Forbidden Donut

I would like to see the proposition of a law requiring all people that sue someone and lose be required to pay the defendant's attorney fees and court costs. I'm sick of frivolous lawsuits against people because people get hurt doing stupid shit and not taking responsibility for their actions.


On a separate note, Court, are you referring to all people taken into custody in the US, or taken into custody all over the world? Are you referring to people being held in the US and its various facilites (ie, Guantanamo) or people being held by the US everyone, such as in military prisons in Iraq? Second, what would you suggest referring to those people as if they aren't enemy combatants?

There are plenty of things I'd like to see happen, many of which would require some reading up on to ascertain the facts, but I think I can pretty safely say I want the Patriot Act repealed as soon as possible.

The problem with any law like this is that our system isn't built around absolute truths. A defendant being found innocent doesn't mean they were innocent, it just means a jury of their peers didn't think there was undeniable proof that they were guilty. So it means that when a large corporation spends barrels of cash to work the system in their favor (which they frequently do), then the poor guy that was justified in his lawsuit is punished.

Or, consider the fact that even in the cases where a defendant is found not guilty, a lot of good can come from them. The threat of lawsuit is really the only defense consumers have against corporate misdoings. If it weren't for long-shot lawsuits, people wouldn't even know that Pacific Gas and Electric recklessly poisoned more than 1200 people because they didn't think safety was financially prudent. What's worse: some nut job filing a frivolous lawsuit or a fatal injustice going completely unnoticed because the system was annoyed with the former nut job?



I believe that everyone deserves the right to challenge their detention regardless of whether they are US citizens or not. I do understand the necessity of holding prisoners of war, but I don't believe that's what we're doing.

Now, I don't think that simply lifting the title "enemy combatants" will fix the fact that we're holding boatloads of people without trial, but I think it is the first step in any true transparency in the way we handle our foreign affairs. Us calling them "enemy combatants" is our way of saying "they're prisoners of war, but this is a 'special' war so they get 'special' rules." We justify extraordinary actions against these detainees by creating a special title for them, when in actuality they're not different than thousands of other prisoners of war that we've held throughout our history: some of them despise us, others are caught up in the battle, and some are entirely innocent. In either case, by calling them what they are (prisoners of war), then we can no longer justify the extraordinary lapses in human and civil rights.

I am aware the "prisoner of war" status still means they could be held indefinitely so long as we are still "at war" with "terror", but it at least bounds their fate in the dynamic nature of our government system so that in one, two, or even ten terms of the executive and legislative branches, if we happen to get a glimpse of leadership that has the foresight and respect for what truly makes this country unique and great, and they finally do away with the ludicrous concept that you can wage an official, legal war against an ideal, then the prisoners that have been held throughout the duration can be released as all prisoners are when a war is over.

Now this isn't necessarily what I want to be the first act, but I think it's interesting that Obama named it as one of the fist things he'd do.

“I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution.”

first 100 days.

I think there are more pressing specific issues to tackle, but I think that this is a good blanket way of dealing with a lot of them at once. But it's clearly a political stunt designed to capitalize on the current political climate here.

Pft, liar. There was no legislation prior to Shrub.

The problem is, legally they aren't prisoners of war. They don't exist in international law as any type of combatant. It's a giant gray area where we don't know what to call them. The only realistic thing that we can do is call them common criminals and try them according to the laws of the country in which they are arrested. The trouble with that is the vast majority aren't arrested, they are detained in the manner similar to how armies defeat armies. There is likely little or no actual evidence gathered similar to a normal criminal investigation, so trying them in a normal court of law runs into lots of legal issues. Do you try them and lose based on the defendant citing lack of evidence? Then you just put them back on the street doing exactly the same thing they were doing before they were detained. Not a very productive way to wage a war.

I think court's point is that it's all semantic nonsense. THEY are at war. Just because we don't call it a war doesn't mean they aren't POW's. We invented that giant gray area so that we can treat them however we please.

We didn't invent anything. That's the way International Law has read ever since World War I. It's simply an area that hasn't been addressed by the UN because until this war, it wasn't an internationally recognized issue. When the problem became apparent, the government did what they could in a difficult situation due to a lack of international systems to define what to do. The government legally couldn't consider them POW.

i want the first act to be to defend the border. use the national guard until a fence is built and in the mean time come up with a road to amnesty for those here.

You're right, they can't be considered POW's, however they have historically been required to see a trial before being thrown in prison. Detaining them indefinitely or until the end of the conflict is an action taken only with POW's.

"Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.( Emphasis added)"

But don't let facts get in the way. Throw them in jail because we're too lazy to figure out what to legitimately do with them.

Usually I'm just being adversarial with you (because it's fun), but I'm actually curious this time. Why does this top your list of priorities? It's not the biggest drain on our budget, it's pretty well established that they aren't "takin' our jerbs", and the only things being smuggled in are drugs and people. I've never quite understood the allure of better border security with Mexico. I think it's a waste of a lot of money. The drugs and people will make it in anyway. If what we've done so far, and the risks involved with crossing the border didn't already deter them, I don't think there's much we can actually do to slow the influx of illegals into the country.

But that's just my 2cents. So I reemphasize my question: Why is our border with Mexico your #1 priority? (and if it isn't your #1 it's clearly important enough to be the first thing the next president should handle. Again why?)

Because the United States is its own entity and should have territorial integrity. Every country in the world has its own borders, language and culture and our current open border situation degrades all three.

Which aspect of your madness would you like to hear about first?

Under this statement, then we have been doing exactly what we should have been doing: holding them indefinitely.




That's exactly what we are giving them, military tribunals.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080808/ap_on_..._laden_s_driver

I don't know.. you scare me

The problem is that we're not treating them the way that Enemy Combatants are supposed to be treated. Your one example is an exception to the rule. My favorite exception actually because it is one of the good stories coming out of this mess.


Eve. That's madness because we're America. Your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... America. If you mean to imply that we need to make English our official language you've missed a big part of what makes us special. And our culture is the culmination of 200 years of international integration. I don't want that to stop just because we're scaredy cats who don't want things to change.
Why do I scare you?

thats not what i was implying at all. what i did want to imply was that we can only assimilate new immigrants to our way of life at a certain rate. that rate should be decided by the people according to immigration quotas/laws and not by the randomness of a loose border.

Get one of those sex scandal things going on -- seems like the cool thing to do in the political arena.

Once their coolness has been established -- nuke the entire Middle East and turn it into the biggest Walmart store ever.

In all seriousness, I would like the first act of the president to be the elimination of the penny coin.

I realize this seems frivolous, but I believe that someone who took that sort of tack on problem solving might have an actually innovative approach to politicking. What sort of mint and transactional savings would be effected by the elimination of the useless currency? What other seemingly trivial actions could lead to widespread change? Investigations of effective policy instead of interests.

Basically, I want a president who is willing to commit political suicide in order to actually make some changes. It might be short sighted (it only takes another term to reverse it all), but it would be refreshing. Power-law based emissions programs? An honest look at our food supply and its effects on health and later healthcare?

In either case, I probably won't even bother to vote, unless it seems there might be a chance at Obama not carrying Maryland. If the whole popular vote legislation could actually get pushed through...I might care a little more...

Oh, and a restoration of the constitution would be a lovely thing, but since its all about interpretation...whatevs. I appreciate the people who are watchdogging our freedoms, but more people are effected by eating processed shit or breathing crappy air than being detained at Gitmo. Constitutional integrity is absolutely important...just not the top of my priority list. Guess I am more of a domestic policy person. (and no, not just fucking around with interest rates)

Not to mention that a penny is worth about 1.5 cents in metal.