Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Impeachment=" Insult to all Voters" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: R. Martenson who wrote (311)	12/21/1998 11:57:00 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2390

They may all be fanatics, but let me toss in a few quiet thoughts. As an attorney, I know that the integrity of testimony under oath is the cornerstone of our system of law. If we cannot count on testimony under oath being truthful, what happens to our system of law? If police can lie without penalty about what they saw at the scene of the crime; if witnesses can lie about what they "know" or saw, what protection is the law for the innocent, and what danger to the guilty? I can guarantee to you that if one of my clients were ever found guilty of lying to a grand jury, they would not get a slap on their wrist. Nor should they. An attack on the integrity of testimony in a legal proceeding is an attack on our freedoms, our very way of life. This is not hyperbole, it is fact. If we cannot depend on the truthfulness of testimony, what are the alternatives? Would anyone here want to go back to a "legal" system which tried people by dunking them in a pond? Or by pressing hot iron to their flesh? Or to trial by combat? Or to trial by popularity (as seems to the mood among Clinton supporters)? Every one of you depends for your liberty on our system of law. Without law there is no freedom. And our system of law depends on the truthfulness of testimony under oath. Clinton did not have to testify before the grand jury. He CHOSE to testify. And having so chosen, he had a duty to the law to testify truthfully. Period. Clinton isn't merely an ordinary citizen. He is the chief legal officer of the United States. He appoints the nation's Attorney General. He appoints the Director of the FBI. He nominates Justices to the Supreme Court. He sets the principles for our legal system. If he violates those principals, if he shows distain for the very foundation of our legal system, what are the consequences to our freedoms? He has been brilliant in persuading people that this is "private life" stuff, that it is "just about sex." Would he also say that rape, domestic violence, prostitution are also none of the public's business because they, too, are "just about sex"? What Clinton and Monica Lewinsky did in the oval office may have been private stuff (even though he did it while at his post of duty, while performing his official duties for the United States.) But lying to a grand jury is NOT private, and it is NOT just about sex. It is about the basic principles of freedom. If the chief legal officer of the United States can perjure himself before a grand jury and remain in office, our system of law will take a blow from which it may be a long time recovering.