Posts in "Constitution"

Justin Head's picture
By Justin Head at 7:04AM
Mar 5, 2010

YAL Student on Radio Show Discussing Disturbing Confrontation with Congressional Candidate

I recently posted an article entitled "Local Congressional Candidate Can't Name Bill of Rights." This article discussed another article written by James Robertson, which described an encounter our YAL chapter had with a local congressional candidate, Angela McGlowan. We were asking people to name the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution outside of our student union and decided to give her have a shot at it. Her response was very unexpected and ended with her asking the police to remove the students from the Student Union entrance area. Go here to read the full story.  

Well, this encounter snowballed into a relatively large media interest. The potential congresswoman was asked about the confrontation on the Paul Gallo show, a popular talk radio show on Super Talk Radio in Mississippi, where she defended herself by calling the YAL members "out of order." It ended with one of our members, James Robertson, getting asked onto the same radio show to give his version of the story. I thought you might like to listen to the two interviews. Unfortunately, the second interview is worse sound quality and therefore lower volume. But anyway, hope you enjoy!

Angela McGlowan's Response on Paul Gallo

James Robertson's Response on Paul Gallo

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Bonnie Kristian's picture
By Bonnie Kristian at 3:25PM
Feb 16, 2010

A Revolutionary Shot

Stumble showed me this.  I thought you all would enjoy it too (without advocating any inappropriate behaviour, of course):

image

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Bonnie Kristian's picture
By Bonnie Kristian at 12:58PM
Feb 14, 2010

Another Reason Military Tribunals Are Not Appropriate for Terrorists

I've written before about constitutional reasons to guarantee basic rights to those accused of terrorism.  But even discounting those reasons, it is still unconstitutional to try suspected terrorists in military tribunals.  Why?  For the simple reason that we have not declared war -- and "just calling it a ‘war’ on terror doesn’t count."

In fact,

no president has yet to appear before Congress to ask for a Declaration of War – nor has Congress ever made such as declaration. Therefore, there can simply be no Constitutional justification to create military tribunals to try alleged enemy combatants  as they are enemy combatants in a war that Congress has never declared.

This is not based on unsubstantiated legal opinion, but in specific case law:  "[T]he Supreme Court ruled in Ex Parte Quirin that a formal declaration of war is the legal prerequisite to the government’s use of the tools of war."


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Bonnie Kristian's picture
By Bonnie Kristian at 12:50PM
Feb 11, 2010

Miss me yet?

image

See more great photoshopped versions of the Bush billboard from the Humble Libertarian here.

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Aaron Ricks's picture
By Aaron Ricks at 8:37PM
Feb 10, 2010

"Tenthers" Fight for the Rights of States

CNN recently reported on the states' rights movement that has been sweeping up state legislatures everywhere:

A movement has been growing over the past two years of urging states to exert their rights under the 10th Amendment. The Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, states:  ' The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'

read it

God forbid that people begin hiding behind the Constitution once more.

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Bonnie Kristian's picture
By Bonnie Kristian at 10:30AM
Feb 10, 2010

House Minority Leader Confuses the Constitution with the Declaration

Oh dear.  House Minority Leader John Boehner has confused the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence -- while holding a Constitution in his hand, no less!

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader, took the podium at a Republican rally, waved a document defiantly and declared:"This is my copy of the Constitution, and I'm going to stand here with the Founding Fathers who wrote in the Preamble, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness …" Mr. Boehner was encouraging participants to protest the pending House vote for health care reform by demanding their constitutional right to make medical decisions.

Pop quiz: What's wrong with this picture?

What's wrong is that the quote he cited is neither in a preamble or in the Constitution -- it's in the main text of the Declaration.  Eesh...maybe we could have someone as House Minority Leader who actually knows the text of the Constitution he swore to uphold? (AHEM Ron Paul)

Wait, noooo....that's clearly too much to ask.

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Joseph Gauthier's picture
By Joseph Gauthier at 7:43AM
Feb 3, 2010

Alito Was Right

I am a student at The University of Texas at Austin. Recently, The Daily Texan, which is the campus newspaper, published an editorial denouncing Justice Alito's actions at the State of the Union address as partisan. I wrote a Firing Line in response, which was published on February 2, 2010. The editorial I am responding to can be found here (it is the last one on the page). My response can be found here, or can be read below. (I never bother titling my articles -- the editor does that.)

scannedarticle

I would like to emphasize how easy it was for me to get published. I think this is the fourth time I have been published. Publishing in a campus newspaper is a great way to spread our message; therefore, I encourage everyone to try and do so!

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Bonnie Kristian's picture
By Bonnie Kristian at 8:53PM
Feb 2, 2010

"It is indisputable...that the Constitution [protects both] citizens and foreigners."

Many who favor the use of torture -- er, enhanced interrogation techniques -- on those suspected of terrorism attempt to bolster their arguments by claiming that it's ok because, universal conceptions of human rights be damned, the Constitution only applies to U.S. citizens.

To put it simply, they're very, very wrong.  Glenn Greenwald explains this well in a new piece:

[In a 2009 Supreme Court decision,] none of the 9 Justices -- and, indeed, not even the Bush administration -- argued that the Constitution applies only to American citizens.  That is such an inane, false, discredited proposition that no responsible person would ever make that claim....It is indisputable, well-settled Constitutional law that the Constitution restricts the actions of the Government with respect to both American citizens and foreigners.  It's not even within the realm of mainstream legal debate to deny that.

However, despite the recency of this example, this is hardly a new idea made up by a modern, activist SCOTUS.  Greenwald notes that the exact same opinion was part of SC jurisprudence in the late 1800s.  And even a cursory examination of the text of the Constitution itself -- which clearly distinguishes between "persons" (meaning everyone, regardless of citizenship) and "citizens" -- shows that it was never the intention of the founders to apply the guarantees of the Constition only to those boasting American citizenship.


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Seth Man's picture
By Seth Man at 4:06PM
Feb 2, 2010

Early Draft of the Constitution Found in Philly

From Philly.com:

On the back of a treasured draft of the U.S. Constitution was a truncated version of the same document, starting with the familiar words: "We The People. . . ."

They had been scribbled upside down by one of the Constitution's framers, James Wilson, in the summer of 1787. The cursive continued, then abruptly stopped, as if pages were missing.

A mystery, Toler thought, until she examined other Wilson papers from the Historical Society's vault in Philadelphia and found what appeared to be the rest of the draft, titled "The Continuation of the Scheme."

Read more of this interesting story here.

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Seth Man's picture
By Seth Man at 8:18AM
Jan 24, 2010

Liberty Alert: The Cult of the Commander-in-Chief

On today's All Things Considered, author-historian-journalist Garry Wills (former Buckley-protege turned liberal writer) was interviewed about his new book Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State.

The Bomb

Since World War II, Wills contends that Americans have been living under an abnormal Constitutional system. This system has granted more and more power to the President each year.  This power sometimes allows the Commander-in-Chief to make law through executive orders or to keep information from the public by citing national security.  Wills believes this power comes from the existence of the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project.

He makes a fantastic point about the accumulation of power in the Executive during past wars.   But after other wars, we resumed the Constitutional system.  The suspension of habeas corpus under Lincoln was condemned by the Supreme Court afterward.  That retrospective justice never happened after the bomb because our government had a secret to keep.

The book is worth a read and the interview is worth a listen.

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