Come back to S&R when your navy duties allow.

Dude, I have really enjoyed posting with you. It sucks I have to go back to work Friday and may not be able to post as often as I have the past few weeks. This site s great and I will get back to it as often as I can.

The hyperlink on my name is to my myspace page (the JV of the blogosphere). Check out my thoughts or drop me a line if you want.

Yep. No question that when I hear someone say, “The Founding Fathers wanted …,” my first thought is that the person saying it has not read much about how much they disagreed with each other on many things. Still, I can’t imagine there could be a more radical position than rebelling against one’s king, God’s annointed sovereign, at that time. And they did agree to do that.

Pretty rad.

And, yeah, when the majority party in Congress is the president’s party, Congress can be just a bit too forgiving, regardless of which party is in the White House.

Couple of things. First, I can’t agree with the phrase “The common man can only get hurt by the victory of the extremists on either side” in toto. I can’t imagine a more extremist group of people than those that signed the Declaration of Independence. And i think I can make a good case that the “common man” was much better off under the Soviet regimes than he was under the czars. I think I could also make a reasonable case that G. Julius Caesar, a radical for his time, was actually good for the Roman Republic and that, had he llived, there is a high likelihood that he would have restored the republic on much more solid legal ground than he inherited it.

At times, extremists have had a profoundly positive effect on the world, but you and others are certainly correct in that we must be profoundly suspicious of extremists, because their brand of true belief tends to lend itself to human rights abuses on a massive scale.

But not always.

As for Congress, let’s be clear. Until just under two years ago, Bush controlled Congress the same way a prime minister controls his party. The GOP has marched in lockstep trying to build that permanent majority of theirs, so there was no way they were going to buck party leadership.

In the past two years, every Congressional attempt to use the power of the purse to pull out of the Iraq War has met with executive branch theats to leave soldiers without proper equipment, and threats to take that message to the profoundly ignorant American public.

I strongly, strongly believe that the age of mass communication has tilted the balance of power dangerously in favor of the Presidency.

Time we got a handle on that branch and defanged it.

Socialism=Crab-in-the-barrel syndrome

Well said, Savanster!

Re: the legality of the war; one can debate how much authorization there was from Congress 5 years ago, but even supposing the war was initated without explicit Congressional approval, what has Congress done since then? If it was really unauthorized Congress could have made some formal statement as such at any time. This is what I meant by checks and balances.

Had Congress at any point since the invasion passed a bill, law, resolution, yellow sticky pad, ANYTHING AT ALL stating that they did not / or no longer authorize the conflict, then I think the case against Bush would be a slam dunk. Congress is just as much as fault here for a lack of oversight.

I have to agree with Jeff that in our country we presume innocence… I don’t personally think he is innocent and I do believe he should be tried in a court of law but we should not convict him, or anyone else, in the “Court of public opinion” instead of in an actual court.

Savanster,

The far left and the far right are both so out of touch with reality that their pursuit of their own self righteous goals have nothing to do with helping the people. The common man can only get hurt by the victory of the extremists on either side.

Brian,
I don’t know if the presidential immunities would shield him or not but he should still be charged and the courts should decide/interpret the law as is their duty.

Rho