Vagina monologue alert! Kidding. But seriously, I never said I was for vouchers, DFT. It seems you're repeatedly trying to put words in my mouth, or more accurately claim certain policies to be mine that I never laid claim to. Let's stick to what I say when grouping me with other political opinions, please.

Just like marriage, religion and other areas of free choice, I believe education to be something the federal government should not manage. Furthermore, they have no constitutional right to do so. I want every child to have a decent education, because it sounds good and right, and it makes me feel good to say and believe in that. It still doesn't make it right to extend the federal government in such a way to forcefully (and arguably unconstitutionally) take money from everyone to pay for a welfare program. To do so means the government is entitled to your money, therefore owns you.

Pardon my tangent: This sort of overreach is why presidents like JFK have been entitled to write Executive Orders extending their powers, especially in the name of doing good with it when the time comes. JFK wrote EOs giving him the right to seize communications in the media, electric power and fuel, transportation (seaports, highways, airports, airspace, etc); seize all health, education and welfare facilities; force registration of all men, women and child; seize all housing and finance authorities to establish "Relocation Designated Areas"; force abandonment of property and areas; and (the most egregious of all) seize any and all American people and divide up families in order to create work forces to be transferred to any place the gov. sees fit.

You can argue the president would never use this sort of power unless a national crisis necessitated it, but that's too much power for a ruling body to have, especially one that is supposed to be a limited branch. This is why I think it's important to ensure we don't allow our government to overstep their limited power, lest we suffer martial law (see Katrina) or worse a complete loss of Rights. Even if it makes you feel good, that doesn't mean it's right. I care about people individually, and I've given thousands for AIDS projects here in LA, but I do it because I choose to do it, and I wouldn't think it fair to force my neighbor to do it even if I think it's the right thing to do. [/vagina monologue]

Whats not a parody, or comedy, however, is FEMA-This arm of the cabal is preparing for the worst.........
http://www.videosift.com/video/Congress-is-kept-away-from-Rex-84-FEMA-camp-Martial-Law-plan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lh1IOeV6jU

Another chance for the conscripted to practice their maneuver, for FEMA to fine-tune their skills of fucking with folks, taking their guns...Hanna, Josephine, maybe they are using HAARP to steer and strengthen those bitches, to give them an excuse to issue martial law, so they can practice that shit too.....
Fuck!!! Here in Houston, its gonna be a fucking nightmare.....

Fire up the A-dome again, worlds largest toilet.....

>> ^chilaxe:
On NATO's side, they would certainly ensure Georgia doesn't do anything stupid and stays on the straight path of democratic development.

On the path to democracy?
excerpt from link:
Nov 9, 2007

"That hardly squares with this week's violence—or with 15 days of martial law imposed by Saakashvili yesterday and expected to be ratified by parliament by the end of the week. All demonstrations are banned; all media is under temporary state censorship. The opposition-supporting Imedi TV station was forced off the air as riot police stormed into the channel's buildings late Wednesday night. News Web sites have also been closed."

Lets hope this was just a bump in the road to democracy, I'm skeptic though.

Up next....A few weeks of reports like this daily, some quick legislation, and bob's yer uncle, National I.D. and cashless paychecks, all timed precisely with some domestic terror attack,...synchronized even....thrown in some martial law, add a dash of suspend the constitution all manipulated with economic precision....recipe for control-
Catch the wave-cash like this won't last long!!

>> ^jwray:
The constitution quite clearly does not provide anyone the authority to declare martial law.
The only remotely similar statement in the constitution is in Article 1, Section 9: "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
But since it does not state which branch of government has the authority to suspend Habeas Corpus, no branch of government has the authority to suspend Habeas Corpus


Irrelevant with this administration. A bill was signed into law several months ago that shifted the power to declare martial law from the Congress to the president. Bush can literally snap his fingers and stop the elections if he so desired.

http://land.netonecom.net/tlp/ref/vk2k.shtml

This talks about what you talked about below.

In reply to this comment by blutruth:
To all those who would say that Americans would rise up against a rule of martial law, I have a couple of points to make. Keep in mind that I'm doing this mostly to play Devil's Advocate, but also to hopefully contribute to the discussion.

1. First, and I could be wrong about this, but I think that it would be safe to say that the subset of Americans who would amass any significant stockpile of weapons and know how to use them would share a sizable overlap with the subset of Americans who are either in the military or have been in the military. Would it not make sense, if one were planning to do something that would cause an uprising, to send as many of these military men and women out of the country? Maybe to Iraq or Afghanistan, or to hundreds of military bases around the world? This would keep them away from the country they swore to protect.

2. To those who would argue that those in the military would desert when given an order to harm their fellow countrymen, I would submit the Milgram experiment as an example of the flaw in that argument. It has been demonstrated that if a superior is willing to take full responsibility for their actions, people will rarely exercise any self control when in contact with their fellow man, especially when verbally pushed to do so. This doesn't even take into account threatening soldiers with violence against their family if they were to refuse, or other less than pleasant ideas.

I wouldn't say that I believe that something incredible will happen between now and November 2 that would "necessitate" martial law, but I would not be surprised if something does.

I would say to you, "be prepared", but I'm not sure what preparations one could make for those kinds of events.

martial law or new president, this countries in for a fuckin ride. hold on tight.

The Bush administration sent thousands of troops to their deaths (and horrible disfigurements) for oil.

They also approved of waterboarding and Abu Ghraib torture policies. After all, who really thinks that Charles Graner and Lyndie England just thought up the ideas that constitute those horrific pictures?

They allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be run by a horse-show judge, then when disaster hit, they said "Brownie" was doing a "heckuva job." Then they sent the survivors to formaldehyde-laced trailer homes.

They outed a CIA agent because her husband said their purported cause for war was ill-founded. And when someone was finally brought to justice for it, Bush commuted his sentence. And who knows if he'll give a last-day pardon.

They are the first administration to openly start a war of aggression against a sovereign nation, then give every excuse in the world to explain that it wasn't about oil, which ended up being what it was about.

ETC, fucking ETC.

And people still think the idea of martial law is tinfoil-hat conspiracy? Maybe, but the idea is not unfounded.

@blutruth
1. The US census lists the number of Vetrans in the US at 24 million (I'm not sure if by Veterans they mean exmilitary or ex war time servers). The current size of the US military is 3 million (1.5 active, 1.5 reservists). On top of that there is the abundance of sportsman in the US that would also probably pick up a rifle. The military would be handily outnumbered. Also, considering the fact that we currently have a paper thin military fighting two wars overseas, and this conspiracy theory requiring the initiation of a third, who exactly is going to enforce this martial law? Our military is pretty busy at the moment.

2. The Milgram experiment. Even in the Milgram experiment they were only able to get 65% to follow to the end. The Milgram experiment isn't directly comparable because it suffers from the trolley problem, there's a big difference between pushing a button and shocking someone in another room and pointing a gun at someone and shooting them. Also, my impression when I was in was that Bush isn't exactly seen as a holy man worth killing countrymen for. Ron Paul was the candidate the military backed the most after all. The military is about as sick of Bush as the general population is.

@slash
2. Russia, China, and the UN are going to aid president Bush by enforcing martial Law for him. You are an idiot. The international community wants to see Bush gone more that the American community wants him gone.

Sure, Bush could very well attack Iran before he leaves office because he is an idiot. Suspending the elections and instituting martial law though? This is deep into tinfoil hat territory. Iraq is only the size of California and we still haven't squashed the insurgency there. Yet we're going fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran and still find enough troops somewhere to occupy the US as well. Maybe it makes an entertaining thought but it is not plausible in the least.

The constitution quite clearly does not provide anyone the authority to declare martial law.

The only remotely similar statement in the constitution is in Article 1, Section 9: "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

But since it does not state which branch of government has the authority to suspend Habeas Corpus, no branch of government has the authority to suspend Habeas Corpus

To all those who would say that Americans would rise up against a rule of martial law, I have a couple of points to make. Keep in mind that I'm doing this mostly to play Devil's Advocate, but also to hopefully contribute to the discussion.

1. First, and I could be wrong about this, but I think that it would be safe to say that the subset of Americans who would amass any significant stockpile of weapons and know how to use them would share a sizable overlap with the subset of Americans who are either in the military or have been in the military. Would it not make sense, if one were planning to do something that would cause an uprising, to send as many of these military men and women out of the country? Maybe to Iraq or Afghanistan, or to hundreds of military bases around the world? This would keep them away from the country they swore to protect.

2. To those who would argue that those in the military would desert when given an order to harm their fellow countrymen, I would submit the Milgram experiment as an example of the flaw in that argument. It has been demonstrated that if a superior is willing to take full responsibility for their actions, people will rarely exercise any self control when in contact with their fellow man, especially when verbally pushed to do so. This doesn't even take into account threatening soldiers with violence against their family if they were to refuse, or other less than pleasant ideas.

I wouldn't say that I believe that something incredible will happen between now and November 2 that would "necessitate" martial law, but I would not be surprised if something does.

I would say to you, "be prepared", but I'm not sure what preparations one could make for those kinds of events.

>> ^bcglorf:
I would say this is fear mongering, only from the left this time. Bush and Cheney might be crazy enough to do something like this, but the right to bear arms will be what stays their hand. They aren't so ignorant as to realize that even martial law couldn't stop the resulting uprising from a president with the lowest approval ratings ever calling off an election.


I agree. They've been experts at keeping radical action "low key", and suspending elections would spark an instant revolution. If they were planning that, Fox News would be talking about the possibility day & night, to lay the groundwork in the public consciousness.

I could believe that list was given to the Democratic leadership, and that they caved, rather than call the bluff.

More likely though, I think you're right about Nader just trying to scare Democrats into voting for him.

However, if we have a domestic terror attack between now and the election, I'm going to become a full believer in conspiracies, because that won't be a coincidence at all.

I'd be willing to speculate the reason the dems have so far been impotent in calling for impeachment has to do with the unmotivated republican base as of right now. If the impeachment succeeded and Bush/Cheney were thrown out on their asses and a dem was brought it would be a rallying cry for the republicans. That being said, it will be interesting to see if they grow any balls after the election. It would be nice if this horrendous precedent were not set.

McCain - Feel the Excitement - http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8725/mccainrallyqp1.jpg

As for the possibility of the declaration of martial law, I think it is pretty low. True we don't have a nation armed with AK-47's, but snipers will fuck you up just as well. And armor doesn't mean shit in the cities. Plus what do you think the desertion rate of the military would be after asking them to kill their own countrymen, my guess would be pretty high. They'd probably bring some of their fancy military toys with them. All in all, I think its unfeasible.

>> ^Constitutional_Patriot:
In my opinion it seems that they are building up to this anyway....
Remember that secret meeting the house of representatives had on March 13, 2007 that Dennis Kucinich refused to attend because of his opposition to the content?
It's been leaked that the meeting referred to impending martial law, handling opposition to the government in the event of an uprising, safehavens for congress people in such event, what will happen to Americans that may oppose the "rule of law" from the Federal govt and the "unavoidable" merger between countries of the North American continent.


Wow, I would like to think that what the esteemed Constitutional_Patriot has said in that comment is not possible, but I know better.

Its not the fact that this could happen its the fact that there is even talk about this possibly happening.

This is indeed scary.