was in a fancy abbey in a small town in Britain last year and by surprise they were showing one of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta

Oh you Magna Carta you. Gimme a big hug!

Magna Carta, bitch.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Magna-Carta-Medieval

Magna Carta: Legacy has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims on that post.

Magna Carta: Medieval has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims.

People like you should be amongst those who are discussing decision making. With any luck, it will soon be a time for young, fresh ideas.. i'm just glad to find out there are people studying the subject with the same rigour as a scientist treats their subject.

I feel exasperated at the current political climate - as though the corruption between it and those who lust for power and money is complete and can't be redeemed. It was a breath of fresh air to hear Varoufakis lay down the problem in simple terms; something nobody in the democratic process in the UK has done in my entire lifetime.

I sometimes wonder if we need something radical and new, some kind of new "Magna Carta" to ensure that this situation we find ourselves is reversed and doesn't naturally happen again over time.

Follow the law. If there is some person or persons who are engaging in terrorist activity you ask them to be brought to justice and you bring evidence against them. America harbors way greater terrorists from people pleading for justice than Pakistan. There are ways to diplomatically go about this but instead America feels it owns the world and it can do what it wants.

The Magna Carta was created in 1215 and is the foundation for our laws including the concept of innocent until proven guilty. If we can't follow that, or the principles of the Nuremberg Trials we are pathetic.

So keeping a promise is more important than preventing war crimes; preventing the corruption of a government; upholding the freedom and morality of an entire civilisation; habeus corpus; magna carta (which is now been successfully rendered obselete in the US and many other countries); the bill of rights; and the US constitution?

More important than preventing the deaths of thousands of innocent people; allowing you to avoid an ignorant election of despots; preventing one government from unjustly interfering with the political process of another; more important than allowing a man to speak the truth?

And so I'm going to push this button; even when I have learned that it will destroy the Earth and everything on it, for I made a promise.

My last cab driver told me how he spent half his time in court defending his wife against parking violations - using the Magna Carta and the Constitution. He reckons there's no traffic violation you can't beat if you know what you're talking about.

People ask me why I don't ride mass transit.

This is why. I was raised on freedom, the right to live in peace with out some one pounding me on the table saying "IHRE PAPIERE BITTE".

But they would probably taze me on site, because I am not someone who looks like they can be manhandled. They better hope that the electricity over powers my heart and I die. Which is unlikely because I like Anaerobic Exercise. If not, Ill devote my entire life savings, and the rest of my life to rat each one of you, smug uniform wearing bastards, out. - Spoken from some one who wore a uniform, and never once had to solve a problem with violence.

<Insert Dark Comedy Here> As you can tell I have no life savings, and that is the main reason I do not ride mass transit. That's because spent it all on taxes. <Insert Dark Comedy Here>

I want a giant constitution, wrapped in the Geneva Conventions, wrapped in the Magna Carta, that I can smash these authority abusing cockers with.

On a serious note all of our problems, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

From al Arabiya, after Abu Ghraib:

"It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth. In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation, and justice will be delivered. ... It's very important for people and your listeners to understand that in our country, when an issue is brought to our attention on this magnitude, we act. And we act in a way in which leaders are willing to discuss it with the media. ... In other words, people want to know the truth. That stands in contrast to dictatorships. A dictator wouldn't be answering questions about this. A dictator wouldn't be saying that the system will be investigated and the world will see the results of the investigation." - Bush Al Arabiya interview.

"But we are not asked to judge the President's character flaws. We are asked to judge whether the President, who swore an oath to faithfully execute his office, deliberately subverted--for whatever purpose--the rule of law," - John McCain arguing for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for perjury in a civil suit, February 1999.

"Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot," - John McCain, October 2007.

"We've got to move on," - John McCain, April 26, 2009, reacting to incontrovertible proof that George W. Bush ordered the waterboarding of a prisoner 183 times, as well as broader treatment that the Red Cross has called "unequivocally torture."

As I said in China this spring, there is no place for abuse in what must be considered the family of man. There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention. There is no place for forced confessions. There is no place for intolerance of dissent. While we walked through the Rotunda. I explained to President Jiang how the roots of American rule of law go back more than 700 years, to the signing of the Magna Carta. The foundation of American values, therefore, is not a passing priority or a temporary trend. - Newt Gengrich http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-28404541.html

Collected from Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish - http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/

Chronicle of Information that has come to light recently from the Empty Wheel, links to sources at their main page:http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/25/the-torture-document-dump-timeline/

John Lopresti noted that it might be helpful to have a timeline of all the torture documents released in the last several weeks. And you know I can't resist requests for timelines. So here goes:

April 6: NYRB posts the Red Cross report on high value detainees

April 9: CIA Director Leon Panetta bans contractors from conducting interrogations

April 16: Obama statement on memo release, torture memos released:

* August 1, 2002: Memo from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA
* May 10, 2005: Memo from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA ["Techniques"]
* May 10, 2005: Memo from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA ["Combined"]
* May 30, 2005: Memo from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA

April 21: Senate Armed Services Committee releases declassified Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody

April 22: Senate Intelligence Committee releases declassified Narrative Describing the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel's Opinions on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program (Jello Jay's statement on the release)

April 23: Ali Soufan, FBI interrogator, publishes NYT op-ed describing early interrogation of Abu Zubaydah

April 23: DOJ announces it will release a number of photos showing detainee abuse that had previously been FOIAed, along with thousands more

April 24: Greg Sargent gets a copy of Cheney's request for two documents to make his "efficacy" case

April 24: In ACLU FOIA case, Judge Hellerstein orders a more expansive response on torture tape documents from CIA

April 24: WaPo releases JPRA memo--which had been circulated among the torture architects--using the word "torture" and warning that torture will beget false information

None of the safeguards that are built into the Constitution to prevent anything like this happening were triggered, because the majority of people were waiting for the television to tell them what to do.

The Constitution, like the Magna Carta, is becoming nothing more than a history lesson, and the rights it gives to peaceful people are not being exercised en masse.

I see what you mean.

I am shocked that people of faith are offended by equality, as this is the fundamental teaching of Jesus the man. Even in the UK constitution, the Magna Carta dating to 1215AD, it is written that Equality is mandatory before and after law. The highest law in the UK and the commonwealth is the Queen's bible, for the sole reason of equality.

Equality is about love and compassion. This was the message that Jesus delivered - that we are ALL the sons of God and no man can be higher than any other man. These words of truth are so powerful that they brought the entire mighty and brutal Roman Empire to its knees within 400 years.

Equality is a hard swallow. Why should a murderer or a rapist have equal human rights of an honourable and peaceful man? Well, this mindset of equality of the Christian movement kicked in the doors of power and brutality in Rome. It is extremely powerful, we have forgotten how powerful, and we have changed the message and the scriptures and blurred the edges to make it difficult to grasp.

But given further thought you start to realise that man is not capable of drawing a line in the sand and has no right to take away another man's God given natural rights. This is an ancient and fundamental truth which is the message of religious scriptures including the bible. Extend love, compassion and understanding and not judgement.

Mankind has grappled with this for 2,000 years. I grappled with it for about 20.

I wish you the very best of luck on your journey. Peace be with you.
S.




In reply to this comment by quantumushroom:
The message is honourable, ethical and both assumes and promotes equality between all human beings.

The 1st two 'stanzas' are neutral but the 3rd stanza is insulting to people of faith. And Gregoire really does look like the Grinch!

Ironically, despite internecine bickering, it's religions that state all human life is equal in the eyes of God.

If you feel it is obnoxious, then you are saying that human rights and equality are offensive and highly objectionable.

Are you offended by human rights and equality QM?

I am offended by what has been done in the name of both terms.

Freedom and equality are eternal and natural enemies; too much of either causes serious trouble.

Right now "equality" is too strong and thus freedom is weak.

Political equality can be insulting and deconstructive, depending on who wields that particular scepter. Communistic equality of outcomes, equality of pay for unequal workloads and pretending that inferior methods of doing things are equal in value to a superior method are all harmful to society.

The definition of "human rights" has expanded its sphere to include the ludicrous.

I was an atheist roughly half my life and know the enormous pleasure of thinking oneself superior to people who needed a "delusional force" to survive. While I could claim possibly being happier than someone guilt-racked by fundamentalism, I could never claim I was happier than most religious people.

Neither side of the religion/atheist argument is one-dimensional. There are rational people of faith, including geniuses a-plenty, and fools for a myriad of reasons besides their being atheists.

I think alot of Americans misunderstand the roots of the criticism.

I am not American, but I believe in the idea and ideals that lie behind America as a nation expressed through the Bill of rights, the Constitution and in the countless writings of the founding fathers who have tried to address almost every possible problem that might befall the nation, if only all their words were taught more thoroughly in schools rather in universities.

It's the fusion of many ideas of liberty and democracy, starting with perhaps with Rome, the Magna Carta in Britain right up to the French revolution and so on.

I criticize the US not from a blind hatred towards its foreign policy or corporate hegemony but because it is perhaps the strongest beacon of individualism and democracy that remains in our world, almost every nation regardless of its personal views strives to achieve what America allows for it's people, the idea that any man or woman can achieve progress through hard work, that they can influence the course of government, that they essentially have a voice. A fundamental idea that still has to take stronger roots elsewhere in the world, especially now with a rise of a new neo-despotic capitalism taking place in Russia and China.

This is not to say that America has perfected the idea or it's execution, no not at all but is has come close, but it has hit obstacles, corporate control has replaced population control and the vote of the people only because the people have slowly forgotten their civil liberties over the liberties of the dollar and the corporate sector.

In this way America sets the standard for the rest of the world, this is why seeing the War on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan was so heart breaking because the thinking goes if America can do it... so can any one else, the moral high ground of being against torture has been lost. That's why the criticism is so harsh, the world wants America to be better, in fact it wants it to be the best. I think its like that perhaps to the wide spread of it's culture, the fact that its in reality the representation of many populations of the world coming together.

This is my personal belief. I think developed from reading these words for the first time when I was younger.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883

"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), written in 1883 and, in 1903, engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the Statue of Liberty.

These words, that essential idea is something all Americans need to remember. There is such richness of ideas in American political and constitutional history with regards to liberity, that really makes me happy inside. Like reading about liberty for someone who has known only the shackles of jail all their life.