posted March 22, 2013 11:50 AM            

And the famous right of business owners to refuse service to some classes of people is another "liberty" that infringes on the liberty of whole groups of people...

posted March 22, 2013 01:04 PM            

Aside from the that, once again we have an argument of convenience rather than one of rationality.

Why was he initially arrested? Was that before or after he was designated an enemy combatant? You're disregarding the things I'm sure the Supreme Court looked at when deciding this case.

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So you're fine with people being deemed enemy combatants and tortured prior to trials that they may not even get, except when civil rights groups intervene?

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You say it as if anyone could be deemed an enemy combatant, and I know your thoughts well enough that you believe that to be the case.

I'm not fine with it. What I'm fine with is the government arresting a genuine threat who is planning on taking part in terrorist activities.

Should we have a time out to look at the timeline of Padilla's interactions with the courts?

• May 2002 - Arrested
  
• December 2003 - He was ordered to be released
  
• February 2004 - Supreme Court heard the Bush Administration's appeal, and then dismissed it on technical grounds in June.
  
• February 2005 - Case refiled. Government was told to charge or release.
  
• June 2005 - Supreme Court refuses to hear. Refers to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
  
• September 2005 - The three judge panel finds the Bush Administration able to define Padilla as an enemy combatant, and hold him without charges.
  
• December 2005 - Same court as above (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit) refused to let the Administration move Padilla from a military brig to civil court.
  
• January 2006 - The Supreme Court granted a Bush administration request to transfer Padilla from military to civilian custody. Padilla was transferred to a federal prison in Miami from the Navy brig in Charleston while the Supreme Court decided whether to accept his appeal of the government's authority to keep US citizens it designates "enemy combatants" in open-ended military confinement without benefit of trial.
  
• On April 3, 2006, the Supreme Court declined, with three justices dissenting from denial of certiorari, to hear Padilla's appeal from the 4th Circuit Court's decision. It left the 4th Circuit court's ruling that the president had the power to designate and detain him as an "enemy combatant" without charges and with disregard to habeas corpus.
  

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You're suggesting that Padilla's eventual trial and guilty verdict somehow redeem the objectionable process that took place beforehand.

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I'm suggesting that traveling all over the Middle East, associating with terrorists, and getting training in radiological warfare (dirty bombs) might get you in trouble you could otherwise avoid by not doing those things. A wise person doesn't place himself in danger.

I would say that all of those things were a travesty were it an innocent person, or even a suspected innocent person.

It is still a travesty in that the process had so many strange bumps.

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The courts have become a sham, because they let the Executive branch write and execute their own laws.

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That's an opinion. I don't think it's a true one. Bush's administration lost plenty of times in the courts, as has Obama's.

posted March 22, 2013 01:47 PM            

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Originally posted by katatonic:
Is that a religious sect? I don't "get" "ites" and "isms" very well...but bith pauls seem to think that their liberty-mindedness includes the right to bsn abortion, don't thry? Correct me if i'm wrong of course...

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posted March 22, 2013 02:06 PM            

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
I keep considering what is thrown my way. But in return, there still appears to be no consideration given to the things I'm saying.

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You didn't answer it, though. Your timeline of what happened to Padilla doesn't even include the main event: his torture. I mean, you ignore that he was punished severely, with impunity, prior to trial.

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
The highest court in our country was involved several times along the way, and ultimately certified the legality of the Administration's actions. The check on Presidential authority occurred.

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Those of us who take issue with the courts' rulings, being overly permissive toward police state brutality and straying far from the Constitution, argue that no such "check" occurred, and the courts are a sham.

I think you put together these lengthy arguments as if to bury the absence of key points in verbage. A lot of the verbage is about how you read what I say, but I won't return the favor. That's not even true.

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
I'm suggesting that traveling all over the Middle East, associating with terrorists, and getting training in radiological warfare (dirty bombs) might get you in trouble you could otherwise avoid by not doing those things. A wise person doesn't place himself in danger.

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See, you ignored my list of what he was formally accused of.

posted March 22, 2013 04:56 PM            

If you're trying to say that he didn't deserve torture whilst the rest did, I don't know what you're basing that on.

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I think you put together these lengthy arguments as if to bury the absence of key points in verbage. A lot of the verbage is about how you read what I say, but I won't return the favor. That's not even true.

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Hmmmm...so I, who took issue with YOUR selective use of that wikipedia, who has posted more from that article, is actually the one being selective? Really?

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See, you ignored my list of what he was formally accused of.

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I didn't. If you want to clarify that he was accused in his civil trial of slightly different things, that's fine. It doesn't change anything about the subject. That argument is more distraction than substance.

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And whether or not Padilla is "wise"

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But whether Padilla was part of a criminal organization, and associated with terrorist has everything to do with the court's approval of the process. You just want to believe that everything is unjust, and that the people that are supposed to be providing justice are not interested in actually providing justice under the law. The fact that the law/court was involved every step of the way for Padilla shows the invalidity of Greenwald's point.

posted March 22, 2013 05:07 PM            

Thanks for taking the time to explain your point of view. I admire your tenacity, honestly. But we will never see eye to see. Whenever I get something pinned down, you move it, and you probably think I'm doing the same thing to you.

So I will spare you any more wasting of time. I've said my peace.

posted March 26, 2013 08:21 AM            

But since all's well that ends well...will you gents consider filling out my Capricorn Survey? I'm trying to get a large sample size and do a "statistical analysis" in the end.