Why have a Constitution if we always need to suspend it to keep us "safe"?

[CTyankee]

On "Morning Joe" Friday, Joe Scarborough launched into a tirade about how our "great" presidents were guilty of war crimes and clear violations of the Constitution and therefore we should dismantle all monuments in their honor, if we go after the Bush administration for its war crimes. His clear implication was that we need to put aside Consitutional concerns in the name of protecting the nation.

This begs the question and I would say to him: OK, Joe, tell me why we need a Constitution in the first place? If it is not useful, and indeed a hindrance, in a time of national duress, why have it? What good is it? Why have our leaders take a solemn oath to protect the Constitution if we assent to his throwing it aside, to protect us? And if it is OK to suspend the Constitution in a time of war, and the "war" is ongoing and indefinite, then the document is moot pretty much all of the time.

I am not asking a rhetorical question here. I really want to hear the answer from Joe and any other rightie who wants to use his argument.

OK, DUers, what do you say?

[mmonk]

1. So far, they have won until we do something.

There is no reason for the Constitution if it isn't followed or is up to those elected. But that is where we are.

[CTyankee]

2. That is why I would like to hear the righties justify having the Constitution under

the given circumstances.

Or else we are laboring under a vast delusion about the "exceptionalism" of America because of its glorious Constitution.

[mmonk]

5. I believe most arguments that Republicans have used

are the same ones the Germans used, at least the elected ones. You can get an idea from this Andrew Sullivan article: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/verschfte_verne.html

[Thothmes]

14. It is also the same argument

that Abraham Lincoln use to to prosecute the American Civil War. On edit, it was the same argument that landed 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps during WWII.

[tabasco]

17. LOL! Insurrection to destroy the country = Illegal Iraq invasion and torture!

Right-wingers don't do history. They merely parrot talking points like stupid idiots.

[Thothmes]

21. Illegal invasion of Vietnam and War Crimes LOL

[TahitiNut]

24. The Constitution is the sole basis for any legitimacy of the Federal government itself.

"Suspend" the Constitution and the Federal government itself has absolutely no legal basis for its very existence. It is then an outlaw regime governing without authorization of the people -- outlaw and criminal.

[virginia mountainman]

3. Some people of both sides of the Political Spectrum do it.....

[tabasco]

15. What "war on guns?"

I live in West Virginia and every-fucking-body owns guns.

However, if you try to smoke a joint, you go to jail.

The "war" on (some) drugs has been extremely destructive to the Bill of Rights.

The "war on guns" is a concoction of right-wing propaganda.

[virginia mountainman]

20. Please tell that too

Feinstein, Latenburg, HRC, Eric Holder, and a few others...

BTW, my wife is from Mingo Co...

[Marr]

4. Conservatives are often accused of having no sense of nuance, but

I've found that questions like this can arouse in them a deep appreciation for it. I have an uncle who insists that morality is absolute; black and white. Until we started talking about torture. Suddenly he hemmed and hawed and insisted that it "isn't that simple" and that sometimes you have to "bend the rules".

[david13]

6. It's worse than that. There really is no such thing as

'safe'. It is merely a marketing tool to sell something.
dc

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. They didn't suspend it when they wrote it and there was no more "unsafe" time in our history.nt

[mmonk]

8. That's correct. Except for when they wrote the Declaration of Independence.

They could have been hung by the neck.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

10. A brave and free people seek to be brave and free even when they're secretly scared and weak.

It's an ideal to be lived even when it's hard.

[CTyankee]

12. We are told this all our lives but at the same time we turn around and say that we

HAVE to suspend the Constitution because our safety demands it! That is insanity. Either we are a nation of laws or we are not, no two ways about it.
While we're at it, we may want to ask the righties why we don't just refuse to sign any treaties against torture, too. Why sign them if we have NO intention of following them?

[Thothmes]

16. One of those laws is that the Congress of the United

States has the legal authority to suspend the writ of Habeas Corps, if they chose to exercise that perogative.

[CTyankee]

18. Is that in the Constitution or is it a law passed during the Civil War?

If the latter, was it ever tested in the Supreme Court?

[CTyankee]

11. Exactly. AS one wag put it "Instead of 'give me liberty or give me death'

these people say 'take my liberty, I'm scared to death."

[Ghost in the Machine]

9. They can't just throw it away... it might come in handy one day...

You never know when you're gonna need something to prop up a shakey table leg or something...



:hi:


Peace,

Ghost

[scrinmaster]

13. So, how do you feel about gun control? n/t

[CTyankee]

19. There is a nice place for you to enjoy that debate. It is called the gun forum.

I suggest you take it there and have at it.

[scrinmaster]

22. So I am to assume that you support suspending part of the constitution to keep us "safe",

just not the part you describe in your first post.

[virginia mountainman]

23. They Sound just like ....

Terra Terra TERRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAA

To me...

[CTyankee]

25. No, you are to assume that I will not let you hijack this thread.

I know that is not what you want to hear. My sympathies...