A Case For Impeachment

[wkmac]

OK, don't freakout Bushees but I found this article of interest especially from it's historical look at this approach.

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002302

I also asked myself if we were willing to impeach a few from time to time, if in return we'd get a more honest gov't that wasn't store bought by other interests. It is something to consider IMO.

 

[brett636]

Democrats have been calling for the impeachment of Bush since he beat Al Gore by 300 or so votes in Florida. It really has nothing to do with anything he has done wrong, but democrats who were sore over losing the white house. Bush has less than a year to go in his presidency, and congress can barely agree on anything as it is so impeachment is a non issue. As time goes on history will judge President Bush as one of our best, although somewhat controversial, leaders. There will be a time when people will look upon these days with fondness instead of the bitterness so many hold today.

 

[diesel96]

Democrats have been calling for the impeachment of Bush since he beat Al Gore by 300 or so votes in Florida. It really has nothing to do with anything he has done wrong, but democrats who were sore over losing the white house. Bush has less than a year to go in his presidency, and congress can barely agree on anything as it is so impeachment is a non issue. As time goes on history will judge President Bush as one of our best, although somewhat controversial, leaders. There will be a time when people will look upon these days with fondness instead of the bitterness so many hold today.

You mean Gore vs Bush where the Fla. supreme court declared to recount a flawed election. Ironically, the Republicans turned to Big Daddy( the Federal Gov't) to get involved and entitled themselves over a state ruling. Your right about impeachment as a non-issue being that there's less than a year to go. I can't envision Bush's legacy as positive, cause there's constitutional issues, foreign policies issues, there's Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove sticking on Bush like gum on the botton of his shoe. Perhaps without those fellows pulling his strings he wouldn't of strayed off the beaten path.

 

[traveler]

You mean Gore vs Bush where the Fla. supreme court declared to recount a flawed election. Ironically, the Republicans turned to Big Daddy( the Federal Gov't) to get involved and entitled themselves over a state ruling. Your right about impeachment as a non-issue being that there's less than a year to go. I can't envision Bush's legacy as positive, cause there's constitutional issues, foreign policies issues, there's Cheney, Rumsfield, and Rove sticking on Bush like gum on the botton of his shoe. Perhaps without those fellows pulling his strings he wouldn't of strayed off the beaten path.

You heard very little about this in the press but a few newspapers in Florida under the freedom of information act recounted the Florida ballots in the contested election and Bush, again, came out the winner.

 

[diesel96]

You heard very little about this in the press but a few newspapers in Florida under the freedom of information act recounted the Florida ballots in the contested election and Bush, again, came out the winner.

So let me get this right, a few nespapers in florida recounted the Fla ballots instead of the Supervisor of Elections and their staff.
I guess thats why we've heard very little about this.

http://www.bushwatch.com/gorebush.htm

 

[brett636]

So let me get this right, a few nespapers in florida recounted the Fla ballots instead of the Supervisor of Elections and their staff.
I guess thats why we've heard very little about this.

http://www.bushwatch.com/gorebush.htm

Yea, your right. We should have just counted all the ballots that weren't clear on their choice as votes for Al Gore. Nothing says democracy like letting a few election officials to decide the outcome of a presidential election based on their interpretation of someone's indeterminable vote.

 

[diesel96]

Yea, your right. We should have just counted all the ballots that weren't clear on their choice as votes for Al Gore. Nothing says democracy like letting a few election officials to decide the outcome of a presidential election based on their interpretation of someone's indeterminable vote.

Ironically, thats what we have in the form of electoral and super delegates. If you go by the popular vote, well I guess you know who would have won back in 2000' and perhaps a few other election results could have been altered by the popular vote as well.

 

[wkmac]

I know for the case of the argument being debated here about elections and lack of or proper vote counting but in all of this, we seem to have the argument of whether the right count of poular votes were taken or not. Just for starters, would any of you like to point to me in the described process in Art.2 of the Constitution having to do with electing a President where first off, there is a right of every citizen to vote for the President?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articleii.html#section1

And don't leave out Amendment XII either.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxii.html

Just for comparison, check out Art. 1 Sec. 2 which prescribes the means of electing Representatives to the Congressional House in Washington and the language used in identifying just who it is that votes to accomplish that process.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section4

Sec. 3 following describes the manner in which a Senator is elected.

Now here's my point. We can go on and on all day about the popular vote but it's meaningless. We can debate if that is right or not and most people including some who liked the ultimate outcome of 2000' would even side with the idea of making a President based purely on popular vote.

In this day of the created imperial President I can see where both sides would love this as a means to co-op even further their own powers to their own agendas. However, to me the language is clear that the process to elect a President is based on electors being chosen by the individual States in a manner the State legislatures determine and thus the manner the electors are chosen is left up to the States themselves. They could have elections by the populace or draw straws from a hat. It's up to them and I doubt the straws from a hat would go over with the citizens of any state BTW.

If you decide to force upon the people a process outside the written law of the Constitution and that process becomes a societal norm, then you are in effect saying that the Constitution in this area is no longer needed. In our times of legal precedence, if you signal to gov't that one area no longer need be obeyed, then why should they continue to do the same with other parts of the document? You claim the President is violating long held tenets of liberty and privacy (and I would agree) in his own drive for power so my question to any of you, are you now throwing in the towel and becoming exactly the very wrong you see in him? And you wanna throw rocks at the neo-cons? Do glass houses come to mind?

Or have you for so long ignored the document yourself and thus we've signaled the Federal gov't of both parties that the document is no longer of any meaning and therefore it's checks and balances are of no consequence? Has the drive of our own agendas to feather our own local beds been our undoing and thus Washington is really following us where we want to take them because of our own ignorance but they are manipulating because we are to stupid to see it and they and their cronnies are profitting from it instead of objecting and correcting our error?

Interesting that the Individual States choose the Senate and in effect choose the President and to a certain extent set the SCOTUS too as a result. Seems to me more and more that the original idea was for the State to be the dominate power and thus being a member of that State you and your neighbors were free to set your own agendas within your own communities regardless to some extent of what others 1000 mles away did.

Would it matter what Berkley Cal. did in that type of world? Would Berkley even be faced with having a federal military presence to even protest? You hate Iraq! Is there true grounds under a true Art. 1 Congress to advance war against Iraq? Go back to 1990' and would the founder's of this country have gotten mixed up in a Sunni/Arab war to begin with? Had we maintained neutrality and let them fight this thing out I contend and will contend that 9/11, US Cole and the 93' WTC bombing would have never happened.

As for Iraq, would we have had a CIA back in the early 60's who back the Baathist party which overthrew the Iraq gov't and set in motion the rise of Saddam? Would in the 1950's, again with our CIA, having back a coup that installed the Shah which led up to the events of 1980' and thus the problems we have today? Some of you scream about the corp. world controlling gov't but what did you expect when you consolidate the regulatory control in one place. You made it easy because now all they have to have in one single law/lobbyist firm in Washington and they only need to buy off a few hundred elected officals and whamo! Everybody wants to rule the world! What makes it even worse is they are now able to manipulate the process and in effect monopolize the business process so that upstarts find it almost impossible to compete with these companies who have special tax law written specifically for them and on top of that they get subsidation known as corp. welfare. You can laugh atthe Neo-Con hawks for their foriegn policy blowback but you're just as big a butt of a joke too on the domestic side.

And for you Statist Republicans, would the federal gov't have any say over local education much less be able to tell you or anyone else whether prayer in school was admissible or not under the original limited constitution? Don't like Homosexual agendas being taught in your schools? Well, you're the one who left the Constitutional reservation and now you want to 8itch! It was YOUR President under executive authority and the "No Child Left Behind" so you loose sucker!

The Constitution is not a buffet line that you can pick or choose the dish of the day. Somedays it's gonna be good eatin' and other days Steak and potatoes is no where to be found. But in the long run, the consistancy of it makes life in some sense predictable in that you know if you choose a course in life, it's good or bad based on your choices and actions and not because it was mandated to the good or bad by gov't policy. We are divided because the way things are, everything must be mandated at the federal level so therefore Washington becomes a political battleground. What's good for California and Texas may not be good for Ohio, Florida or Georgia but if the 2 former get their way in Washington, it's just tough for the latter 3 and they have to make due. Or they can do what is done now and hire lawyers and lobbyist to push their cause while the other 2 do the same to defend theirs. Or, we can take money from Colorado, Montana and Iowa and give earmarks to Ohio, Florida and Georgia to soften the blow and compensate them. Now Colorado, Montana and Iowa hire lawyers and lobbyist and ........

See how this crap works! Wake up!

 

[brett636]

Ironically, thats what we have in the form of electoral and super delegates. If you go by the popular vote, well I guess you know who would have won back in 2000' and perhaps a few other election results could have been altered by the popular vote as well.

I don't think I would have to explain to you why we have an electoral college. Yes, Al Gore did get the popular vote, but he did not win the electoral college votes which ultimately decides the presidency. The electoral college is not in the business of interpreting or counting votes, but casting votes based on how the people voted. As far as I know no electoral college members voted against their party in that election.

 

[av8torntn]

Now here's my point. We can go on and on all day about the popular vote but it's meaningless. We can debate if that is right or not and most people including some who liked the ultimate outcome of 2000' would even side with the idea of making a President based purely on popular vote.

I thought a couple of states changed their laws and now require their electoral college votes to mirror the national popular vote. Seems like Arkansas was one state. If this is true and it may not have passed I cannot really remember now the popular vote would not be meaningless as close as the last two elections were. Anyway this may not even be what you meant.

 

[wkmac]

I thought a couple of states changed their laws and now require their electoral college votes to mirror the national popular vote. Seems like Arkansas was one state. If this is true and it may not have passed I cannot really remember now the popular vote would not be meaningless as close as the last two elections were. Anyway this may not even be what you meant.

It's Maryland instead of Arkansas but on the rest of it you are correct.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3457/dropping_out_of_electoral_college/

Here is how it works and BTW under the Constitutional process, it's perfectly legal as the State itself is free to craft it's own process for choosing. Here's how it works and this is lifted directly from the article above.

How NPV works is this: Instead of a state awarding its electors to the top vote-getter in that state’s winner-take-all presidential election, the state would give its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

OK, let's say Maryland in the 2008' General Election votes among it's State voters to elect the democrat nominee President but nationally the popular vote went to the republican. (OK, you can do it visa-versa if it makes you feel better) Instead of following the will of it's people, they would follow the will of the other states so to speak. Depending of POV you could see this as a type of voter dis-enfranchisement because the State of Maryland has opted to not listen to the voice of it's citizens and listen to the voice of others.

Now again, perfectly legal under the constitution as I read it but what is the message you send to your own State voters? Here's another danger concerning this. If this process became adapted across the board, a person running for President only need to capture a handfull of States who have the largest population base and thus ignore the rest of the country and whamo, they own the White House. To take it to the next level, if a party wanted to control the WH, all they need do is control those same States and you got it! How could you do this? Well for starters, could you imagine what you could do for these States with the earmark and corp. welfare programs? Talk about buying votes. The smaller states would in time become waste lands and citizens would begin to flock to these larger populated states in order to share in the good life further entrenching the political powers that control it.

The electoral college is now only an issue because we've placed powers into the hands of the President which were never intended to begin with. If you read the organic Constitution in plain english, it's clear that the States and thus local governance were thought to be the real seat of gov't that most people would be effected day to day. Now it has become in many respects the President who holds that position more and more and we continue to craft ways in which to add to those powers.

The problem is not the process in which we vote, the problem IMHO is the voters themselves and the lack of our knowledge and understanding of what we are doing when we enter those sanctums of gov't worship to pay homage to our new gods!

And AV8, it still doesn't change what I said IMO.

 

[traveler]

It's Maryland instead of Arkansas but on the rest of it you are correct.

...Now again, perfectly legal under the constitution as I read it but what is the message you send to your own State voters? Here's another danger concerning this. If this process became adapted across the board, a person running for President only need to capture a handful of States who have the largest population base and thus ignore the rest of the country and whamo, they own the White House...

wkmac,

As I'm sure you know, this is the reason the Electoral College was initially instituted. Simply so larger states would not rule the country. Though the demographics have changed and some of the States that were insignificant in our early history are now some of the largest, the college in general does do its work well in not allowing the larger states to dominate the political scene. I have learned something about Maryland, i.e. they really don't care how their citizens vote, in other words, it is far better to put your finger in the wind to see which way it is blowing at the moment. How sad for its residents!

I just read the article you referred to and another thought came to mind. Were I in one of the states that would become insignificant, should this movement take hold and become law, I surely would be interested in either moving to a state where my vote really counted or I would help any movement in my state to secede from the union. Oh my, secession, I think that was one of the the reasons for the Electoral College in the first place?!?

 

[wkmac]

wkmac,

As I'm sure you know, this is the reason the Electoral College was initially instituted. Simply so larger states would not rule the country. Though the demographics have changed and some of the States that were insignificant in our early history are now some of the largest, the college in general does do its work well in not allowing the larger states to dominate the political scene. I have learned something about Maryland, i.e. they really don't care how their citizens vote, in other words, it is far better to put your finger in the wind to see which way it is blowing at the moment. How sad for its residents!

I just read the article you referred to and another thought came to mind. Were I in one of the states that would become insignificant, should this movement take hold and become law, I surely would be interested in either moving to a state where my vote really counted or I would help any movement in my state to secede from the union. Oh my, secession, I think that was one of the the reasons for the Electoral College in the first place?!?

Great minds think alike!


Brett's point was also a good one too along these same lines.

What's ironic is the issue you raised about secession and I was thinking those very same thoughts when I made my earlier post you referred too. There is a small but growing secession movement in this country now and things like this only add fuel to the fire. I believe that the constitution is in a real sense a contract but it's not perpetual in that it last until the majority change or desolve it. One of my heros, the 19th century abolitonist, anarchist, lawyer and legal theorist is Lysander Spooner who wrote a pamplet in series known as "No Treason" https://web.archive.org/web/20080309031935/http://www.lysanderspooner.org/notreason.htm in which he argues for the constitution to be bound to ceding generations, those generations must volunteer to that authority and if they don't, they exist beyond it's bounds. Now I know that is radical thought for many here and maybe even you but I enjoy being challenged by radical thoughts.


Lysander should also be a hero in some sense to all UPSers because he was the first to challege the federal govt's monopoly on mail carrying by creating the American Letter Mail Company in 1844'. Now the gov't put him out of business but he should none the less IMO be a hero and type of forefather to us as UPSers. Lysander also wrote a treatise in 1846 entitled, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in which he argued that our basic principles and founding, the institution of slavery ran outside those bounds and therefore had no standing of legality. I also would concur with that feeling. However, the likes of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Philips, themselves abolitionists, argued because of Art. IV Sec. 2 of the Constitution which required the return of slaves, slavery was Constitutionally protected and yes they are correct in that. Spooner's argument all hinged on legal and natural law theory which in many cases is not considered a part of the conversation when talking about the Constitution but their are hints of it within the document so the inference is there.

As we all know this in time led to secession and war and the rest as they say is history. I'm one who looks back in order to see forward because like a good map reader and at one time avid winter backpacker, when you trekked off trail and crosscountry as I often did, plotting forward meant maintaining a good bearing from the rear. We didn't have GPS then. Make a mistake and you find yourself not only off course but lost on the map itself unless you were damn good at reading elevtion lines and detail on a geo-survey map and I was pretty god at it.

History IMO is much the same way and today we are coming along regional lines more and more divided as a country, much in the way we were 150 years ago with the issue of slavery although the war itself IMHO was not about slavery. Glad to express those thoughts in another thread anytime. Compounding problem is we lack the knowledge to look behind us to understand what lay ahead of us and to plot the correct course.

But the divides that carry us today if they continue to fester, will at some point become infected and the process of secession will only grow. I understand the frustration people may feel about the electoral process especially if their guy didn't win. Hey I've voted outside the 2 parties since 1984' so how do you think I feel?

Like you said, if the major populated States come to dominate the entire process and in some respects they already do now, more and more people will become disenchanted, voter turnout will languish and the voices of secession will find an audience. And in some sense, I welcome the day!