02-10-2017, 04:49 PM
(02-10-2017, 02:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ](02-10-2017, 05:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]The Ninth Circuit recently agreed that Trump's executive order to stop certain aliens from entering the US should not be enforced. Trump responded by calling this a political decision, and announced that he would win easily on appeal. This makes me wonder if Trump is dealing with a well thought out legal position, or if he is shooting from the hip instinctively. To often, when confronted with any sort of opposition, his tendency is to insult and confront with little concern for maintaining contact with reality.
Wondering, I actually slogged through the Ninth Circuit's opinion. I'm not professional legal type, but it felt solid. If there is politics involved, and I suspect there is, it has been camouflaged well behind a wall of precedent. The Ninth walked through Trump's lawyer's claims point by point, and rebutted each point.
On the judicial side of things, conservative judges tend to strictly honor the intent of the authors of the law, while progressive judges might be concerned with the rights of the people. I'm thinking that at least in this case, Trump is over stretching his power while disregarding rights and due process. He's stepping on the toes of both sorts of judges. The unanimous decision by a panel appointed by presidents of both parties might suggest Trump will have a problem moving on.
This reflects an ongoing question on my part. Is Trump lying, or is he living in an alternate reality where he is right? Does he really believe he has some sort of reasonable legal argument?
Who elected the Ninth Circuit Court to be the president of the United States? Who elected them to be the law makers (legislative branch) of the United States? Whose rights are actually being disregarded? Do you like America? Do you like living in America? If our rights can be disregarded what makes you think that your rights can't be disregarded? I told you that you'd be wise to stop viewing issues from a blues perspective to begin viewing issues from more of an American's perspective? If you are incapable of doing so, the extreme partisan label that you use can be used and accurately applied to you by me. You keep falling back/slipping back to an emotionally guided blues perspective. Here we are as a nation, trying to get certain things in place national security wise before we (America) begin leading a war against ISIS (a result of a major blue blunder). Where do you think America is at with ISIS? Love's/respects/values them enough to keep them around for decades or want's them all dead one way or another? Ask yourself this, how did America vote? Did Democrats bringing up their Muslim concerns, young Muslim emotional sob stories about feeling scared about being judged by Americans and using a poor Muslim still suffering from the emotional loss of a son as political pawn against Trumps policies, change the way America voted?
We have a separation of powers, and the Constitution is superior to the public feelings of the moment or the grand schemes or low crimes of the President and elected officials. If we want the legal system to reflect the will of the people who may be hopped up on hatred , then we might as well allow lynch mobs to perform their perverse idea of 'justice'.
The First Amendment is abundantly clear about religious freedom: no person can become a legal pariah for his religious beliefs. We recognize religious freedom of people other than those who share our traditions, theology, and creed or we invalidate our claim to our own righteousness. If you dislike Islam -- tough! Just stay clear of a mosque.
Religious bigotry has a tendency to seek new victims. Today it is Muslims -- who is next? Jews? Mormons? Buddhists? Wicca? Catholics? Let's be mature adults and stop it now. Muslims do not want refugee status in America so that they can be terrorists in America; they want to be in America so that they can practice Islam as their consciences dictate, and they want to escape terrorist regimes like ISIS and Syria under Assad.
So whose rights are being repressed? Mine -- should I find Islam a solution for my problems! (Judaism is more likely in my case, but that is a different story because I have a big German component in my culture... I simply hate Nazis for killing people similar to me in culture). But even at that I have a common interest with Islam for a family-friendly world with some resemblance to Dearborn, Michigan. I am sure that you have heard my story -- that southwestern Detroit along Michigan Avenue (US 12) is a cesspool of sexually-oriented businesses, prostitutes leasing their bodies so that they can get fixes from pushers, drunks and addicts wandering about aimlessly, pimps and pushers dealing in human suffering, decadent people looking for sex... and Dearborn, with a large Muslim population, has none of that.
But neither do many Christians, Jews, atheists, or agnostics. Dearborn is a pleasant place to live because it 'lacks' the strip clubs and wild bars... let alone the scum that poisons its brains with drugs, spreads its legs for a price, and either profits from it or fosters it. Sure, I have gotten a drink in Dearborn... in a nice, quiet Irish pub, the sort that doesn't generate too many calls for the police. But just ask yourself -- if a strip club, some rough bars, and a porno palace get razed so that a mosque goes up in their place -- don't you recognize the improvement?
Islam has its virtues, and our watered-down Christian culture has some scorpions in its soul. One of those scorpions is our President. Sure, secularism is fine -- so long as people expressing it have some moral compass. Some people want a moral compass and that Islam provides more of one than does Christianity. If such people find what they want in Islam, then good for them!
As for ISIS -- Muslim critics of ISIS have attacked it for egregious violations of Islamic law and teaching. ISIS is to Islam what Nazism is to Christianity, a complete rejection of any humane tendencies within the culture. Many of the Muslims seeking refuge in America are coming to enjoy the freedoms that we have, including the right to practice Islam as their consciences dictate and not as thugs like Bashir Assad and ISIS thugs demand.
We can all share partisan culpability for ISIS. Had Dubya not lied to start his war for glory in Iraq, then maybe we might have seen Satan Hussein or his successor sons die with ropes around their necks as the result of revolution in the Arab Spring. Many members of ISIS are ex-Baathists associated with the amoral rule of Saddam Hussein who went from one form of fascism to another. Maybe President Obama was unwilling to make the sort of deal necessary to keep US troops in Iraq (as if that were a success). Maybe if American soldiers hadn't abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, there might not be such a mess.
And yes, I consider someone so amoral as Donald Trump the wrong sort of leader to deal with the foreign situation From a moral standpoint it is far better that Muslims who hate Assad and ISIS be in America than face torture and murder. How can we Americans who have a moral compass align ourselves with a bigotry at the core of Trump foreign policy?
Somehow I see an equivalence between a Jew who perished under Hitler and a Muslim who perishes under Assad or ISIS.
...You can be glad that I am about half-English and half-German in ancestry instead of being a Cuban-American. If I were a Cuban-American I would rip you even more harshly. Bad as Fidel Castro was, Assad and ISIS are far, far worse.