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“Constitutional Scholar”, my ass….
I guess Mr. Obama thinks that he is the King of America, rather than the President. Because the last time I checked, the Chief Executive of the United States of America does not have the power to do an end-run around Congress, just because they aren’t doing what he wants them to do.
It matters not to Mr. Obama that Congress already took up the issue of the DREAM Act (in 2001, 2009, 2010, AND 2011), but no legislation has ever made it through both houses of Congress (including the two years when Democrats held a filibuster-proof majority in both chambers).
Members of Congress have introduced several forms of this bill in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Members in the House passed one such bill on December 8, 2010 by a vote of 216-198; Senators debated a version of the DREAM Act on September 21, 2010.
A previous version of the bill, S.2205, which required 60 votes to gain cloture, failed on a 52-44 vote in 2007, 8 votes short of overcoming a filibuster by senators opposed to the bill.
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Like it or not, a President is bound by the Constitution to abide by the decisions of Congress – his role is most decidedly NOT to legislate from the Oval Office; he is a member of the EXECUTIVE Branch, not the Legislative or the Judicial Branch (note to Mr. Obama: “Separation of Powers” and “Checks and Balances” are taught in every High School and College Civics course – by the time a law student gets to ConLaw 101, they should have committed those concepts to memory).
Since when does a Chief Executive get to decide who is and isn’t a Citizen of this country?
Haven’t we seen this movie already?
(Why yes – yes, we have…..)
Many years ago, a party came to power in another country, and one of the first things that the head of that party did was to hand down laws decreeing who was and wasn’t a “citizen”. He just got together with a bunch of legal advisors and let them draw up these new “laws” – never mind that it wasn’t put to a general vote or a party vote; no, he just decided that from that point forward, this was the New Law Of The Land.
In other words, this leader gave himself sole authority to decide who was and wasn’t a citizen, the existing laws be damned.
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The name of that leader was Adolf Hitler; those new laws were known as the Nuremberg Laws.
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The Reich Citizenship Law stripped Jews of their German citizenship and introduced a new distinction between “Reich citizens” and “nationals”.
Article 3: The Reich Minister of the Interior in conjunction with the Deputy of the Fuhrer will issue the necessary legal and administrative decrees for carrying out and supplementing this law.
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Mind you, they were only doing this so that the National Party wouldn’t have to be bothered with drafting pesky legislation later on:
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Radical[s] at Nuremberg seized the opportunity and suggested to Hitler that the special session would be an ideal opportunity to announce some kind of big new law….
On September 14, the night before the Reichstag’s special session, Nazi legal officials presented Hitler with four drafts of the new law. Hitler chose the fourth version….
Around midnight, Hitler told the same legal officials he also wanted an accompanying law concerning Reich citizenship. The officials, scrawling on the back of a hotel food menu, hastily drafted a vaguely worded law…. Hitler (a night owl) approved the draft around 2:30 a.m.
At the Reichstag’s special session held later that day at 8 p.m., Hitler delivered a short speech in which he characterized the new laws as an attempt to “achieve the legislative regulation of a problem which, if it breaks down again will then have to be transferred by law to the National Socialist Party for final solution.”
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Any leader who can arbitrarily GRANT citizenship, regardless of the laws already on the books, will also feel that they have the right to arbitrarily TAKE AWAY a person’s citizenship, if they so choose.
We are a nation of laws, and the people who are elected to public office are bound by their Oath of Office to uphold the laws that are on the books. In this country, there are procedures for getting laws on the books, and NO public official is allowed to circumvent that process by declaring that he/she will not follow those laws.
If a leader gets to decide who is and isn’t a citizen, then at some point, they will feel that it is their “right” to just unilaterally decide that they can make ALL of the rules.
And we’ve all seen how that turns out….
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[Cross-posted at RedState]
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[Update 06/19/12]: Thanks to Doug Ross over at Larwyn’s Linx for making this post one of today’s Links! I appreciate it!
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Pingback: So Now the President Gets to Decide Who Is an American Citizen? | RedState
“Einhorn is Finkle”….”Finkle is Einhorn”
uuhh….what?
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Hi, Fred!
I’ve missed you! Hope everything is good in your life –
(I’ll be dealing with the “Einhorn is Finkle” in another post…. 😛 )
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The President has always had the power to do what he has done ( and it ISN’T granting citizenship) and all presidents in the past have exercised their authority to do so.
If Congress wants to legislate otherwise, they can do so.
I doubt that they will though, even to placate their racist base, because only a hard hearted and racist group as Repub primary voters wants to yell “deport em” to kids who were raised in the US and know nothing about the country their parents brought them from.
It’s sort of like boo-ing gay soldiers and “let ‘en die” to sick people with no insurance.
It only plays well to the Repub faithfuk – the rest of us are more moral, and charitable.
P.S. – It appears you have never heard of Godwin’s Law ?
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Sorry Patrick, but the president does not have the authority to act in ways completely contrary to the laws passed by congress. In fact, he swore to faithfully execute those laws when he took his oath of office. He may not like the laws congress passes, but he has no authority to do anything other than to enforce them. Congress has legislated “otherwise,” as you put it, and he must enforce the law.
The rest of your post is simply an ad hominem attack on those who disagree with you, a cheap logical fallacy normally employed by folks such as yourself who have no real argument to make in support of your position.
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Of course he does – if he didn’t he could certainly be impeached, as the Repubs have been drooling to do since he took office, but we all know that he does.
How much power the executive has has always been sort of a debate – if you listen to Cheney he can do anything – even command the arrest and imprisonment for life without charges or trial and put the victims in a place without laws, like Guantanamo.
This is a minor executive order – much less that shrub, say, banning stem cell research.
Believe me it the Repubs thought they had a case they would be convening the impeachment trial now. They don’t.
The rest of my attack has to do with the essence of the issue rather than your faux legalities – it isn’t ad-hominem.
What the President has done is the moral thing to do. What the Repubs stand for is the evil thing to do – it is that simple, and everyone except for the Repub base sees it that way.
In personal conversation you sound like a decent person, but in politics you stand for persecuting young people who have been brought here through no fault of their own, gay soldiers for being gay, and sick people for having no insurance.
(All of which Obama is doing his best to do something about against fierce Repub resistance)
How do you – and your Repub friends – justify this to your sense of morality ?
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Patrick, here’s a quick dose of reality for you.
The LAST thing Reps will do is impeach this fraud. That would make a martyr of the most incompetent, most lawless president in history.. Even Reps are not that dumb.
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What the President has done is the moral thing to do.
Funny – the Nazis thought that they were doing the “moral thing”, too.
Under the Nazi’s “morality”, 2 of my 4 children would have been exterminated – and you would have been, too. The Nazis considered homosexuality a crime against morality. They also considered it “moral” to rid the New Reich of those who were deemed mentally defective.
Forgive me if I shy away from the morality argument.
People can do some pretty awful things in the name of “morality”…..
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How do you – and your Repub friends – justify this to your sense of morality ?
Would that be the same “morality” that says that homosexuality is wrong?
Which standard of morality do you want us to apply here, Patrick?
That’s why it is VITAL that we run these things through the proper legislative channels – the wheels may turn slowly, but it is more likely that the issues will be thoroughly vetted when we don’t allow ourselves to leap before we look.
Our forefathers were wise men, and our governmental structure is the best one out there. We do not WANT a chief executive to have unbridled power – regardless of the party he represents (and there were plenty of people on the “R” side of the aisle who didn’t agree with a lot of the stuff that Bush did).
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Let me simplify it and try to ignore the rest of the nonsense.
Theresa – around here we have a lot of teenagers in high school or who want to go to college.
They have been good “citizens” and are not criminals, good students, some have volunteered and served in the military.
Their only “crime” is that they were born somewhere else – Mexico, El Salvador … and their parents brought them here as children. Since then the parents have been law abiding “citizens” and raised their children well. Some don’t even speak Spanish well and know nothing about life anywhere except in the US.
You seem to claim to be a “christian”.
In your morality, is it the right thing to do to arrest these children and deport them to countries they have never seen ?
Yes ? or No ?
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Oh, man – I go to bed and a minor war erupts.
Patrick, I live in TEXAS – we are the ones who INVENTED the DREAM Act to deal with this very thing.
However, the difference between Texas and what this President is doing is that our LEGISLATURE is the body that dealt with this issue (and it had overwhelming bipartisan support). If our Governor had taken it upon himself to deem it so, you can bet that the citizens of Texas would have run him out of town on a rail.
Incidentally, the DREAM Act which was introduced in the Senate in 2009 was EXACTLY the same as the one that has been on the books for many years in Texas.
If I recall correctly, from January, 2009 through December, 2010 – TWO FULL YEARS – the Democrats had a majority in the House AND a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Senate Bill 729 was introduced in the Senate on 03/26/2009 – a mere 2 months after Obama assumed office. It was referred to Senate committee, read twice, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
And that’s where it stayed – it NEVER saw the light of day again.
Also introduced while Democrats had veto-proof control of both houses of Congress?
H.R.1751, H.R.6327, H.R.6497, S.729, S.3962, S.3963, and S.3992.
If this was such an important issue to the President, why didn’t he insist that the DREAM Act be passed any of those times?
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Why didn’t the Repubs support it ?
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It never made it to either floor of Congress; since the Dems were in charge every time that a DREAM-like bill was proposed, you’d have to ask them.
I seem to recall Obama wanted it to be a non-issue – Pelosi and Reid were working with him both of those years, so I would imagine he is the one who directed them to never let it come up.
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It never made it to either floor of Congress; since the Dems were in charge every time that a DREAM-like bill was proposed, you’d have to ask them.
There are two ways to conduct this sort of conversation. The Redstate way, where you just use debating points like “the Dems were in charge”, or the honest way, where you conceed that if it weren’t for Repub oppositing the DREAM Act would be passed.
(You did watch the debates where Romney oppoed it didn’t you ?)
I’m not interested in redstate “debate” – I am an honest person, speaking honestly.
If you think that political sound bites are the same as honestly conversing, you have been hanging around redstate too long.
The truth is that the Repubs opposed the dream act (their base is old white men).
Everyone else favors it, as with most of these issues.
The President did the right thing.
And you are campaigning to deport innocent children.
Justify yourself however you wish
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The only reason this is cross-posted at RedState is because I occasionally will transfer the things that I post here over there (where I have a “Diary”). I assure you, all of my posts are of my own making, and are not published without me giving each subject a very careful analysis – I don’t just throw them together, I think out what I am going to say.
or the honest way, where you conceed that if it weren’t for Repub oppositing the DREAM Act would be passed
I can’t concede that, because the Republicans NEVER HAD AN OPPORTUNITY to “oppose” the bill in the first place! It never came to the FLOOR of the House or the Senate for debate, so there wasn’t a chance to agree or disagree with the contents of the bill. The DEMOCRATS are the ones who decided not to bring it up – unfortunately, you can’t blame the Republicans for ANY of this.
Everyone else favors it…
Funny – my Spanish neighbors (whose parents came here and jumped through all of the LEGAL hoops) are some of the people who are MOST opposed to this bill. I think you might find that is true of most people who followed the law.
And you are campaigning to deport innocent children.
I don’t know about where you live, but where I come from, 16-to-30 is most definitely NOT “children”.
What nobody is talking about is the other “language” in this bill. This decree doesn’t just apply to illegal immigrants who were “brought to this country by their parents”, it also would give work permits to those who snuck across the border by themselves as teenagers. “Continuous residence” really means “you can go back
homeabroad for multiple 6-month stints during those five years”, and still be able to call the US “home”.http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/18/the-maddening-details-of-the-dream-decree/
I’m not interested in redstate “debate” – I am an honest person, speaking honestly.
That’s fine – but I would submit to you that what you are “speaking” is more “honest feeling”, and not “fact” in many cases. I can appreciate your feeling that something is honest, but when I present something in one of my blog posts, and I want it to be taken as more than “feelings”, I make damn sure that I back it up with plenty of facts. And I don’t take just one person/site’s word on something – I consult many, many different sources.
If you come on here and challenge what I say, I WILL engage you in debate. I’m willing to hear your side of an issue, and there are times when what you have to say causes me to look at an issue in a different way.
We can agree to disagree – we are each entitled to our own opinion. I try not to paint large groups of people with a broad brush. And I have learned that the “everybody” that I assume thinks the same way that I do…..isn’t always as large a group as I might have thought. You must understand that the same is true of your views as well.
Yes, “everybody” that I hang around thinks the same way that I do; no doubt that is true of your sphere of folks as well. Unfortunately for both of us, our “spheres” are actually very small, indeed….. 😛
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I can’t concede that, because the Republicans NEVER HAD AN OPPORTUNITY
Ok – no sense in having an honest discussion.
I don’t know about where you live, but where I come from, 16-to-30 is most definitely NOT “children”.
Ok – you are campaigning to deport innocent 16-30 year olds.
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Ok – no sense in having an honest discussion.
You are the one who is refusing to have the “honest” discussion – there can be no “discussion” about “Why the Repubs didn’t support this” if there was never anything for them to “support” in the first place.
Ok – you are campaigning to deport innocent 16-30 year olds.
Read the rest of my comment – many of these “innocents” aren’t all that innocent; this act will allow some REAL law-breakers to get out of jail free. THAT’S why we need LEGISLATION, and not an end-run around Congress…..
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Patrick,
My main concern with the actions of the president in this instance is his impulse to ignore congress and make his own laws, here based on morality as you and perhaps he sees it (and ignoring the political calculation for more hispanic votes that certainly comes into play here). I feel the same way no matter whether he does it, or any other president, because once we allow any president to become this sort of super president, then it really doesn’t matter what congress, or the courts, or the people do or think any longer. Down that path I fear lies tyranny, and this is a huge step ( in my opinion anyway) in that direction.
And on the question of the morality of his specific ruling, opinions can certainly differ, but the Congress has brought the Dream Act up several times, and it has never gotten through it to the president. In our system, that means that the argument must continue, and if the morality of the issue is convincing, eventually there will be consensus, and it will pass. If not, it won’t, but the president cannot act as the final word on the subject until it gets to him from congress. Also, keep in mind that the Dream Act, or some version of it, is in fact supported by some Republicans, like Mr. Rubio.
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My main concern with the actions of the president in this instance is his impulse to ignore congress and make his own laws
All Presidents do that – it comes with the office. Bush most certainly did – and it goes back to at least Andrew Jackson, Obama is exercising the power of the executive and there is nothing unusual about that.
And on the question of the morality of his specific ruling, opinions can certainly differ, but the Congress has brought the Dream Act up several times, and it has never gotten through it to the president. In our system, that means that the argument must continue, and if the morality of the issue is convincing, eventually there will be consensus, and it will pass.
No – the President has power to exercise authority even if he can’t get it past Repubs in Congress,
They have the power to pass legislation over-ruling him if they choose to do so – but I dare them to do it.
He has not granted “citizenship, but mearly work permits. Let Repubs pass a law overruling that.
And he is right to do so, and has the power to do so. Just as he has the power to not defend DOMA against Repub objections and to pass Obamacare over Repub objections.
We all know that Repubs will at all times champion the privileges of straight white christian males, and object to any move which grants any power to anyone else – that is modern politics.
Comparisons to Hitler are examples of the hysteria of straight white christian males who don’t always get their way
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We all know that Repubs will at all times champion the privileges of straight white christian males
Remind me again – who championed the Civil Rights legislation?
(Hint: It wasn’t the Democrats…..)
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Today’s Repubs are not those of 60 years ago when the Confederates were Dems.
We both know that I spoke the truth.
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Actually, I think that the old Confederate Dems have “evolved” to become Republicans over the past 60 years.
George Wallace was most definitely NOT a Republican – I’m old enough to remember that…..
And Lyndon Johnson only wanted to pass Civil Rights legislation because he saw it as an effective way to keep blacks on the Democrat plantation (“Give them free money, and we’ll have them voting Democrat for the next 200 years”).
(The Confederation was active in the 1860’s, not the 1960’s – if you can remember the 1860’s, you’re even older than I thought you were 😛 )
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Comparisons to Hitler are examples of the hysteria of straight white christian males who don’t always get their way
If you read this post, you may have noticed that I never compared OBAMA to HITLER – I was pointing out that Obama’s ACTIONS are similar to the ACTION taken by Hitler, and commenting that if we are not careful, we may find ourselves walking that same path.
I am sure that Hitler thought that he was doing “the right thing” – the problem is that he didn’t have anyone telling him that he couldn’t do what he was doing.
We must be ever vigilant to ensure that we do not find ourselves on that same pathway, regardless of which party does it.
THAT was the point of this post.
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Well Patrick, thanks for sharing your position on this. I’m unaware of how the president has the unilateral authority to thwart the will of congress, or to make laws of his own liking, but he is clearly going to do that now, for good or ill. However, In this particular instance, there really is no dispute that only congress has the power to make laws on naturalization (http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec8). If any president could simply issue an order changing the laws on this or any other subject that congress has already passed, then what will be next on the agenda? Having set the precedent, what will the next president do, and the next, etc.? That is why there is a clear separation of powers written into the law, so we have a clear procedure for making law, which is the answer to your assertion that all presidents do this. Interestingly, President Obama stated earlier in his term that he did not have the power to do what he is now doing on this very issue. In fact, he said this:
“America is a nation of laws, which means I, as the President, am obligated to enforce the law. I don’t have a choice about that. That’s part of my job,” he said. When Ramos asked a follow-up question about granting formal administrative relief to undocumented youth, Obama was even more forceful: “There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.”
I wonder what changed his mind?
And Patrick, really, all the name calling you are doing doesn’t add credibility. Recall that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a “Repub,” as is Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and many other African Americans, and we can’t forget Marco Rubio, Alberto Gonzalez, etc, either. Clearly, neither political party is out to champion the rights of only “white christian males,” as you say. There are many good people on all sides of the political spectrum, who legitimately disagree with one another, often strongly. That doesn’t make one side or the other bad or evil.
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And Patrick, I hope you aren’t composing a reply until tomorrow. It’s crazy late, better for the both of us to get some sleep and let Teresa throw her two cents in tomorrow morning.
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It’s OK – Patrick lives in a different time zone than I do; we’ve talked between ourselves about this before. He knows that I won’t have a chance to read his comments until the next day (sometimes a not until a couple of days later). He also knows that later in the evening I sometimes am too tired to argue, due to my MG – he has always been very kind and understanding, which I appreciate greatly.
It’s all good – as I told him, the back and forth helps me fine-tune my position, and allows us each to see things from the other person’s perspective. We’re both kinda feisty, but as I said to him, we’d probably get along like gangbusters if we were ever to have an opportunity to meet in real life!
Unfortunately, he probably isn’t going to have a chance to read my comments until later this evening, and I’m gonna be too tired to engage with him then….. 😛
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Maybe I’ll pick up the gauntlet then. I had a lot of fun corresponding with him last night, and the fine tuning comment is very true.
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Of course the president gets to decide who is a citizen…starting with himself.
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“What the President has done is the moral thing to do.
Funny – the Nazis thought that they were doing the “moral thing”, too.
OK I suppose that is your answer. You somehow have convinced yourself that deporting those poor kids is “good”.
I have to admit that I still do not understand how Repubs live with their consciences, but you do.
Maybe the trick is comparing any act of charity to Hitler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
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I was merely making the observation that the Nazis thought what they were doing was “right”.
And suggesting that someone in power who declares that they have the right to make a quick, arbitrary decision in a country where EVERYONE has a say smacks of tyranny. Yes, there are times when a quick decision must be made; however this is not one of those times. This has been tossed around for many years, and the president does not have the right to act as judge, jury, and executioner, just because he is impatient with how slow the process may be.
The president’s role is to EXECUTE the laws that currently exist; only the LEGISLATURE may come up with new laws. If they don’t draft and ratify them, then the president is powerless to do anything about it.
Again, in Texas, we dealt with this by going through the proper channels.
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What the President has done is the moral thing to do.
Who gets to define “morality”?
What if he (or any other President, because this will set a very dangerous precedent) decides that it is “morally” OK to revoke a person’s citizenship?
Or it’s “morally” OK to test all fetuses for birth defects and abort those who are found to have them? There are PLENTY of people who even now believe that it is morally WRONG to bring a child with known birth defects into this world, and who say the most hateful things to parents who make the choice to continue the pregnancy.
I would argue that both sides of that equation feel that they are morally “right” – who gets to decide what the truly “moral” thing to do is?
What if a President decides that it is “morally right” to censor a person’s speech? Don’t delude yourself – this is the road that a decision like this is going to set us upon. And the party in power will be able to declare the “other” side’s speech as immoral if we’re not careful.
In this country, the “sides” change power all the time – I think that both you and I would vigorously defend each other’s right to their opinion, even if we don’t agree with each other. However, there are plenty of people who do not feel that way (the extremist fringe on both ends of the bell curve) – and they tend to be the people who end up in power in a situation where one side gets to arbitrarily decree what is “moral” and what isn’t.
Neither one of us wants to live in a country like that.
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What if he (or any other President, because this will set a very dangerous precedent) decides that it is “morally” OK to revoke a person’s citizenship?
He hasn’t set any “precedents” – Presidents have been exercising their executive authority for centuries – there are lists available if you google them, or google “unilateral executive”.
You are correct the the President’s power can be used for good or for evil – it comes with the job.
Shrub used his to imprison people without trials and to torture them, Obama used his to stop persecuting gays and stop deporting innocent children.
Just like Hitler 🙂
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And Patrick, really, all the name calling you are doing doesn’t add credibility.
I haven't done any "name calling" – not even a single "Hitler".
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>(The Confederation was active in the 1860′s, not the 1960′s – if you can remember the 1860′s, you’re even older than I thought you were )
Sadly they are still active, even though they lost the war. I’ve lived in Georgia and Texas and we all know that they remain the province of old white rednecks who would oppose anything that black man in the white house did.
Just take a look at any election map, and you will see the red states are quite active, unfortunately.
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And they are DEMOCRATS down here – still.
(The “black” man in the White House is half-white, and has NEVER lived the “Black Experience”)
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>You are the one who is refusing to have the “honest” discussion – there can be no “discussion” about “Why the Repubs didn’t support this” if there was never anything for them to “support” in the first place.
An “honest discussion” would acknowledge that Repubs opposed the DREAM Act.
Pretending otherwise is redstate style political talking points.
If you can’t acknowledge that simple fact, we can’t have an honest discussion.
> THAT’S why we need LEGISLATION, and not an end-run around Congress…..
Great – be happy to support that legislation, just as would be happy to support Repub plans to bring us all health insurance, stop kicking gays out of the military, etc etc etc.
In the meantime, I’m glad that Obama actually does something rather than just have injustice continue for years until Repubs are willing to legislate. Because it could be a long long time.
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In the meantime, I’m glad that Obama actually does something rather than just have injustice continue for years until Repubs are willing to legislate.
Good to know – I guess that means that you won’t have a problem with a Republican president who decides that Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare are all injustices and signs an Executive Order banning all of them, right?
I mean, that President would actually be DOING SOMETHING, rather than having to wait a “long, long time” for the Democrats to come around….. 😛
(pssst – I’ve got a great Buttermilk Pie recipe in the post before this one, and news about my mom’s knee replacement surgery at my newest post. Check them out!)
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I mean, that President would actually be DOING SOMETHING, rather than having to wait a “long, long time” for the Democrats to come around…..
I suppose as a Repub you can’t distinguish between doing GOOD things and doing EVIL things, so you might think that.
The poor kids that you like to deport can tell the difference, though.
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And now we are back to the question of who gets to decide what is “Good” and what is “Evil” – and that is why we MUST allow the system to work the way that it was set up.
If we allow ONE PERSON to dictate what is “Good” and what is “Evil”, then we are no longer a Republic.
That is the point that I am trying to make. Get past your feelings and see this from a purely “logical” point of view.
People and feelings – no matter how well-meaning – are fallible and oftentimes flawed. That’s why our system is set up the way that it is.
And 16-to-30 is NOT kids – quit viewing them as such; it’s clouding your objectivity.
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And you appear to be COMPLETEY missing the point that I was making by taking your words:
…and using them to show you how I could make the same claim:
…about something that you yourself don’t agree with. The only thing that I changed was what was considered an “injustice”.
If I can do it here on a blog, believe me, someone else – someone with real power – will try to do it in the real world.
And you won’t be able to say anything about it, because they will be using the same words to make their argument that you used to make yours.
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If we allow ONE PERSON to dictate what is “Good” and what is “Evil”, then we are no longer a Republic.
You are confusing whether something is ethical with whether you approve of the person doing it.
There is nothing magical about having congress pass a law or a president take an executive action – congress passes evil laws all of the time.
Our “system” gives Obama the power to do what he has – evidently it also gave Bush the power to do evil things like torture and imprison people.
Whether it is good or evil has nothing to do with whether it is done by Congress or by the President.
And you are using the fact that he did it unilaterally as an excuse to support an evil policy of deporting innocent people.
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So you are stipulating that “Good” and “Evil” are completely independent of “Legal” and “Illegal”.
In which case, if a person is in the country ILLEGALLY, they are – BY DEFINITION – breaking the law. If a person is breaking the law, BY DEFINITION they are not “innocent”.
Good and Evil have nothing to do with Legal Innocence. A “guilty” person is not by definition an “evil” person – but they are a lawbreaker.
…an excuse to support an evil policy of deporting innocent people.
I believe that what I am “supporting” is a LEGAL policy of deporting people who are BREAKING THE LAW.
As you said, “Good” and “Evil” have absolutely nothing to do with it.
And if they are breaking the law, they are not “innocent”.
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I believe that what I am “supporting” is a LEGAL policy of deporting people who are BREAKING THE LAW.
Do you really ? Is that what a Repub conscience says ? That deporting people whose parents brought them here as children is “good” ? That kicking gays out of the military is “good” because that is the “law” ?
If so, we have established our political differences, but I will stick to my values, you can have yours.
Watching the Repub debates gave me some insight into Repub values – applause for capital punishment and deportations, boo’s for gay soldiers and people without health coverage and black people, and what is apparent is that Repubs are just plain MEAN.
They also are proud of it, which is the part I don’t get.
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How do you feel about somebody burning the flag?
Personally, I find it reprehensible; however, I recognize that it isn’t against the law for someone to do it.
Like it or not, I HAVE to separate my feelings about issues from the legality of an issue. I cannot impose my MORAL beliefs on other people, because other people are legally protected to hold their moral beliefs as well.
If a child’s parents broke the law to get into this country, then I have no choice but to hold them accountable for breaking the law. If I don’t, then people will continue (and have continued) to break the law.
As a parent, I have had to make difficult choices when my heart was telling me one thing and my mind was telling me something else. If I didn’t hold them accountable, they would think that it was OK to keep doing wrong – as time goes on, that starts to cause real problems not only in the family dynamic, but also in their world dynamic. NOBODY likes a kid who doesn’t follow the rules; somebody has to be the “bad guy” to teach those lessons.
The longer a parent allows their child to “get away” with things, the harder it is to hold them accountable and get them to behave in the future.
My kids didn’t like me doing it when they were younger, and yet every one of them appreciates the fact that I held them accountable as kids – it taught them to live responsibly, and has made their lives a LOT easier as adults.
It’s not “being proud”, it’s looking forward and understanding the long-term effects if accountablility is shirked.
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>If a child’s parents broke the law to get into this country, then I have no choice but to hold them accountable for breaking the law.
Actually you do have a choice – I choose not to deport them and you could also.
>If I don’t, then people will continue (and have continued) to break the law.
Yes – they will continue to mind-meld their parents into moving across the border. I follow your logic now.
>”The longer a parent allows their child to “get away” with things,
Yea – it’s amazing how long we let those gay people “get away” with being gay before Obama decided to stop punishing them
>”It’s not “being proud”, it’s looking forward and understanding the long-term effects if accountablility is shirked.
I understand – I think the best quote was that it takes balls to execute an innocent man,
but you know some of us think it is mean to let someone die if they don’t have health coverage.
You aren’t teaching any lessons, you are making excuses for being cruel.
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