OP
- Thread Starter
- #61
That's not really an answer. I asked WHO decides who is a terrorist. If I 'define' you as a terrorist, are you? No. But if the president does, then it's true? Do you really trust the Oval Office that much? I'm not asking what a terrorist is, I'm asking who gets to decide who a terrorist is.
Ok...then blame me. I dont give a ****.Should I blame you and those who think that you do, when it comes to being a sheep instead of a lion, when it comes to SD? Yeah, I know its a different topic, just sayin'.
Sure. But here's the difference. If I am a sheep instead of a lion regarding self-defense; I hurt myself, or perhaps my family. When you toss away our rights so long as a bad guy gets zapped, you damage the entire fabric of society. I can live when any errors I commit that harm only me and mine. Disregarding liberty to make sure a bad guy gets what he has coming to him sans due process doesn't just affect you. It affects all of us, and forever.
Whats interesting is how you make it sound so easy to arrest these people to ensure they get their due process. But whatever...like I said, you have your opinion, I have mine. I respect yours, you dont respect mine, probably because it differs from yours but thats fine.
I do not think it is easy to arrest these people. I think I've made it clear that I don't think he would have come along quietly. I've also said that if he's killed in the process of being arrested, I don't have a problem with that.
I think maybe we just don't agree on what the term 'due process' means. It does not mean you absolutely get your day in court. Bad guys get shot dead all the time by the police before they get their day in court, and that's the way it goes.
Due process means pretty much just that. Before the government can take your property, or your liberty, or your life, there is a process that must be observed. The government is not permitted to just decide to kill a citizen and then go do it.
In the case of taking a citizen's property away, there are a number of things that have to happen before your property can be seized. The mayor of your town can't just eyeball your property and say "Wow, that's a nice place, I think I'll take it."
In the case of taking a citizen's liberty away, there has to be a trial and a conviction and a sentence lawfully applied. A judge can't just say "Never mind the trial, I can see this guy's a scumball, so twenty years for him!"
In the case of taking a citizen's life, it becomes even more important that they receive due process, because unlike the other two, where they can petition the government for redress, once they're dead, that's it.
However, the court also understands that the government has to do the job of enforcing the law. Before they can bring someone to trial, they must capture that person. And many times, such persons do not want to be caught, and will not come along quietly and peacefully. But the law requires that they submit to lawful authority; if they refuse to do so, the police are required to effect an arrest, and necessary force is authorized to the limits of that particular crime (the police can't shoot a jaywalker resisting arrest, for example, but they can shoot a murderer fleeing the scene). When this happens, the suspect still got their due process; the police tried to apprehend the suspect to bring him to justice and the suspect resisted, leading to his death.
If they had done an OBL type insertion into Yemen to get this guy, and he resisted and got two between the running lights, he got due process. He could have surrendered, he didn't.
But as I mentioned, you can't surrender to a missile. He was not given due process because he a) was not charged with a crime and b) was not given the opportunity to surrender to face the charges.
What was he charged with? What crime, specifically? "Being a scumbag" is not a crime. Even "being a terrorist" is not a crime in specific. WHAT was the crime he was to answer to? OBL was on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list with a reward for his capture; he was charged with crimes. What charge was al-Awlaki charged with?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
In the case of OBL, who was NOT a US citizen, he got due process anyway. There was an indictment. We did attempt to apprehend him. If he had surrendered, we would have captured him alive and he would have received a trial of some kind (what kind, I have no idea). Al-Awlaki, a US citizen, did NOT get due process. No indictment. No attempt to apprehend him. The President ordered him assassinated and he was, by a missile, which he could not surrender to even if he had wanted to.
It's like shooting a man dead whom you know to be armed, and then claiming self-defense. The cops say "Well, was he pointing his gun at you?" And you say "No, but he was going to!" Well, we'll never know, will we? We can say al-Awlaki would never have surrendered. Probably true, too. But we'll never know; we did not indict him, we did not try to apprehend him. And our own Constitution says we can't do that to our citizens. If our President can order him killed without due process, he can order you or me killed without due process too. Would he? No, of course not. But now there is nothing to stop him from doing it he feels like it.
