WHEN A MISTAKE ISN’T
Carl F. Worden
wolfeyes@hisurfer.net
Most of the presidential candidates of both parties are now claiming that their vote for, or support of, the war in Iraq, was a “mistake”. That’s just not true.
The vote to give President Bush the “authority” to invade Iraq was illegal on its face. It was a blatant violation of the same Constitution every elected congressperson swore to uphold and defend upon taking office. There may be several areas of the Constitution and Bill of Rights that seem ambiguous, but the exclusive authority of Congress to declare war is not one of them.
Nothing in the Constitution gives Congress the right to transfer their power to declare war to the Executive Branch, and Article X of the Bill of Rights slams the door on any argument to the contrary.
To paraphrase Article X, if the power to do something is not expressly given the federal government by the Constitution, then that power is reserved to the individual states and/or the people. Since nothing in the Constitution gives Congress the right to transfer their power to declare war to any other government body, Article X says they can’t, and that’s that.
If war is to be waged, it must be plainly voted for by the Congress.
Where the proposed invasion of Iraq was concerned, the reason Congress chose an illegal resolution to give their authority to declare war to the president was not a mistake: Every member who voted for that illegal resolution did it in order to avoid direct responsibility in case the war went badly – as it certainly has. It was a calculated and deliberate act, motivated entirely for political reasons, and it certainly was not a “mistake”.
Now, these same candidates want you to vote for them because they now admit their “mistake”. Hillary Clinton wants you to accept her apology, and so does Joe Biden and John McCain and on and on. One of the few candidates who voted against illegally giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq is Representative Ron Paul of Texas.
Representative Paul, often referred to in Congress as “Dr. No”, voted against the Iraq Resolution because it was plainly unconstitutional. Representative Paul has a strict litmus test he runs before he votes for any bill coming before Congress, and that test is to determine whether or not the proposed bill is constitutional. Obviously, Rep. Ron Paul saw that it was not.
What a renegade Representative Paul is! No wonder hardly any members of Congress like him! No wonder CNN and FOX and the vast majority of the mass media are ignoring the fact Representative Paul is a probable presidential candidate. The man is a congressional dinosaur – a Paleo-Conservative who actually demands strict constitutional adherence by the federal government.
Oh my…
Can you imagine the horrors Ron Paul would bring to the Office of the Presidency of the United States? The man might actually fulfill his constitutional duty as president by immediately ordering the borders of the United States to be secured. He might never commit the men and women of the United States armed forces to another “police action” like Korea or Vietnam or Iraq. Gosh, it would be a nightmare for Congress to have a strict constitutionist running the Executive Branch! The man would veto just about every bill that came before him.
Had Ron Paul been president in 2003, over 3,000 young men and women in our military would still be alive today. Many more young Americans would still have full use of their arms and legs – and even still have them attached. Tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens would still be alive today, albeit under the strict and often brutal thumb of Saddam Hussein, but don’t even try to use that tired old argument on them. If the average Iraqi had his druthers, Saddam’s rule, brutal or not, would still be intact and preferred – and all the Iraqi polls all show that.
If Representative Ron Paul clearly saw a violation of constitutional law by voting for a resolution to let President Bush decide whether or not to invade Iraq, why didn’t the vast majority of his congressional body? Answer: They did. They knew exactly what they were doing. Those congresspersons all knew it was unconstitutional, and they voted for the resolution anyway.
Please have no illusions: The media will force us to look at only those candidates the media and the corporate powers that be want us to seriously consider. In the Republican corner we have “front-runners” Rudy Guiliani and John McCain, and in the Democratic corner we have Obama, Hillary and John Edwards. As usual, they are trying to force-feed us those individuals to the exclusion of all others – and their tactics will probably work just as well as they have all the past elections because the average voter in America is stupid and doesn’t know the Constitution from Jack anyway.
But when you hear all these front-runner presidential candidates claim they made a mistake voting to give the president the power to declare war on Iraq, try to remember it wasn’t a mistake at all. If they proved their willingness to violate the plain language of the Constitution in that matter, they will do so again, and it won’t be a mistake then, either.
Not one of them is fit to be President.
wolfeyes@hisurfer.net
Most of the presidential candidates of both parties are now claiming that their vote for, or support of, the war in Iraq, was a “mistake”. That’s just not true.
The vote to give President Bush the “authority” to invade Iraq was illegal on its face. It was a blatant violation of the same Constitution every elected congressperson swore to uphold and defend upon taking office. There may be several areas of the Constitution and Bill of Rights that seem ambiguous, but the exclusive authority of Congress to declare war is not one of them.
Nothing in the Constitution gives Congress the right to transfer their power to declare war to the Executive Branch, and Article X of the Bill of Rights slams the door on any argument to the contrary.
To paraphrase Article X, if the power to do something is not expressly given the federal government by the Constitution, then that power is reserved to the individual states and/or the people. Since nothing in the Constitution gives Congress the right to transfer their power to declare war to any other government body, Article X says they can’t, and that’s that.
If war is to be waged, it must be plainly voted for by the Congress.
Where the proposed invasion of Iraq was concerned, the reason Congress chose an illegal resolution to give their authority to declare war to the president was not a mistake: Every member who voted for that illegal resolution did it in order to avoid direct responsibility in case the war went badly – as it certainly has. It was a calculated and deliberate act, motivated entirely for political reasons, and it certainly was not a “mistake”.
Now, these same candidates want you to vote for them because they now admit their “mistake”. Hillary Clinton wants you to accept her apology, and so does Joe Biden and John McCain and on and on. One of the few candidates who voted against illegally giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq is Representative Ron Paul of Texas.
Representative Paul, often referred to in Congress as “Dr. No”, voted against the Iraq Resolution because it was plainly unconstitutional. Representative Paul has a strict litmus test he runs before he votes for any bill coming before Congress, and that test is to determine whether or not the proposed bill is constitutional. Obviously, Rep. Ron Paul saw that it was not.
What a renegade Representative Paul is! No wonder hardly any members of Congress like him! No wonder CNN and FOX and the vast majority of the mass media are ignoring the fact Representative Paul is a probable presidential candidate. The man is a congressional dinosaur – a Paleo-Conservative who actually demands strict constitutional adherence by the federal government.
Oh my…
Can you imagine the horrors Ron Paul would bring to the Office of the Presidency of the United States? The man might actually fulfill his constitutional duty as president by immediately ordering the borders of the United States to be secured. He might never commit the men and women of the United States armed forces to another “police action” like Korea or Vietnam or Iraq. Gosh, it would be a nightmare for Congress to have a strict constitutionist running the Executive Branch! The man would veto just about every bill that came before him.
Had Ron Paul been president in 2003, over 3,000 young men and women in our military would still be alive today. Many more young Americans would still have full use of their arms and legs – and even still have them attached. Tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens would still be alive today, albeit under the strict and often brutal thumb of Saddam Hussein, but don’t even try to use that tired old argument on them. If the average Iraqi had his druthers, Saddam’s rule, brutal or not, would still be intact and preferred – and all the Iraqi polls all show that.
If Representative Ron Paul clearly saw a violation of constitutional law by voting for a resolution to let President Bush decide whether or not to invade Iraq, why didn’t the vast majority of his congressional body? Answer: They did. They knew exactly what they were doing. Those congresspersons all knew it was unconstitutional, and they voted for the resolution anyway.
Please have no illusions: The media will force us to look at only those candidates the media and the corporate powers that be want us to seriously consider. In the Republican corner we have “front-runners” Rudy Guiliani and John McCain, and in the Democratic corner we have Obama, Hillary and John Edwards. As usual, they are trying to force-feed us those individuals to the exclusion of all others – and their tactics will probably work just as well as they have all the past elections because the average voter in America is stupid and doesn’t know the Constitution from Jack anyway.
But when you hear all these front-runner presidential candidates claim they made a mistake voting to give the president the power to declare war on Iraq, try to remember it wasn’t a mistake at all. If they proved their willingness to violate the plain language of the Constitution in that matter, they will do so again, and it won’t be a mistake then, either.
Not one of them is fit to be President.
posted by Chuck Demastus at 3:33 PM
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