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[bacasper]

It�s increasingly evident that Obama should resign

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted May 29, 2009 @ 12:02 AM

MIAMI � We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama�s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn�t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he�s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now � before he drags us further into the abyss.

I refer here to Obama�s plan for �preventive detentions.� [cf. Obama's Minority Report - bac]If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in �prolonged detention.� Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama�s shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.

In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people�s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can�t control, what George Orwell called �thoughtcrime� � contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

Locking up people who haven�t done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to �preventive detention� is an outrage. That the president of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.

Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won�t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.

�Prolonged detention,� reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon �terrorism suspects who cannot be tried.�

�Cannot be tried.� Interesting choice of words.

Any �terrorism suspect� (can you be a suspect if you haven�t been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried.

What they mean, of course, is that the hundreds of men and boys languishing at Guant�namo and the thousands of �detainees� the Obama administration anticipates kidnapping in the future cannot be convicted. As in the old Soviet Union, putting enemies of the state on trial isn�t enough. The game has to be fixed. Conviction has to be a foregone conclusion.

Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners �cannot be tried�?

The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this �entirely new chapter in American law� in a boring little sentence buried a couple of paragraphs past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: �Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guant�namo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted.�

In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a �lack of evidence� are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, �tainted evidence� is no evidence at all. If you can�t prove that a defendant committed a crime � an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime � in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.

It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush�s lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

I'm just wondering why you post all these long attack articles?

Do you expect someone to read the whole thing and then go "Hmm...you're right. I change my mind and not support Obama after what Casper said"??

[makemischief]

[bacasper]

[Fox]

There are definitely things mentioned in this article that are worthy of discussion. Ideas like preventative detention are immensely problematic. The concept of prisoners who can't be tried is beyond questionable. "Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won�t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him," is an excellent individual quote: the idea that we owe our leaders loyalty because we voted for them is ridiculous, they rather owe duty to us because we voted for them. A number of other issues only mentioned in passing in the article are certainly worthy of discussion.

Unfortunately, the author chose to mingle those things with insults and hyperbole, and as a result severely diminishes the effectiveness of his article. Calling Obama useless, cowardly, a monster, an individual interested in establishing a military dictatorship, suggesting he should resign "if he's patriotic" and so forth is both a waste of time and totally unpersuasive. He comes off like an angry lunatic, honestly, and many readers are likely to categorize him as such and -- unfortunately -- dismiss everything he says out of hand. Even agreeing with some of what he says, I want to disagree with him just because he seems like such an angry git, honestly.

I wonder if authors of articles like this ever realize how much they actually hurt their own cause. He would have been much better served just sticking to the facts.

[RufusW]

[Sergio Stefanuto]

[Manner of Speaking]

The election of Barack Obama is especially threatening to the worldview of some. There are some out there that would have us believe that the US government and the world is controlled by some kind of invisible organization. The election of Obama, however, frankly presents a problem with this worldview.

If Obama really was elected by a majority of voters, freely, and in an open, democratic process, how could an invisible, all-controlling organization allow this to happen? The obvious answer - that such an organization doesn't really exist - is too terrible to contemplate. It's too threatening to certain worldviews. So the "alternative" that must be presented and advocated is that Obama isn't all that he says that he is, and Obama isn't really all that he represents to the public.

It just goes on and on.

[bacasper]

[bacasper]

[mises]

[bacasper]

[Manner of Speaking]

Oh come on. The guy is barely six months into his first term, most of which he has spent cleaning up the mess left by the dimwits he inherited it from. Bush was still on vacation at this point in his first term. Give it a rest.

Or better yet, read a couple of books or take a uni class in Public Administration and learn to think long-term for a change.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

[mises]