Democrat Primaries/Caucuses Discussions, Jokes, Predictions

[Hermit]

They can in the UK if the Home Secretary deems it in the national interest on security grounds. We have a system of Closed Material Proceedings in national security cases where defendants may not even be made aware of the full charges, or the evidence against them, or the witnesses brought against them. These proceedings are invoked by the Home Secretary not the judiciary. The role of the judiciary in considering public interest objections to the imposition of such measures, which would have previously fallen to the presiding judge, have now been done away with, and the rationality test for implementation falls to a government appointed panel who are limited to an assessment of whether the Home Secretary has followed the process whereby they are 'minded' to consider such proceedings necessary.

If such measures are used sparingly, where there is a true risk to the public/national security, and where there is some form of judicial oversight to prevent such actions being used willy-nilly, then they could be justified. Whether things have gone beyond that in the UK you would know better than me, but one hopes that the press would be all over blatant misuse of such provisions...

You keep saying that you regard yourself as a moderate. If that is what you are, I regard moderates as leaning very much to the right.

[JimC]

It all depends on whether the national security issue (in terms of the risk to innocent civilians) is real or not. Are you saying there would never be a situation where normal legal processes should be held in abeyance for the greater good, given the reality of islamic terrorism from that very dangerous minority?

Having said that, I fully recognise that it is walking a tight-rope, and that governments of all descriptions will be tempted to push the envelope. All I have to offer is a hope that judicial oversight and a free press will help us find a balance that allows survival without too much loss of freedom...

[Brian Peacock]

If such measures are used sparingly, where there is a true risk to the public/national security, and where there is some form of judicial oversight to prevent such actions being used willy-nilly, then they could be justified. Whether things have gone beyond that in the UK you would know better than me, but one hopes that the press would be all over blatant misuse of such provisions...

No-one knows how CMP are being used in national security cases (including cases where people might be taking the government to court over, say, being tortured etc) because they happen In Camera and off the public record.

[Seth]

Governments cannot ignore their legal systems.

Tell it to Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Russia, North Korea...the list goes on and on. When the legal system becomes an impediment to despotism the despot simply liquidates the existing legal system and replaces it with one that's more cooperative. And where the citizenry have no ultimate recourse to take down a tyrant they suffer and die by the millions and the legal system is of no help at all. Stalin is proof of that, as is Hitler.

FDR tried that during the New Deal when he tried to change the composition of the Supreme Court so he could pack it with Progressives. Didn't work.

[Seth]

They can in Britain if they drop out of the EU and rescind the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human rights as implemented through the European Court on Human Rights.

Or simply ignore the EU, like Russia does in invading Crimea and Ukraine.

[pErvinalia]

Governments cannot ignore their legal systems.

Tell it to Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Russia, North Korea...the list goes on and on. When the legal system becomes an impediment to despotism the despot simply liquidates the existing legal system and replaces it with one that's more cooperative. And where the citizenry have no ultimate recourse to take down a tyrant they suffer and die by the millions and the legal system is of no help at all. Stalin is proof of that, as is Hitler.

How's a constitution going to stop that? And don't do your usual tactic of moving the goal posts (to the 2nd amendment).

[Seth]

They can in Britain if they drop out of the EU and rescind the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human rights as implemented through the European Court on Human Rights.

Yes, but only by going through a legally available process, part of which is leaving a supra-national jurisdiction. What I really meant is that they cannot ignore habeus corpus and the rest of common law...

Tell it to the Soviet satellite states and the 40 million people Stalin liquidated without regard for habeus corpus or common law.

The ONLY recourse for individuals in such cases is force, and if they are unarmed they are unable to overthrow a dictator, and pretty much everywhere on earth government knowingly and deliberately DISARMS the citizenry (or tries to using the "legal system") precisely so that it can maintain ultimate control, thus leaving the people at the mercy of whichever demagogue or tyrant seizes power, by hook or by crook.

The "universal declaration of human rights" is a piece of paper that is as worthless as toilet paper to those who do not have the ability to enforce it themselves.

[Tyrannical]

Activist judges ignore the legal system all the time......

[Seth]

Governments cannot ignore their legal systems.

Tell it to Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Russia, North Korea...the list goes on and on. When the legal system becomes an impediment to despotism the despot simply liquidates the existing legal system and replaces it with one that's more cooperative. And where the citizenry have no ultimate recourse to take down a tyrant they suffer and die by the millions and the legal system is of no help at all. Stalin is proof of that, as is Hitler.

How's a constitution going to stop that? And don't do your usual tactic of moving the goal posts (to the 2nd amendment).

The Constitution doesn't stop that, an armed citizenry stops that. The Constitution merely forbids the government from infringing on the citizenry's natural, inherent and unalienable right to keep and bear arms for that, and other purposes, so that the citizenry will ALWAYS have arms in sufficient quantity to be an effective deterrent to despotism.

That is why we defend the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment so vigorously. The keeping and bearing of private arms, particularly arms suitable for military use, permits we, the People to form effective militias under our own leadership (at the state level) with which to preserve, protect and defend the rights of the people by enforcing the strictures of the Constitution upon the central government should it overstep its legitimate authority and refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry, from whom ALL political power and authority flows.

And fuck your attempt to set limits on how I may argue my case. My "tactic" has been ratified by our Supreme Court, so fuck off.

[Seth]

If such measures are used sparingly, where there is a true risk to the public/national security, and where there is some form of judicial oversight to prevent such actions being used willy-nilly, then they could be justified. Whether things have gone beyond that in the UK you would know better than me, but one hopes that the press would be all over blatant misuse of such provisions...

Right up until the press is silenced, imprisoned and/or killed for failing to cooperate with the government, as is the case in, oh, I don't know...most countries.

Right after disarming the citizenry the second thing any despot does is take control of the press and the avenues of public communication, which is why China, for example, exercises rigid control over the internet and how its citizens communicate with one another and the outside world. North Korea is the most salient example of both disarmament of the citizenry and absolute control of media and how that fosters and supports tyranny.

[Brian Peacock]

If such measures are used sparingly, where there is a true risk to the public/national security, and where there is some form of judicial oversight to prevent such actions being used willy-nilly, then they could be justified. Whether things have gone beyond that in the UK you would know better than me, but one hopes that the press would be all over blatant misuse of such provisions...

No-one knows how CMP are being used in national security cases (including cases where people might be taking the government to court over, say, being tortured etc) because they happen In Camera and off the public record.

Additionally, though a defendant can still provide their own legal representation they are represented in court by a Barrister drawn from a list of Home Office-approved intermediaries. There are stringent limitation on what this intermediary can tell the defendant or his legal representative about the the case, and their interactions with the defendant are themselves overseen by someone appointed from the Lord Chancellor's office (the government appointed head of the judiciary in the UK) to make sure that nothing is accidentally let slip that shouldn't be. In effect, this places a representative of the government among the legal team of the defendant.

Now, in a perfect, scrupulously principled system this is not necessarily a problem. There just exists several tiers of oversight to make sure that the defendant is adequately represented while limiting the possibility of passing sensitive information into the public domain. However (and you knew that was coming eh?), the issue is one of balancing the interests of the state, the defendant and the public, and in a system where a politician (the Home Secretary) decides if they have met their own conditions for invoking CMP, and where the role of the assessment panel is to determine if the Home Secretary really has met their own conditions, the balance is weighed too much in favour of the state, imo. Public interest considerations play no part in these proceedings.

I think we've arrived at this situation by politicians trying to do the easy thing in order to be seen to be doing the right thing, rather than actually trying to do the right thing. The fact that this is now part of the statute makes it perfectly legal and, one fears, surprisingly easy (relatively speaking) for a here-today-gone-tomorrow politician to confuse political concerns for public interest or national security concerns. The coalition government which enacted this law did so for 'all the right reasons' as it were, but the safe and reasonable operation of the system unduly relies on the political scruples of the government of the day.

Of course, some might say that because I'm apparently a lefty/liberal gentleman I would say that wouldn't I(?), but my concerns above are only a breviloquent compendium of the concerns of the UK Law Society and others.

• "An absence of integrity is the logical solution to political divergences."
  • -- Arthur Schopenhauer

[Brian Peacock]

If such measures are used sparingly, where there is a true risk to the public/national security, and where there is some form of judicial oversight to prevent such actions being used willy-nilly, then they could be justified. Whether things have gone beyond that in the UK you would know better than me, but one hopes that the press would be all over blatant misuse of such provisions...

Right up until the press is silenced, imprisoned and/or killed for failing to cooperate with the government, as is the case in, oh, I don't know...most countries.

Right after disarming the citizenry the second thing any despot does is take control of the press and the avenues of public communication, which is why China, for example, exercises rigid control over the internet and how its citizens communicate with one another and the outside world. North Korea is the most salient example of both disarmament of the citizenry and absolute control of media and how that fosters and supports tyranny.

And it's worth pointing out that depots come in all political shades.

[Animavore]

If such measures are used sparingly, where there is a true risk to the public/national security, and where there is some form of judicial oversight to prevent such actions being used willy-nilly, then they could be justified. Whether things have gone beyond that in the UK you would know better than me, but one hopes that the press would be all over blatant misuse of such provisions...

Right up until the press is silenced, imprisoned and/or killed for failing to cooperate with the government, as is the case in, oh, I don't know...most countries.

Right after disarming the citizenry the second thing any despot does is take control of the press and the avenues of public communication, which is why China, for example, exercises rigid control over the internet and how its citizens communicate with one another and the outside world. North Korea is the most salient example of both disarmament of the citizenry and absolute control of media and how that fosters and supports tyranny.

And it's worth pointing out that depots come in all political shades.

*depots*, lol.

[pErvinalia]

Governments cannot ignore their legal systems.

Tell it to Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Russia, North Korea...the list goes on and on. When the legal system becomes an impediment to despotism the despot simply liquidates the existing legal system and replaces it with one that's more cooperative. And where the citizenry have no ultimate recourse to take down a tyrant they suffer and die by the millions and the legal system is of no help at all. Stalin is proof of that, as is Hitler.

How's a constitution going to stop that? And don't do your usual tactic of moving the goal posts (to the 2nd amendment).

The Constitution doesn't stop that, an armed citizenry stops that. The Constitution merely forbids the government from infringing on the citizenry's natural, inherent and unalienable right to keep and bear arms for that, and other purposes, so that the citizenry will ALWAYS have arms in sufficient quantity to be an effective deterrent to despotism.

That is why we defend the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment so vigorously. The keeping and bearing of private arms, particularly arms suitable for military use, permits we, the People to form effective militias under our own leadership (at the state level) with which to preserve, protect and defend the rights of the people by enforcing the strictures of the Constitution upon the central government should it overstep its legitimate authority and refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry, from whom ALL political power and authority flows.

And fuck your attempt to set limits on how I may argue my case. My "tactic" has been ratified by our Supreme Court, so fuck off.

Jim's post that you were responding to was talking about constitutions, not an armed populace. So yes, you are doing your usual tactic of moving the goalposts.

[Seth]

Where is America democratic? Well, you reveal yourself to be the ignorant one.

Your system is not democratic.

Damned right it's not.

Not all votes are equal

Wrong. All votes are exactly equal. One legally-qualified citizen, one vote.

and the conditions of registration to vote is different in every state.

And in no state is anyone who is legally qualified to vote denied either registration or voting...except by democrat progressive goons at public polling places who threaten, intimidate and attack non-democrat voters...but then that's illegal to begin with.

The only difference in "conditions of registration" from state to state are those imposed by democrat progressives to enable those who are here illegally and who are not entitled to vote in our elections to do so by eliminating the perfectly reasonable requirement that you prove who you are and that you are entitled to vote before being registered and before casting your ballot.

Your voting systems are not the same.

That helps, to some extent, in preventing election fraud on a nationwide scale, something democrat progressives would certainly do if given the opportunity to hack a mandatory nationwide computer voting system. They already do it in many places. Buggering the ballot box has a long, dishonorable history in the US (and everywhere else for that matter) and it has always been leftists who have attempted such voter fraud. Having varied systems makes it more difficult for leftists to steal an election in one fell swoop, as happens in other places pretty routinely.

The whole thing is a mess.

Nobody said it was supposed to be pretty or easy. Voting is a right and if you want to exercise it then you need to put forth some effort.

You can give all pretty names to each part of government but if it does not work you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

It's worked just fine for us for 240 years. Every 4 to 8 years, like clockwork, the top leadership of the nation peacefully changes hands, and our government representatives cycle peacefully in and out of office as well. We don't have coups, or legislators throwing chairs and microphones at each other in the house or senate, we don't have opposition politicians being disappeared or arrested.

Compared to the rest of the planet our system is better than any other. Imperfect, but then again what isn't?

Your country is a mess.

Could be better, but then again it' ain't Greece or Venezuela.

Unemployment is what?

High because we elected Barack Obama twice. That's about to be over however, and he'll either peacefully turn over the Oval Office to whomever wins the election or he will be removed from it by force. In 240 years we've never needed force.

Education Is what?

Dominated by Marxist ideology, which is why it's not optimal.

Social cohesion?

Liberty can be messy, but by and large we all get along pretty darn well. Until black radicals started killing police and Muslims started killing anyone non-Muslim in the US we are a very cohesive nation, and a tolerant one that acknowledges difference and celebrates it rather than suppressing it.

You dont even know what the word means.

And you don't know what the word "freedom" means. You're a slave to your government and you don't even understand that. Live free or die!

All you know in your political system is confrontation.

So what? There are many different and conflicting "special interests" (each person is special and has his or her own interests) that have to be considered. The only metric is how we resolve those confrontations and we do it peacefully, in an orderly fashion, at the local, state and national levels.

Your legal system is corrupt and is open to more corruption.

And what legal system isn't?

As for your police forces they are the laughing stock of the world.

No, that would be the French police.

And we wont talk about UHC. You have none.

Of course not, and that's the way we want it.

Your infrastructure is falling down around your ears because of the lack of maintenance.

Go stick a finger in a dyke.

The Netherlands the bitch of Europe.

Both in world trade and politics we punch way above our weight.

Like the great yellow wonder your ignorance of Europe is just amazing.

Right. Keep telling yourself that as the flood waters rise above your nose.