"But if he were implementing American policy, why would he have any problem?"
Nobody but you has claimed that was US policy.
Then what context was he brought up in?
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Now, assuming it is ok to keep them in detention indefinitely, something we have no legal precedent for doing, what about the other 75%?
They'll be evaluated and may be released eventually.
And, yeah, I have a lot of problems with holding someone with no charges or convictions for years on the off chance they may tell us something.
I don't have a problem with holding someone for years who might be a danger to the country. The fact that most of the Guantanamo detainees have been released makes it obvious to me there is not a policy of holding innocent, harmless people for no reason. Which seems to be your worry. Though I guess you're concerned even about holding dangerous enemies if we don't have the evidence to get a conviction under our normal legal system.
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"Who has been declared enemy combatants who doesn't meet that description?"
Who knows? We do know they have secret prisons. And their occupants are, well, secret. We do know of a couple of cases where people were picked up in secret and transported somewhere else for interrogations for extended periods of time.
I believe they sent the 13 or so people held in secret prisons to Gitmo not too long ago. As for picking people up etc., are you referring to US citizens? Or non-citizens in the US?
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"He was not alone in the intelligence world in thinking that."
And there were many in intelligence who thought the idea was way off base. In the rush to war, those were ignored.
Many? I'm thinking of people that had knowledge of the subject.
"Iraq had tried to develop nukes before."
Right. But there was little evidence he had continued.
Do leopards change their spots? You realize the postwar assessment is that he intended to restart his nuclear program as soon as sanctions were lifted.
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"he used chemical and bio weapons for example."
Link for the bioweapons. Yes, he did use some chemical weapons.
I don't want to bother. If you accept he used chemical weapons, the point that he was willing to use WMD's against civilian populations is established.
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"If they were rebels against the "church" they wouldn't have taken such a friendly stance toward open calls for religious fidelity."
Oh, I get it. You do realize there is a difference between the power structure represented by the churches of the time and religion?
Were the Anglican and Congregationalist churches really part of a power structure? They were official established churches in some colonies - which didn't prevent other denominations from operating in those same colonies. The rebels against the British who were members of those two churches didn't feel the need to break from them. There is no way in which the FF's were rebels against any church.
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The term can more narrowly refer to the intellectual movement of The Enlightenment, which advocated reason as the primary basis of authority. Developed in France, Britain and Germany, it influenced the whole of Europe including Russia and Scandinavia. The era is marked politically by governmental consolidation, nation creation, greater rights for the common people, and a decline in the influence of authoritarian institutions such as the nobility and Church.
Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States were also influenced by Enlightenment-era ideas,
Many people of the time were influenced by the ideas of the time. That would include both the FF's and the British who they were rebelling against. So what?
particularly in the religious sphere (deism)
The flawed wikipedia entry is trying to push the idea the FF's were Deists. As I've previously shown, this is incorrect.
and, in parallel with liberalism (which had a major influence on its Bill of Rights, in parallel with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen), socialism and anarchism in the political sphere.
Now what? A claim the FF's were liberals, socialists, anarchists?
John Calvin, for example, challenged the authority of the churches. He felt that every individual was responsible for his or her own salvation. They should study the Bible and reach their own accommodation with God. So, he was against the churches, but not against religion.
John Calvin was against the Roman Catholic Church. He wasn't against churches in principle. The FF's who were Presbyterians (the second most numerous denomination among the FF's), Congregationalists (third most numerous denomination among the FF's), and Reformed belonged to churches founded on Calvin's religious teachings.
The idea that each individual is responsible for working out his salvation with God is a Protestant idea and was used by Locke (as I cited earlier) as a justification for freedom of conscience and religion. Locke would be a better example than Calvin to base that on. More relevant to the FF's. Theres an ironic point here - you've posted a wikipedia article which attributes to the Protestant Reformer Calvin a role in enlightenment thought which supposedly influenced the FF's. Well a very large number of the FF's belonged to churches founded on Calvin's teachings. So I have to ask, are you switching sides in this argument? You're posting stuff now which supports the idea many of the FF's were influenced by the Christian teaching of Calvin.
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It was a similar approach that drove the FF's to oppose religion in the public sphere.
They didn't. If they had, Washington and subsequent Presidents wouldn't have been sworn in on Bibles and wouldn't have issued established national days of prayer, thanksgiving, and fasting.
If for no other reason, the church is used to validate those in power and it suppresses change. Because if the leadership is chosen by God, then wanting to change things puts you in opposition to God.
Don's see a relevant point. The FF's established a system where the leadership is chosen by election.
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"Wanting to ban public displays of religion by any government official."
Ah. That explains a lot.
well, I suppose you must love Europe. It is pretty common for you to register with a church and then the government takes a percentage of you paycheck and gives it to them.
No, that would violate our First Amendment. That has nothing to do with banning public displays of religion by government officials.
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"Christians also consider God the creator."
But, they only rarely refer to him as the "Creator".
So "creationists" aren't Christians? Of course, Christians do refer to God as creator. And it isn't rare. When Christians (like the FF's) use the term Creator, they mean the Christian God.
Nor do they talk about "natural rights". While it might seem the rights thing is the same as ones given by God, if you read TJ et al, you realize they are talking about something else.
Good Lord, Christians founded and developed the concepts of natural law and natural rights.
"Natural law theories have exercised a profound influence on the development of English common law,[2] and have featured greatly in the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suárez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, and John Locke. Because of the intersection between natural law and natural rights, it has been cited as a component in United States Declaration of Independence."
Wikipedia on natural law
Check out those names, most of them were theologians. |
