my 2:05pm is meant for you. I neglected to add the salutation.

An opinion cannot be factually wrong. You can disagree with it and you can make points to that affect and you can try to change it.

I suggest we drop this as I feel that it is dragging down the tone of this site. I would also suggest that you recognize that disunity amongst us is what the left savors and that is another reason for dropping this.

Fair enough?

I’m open to it, but at this point, I’m comfortable enough with an American terrorist being assigned an outlaw value or an enemy value when engaged in hostilities.

mf Says:
September 9th, 2014 at 10:38 am
vanderleun:

How so?”

I rest my case.

Tell that to the mercenaries some of the Left’s allies got killed at Fallujah.

My point is that the language is plain, and it protects us against what you fear. And if that language is going to be abused, and the power usurped, by a government, it could be done without the bill and without the language.

You can’t protect against power seizures by not passing reasonable legislation, drafted as well as possible.

Of course your reasoning is fine, and on the surface I think Cruz’ proposal is imminently good. At this point however, I remain acutely aware of something I’ve been saying for years, “If it weren’t for unintentional consequences, Congress would be of no consequence at all.” which betrays, I suppose, a fundamental mistrust of our system of government to act in the way it was designed, or that reasonable people would expect. In other words, I don’t trust the consequences of a law in the post-rule-of-law period. I don’t trust that anyone in charge is actually doing what they are claiming to do, even when what they are claiming to do isn’t itself patently insane and stupid, which isn’t so often these days.

Am I being too cynical? Perhaps. Am I merely jumping the gun on a trajectory that we are clearly on, but which has not yet been fully completed? More likely.

I guess I should be more trusting of simple, plainly-worded language, which is what we are talking about here, and not the incomprehensible and incomprehensibly huge bills that have become the standard MO for Congress these days. It’s hard to trust in the government when a majority of the electorate either don’t understand, or more likely, flatly reject the principles upon which our Republic and its government were founded. I worry that even the proposals of one of the few people I tend to trust (such as Cruz) won’t be distorted and twisted into a political weapon, as opposed to a tool for combating the sworn, mortal enemies of the United States and indeed all of civilization, which is the intent.

So as far as the spirit of this law goes, I’m all for it.
I think it’s long past the time we started taking people at their word (and that includes countries, and not just individuals). I think merely giving vocal support to someone like ISIS should be enough to declare someone an enemy of the state. Declaring your intent to harm someone is a threat, and we put up way too much of that nonsense. Claim your goal is to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea? That’s a declaration of war. Claim your goal is the violent overthrow of the U.S., which is certainly the intent of folks like ISIS, had they the capacity to do so, then you’ve declared war. Off with their passports… if not heads.

and if i am not a citizen of another state, they cant either.

ie. i can claim it all to myself, as i am a country unto myself, and my country does not require taxes as i have no schools, bridges, politicans etc.

welcome to artfldgerstan

How so?

Then we disagree.”

Actually, mf, that’s not exactly the case here. The case is that, frankly, you are wrong. It’s hard to admit but, to paraphrase, if someone doesn’t tell you what your problem is , they ensure your problem will remain.