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pecuniumThe most recent flap about the religious beliefs of John Kerry (and how this supposedly makes it impossible for Catholics to vote for him, and remain catholics) has been irking me.
Why is it, I rhetorically ask, that Kerry's beliefs on abortion and gay marriage make it impossible for Catholics to vote for him, but Bush's views on the death penalty and agressive war don't disqualify him?
For a more complete lowdown (and funny as all hell if one is an educated Catholic, or religious historian George Bush, Heretic at NewDonkey.
To avoid making another political post, I was having turbid dreams this morning... end of the world stuff, with Jobian interactions with God (I took him to task for His wanting to wipe us out and start over... He made us, He has to live with us... it made more sense in the dream) and I awoke, in that state of reverie, realising that the Right knows is is going against the tenets of the Nation and the meaning of the Constitution; at least the ones at the top (reading Is that Legal, and Orcinus will tend to make one less sanguine about the future of the republic, but I digress).
When someone writes a law, they know that difficulties will lead to the courts reviewing it. It's one of the checks in the system. So when someone starts writing a law which tries to exclude itself from those checks, one has to wonder why.
The Right will say it's to prevent, "activist judges" from misinterpreting the law. But that's tough. The Constitution gives them the power to do that, and the truth of the matter is that it hasn't been happening, at least not to the detriment of the causes they espouse.
With the judges appointed to the federal bench, under both Clinton and Bush, it's also going to happen less and less. Which means they can only think the laws they are proposing are so severely out of step with the Constitution that even their pet judges will balk at them.
That's a scary thought.
The laws they are proposing Pecunium are even scarier. As I've said before, Nehemiah Scudder is waiting in the wings.
Why is it, I rhetorically ask, that Kerry's beliefs on abortion and gay marriage make it impossible for Catholics to vote for him, but Bush's views on the death penalty and agressive war don't disqualify him?
For a more complete lowdown (and funny as all hell if one is an educated Catholic, or religious historian George Bush, Heretic at NewDonkey.
To avoid making another political post, I was having turbid dreams this morning... end of the world stuff, with Jobian interactions with God (I took him to task for His wanting to wipe us out and start over... He made us, He has to live with us... it made more sense in the dream) and I awoke, in that state of reverie, realising that the Right knows is is going against the tenets of the Nation and the meaning of the Constitution; at least the ones at the top (reading Is that Legal, and Orcinus will tend to make one less sanguine about the future of the republic, but I digress).
When someone writes a law, they know that difficulties will lead to the courts reviewing it. It's one of the checks in the system. So when someone starts writing a law which tries to exclude itself from those checks, one has to wonder why.
The Right will say it's to prevent, "activist judges" from misinterpreting the law. But that's tough. The Constitution gives them the power to do that, and the truth of the matter is that it hasn't been happening, at least not to the detriment of the causes they espouse.
With the judges appointed to the federal bench, under both Clinton and Bush, it's also going to happen less and less. Which means they can only think the laws they are proposing are so severely out of step with the Constitution that even their pet judges will balk at them.
That's a scary thought.
The laws they are proposing Pecunium are even scarier. As I've said before, Nehemiah Scudder is waiting in the wings.
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Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-10-22 07:22 pm (UTC)We imprisioned and hung Nazi generals for planning and participating in "agressive war". There were defendants at Nuremburg charged only with that count. The defense that they were simply executing the orders of their head of state did not suffice.
Last time I checked, we got taught that illegal and immoral orders should not be followed. If your argument is that the entire war is immoral, than it follows that actions in that war cannot be moral.
Now, in a moral war, atrocities can be committed (Abu Gharib, or the 'dehousing' nightime incindiary bombing campaign of WWII), but Shakespeare to the contrary, an illegal or immoral war cannot be waged justly.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-10-22 09:02 pm (UTC)The distinction you are trying to make is the one of jus ad versus jus in bella, which is the argument Shakespeare addressed.
An immoral war is laid at the feet of the man who starts it. He must have a just cause for the war. But an order to do the will of the king (whom both Augustine, and Aquinas gave the authority; we give it to a legislative group, who delegate the management, once the decision is made) is a lawful order.
The soldier's duty is to be moral in the war. In how he conducts himself. No soldier of the Reich was charged with being a pawn in the war, even though it was unjust (in this sense). Those who were charged, were charged with going beyond the bounds of what was legal, in the framework of war. Once committed, the nation's call on her subjects means they lose some of the ability to protest (because it rarely happens that someone gives a war, and no-body comes).
TK
Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-10-23 05:48 am (UTC)No, there were four counts. Count 1 was conspiracy to wage aggressive war. Count 2 was waging aggressive war, "the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances."
Count 3 was war crimes, Count 4 crimes against humanity. Hess was not charged with 3 or 4, only counts 1 and 2. Raeder was charged with 1, 2, and 3 and convicted only of 2.
Donitz was, IMHO, unjustly convicted of count 3 unless we are willing to put Admiral Chester Nimitz on trial for issuing precisely the same instructions to the US submarine fleet in the Pacific ocean. However, British sensibilities overruled common sense.
At any rate, the issue is whether to obey an illegal order (which you are arguing the order to initiate OIF was) is excused because of the pay grade of the person issuing it. If a officer issues me an order to shoot an unarmed civillian who is not doing anything threatening then I am wrong if I obey him. At the least, you are arguing that General Franks and his senior staff and component commanders are war criminals. Is this your intent?
Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-10-23 06:00 am (UTC)And yes, we charged the leaders with that. But we didn't hang them for the war of agression, it was the counts 3 and 4 which got them the rope. And, again, it was not the rank and file who were reaped the fruits of that, but rather those who, as charge one states conspired to wage aggressive war.
Charge two can be misread, but it isn't aimed at those who were the pawns in the game, but rather those who managed the board.
As you point out with Raeder, 1 and 2 were not capital.
TK
Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-10-23 08:07 am (UTC)Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-10-23 04:01 pm (UTC)On a different level, even if Congress had called him on the revocation of authority, he gets 30 days, under the war powers act to do what he wants, before he has to justify it to Congress. That he broke the law isn't relevant to the lawfulness of the order (in part because there are so many laws, in regards to what constitutes a legal order; and what recourse a soldier, or unit, has to defy one that isn't. Orders give a limited privilege to the soldier).
That Congress hasn't repudiated the attacks, means they gave tacit consent, after the fact, and so the illegality is being winked at.
TK