, were not supreme “It is evident they would amount to nothing” for “a law, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy.” In addition, Congress doesn’t have the power to abrogate the fact that treaties are the supreme law of the land.
Erm, hope this isn’t OT, that video bit of Obama in San Francisco that Karl references in the post above, is quite the epitome of craven-ness.
MC,
Your dry wit in referring to the initial post as being possibly OT is duly appreciated. ;-)
N. O’Brain : Many didn’t find Bush’s actionable Intel that was used to invade Iraq actionable at all. Any centrifuges for processing HEU?
Bush’s actionable Intel is like a clown’t wax nose–he can shape it anyway he desires for the intended goal.
Yawn…
“Comment by Ardie on 4/14 @ 12:27 pm #
N. O’Brain : Many didn’t find Bush’s actionable Intel that was used to invade Iraq actionable at all. Any centrifuges for processing HEU?
Bush’s actionable Intel is like a clown’t wax nose–he can shape it anyway he desires for the intended goal.”
So are your talking points.
Can’t you come up with something new?
Those index cards must be getting awful stained from the Cheeto crumbs.
wait, am I reading this right? WE GOT UN APROVAL!!!???ELEVENTY!!!
“Comment by Ardie on 4/14 @ 12:27 pm #
N. O’Brain : Many didn’t find Bush’s actionable Intel that was used to invade Iraq actionable at all.”
Except for the French, the Russians, the Germans, the CIA, the Democrats in Congress, the…
Well, you get the idea.
“Any centrifuges for processing HEU?”
Yep.
“Bush’s actionable Intel is like a clown’t wax nose–he can shape it anyway he desires for the intended goal.”
So are your talking points.
Can’t you come up with something new?
Those index cards must be getting awful stained from the Cheeto crumbs.
I mean, Ardie completely ignores that once a year the UN looks at operations in Iraq and says, “Okay, continue”
America is a great country hardly founded by men of any intelligence; who read lots of books and wrote much that was wise and timely. No, our Framers were all rustics who lived in the woods, made moonshine, got knee walking drunk and demonstrated all the appetitive qualities of good swine. We can only draw from this that Madison would have called Sen. Obama–had he met him–an elitist as compared with the fulsome rustics who populate this great land of ours.
I think Ardie is showing the early signs of narcolepsy. But I usually like to leave the online diagnoses to nishi.
Three things are noted as the supreme law of the land under Article VI, section 2: The US Constitution, laws enacted under the US Constitution, and treaties enacted under the authority of the United States.
What happens if these three are in conflict; which one wins out? The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits sex discrimination on the right to vote. Could a statute change that? No, such a statute would violate the Constitution. Could a treaty prohibit women from voting in the US?
No. The US Constitution reigns supreme as the ultimate supreme law of the land. No treaty can violate the Constitution, no treaty can change the US Constitution. No treaty can limit Congress’ war-making power.
That in brief is my counter argument.
Your cites in support of your argument, please? Beyond Article VI, section 2. I just told you its limits; your cites arguing that I am wrong? What cites do you have supporting your interpretation of Article VI, section 2, that directly counter what I have cited for my interpretation?
Got anything other than bile? Or are you ging to continue providing evidence to my theory that half the people anywhere are dumber than the other half?
The US Supreme Court has spoken – the US Constitution wins out over any statute that contradicts the US Constitution, for example a line-item eto staute fails because that would allow the President to alter a law before he signs it, essentially making a new law, and only Congress has the power to pass laws – the Prsident can only approve the whole or reject the whole, else he is making law. That is unConstitutional, and a line-item veto statute fails.
Between stautes and treaties, whichever is the last act of Congress as signed by the President wins. Treaties and stautes are on par here.
Between the US Constitution and a treaty the Consitution wins.
Maggie Katzen: No…I don’t think so. Cut and past the portion of that article where it unambiguously states the UN gave the U.S. authority to invade Iraq. Thank you sweetie pie.
Under the header it said: “The United Nations has overwhelmingly approved a resolution lifting economic sanctions against Iraq and giving its backing to the US-led administration”
test
Oh Maggie, you might check out the date of that article you submitted as proof. I think the U.S. had already invaded Iraq and had seized their oil. In fact, Bush said on May, 1, 2003:
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
the fact that more than 40 presidential briefings were presented to him from January 2001 through to September 10, 2001, with explicit references to bin Laden.
Please cite these, and highlight the actionable intelligence.
You have yet to knock down my claims and my evidence.
So far, you have supplied your claims. Your evidence has been found to be wanting.
um, but the U.N. approves of it after the fact? The war was illegal, but, um, you guys can stay there.
oh, and we’re not going to prosecute you or sanction you or anything.
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed”
You really are dummerer than a box of nishi’s, aren’t you?
I should elaborate somewhat. The US Supreme Court has declared statues unConstitutional, in whole and in part. When they do that in part, they scrub out the unConstitutional portion but let the rest stand. (I’ll spare all the details of that.)
Treaties are treated the same way. If a signatory nation does not like that a part is scrubbed out, they have options – they can go along with the treaty as interpreted and ignore the part removed, or they can just say that it is all or nothing and void the entire treaty. That is their choice.
Maggie, Ah, but it didn’t! And our troops, under the UCMJ, have an obligation to refuse unlawful orders–the war being one huge unlawful order. In the military it is called “combat refusal”.
see Ardie, I’m not arguing that they approved it ahead of time, I’m arguing that if it’s sooooo illegal why are they letting it continue? someone is not being terribly consistent.
but see, it wasn’t illegal. we passed a resolution, the UN does not trump the Constitution. but now we’re back where we started.
and what about these countries?
Like herding cats it is, Karl…
sorry. :(
Mikey NTH : Nope, treaties are not the same way. A treaty is a treaty firstly. The U.N. Charter is a Treaty and as treaties go they are the “supreme Law of the Land.” By the way, the SCOTUS has no authority to judge any part of the U.S. Constitution unconstitutional–certainly not Article. VI!
So, can we assume that the only troops that Ardie supports are those who are refusing to report for duty?
So, no matter how badly the UN has jumped the shark, Ardie would like us to (basically) bow to their will?
Maggie, The U.N. Charter is the supreme Law of the Land by Treaty (cp. Article VI). It is part of our Constitution as in the “we” in We the People. We must obey it or we are acting unlawfully. No loopholes permitted.
Carin, Yes Carin you must bow to the supreme Law of the Land if you are a person of principle and not some bitter rustic who has no virtue.
well, I guess they’re welcome to come try to arrest us. I wonder why they don’t do that….
“Comment by Ardie on 4/14 @ 1:16 pm #
Maggie, The U.N. Charter is the supreme Law of the Land ”
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, you retarded marmoset.
Really?
Got cites for that? What happens when the Constitution and a treaty collide? What wins out?
Got cites, fool?
“supreme Law of the Land.â€Â
Our Supreme Court finds differently, but Ardie knows better than a few centuries of jurisprudence.
The U.N. Charter is the supreme Law of the Land by Treaty
Then you can pay their taxes, and pledge allegiance to the United Nations. Me, no thanks.
Carin: According to the UCMJ they are obligated not to obey unlawful orders. I should mention that an officer doesn’t have to obey the President’s orders. Not too many of them know this who mumble their sacred oaths mindlessly.
ardie, you lost.
Please stop nailing your arguments to the bird cage perch, ‘mkay?
“#
Comment by Ardie on 4/14 @ 1:24 pm #
Carin: According to the UCMJ they are obligated not to obey unlawful orders. I should mention that an officer doesn’t have to obey the President’s orders. Not too many of them know this who mumble their sacred oaths mindlessly.”
And what’s your MOS?
Hmmm…gonna take a while to catch up here.
Ric,
Do you know anyone who might embroider that onto a pillow for me? I’d be gratified.
Ardie,
Wrong. See UN Sec Res 1441. That was by unanimous vote, BTW. And that merely trumps the “violation of cease fire” argument, which is also quite valid.
This has to be an alppucino parody, because this UN is the Supreme Law of the Land is one of the most ridiculous arguments I have seen in some time, and there have been no shortage of them.
fuck you.
I’ll help you:
“That the treaty power of the United States extends to all proper subjects of negotiation between our government and the governments of other nations is clear. The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited, except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the actions of the government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the states. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government or in that of one of the states, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter without its consent. But with these exceptions it is not perceived that there is any limit to the questions which can be adjusted touching any matter which is properly the subject of negotiation with a foreign country.†Geofroy v Riggs, 133 US 258 (1907).
That is a settled decision, not overturned. What part of the treaty power allows a treaty to alter the powers of the US Government as laid out in the Constitution?
Go Shepardize that and come back with an answer if you (HA!) can.
JD: The Pledge of Allegiance was composed by a Christian Socialist by the name of Francis Bellamy (1855 – 1931). Do you still want to pledge allegiance to my sacred flag (mine is made in the USA)?
I should mention that an officer doesn’t have to obey the President’s orders. Not too many of them know this who mumble their sacred oaths mindlessly.
Listen, you dumb fuck, my husband is a retired Army officer, and he DOES know to what he swears an oath.
Perhaps if you could get your head out of your own ass you wouldn’t be such an idiot. But I doubt it.
Mikey NTH : So tell us, can Congress abrogate Article. VI?
#163
We don’t have ‘betters’, its one of those things we Americans are awfully happy about; and woe to any Presidential candidate who expresses himself that way.
HA. Maggie had the same reaction as I. She’s just quicker.
heh, Carin, nothing like having my husband called a stupid criminal to get my dander up. not that I should really care what such an idiot thinks, but, well, it’s Monday and i’m bored.
Ardie: You are dead, flat, wrong about the UN Charter being the law of this land. This has been demonstrated many times by many commentators citing many sources. Your interpretation of Article VI is wrong and unsupported by either legislative or Judicial history. Ergo your entire argument about the wat being “illegal” and soldiers refusing “illegal” orders is pure fantasy.Just because the cartoon anteaters in your head bark this fallacy to you it doesn’t make it true.
Now go clean your catheter and log out of the middle school computers before security gets there and tosses your ass into the pokie.
Oh and that pink/purple flying elephant burping “It’d a Small World” in Burmese?
Not real…
Congress can not abrogate Article VI, retard, as the US Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. And treaties are ratified by a portion of the US Congress; without that they are nothing. But then again, no statute or treaty can trump the US Constitution. I gave cites.
Got a cite saying otherwise, fool?
Ardie, you ignorant putz.
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
This is the supremacy clause. The Constitution being the instrument by which the statutes and treaties are made, those are, therefore, subordinate to the Constitution.
From Reid v Covert (354 US 1), Justice Black for the Court:
There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result. These debates as well as the history that surrounds the adoption of the treaty provision in Article VI make it clear that the reason treaties were not limited to those made in “pursuance” of the Constitution was so that agreements made by the United States under the Articles of Confederation, including the important peace treaties which concluded the Revolutionary [354 U.S. 1, 17] War, would remain in effect. 31 It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights – let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition – to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. 32 In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the Senate combined.
There is nothing new or unique about what we say here. This Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty. 33 For example, in Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258, 267 , it declared:
“The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the States. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the [354 U.S. 1, 18–1957] government or in that of one of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without its consent.”
This Court has also repeatedly taken the position that an Act of Congress, which must comply with the Constitution, is on a full parity with a treaty, and that when a statute which is subsequent in time is inconsistent with a treaty, the statute to the extent of conflict renders the treaty null. 34 It would be completely anomalous to say that a treaty need not comply with the Constitution when such an agreement can be overridden by a statute that must conform to that instrument.
This guy’s arguing that the UN Charter supersedes congressional authority. Didn’t Sashal like to point to AmConMag for support for his arguments? Seems to me Ardie should be right up that alley. Sic ’em, Sashal!
“It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government or in that of one of the states, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter without its consent.”
Again, how can the treaty power change the character of our government by removing an enumerated power from Congress? How can the Constitution be amended by a method other than that given in Article V?
“Not too many of them know this who mumble their sacred oaths mindlessly.”
Only in your little fantasy world. We know our duty and we know the obligations of the laws much better than you do.
Hey, RTO, did you know that you didn’t pledge an oath to the president? I mean, WHO the fuck knew?
As an aside, I’ve been called into service myself. My bil is doing his second tour “over there” and he needs me to watch his cat. I already have two cats and a dog that hates cats. But, how could I say no? I mean, I swore an oath to the president … or something.
I like maggie’s response. Fuck off.
Ardie pledges his allegiance to the UN as opposed to the US. Is it fair to question his patriotism?
fixed that for you. ;D
I do sometimes mumble oaths, but only under my breath, in traffic.
Or when reading troll comments.
Thank you, RTO Trainer, for supporting exactly what I have been typing through this &$$&^^%$$&^ cold!!!
For a time I thought Ardie was a cough syrup-mucinex hallucination, but no: he’s in that other 50% I mentioned.
Ardie’s lament.
“I do hereby swear to preserve, protect and defend Chimpy McHitler-bush and Cheney O’Stalin-Burton and all of their schemes, horrors, filthy lucre and heartaches.
So help me Jeebus.”:-D
I do sometimes mumble oaths, but only under my breath, in traffic.
Me too, especially when the person in front of me decides that 40 mph is the proper speed for he and all others behind him to merge into 70+ mph traffic.
Gee, I guess I’m a “rustic” now, huh?
Thanks. I take it as a compliment.
But for the record, I’m a city slicker.
If he’s an halucination we’re all sharing it. If he originated with you, well, major counselling is in order. Or an exorcist.
Ardie is just bitter off today than he was 4 (8) years ago.
Let’s make it simple
THAT’S A LIE AND YOU’RE A LIAR.
YOU MAY REPEAT IT AN INFINITE NUMBER OF TIMES, LIKE THE TYPING MONKEY YOU ARE.
IT IS STILL A LIE AND YOU WILL STILL BE A LIAR.
Regards,
Ric
Rustics? For real? After perusing this thread, I am mostly left wondering how anyone got the handle “ardie” from Ignatius J. Reilly.
Thanks, Ric. (rubs ear to get the ringing out and that sense back)
Ignatius J. Reilly? Really?
*guffaw* As P.G. Wodehouse said, ‘there has been some raw work done at the baptismal font’; “You’re Pelham Grenville, lad, whether you like it or not.”
…the U.N. Charter is to be taken as the “supreme Law of the Landâ€Â…
Folks like ardie don’t seem to understand that if this ever approaches truth there will most likely be an armed insurrection in this country.
So, how many atomic wedgies did you get in the cafeteria, Iggy? I mean those from the chess club; the jocks would have passed over you as really being beneath them.
THAT’S A LIE AND YOU’RE A LIAR.
YOU MAY REPEAT IT AN INFINITE NUMBER OF TIMES, LIKE THE TYPING MONKEY YOU ARE.
IT IS STILL A LIE AND YOU WILL STILL BE A LIAR.
Well said, Senor Ric. Well said, indeed.
BMoe – That is why they do not want us to have guns.
Yeah, sorry, Mikey.
Some people fail to understand and need explanations. For “people” (perhaps-unwarranted assumtion) like Ardie, I often wish that I could hex them in such a way that whenever they uttered the phrase in question the computer would respond with a Southern Pacific train horn (C-minor chord at 104 dB) and the phrase “that’s a lie and you’re a liar.” It would make some of these threads ever so much more peaceful.
Regards,
Ric
“#Comment by Ardie on 4/14 @ 1:28 pm #
JD: The Pledge of Allegiance was composed by a Christian Socialist by the name of Francis Bellamy (1855 – 1931). Do you still want to pledge allegiance to my sacred flag (mine is made in the USA)?”
They make U.N. flags is the good ol’ US of A?
I’d think they’d be manufactured in France.
Ric Locke: It is simple logic. In my Cato Institute little Constitution book which I always keep with me on page 35 it says, “all treaties…shall be the supreme Law of the Land” and that means “all” including the UN Charter signed in 1945. Sorry, but you have to obey it. You just can’t do as you please. When you serve your country as I did you learn that. Important too, is to get others to obey the Constitution who may have views in conflict with it.
Comment by Ardie on 4/14 @ 2:06 pm #
What was your MOS?
#126 cranky-d:
Thank you, I don’t like cutting and pasting. It takes from the give-and-take of a comment thread, but I felt it need to be said.
#199 Ah, no cites for your contention.
I win, you lose. So sorry. (Not really)
N. O’Brain: Never just salute any American flag. I have this thing about the ChiComs. I will not salute any American flag not made in my country. I want American hands making my flag to empower my flag.
Section 2
Clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
That is it the full text with no ellipses. Your little book is wrong.
Ardie, you are a breath of fresh air. If there’s one thing these folks don’t know or understand, it’s how a treaty works (except that some of them know protections against torture are “quaint”).
Don’t worry, though, this collection of middle aged white guys with millions of page views ont he outrage of the day aren’t bitter; they are angry. Very, very angry.
And, they know the scary back muslim, errrr, scary black Christian guy who hates whitey (despite his mother and grandmother), errr, the scary elitist rich guy who doesn’t like poor folks (despite being one and being a community activist…well-paid and well-insulated from the commoners, I’m sure).
Frankly, I can’t decide which caricature of Obama, I’m supposed to be afraid of. Once Obama flip-flops on taxes, torture, home mortgage bailouts, etc, he’ll be as acceptable to these fine gents as the Republican nominee?
Well, if they weren’t so bitter.
Yes, Ardie. How silly of us to think that we should be paying attention to the US Supreme Court and the US Constitution when the Cato Institute has apparently abrogated our sovereignty to the UN.
So, the UN in 1945 supercedes the US Constitution, the founding document of our society? Really? Really!
THAT’S A LIE AND YOU’RE A LIAR.
YOU MAY REPEAT IT AN INFINITE NUMBER OF TIMES, LIKE THE TYPING MONKEY YOU ARE.
IT IS STILL A LIE AND YOU WILL STILL BE A LIAR.
Ardie was a U.S. Navy Corpsman.
Ardie – Flag! Are you a Chi-Com flag?
Flag – silence
Ardie – I knew it. Doesn’t matter. The UN flag is the only one that matters.
Flag – THAT’S A LIE AND YOU’RE A LIAR.
YOU MAY REPEAT IT AN INFINITE NUMBER OF TIMES, LIKE THE TYPING MONKEY YOU ARE.
IT IS STILL A LIE AND YOU WILL STILL BE A LIAR.
h/t Ric
Look Ardie there’s just no polite way to say it, your just a idiot. There is not now nor should there ever be any treaty negotiated by a President then ratified by the Senate which will limit or alter any portion of The Constitution. Your just a fool and like Moe said earlier if that BS were ever tried, you and the fools who agree with you had better have plenty of firepower. You will most certainly need it because us “rustics” have lots of guns, ammo and pickup trucks to transport them in.
“…well-paid and well-insulated from the commoners, I’m sure…”
Yup. Just like his hero.
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2008/03/lol-turns-out-j.html
Who needs the SCOTUS when you’ve got the Cato institute?!? Sorry, Ardie. Cato doesn’t make the law, they merely comment on it.
How about you addressing UNSCR 1441?
Ardie – Why speak of yourself in the 3rd person, or is that a sock-puppet talking for you? Or, is that one of the voices in your head?
#199
Does it say what happens when a treaty would overrule a part of the US Constitution? What does your little book say should be the trump card when a treaty and the Consittution come in conflict?
We’ve been waiting for your answer to that all day. Soon, I’ll take a nap to help put this cold to rest, so you’ll have time to ponder the ultimate question: Which is the trump card – the US Constitution or a treaty?
Mikey – We pretty much know his answer. The UN trumps all because that feels right to him. And that treaty is Supreme. It says so. It is supreme.
Obama’s a poor person? how many million dollar book deals does it take to break out of that?
Obama’s a poor person?
That is one meme that kind of mystifies me, do all poor people in Hawaii live in Honolulu high rises and go to private schools?
Maggie, silly rabbit, you can never leave teh poor even when you are teh rich! You see you are stained by the original sin of poverty and then … um …
[…]
I’ll have to get back to you on that one…
Here is what Ardie is depending upon. (It is always a good idea to keep a hotlink to The Constitution of the United States around.) And of course it does use the phrase “supreme Law of the Land.”
The trouble for Ardie is that the Supreme Court — the same Court that finds “penumbras and emanations” that require us to encourage young women to kill their babies, which Ardie finds wonderful — has, over the full two centuries and a bit of the existence of the Nation, repeatedly and consistently ruled that this does not mean that a treaty can alter any provision of the Constitution itself.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 says [The Congress shall have Power]… To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; it does not say “…according to International Law…” or “…with the concurrence of the Security Council of the United Nations…”. To add such provisions would require an amendment, and no such amendment has been passed (and, if one were seriously considered, I personally would seriously consider the option of violence against those proposing it). That being the case, U.N. actions aren’t precisely irrelevant, but they don’t have a damned thing to do with what the United States can or cannot legally do.
Ardie, that’s still a lie and you’re still a liar. The fact that you can cite the Cato Institute simply means you don’t understand what that Institute has to say on the subject.
Regards,
Ric
Ardie, I’m sorry but the strain of stoopid you have isn’t contagious.
Ardie is just a clown anyone with more than two functioning brain cells recognizes that the Founding Fathers made it extraordinarily hard to amend the Constitution. So as to eliminate amendments for every political fad that came around. And there is exactly a zero chance that a President and 60 Senators would ever pass the requirements needed to amend The Constitution. So as I sad earlier If you think the Iraq War Resolution violates “The Supreme Law of the Land” then put a lawsuit together with Cato institute or the ACLU and go for it. But I suspect in spite of your rhetoric that even you know there isn’t even a snowballs chance in hades of getting a ruling in your favor.
Thanks, Ric.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
I bolded the important part for you, aldie.
Ardie’s just a Lew Rockwellian nutbag, who at least has the good sense to cite CATO’s little book. Snake, however, is an internet coward, who found a like mind and attempted to ride his wave of keepin it real. Ardie, you should take up royf’s suggestion and file a suit. It should be fun. But for some unbeknownst reason, you probably won’t.
And I wake from my little nap, feel a little better, and look around.
I sheathe my sword, salute my fellows, and walk off vindicated.
God, it feels good to do that at least one.
Now for a real nights’ sleep. Maybe I won’t cough like I’m gonna toss a lung and actually get some shut-eye.
We have so got to bronze this thread.
I have admire your unselfishness in taking the time to make this web site.
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