Prof. Jonathan Turley: “Stop Being a Country of Chumps!”

[leftchick]

Prof. Turley gave this speech before the torture enabling bill passed in the Senate. I would love to hear what he has to say about that.....

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/1732432.php

<snip>

Professor Turley began his lecture by recalling the struggle to create the Constitution. He called it “a novel experience” and praised its prime architect, James Madison of Virginia, for his genius and tenacity in writing it. (1) “The Constitution,” he continued, “is a common article of faith that binds us, no matter how hateful the debate, because we have a common legacy found in that document. That is why, it drives me crazy when the President (George W. Bush) says: ‘This is our defining moment.’ We had that defining moment in the 1700s, when we agreed to a Constitution that bound us all and it required a leap of faith.

“I happened to believe we are living through a crisis of faith,” Professor Turley emphasized. “There are people in our government, who for some reason, have lost faith in their heritage...There is only one rule, in the Madisonian system, that can never be broken. And, that rule is: you cannot go outside the rules...Madison built a system that is idiot proof. God knows we have tested that. We have had morons for president and we are still here. It is a system designed to survive...You have to take the leap of faith. President George Bush is a relativist...He’s a legal relativist. He believes the law is a technicality...He always has. It doesn’t make him evil. It just makes him a man of zeal.”

<snip>


Professor Turley further asks: “Why would the President assert the authority to create a legal system, that he alone designed--a prison system, that he alone ran--a court system that he created by his own rule and through this, people could be held indefinitely--even put to death--at his discretion? Why would you do that? I think it is all about reinventing the office of the presidency...The checks and balances in the Constitution...designed by Madison...keep ambitions in check-and it in history have all been self-inflicted...Sending Japanese-Americans into camps, the Palmer Raids and arrests ..We always hear about how bad they are , but we never hear about: ‘Who we are!..’ Now, we are even having a debate about embracing torture, like waterboarding.”

<snip>

Finally, Professor Turley summed up his insightful and compelling presentation by saying: “The Republic has within it the seeds of its own destruction...If look the other way, do nothing, then we will be redefined. We will no longer be the people we were...One of my biggest fears is that my generation will give away the legacy that we got from the generation that came before us. And that we will untether our civil liberties from the system that was created in the brilliance of the 18th century...We have to stop being a country of chumps...We need another political party. We’re certainly choosing between the lesser of two evils, and as the saying goes--’You are guaranteed evil!’”

[Greeby]

1. One problem with that last sentence

Can anyone tell me how the Democratic Party is evil? Compared to the racists, peadophiles, thieves and murderers on the other side? :shrug:

[leesa]

2. He's talking about the Dems that are Republicans. The ones that make us

have only one Party effectibely. You know, like the liebermans, the Nelsons, the Rockefellers, etc.

[leftchick]

3. to name a few

a congress full of chumps.

[Toots]

4. Didn't enough of them vote for this to allow it to pass?

What more evidence do you need. What does opposition Party mean to you? Does it have anything to do with opposing the Republicans on their misdeeds? Name me something the GOP has wanted that they didn't get by enough Democratys breaking ranks and siding with them..

[StellaBlue]

5. This reminds me

I have a bumper sticker around here that has a US flag and says:

WAKE UP!

I need to put that on my car. Today.

[Straight Shooter]

6. Turley sounds like Samuel Adams (from article published in 1771).

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.

[Usrename]

7. He has a myopic view of politics.

I don’t think that he understands the apartheid nature these laws. Separate rules and civil rights for different classes of folks. A completely different set of rules for some, the creation of a new species of sub-human, for now we can define them as detainees or illegal combatants but we know who they really are.. it’s all those brown people with all that oil.

It is frightening that a guy like Hurley fails to recognize any of this or to speak out against it. Hell, even the Pope is on-board with this vision of the new apartheid based on race or religion, at least that is what it sounds like, based on his recent comments about Islam.

<snip>

“I happened to believe we are living through a crisis of faith,” Professor Turley emphasized. “There are people in our government, who for some reason, have lost faith in their heritage...There is only one rule, in the Madisonian system, that can never be broken. And, that rule is: you cannot go outside the rules...Madison built a system that is idiot proof. God knows we have tested that. We have had morons for president and we are still here. It is a system designed to survive...You have to take the leap of faith. President George Bush is a relativist...He’s a legal relativist. He believes the law is a technicality...He always has. It doesn’t make him evil. It just makes him a man of zeal.”

<snip>

I really think he is wrong here. There is only one rule, all men are created equal.

We should never willfully create a sub-class of non-humans that have different civil rights – it is un-American to even consider it.