Posted by zeugma on March 8, 2006, at 9:08:26
In reply to Re: critiques » zeugma, posted by zeugma on March 7, 2006, at 17:16:41
me, and it is disturbing me, and turning my thoughts in directions that have driven me to frequent sites that address the issue of secession: as a matter of fact the State of South Carolina, when it seceded from the Union, did put their justifications in writing, and it makes interesting reading (and educational, to say the least):
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue....
They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
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One must remember that the Confederacy, of which South Carolina was a part, based much of their justification on the matter of slavery. They were speaking out for their right to hold slaves, who could not vote; well, women could not in the U.S. until 1920; and it strikes me that women's rights are in some danger in the U.S., though in the end the only "rights" we have in the U.S., no matter what our color, gender, or other category we fall into, are those given in the Constitution, its amendments, and the precedent of law. And as Heraclitus said many years ago, "Fight for the laws as you would for the city wall;" I take these things most seriously, hence my love of documentation. Unlike some, I am not bored by details, and unlike some, I ask questions, and unlike some, I stay up at night trying to answer those that are asked of me...but that's enough digression; on to the particular spirit which has been haunting me:
_______________________________
To the Editor:
I take issue with your March 6 editorial "Kabuki Congress" when it says that my bill "grants legal cover, retroactively, to the one spying program that Mr. Bush has acknowledged" and that it "covers any other illegal wiretapping we don't know about."
My public statements have emphasized the proposition that the wiretapping flatly violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court approval.
I have reserved judgment on whether the president has Article II inherent power, which would trump the FISA statute, because I don't know what the program is, and the administration will not tell us.
My bill calls upon the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has the expertise and is leak-proof (unlike either Congress or the White House) to determine the program's constitutionality. My bill specifically does not grant "legal cover" to the wiretapping and leaves that judgment to the FISA Court.ARLEN SPECTER
Chairman
Senate Judiciary Committee
Washington, March 6, 2006[letter to the N.Y. Times, March 8, 2006]
_____________________________Interesting. It should be known that the State of South Carolina considered violations of constitutionality sufficient to secede, and that this is called the "United States," and I take this term to not apply to a nation with a body of representatives of said states that, to quote yet again, but this time a Democrat, are "trying to legislate in the dark" (Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.) [source: same paper].
I do not embrace the cause of the Old South. But the Thirteen States with which we began, and the values of New England symbolized by the recent referendums in town halls in Vermont and the motto of New Hampsire, which I will quote for educational purposes and to avoid any ambiguity, those are values I embrace:
"Live free or die."
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:617327
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060304/msgs/617412.html