Thanks for the reasoned responses from both of you guys.

I agree with everything you both said, as it happens.

I forgot about habeus, which has also been suspended by Bush in some cases. Thanks for reminding me.

I am deficient in my historical knowledge in a lot of ways. I've started to work on that lately. I'll see what I can find out about Lincoln and habeus.

One thing that is important as a difference b/t Bush & Lincoln is that, well, we're not actually in a declared war right now. The "war on terror" is an undefined war, with undefined objectives. I mean, if we're going to be "at war" as long as terrorists are around, then war will be a permanent condition for the rest of my life -- and yours. I'm not willing to give up all of my rights for the rest of my life.

I made this point earlier: the "war on terror" is a lot less worrisome for the future of this country than the Cold War was. That was an ongoing, semi-permanent war as well. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush I all had a lot of faults. But (apart from Nixon, who was impeached for it) there was not an egregious overstepping of executive powers by any of those presidents. I think if we survived the Cold War without throwing away the checks-and-balances system, we can probably make it through the war on terror as well.

By the way, I'm coming to have a lot more respect for a lot of the cold warriors. I have read almost all the way through a really thick book by James Baker III. Remember him? He was Chief of Staff and various other titles for Reagan & the first Bush. I was not a big fan of those administrations, but his book tells about a lot of interesting, important stuff that he was involved in, mostly foreign policy issues. The difficulty of the issues involved and the interesting and creative ways that he and his team came up to deal with those problems -- wow. Great stuff. Fascinating stuff. And it really showed the importance of competence. You read stuff that he did and it only throws into relief how incompetent the present crew is by contrast.

Anyway, the more I read about a whole range of issues, the less leftist I become. I consider myself extremely moderate, these days. But it feels like Bush has moved things so danged far off course that I spend a lot of time being angry anyway.

I agree with trod: the only punishment that Bush is likely to face is that his party is going down the tubes electorally. I sure hope they will. And that's "what I can do" -- to answer Ice's question -- I can talk about it with my friends, and write to my representative and senators, and post things like this, and work to help make a difference in people's minds going to the next set of elections.

Anyway, thanks again for the cogent responses from a couple of the resident Repubs.

of course the framers also meant for the Senate to be a representative of the state governments. Where as they felt that most things should be taken care of by the states and that as much power in this country should be decentralized. The 17th amendment took care of that and now the state governments have no representation in the federal government , Thus weakening the states and strengthening the central federal government.

isn't it 'habeas corpus' as in 'you shall have the body'

I'm seriously pissed off with Blair and his cronies here too - recently a woman was arrested and successfully prosecuted under emergency terrorist legislation - her 'crime'? - she went to the cenotaph (the main war memorial in London) and read out the names of the 100 or so UK serviceman killed in Iraq..
The police used powers under the same act to arrest an 80 yr old member of the Labour party at its annual conference who heckled the foreign secretary by shouting the one word 'rubbish' when he was claiming the war was perfectly legal - at which point he was manhandled out into the arms of the police who arrested him.

Finally the state now has the right to keep your DNA on its police database even if you have never been convicted of any crime.

They are also bringing in compulsory hi-tech ID cards for everyone. The idea of having to carry and being asked for 'your identity papers' is something that sounds like it's out of a bad 2nd world war movie with the Nazis doing the asking to most Englishmen..

A few years ago the Miranda warning given to those arrested was changed by the Home Secretary from 'you do not have to say anyhting' to something like 'you do not have to say anything but if you do not mention something now which you later rely on in your defence that may be held against you'. The reasons he gave were that only the guilty used the right to silence anyway!

We have no written constitution and are therefore even more vulnerable than the US to politicians who think that historic rights are simply anachronistic now that, in their words 'the rules of the game have changed'.


Personal liberty and defences against the encroachment of the state into the rights of the individual aren't a ***ing game in my eyes... grrr

One of the Judge's in our highest court when they rejected an attempt by the govt to claim that they could hold foreigners indefinitely without trial or any form of oversight said that the terrorists don;t win by killing a few people out of many million - they win when they cause us to lose liberties we have cherished for hundreds of years - unfortunately it;s in the nature of 'authorities' to aggregate power to themselves whenever they can and to fail to release it when any justifying emergency passes and that deserves any thinking citizen's vigilance ..