The Bush Dictatorship

“WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration has told the Supreme Court for the first time that it believes the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess guns, reversing the government's longstanding interpretation of the Second Amendment.

At the same time, Justice Department lawyers said the high court need not test that principle now.

"The current position of the United States ... is that the Second Amendment more broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms," Solicitor General Theodore Olson wrote in two court filings this week.

That right, however, is "subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse."

Olson, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, was reflecting the view of Attorney General John Ashcroft that the Second Amendment confers the right to "keep and bear arms" to private citizens, and not merely to the "well-regulated militia" mentioned in the amendment's text.

Ashcroft caused a stir when he expressed a similar statement in a letter to the National Rifle Association last year.

"While some have argued that the Second Amendment guarantees only a 'collective' right of the states to maintain militias, I believe the amendment's plain meaning and original intent prove otherwise," Ashcroft wrote.

Critics accused him of kowtowing to the NRA and of undermining federal prosecutors by endorsing a legal view 180 degrees from what has been official Justice Department policy for some 40 years.

At the time it was not clear whether Ashcroft was expressing his personal view, or stating a new policy position for the federal government. That question was mostly answered last November, when Ashcroft sent a letter to federal prosecutors praising an appeals court decision that found "the Second Amendment does protect individual rights," but noting that those rights could be subject to "limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions."

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals went on to reject arguments from Texas physician Timothy Emerson that a 1994 federal gun law was unconstitutional. The law was intended to deny guns to people under restraining orders.

"In my view, the Emerson opinion, and the balance is strikes, generally reflect the correct understanding of the Second Amendment," Ashcroft told prosecutors.

Emerson appealed to the Supreme Court, putting the Justice Department in an awkward position. Although the government won its case in the lower court by using the old interpretation of the Second Amendment, Ashcroft had switched gears by the time the case reached the high court.

Olson's court filing Monday urged the high court not to get involved, and acknowledged the policy change in a lengthy footnote. Olson also attached Ashcroft's letter to prosecutors.

Olson made the same notation in a separate case involving a man convicted of owning two machine guns in violation of federal law. In that case, the government also won a lower court decision endorsing a federal gun control law.

"This action is proof positive that the worst fears about Attorney General Ashcroft have come true -- his extreme ideology on guns has now become government policy," said Michael D. Barnes, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which promotes gun control.

Barnes noted that other federal appeals courts and the Supreme Court have not found the same protection for individual gun ownership that the 5th Circuit asserted in Emerson.

The Supreme Court last ruled on the scope of the Second Amendment in 1939.

The amendment protects only those rights that have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well regulated militia," the high court said then.

The cases are Emerson v. United States, 01-8780 and Haney v. United States, 01-8272.

The brief amendment states, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Gun control advocates and Democratic and Republican administrations going back decades have focused on the first part of that sentence. Increasingly, conservatives have emphasized the part about protecting "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

"I find it really so predictable, because this is what they think," said Robert Dallek, a history professor and presidential scholar at Boston University. "I think they're really terribly reactionary when it comes to these questions of gun control, the environment, federal regulation."

This is yet another example of the Bush dictatorship amking the laws itself by circumventing Congress and the people. Bush is the devil.”

“Another example of an out-of-control Bush administration:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration announced Monday it was rejecting the International Criminal Court treaty. The United States worries the court would try to assert improper jurisdiction over American citizens.


The U.S. State Department sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan notifying him of the decision to not be a party to the treaty. Officials said the department would send cables to its embassies informing them of the decision and instructing the ambassadors to go to their host governments to explain the U.S. position.

The Bush administration objected to the court on the grounds it would not give American citizens and U.S. military personnel the same protections afforded to them under the U.S. Constitution.

President Clinton signed the treaty in December 2000, but amid concerns it might infringe on the rights of U.S. citizens and federal employees abroad, including members of the armed forces, it was never sent to the Senate for ratification.

The International Criminal Court would create a permanent forum to try cases involving charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.

Current war crime tribunals have been set up from scratch to handle individual situations such as the atrocities in Bosnia and Rwanda.

U.S. officials said the treaty would not entitle Americans to the same defense allowed to them under the U.S. legal system.


Once again, Bush breaks treaties so he can rule the world as a dictator.”

“Wait..let me get this straight...The Bush administration acts to preserve a particular right/freedom of America's citizens and that makes him a dictator...Whatever....”

“That's right. Just like not adhering to treaties that never existed.”

“I see that the fact that the Bush Administration rejecting the International Criminal Court Treaty as a good thing.”

“WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a message to the White House, the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee called President Bush's plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions "A love letter to the status quo and the polluting past."

Sen. Jim Jeffords, an independent of Vermont, said real reductions of carbon dioxide emissions "appear to have completely fallen off the table" in the president's climate change policy.

"Today's new climate policy is like delivering the final divorce papers to the public and the world," Jeffords said. "And it is divorced from the reality of global warming."

"Greenhouse" gasses such as carbon dioxide -- which are emitted from cars, power plants and other industrial sites -- are often blamed for global warming; trapping warmth in the earth's atmosphere, causing a melting of the polar ice caps and volatile weather.

The administration plan seeks to reduce greenhouse gasses through incentives to business over the next 10 years. The plan includes setting mandatory targets to reduce power plant emissions by 70 percent by the year 2018.

The president's largely voluntary plan contrasts sharply with the tougher mandatory measures for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol, which was rejected by the administration because some developing countries were exempted from it.

But the voluntary nature of the emissions reduction plan, rather than mandatory reductions, is what rankles many of the president's detractors in the Senate.

"We've found that these voluntary programs just don't work," said Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut. He pointed out that U.S. emissions are now 13.6 percent over the target set in the 1992 "Rio" treaty. Under that agreement, ratified under the former President Bush, Washington committed to achieving 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2000.

"This policy breaks that commitment," Jeffords said. "And it fails to acknowledge that we are responsible for emitting 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gasses. Under this policy our share would continue to grow."”

“Blah, blah, blah. Cut and paste, paste and cut...any opinions of your own?”

“Yes, I think kleetn is a pathetic little loser who spends his pathetic days trying to be funny, and as his method for self-esteem, he puts others down to make himself look good in the eyes of his buddies.”

“Ah, I see. And your method for building your self-esteem is calling other people pathetic. Good system. Keep it up!”

“thebackpacker...Why don't you save this for the 2004 election..and let your vote do the talking..the endless hack posts on TT clog the board of its more positive subject matter..and to be quite frank irritates the hell out of me...”

“..and to be quite frank irritates the hell out of me...

Exactly what TPB is trying to accomplish.”

“His method of garnering self-esteem also involves hypocrisy of the greatest degree. The Anti-semitism in his other threads has completely poisoned me to any sense he might ever have made.”

“"Exactly what TPB is trying to accomplish"

Good..mission accomplished...now he can run along and play with his socialist buddies in their community sandbox...”

“"Yes, I think kleetn is a pathetic little loser who spends his pathetic days trying to be funny, and as his method for self-esteem, he puts others down to make himself look good in the eyes of his buddies."

As opposed to The Backpacker who has some weird, John Hinkley type of fetish/obsession for Dubya.”

“I thought that was why we liked Kleety.”

“Attention MORONS:

If you don't like my threads...

DON'T READ THEM!!!!

DON'T RESPOND TO THEM!!!

DON'T BE SO BLOOMING STOOPID.

However, you will notice some people like to discuss my topics with responses into the hundreds.

Get a life morons!”

“Somebody hasn't been laid in a while...”

“Apparently this is the only place he can get a rise.”

“On one thread, thebackpacker actually called himself Artex, at the end of his posting. Did anyone else see him sign a name at the end of a post?”

“LyndyS:

It's supposed to be that way. It's to show the hypocrisy of you people, in particular Artex, complaining about my non-backpacking related topics.”

“These "death to america" threads are real boaring... Blah Blah Blah...”

“so really, what are you hopeing to accomplish here?”

“I think that thebackpacker needs to check out orthomolecular psychiatry. The successful correcting of brain chemistry could vastly improve thebackpacker's ability to conceptualize and express himself, and diminish his social paranoia.”

“I appreciate thebackpacker. His views are nearly always 180 degrees opposite mine. His arguements are so skewed and full of contradictions that even liberals are compelled to embrace the conservative alternative.

His absurdity validates and promotes my conservative ideals.

Thanks”

“His posts actually justify retroactive abortion.”

“Hello again dears, I am sorry my son's little posting habits are upsetting to some. Please excuse my son's manipulative nature. He's a very bright child but severely hyperactive. His therapist says that sometimes children make up fantasies about the adult world in order to believe they fit in. You see, thebackpacker is a very bright child, and all his teachers agree that when he gets off medication he will be able to leave his imaginary friends and family behind and concentrate on his studies. Until then, please respect our wish to allow him to educate himself at his own pace.”

“His absurdity validates and promotes my conservative ideals.

Thanks"
bacpac
06:15:07 PM
05/10/02


you be mixed up, bacpac, as I have previously exposed your ideals/beliefs as communist and facist. Read "GOD BLESS AMERICA" again.”

“Thebuttpacker signed his name "Artex" on another thread? Not sure what that's about, but this guy's mama sure is ugly.”

“Artex, you are scaring me!”

“YaaaHooooo!!!!!”

“Actual screen shot from New Zealand's TV3 news program:




Most honest media outlet in the world?”

“ok....this clinches it for ya violin.....it's official.....












you are 50 lbs of crap in a 10lb bag....”

“I dunno calling Bush a fascist threatens to reduce the term to a name to throw at someone whose politics you don't like. I'm for using terms like that with a little more precision.”

“I just figured spock/thebackpacker/alaska got a job with New Zealand TV3.”

“LOL! S/T/A probably wouldn't have granted Bush professional status.”

“ok violin, that's not bad....lol @ peddy too”

“So much HATRED, and on a Backpacking website, go figure! These extreme views tend to push others into opposition rather than convincing one to join the cause. Does he really backpack, probably not, backpackers tend to be more calm, level headed and accepting of different opinions.”

“Who have YOU been hiking with?”

“"ok....this clinches it for ya violin.....it's official.....you are 50 lbs of crap in a 10lb bag...."

It took you THIS long to figure this one out? You are either very forgiving or very slow. I tend to think you're very forgiving. Violin's been full of shat from day one.”

“Stump, if that's a real question then here's the answer:

Original Llama Hike:
SierraMel
Creekjumper
Freedom
Phil
Cork
Meerkat
Solitary
Nomad
Nigal
Trinity Trekker
ChinaChas
Obi Wan Canoli
Rockman
Roseymonster
Didjifan
Oldtimer
Calntv (I met him, didn't hike)
Lipstick Hiker
Lookinglass

But mostly I hike solo. I've backpacked 4 of the last 5 weekends, the weekend I didn't, I flew to Texas for my 20 year high school reunion. For the year I have 29 bag nights.”

“Bush would be more properly called a Corporatist, since he is a merging of state and corporate power.”

“I'm new to this website, but I just had to respond. Bush is more dangerous to the American people than any terrorist or common dictator. He is poisoning the land air, and water with his dangerous environmental policies; and he is destroying the National Parks and wilderness areas by way of overlogging, overminning, and overdrilling.

Hey, Violin! Keep the information flowing.”

“

Another one joins the party!”

“I lmao at anyone who questions Dunk's hiking. He is hard core man. The dude did King's Canyon with a freakin' tarp!”

“People like bearbum are stealing oxygen from those of us who need it to breathe. Word of advice to you. Get a brain and use it.”

“Ok then Ultra, don't worry about the issues or challenge what he says. Just call him stupid.”

“and a lesson to be learn for the producer who joked on that one.”

“Bush will be a one term weenie.......say goodbye, Georgie”

“you may be correct Tom....i'm considering voting libertarian....”