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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (114630)	9/13/2003 12:28:31 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I am becoming a "small government" conservative. A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution (along with a volunteer army) may be the only things capable of stopping these adventures in Big Government Social Engineering in obscure corners of Asia. Also, I'm becoming a Strict Constructionist, who believes the Federal Government shouldn't be allowed to do anything the Constitution doesn't (very explicitly) say they can do. Government needs to be kept in its place. Put in a box. A small box, with a tight lid. "No person shall be....deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". It doesn't say it's OK to violate all these rights at Guantanamo or Bagram Air Base or Diego Garcia, just because they aren't (officially) on U.S. territory (we control those places, just as effectively and completely as if they were U.S. territory; they are, de facto, U.S. soil). It says, without caveat or exception, "no person shall be...". What's happened, is that our government has found a way to get around every protection in the Constitution, by conquering land, without officially annexing it to the U.S. or making it a Territory or State. "provide for the common defense" doesn't include wars of aggression (= "preventive" war). Defense means defense. "The Congress shall have power to...declare war". So, any President who wages a war Congress hasn't declared, has violated the Constitution. "Declare war" means "declare war", no euphemisms or semi-declarations allowed. "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" doesn't mention bestowing those blessings on Iraqis. "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government" Nothing about guaranteeing any particular form of government (republican or imperial) anywhere else.