Roniberal Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 N'est ce pas plutot la religion qui prend le pas sur la politique quand on parle de pro life et anti-euthanasie ? Perso, ça ne me dérange nullement que la morale religieuse prenne enfin le pas sur la politique mais qu'importe, mon argument ne se situe pas au niveau religieux mais juridique: je considère qu'un être humain ne doit pas être dépourvu de son droit à la vie pour le simple fait qu'il se trouve dans le corps de sa mère. Concernant l'euthanasie, je t'ai déjà répondu. Il place la volonté divine devant leur propre volonté ? Ce n'est pas parce que le droit à la vie est également reconnu par l'Eglise catholique qu'il ne doit avoir aucun fondement juridique et qu'il serait, par là-même, considéré comme quelque chose d'irrationnel.
Balko Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Parce que c'est une fausse "liberté", un concept bancal, comme le prouve le fait que des gauchistes l'invoquent. C'est a dire ? Il y a a mon avis des gauchiste pro life et anti eutanasie comme des libéraux ou conservateur pro choice et pro euthanasie non ? La volonté humaine a besoin de limites, sinon c'est non pas le règne de la liberté mais celui du chaos. Tu ne tueras point, tu ne voleras point … Dans la théorie liberal cela s'applique car le droit de propriété est sacré mais ou l'euthanasie ou l'avortement mene au chaos ? On est dans la religieu a ce niveau, plus dans la politique non ?
Ronnie Hayek Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 On est dans la religieu a ce niveau, plus dans la politique non ? Horreur ! La politique reléguée au second plan !
Roniberal Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Il y a a mon avis des gauchiste pro life et anti eutanasie comme des libéraux ou conservateur pro choice et pro euthanasie non ? Oui mais les gauchistes pro-life ou anti-euthanasie ne le sont généralement pas pour les mêmes raisons que leurs adversaires libéraux. Si les gauchistes étaient soucieux de préserver des vies humaines, ça se saurait… Dans la théorie liberal cela s'applique car le droit de propriété est sacré mais ou l'euthanasie ou l'avortement mene au chaos ? Je n'ai pas bien compris cette phrase (attention, une fois de plus, à l'orthographe et à l'expression écrite) mais j'ai l'impression que tu nies que l'avortement et l'euthanasie mènent au chaos. Il est vra que, malheureusement, de nos jours, des docteurs peuvent tuer leurs patients en toute discrétion et sans que quiconque ne s'en apercevra jamais… Pour l'avortement, ben je connais peu de femmes qui n'ont pas éprouvé un puissant sentiment de culpabilité après avoir commis cet acte affreux…
xara Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Parce que c'est une fausse "liberté", un concept bancal, comme le prouve le fait que des gauchistes l'invoquent. Ca, c'est de l'argument…
Balko Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Oui mais les gauchistes pro-life ou anti-euthanasie ne le sont généralement pas pour les mêmes raisons que leurs adversaires libéraux.Si les gauchistes étaient soucieux de préserver des vies humaines, ça se saurait… Je n'ai pas bien compris cette phrase (attention, une fois de plus, à l'orthographe et à l'expression écrite) mais j'ai l'impression que tu nies que l'avortement et l'euthanasie mènent au chaos. Il est vra que, malheureusement, de nos jours, des docteurs peuvent tuer leurs patients en toute discrétion et sans que quiconque ne s'en apercevra jamais… Pour l'avortement, ben je connais peu de femmes qui n'ont pas éprouvé un puissant sentiment de culpabilité après avoir commis cet acte affreux… Oui l'avortement et l'euthanasie ne mene pas au chaos, au contraire c'est l'interdire qui mene au chaos. Je prend pour exemple la pologne où l'avortement est interdit mais où malgré cela il y en a 180 000 clandestin chaque année dans des conditions d'hygiène afrreuses ou les femmes risquent leur vie. Avec une legalisation, l'hygiène serait meilleur et il y aurait moins de dècès et d'abus et ceux qui ne voudrait pas se faire avorter le pourrait. Pour avoir eut des amies qui on été enceinte jeune , voir trop jeune, je peux dire que l'avortement a sauver leur avenir car elever un gamin a 16-18 ans au lycée c'est compliquer et encore plus quand on a pas de revenu. Alors oui aujourd'hui encore elle se disent :" Aujourd'hui il aurait 10 ans " mais la totalité pense qu'elle ont fait le bon choix pour leur avenir. Quand a l'euthanasie, c'est justement car aujourd'hui il n'est pas encadré qu'il y a des abus. Ayant vu des gens en phase terminal et même des enfants, je prefere qu'on abrege les souffrances que des les maintenir atificellement en vie. L'exemple de Vincent HUMBERT en France est l'exemple le plus marquant, il ne pouvait bougé et voulait mourrir. Toi tu lui aurais dit :" Non désolé, tu vas vivre dans cet état jusqu'a ce que tu meurs de veillesse ". J'ai du mal a le concevoir. J'ai mon avis, tu as le tiens sur cette question. Ps pour les modos : Si vous trouver que cette discussion dérive je veux bien créer un nouveau sujet.
Taranne Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Dites donc, on ne va pas encore repartir sur l'avortement et l'euthanasie, hein?
Balko Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Dites donc, on ne va pas encore repartir sur l'avortement et l'euthanasie, hein? Etant nouveau sur ce forum, je suis pas au courant que cette discussion sur Ron PAUL avait eut lieu , si oui désolé pour le désagrement.
Chitah Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Etant nouveau sur ce forum, je suis pas au courant que cette discussion sur Ron PAUL avait eut lieu , si oui désolé pour le désagrement. Non non, c'est l'avortement et l'euthanasie qui ont été beaucoup abordés, utilise donc le moteur de recherche pour voir la teneur des discussions.
Phil Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Je ne suis pas d'inspiration liberal ( tout le monde n'est pas parfait ) mais je me demandais comment on pouvait être libertaire comme Ron PAUL et être pro-life et contre l'euthanasie ? Si tu veux ne plus confondre LIBERTIN, LIBERTAIRE et LIBERTARIEN http://www.quebecoislibre.org/philo1.htm (tu peux prendre note ) Donc, concernant l'avortement, la vie du foetus prend le dessus sur le supposé "droit de la femme à disposer de son propre corps". D'un point de vu scientifique le foetus ne fais pas parti du corps de la femme, il est dedans mais ne prend pas part dans toute les activités vitale comme respirer, manger etc. C'est une sorte de parasite. Les pro-choice ne défendent ni un point de vue religieux, ni un point de vue scientifique. Pour moi toutes ces questions d'avortements, de qui peut manger quoi et boire quoi sont des issues qui ont moins d'importance (même si la situation actuelle me déplait) par rapport à la politque étrangère des US, de revenir un dollard qui vaut quelquechose, éliminer la FED etc. Donc RP peut avoir les opinions qu'il veut sur les petits problèmes, il peut même aimer le baseball, çà me dégoutera pas de sa campagne.
Roniberal Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Oui l'avortement et l'euthanasie ne mene pas au chaos, au contraire c'est l'interdire qui mene au chaos. Tout d'abord, l'avortement n'a été légalisé que depuis peu. L'interdiction a longtemps été la norme et le reste encore dans quelques pays civilisés comme l'Irlande (où, aux dernières nouvelles, le chaos ne règne pas plus qu'en France). Quant à l'euthanasie, je ne peux que t'inciter à te renseigner sur la situation en Belgique et aux Pays-Bas où justement, cette pratique a débouché sur le chaos là-bas puisque des docteurs se permettent impunément de tuer des patients sans leur accord. Je prend pour exemple la pologne où l'avortement est interdit mais où malgré cela il y en a 180 000 clandestin chaque année dans des conditions d'hygiène afrreuses ou les femmes risquent leur vie. Déjà, l'avortement est permis en Pologne pour nombre de cas, y compris le viol ou en cas de mauvaise santé mentale de la mère (durant les trois premiers mois). Ensuite, tu m'excuseras mais si des femmes commettent ce crime clandestinement et dans une situation sanitaire épouvantable, et bien la seule personne pour laquelle j'aurai de la peine sera le pauvre embryon et certainement pas la mère qui n'aura eu que ce qu'elle mérite. Il me semble hautement plus intelligent et humain de donner son bébé en adoption après la grossesse plutôt que de risquer sa vie (en plus, évidemment, de celle du foetus) de cette façon. Pour avoir eut des amies qui on été enceinte jeune , voir trop jeune, je peux dire que l'avortement a sauver leur avenir car elever un gamin a 16-18 ans au lycée c'est compliquer et encore plus quand on a pas de revenu. Encore une fois, l'adoption me semble être une solution alternative beaucoup plus humaine que l'avortement. Tu me répondras: "oui mais peut-être qu'en voyant le bébé à la naissance, elle n'aura plus envie de s'en séparer et elle voudra l'élever alors même qu'elle n'aura nullement les moyens financiers de le faire". Ben, peu importe, à un moment donné, il faut prendre ses responsabilités et en finir avec la désécralisation de la vie humaine à laquelle s'est substituée un matérialisme assez dégoûtant. Quand a l'euthanasie, c'est justement car aujourd'hui il n'est pas encadré qu'il y a des abus. Déjà, la loi de 2005 a encadré l'euthanasie passive en France. Ensuite, quant à l'interdiction de pratiquer l'euthanasie active, ben tu m'excuseras mais cette interdiction est bien peu contraignante quand on voit les sanctions fort légères qu'encourent les docteurs qui la pratiquent. Enfin, les situations néerlandaise et belge te donnent tort car là-bas, on a été bien au-delà de l'euthanasie, allant même jusqu'à tuer des patients sans leur accord (50% des patients - quand même! - aux Pays-Bas). L'exemple de Vincent HUMBERT en France est l'exemple le plus marquant, il ne pouvait bougé et voulait mourrir. L'affaire Vincent Humbert est une escroquerie qui ne dit pas son nom: comment un type victime d'un traumatisme crânien sévère, ayant été plusieurs mois dans le coma (je passe sur toutes les séquelles de son accident…), a-t-il pu écrire un bouquin reprenant in extenso les thèses de l'Association pour le Droit de Mourir dans la Dignité? Comment ça se fait que le livre ne soit paru que le lendemain de sa mort? Pourquoi a-t-il été présenté comme tétraplégique alors qu'il n'a jamais eu de lésion médullaire? Il y a fort longtemps que je n'ai plus étudié les sciences (et jamais la médecine d'ailleurs) mais bon un peu de bon sens suffit à se rendre compte de cette ignoble supercherie… Pour moi toutes ces questions d'avortements, de qui peut manger quoi et boire quoi sont des issues qui ont moins d'importance (même si la situation actuelle me déplait) par rapport à la politque étrangère des US, de revenir un dollard qui vaut quelquechose, éliminer la FED etc. C'est ta conception mais il me semble quand même que c'est une question d'importance capitale, peut-être même autant si ce n'est plus que la politique étrangère américaine car c'est notre rapport avec la vie humaine qui est en jeu ici.
Taranne Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Ensuite, tu m'excuseras mais si des femmes commettent ce crime clandestinement et dans une situation sanitaire épouvantable, et bien la seule personne pour laquelle j'aurai de la peine sera le pauvre embryon et certainement pas la mère qui n'aura eu que ce qu'elle mérite. L'affaire Vincent Humbert est une escroquerie qui ne dit pas son nom: comment un type victime d'un traumatisme crânien sévère, ayant été plusieurs mois dans le coma (je passe sur toutes les séquelles de son accident…), a-t-il pu écrire un bouquin reprenant in extenso les thèses de l'Association pour le Droit de Mourir dans la Dignité? Comment ça se fait que le livre ne soit paru que le lendemain de sa mort? Pas exactement: 24 septembre 2000 : Vincent Humbert victime de la circulation routière tombe dans un coma de 9 mois qui le laissera tétraplégique, aveugle et muet. décembre 2002 : Grâce à ses voies de communications fonctionnelles (ouïe et pouce droit), Vincent à l'aide de son animatrice Chantal rédige sa requête de « droit de mourir » au Président de la République, afin d'abréger ses souffrances et celles qu'il perçoit chez sa mère. 24 septembre 2003 : Marie Humbert, la mère de Vincent Humbert, tente de mettre fin aux souffrances de son fils en lui administrant du pentobarbital de sodium. Son fils entre dans un coma profond. Elle est immédiatement arrêtée et placée en garde à vue. 25 septembre 2003 : C'est le jour de la parution publique du livre de Vincent Humbert Je vous demande le droit de mourir. Marie Humbert est libérée de sa garde à vue. 26 septembre 2003 : Le Dr Chaussoy décide de mettre un terme à ses souffrances. Vincent Humbert décède. Mais bon, on ne va pas "refaire le match" une nouvelle fois, hein? Si un modérateur voulait bien intervenir pour recadrer le débat, il aurait droit à ma reconnaissance éternelle pendant cinq bonnes minutes.
Ash Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Ensuite, tu m'excuseras mais si des femmes commettent ce crime clandestinement et dans une situation sanitaire épouvantable, et bien la seule personne pour laquelle j'aurai de la peine sera le pauvre embryon et certainement pas la mère qui n'aura eu que ce qu'elle mérite. Faudrait voir à pas aller jusque là même si effectivement la mère est responsable quand l'enfant reste, lui, toujours innocent.
Phil Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 C'est ta conception mais il me semble quand même que c'est une question d'importance capitale, peut-être même autant si ce n'est plus que la politique étrangère américaine car c'est notre rapport avec la vie humaine qui est en jeu ici. Je ne voulais pas dire que ce n'étais pas important. Mais ce débat continura à exister pendant encore un petit temps. Si demain, on doit faire face à une crise économique, on ne parlera plus trop d'avortement.
Roniberal Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 Pas exactement: Effectivement, je me suis embrouillé, je voulais dire: "au lendemain de la tentative d'euthanasie de la mère". Si un modérateur voulait bien intervenir pour recadrer le débat, il aurait droit à ma reconnaissance éternelle pendant cinq bonnes minutes. Oui, il faudrait peut-être scinder le fil.
Rincevent Posté 22 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 22 octobre 2007 L'interdiction a longtemps été la norme et le reste encore dans quelques pays civilisés comme l'Irlande (où, aux dernières nouvelles, le chaos ne règne pas plus qu'en France). Toi, t'as jamais mis les pieds dans un pub irlandais.
pankkake Posté 23 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 23 octobre 2007 Toi, t'as jamais mis les pieds dans un pub irlandais. Où les pères et mères de famille noient dans l'alcool leurs problèmes dûs à tout ces enfants non-désirés, et d'autres leur traumatismes dûs à leur jeunesse d'enfant non désiré. [iRONIE]
Roniberal Posté 23 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 23 octobre 2007 Toi, t'as jamais mis les pieds dans un pub irlandais. Je n'ai jamais mis les pieds en Irlande, par contre, les pubs irlandais, ça je connais mieux que quiconque.
Invité jabial Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Parce que c'est une fausse "liberté", un concept bancal, comme le prouve le fait que des gauchistes l'invoquent. On peut trouver mieux comme preuve. En pratique, ces positions de Ron Paul me dérange, mais franchement, quelle est l'alternative?
Roniberal Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Un quizz intéressant… http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460
Roniberal Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Ron Paul Score: 49 Agree Iraq Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Energy Death Penalty Disagree Immigration Social Security Line-Item Veto Marriage Sam Brownback Score: 44 Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Marriage Death Penalty Disagree Iraq Immigration Energy John McCain Score: 43 Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Disagree Iraq Immigration Marriage Death Penalty Mike Huckabee Score: 37 Agree Immigration Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Marriage Disagree Iraq Taxes Energy Death Penalty Tom Tancredo Score: 37 Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Marriage Disagree Iraq Immigration Energy Death Penalty Fred Thompson Score: 37 Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Marriage Disagree Iraq Immigration Energy Death Penalty Duncan Hunter Score: 37 Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Marriage Disagree Iraq Immigration Energy Death Penalty Jim Gilmore Score: 29 Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Social Security Marriage Disagree Iraq Immigration Abortion Line-Item Veto Energy Death Penalty Rudy Giuliani Score: 28 Agree Immigration Taxes Health Care Social Security Disagree Iraq Stem-Cell Research Abortion Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Death Penalty Dennis Kucinich Score: 21 Agree Iraq Immigration Death Penalty Disagree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Mitt Romney Score: 16 Agree Taxes Health Care Line-Item Veto Marriage Disagree Iraq Immigration Stem-Cell Research Abortion Social Security Energy Death Penalty Bill Richardson Score: 15 Agree Iraq Immigration Line-Item Veto Disagree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Energy Marriage Death Penalty Mike Gravel Score: 14 Agree Iraq Death Penalty Disagree Immigration Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Joe Biden Score: 8 Agree Social Security Line-Item Veto Disagree Iraq Immigration Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Energy Marriage Death Penalty Chris Dodd Score: 7 Agree Death Penalty Disagree Iraq Immigration Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage John Edwards Score: 7 Agree Immigration Disagree Iraq Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Death Penalty
Invité jabial Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Rendre l'immigration plus libre n'est même pas un choix proposé…
Roniberal Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Rendre l'immigration plus libre n'est même pas un choix proposé… C'est clair, il y avait plusieurs choix de réponses et tous se ressemblaient.
Rincevent Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 John McCain - Score: 38 Rudy Giuliani - Score: 33 Jim Gilmore - Score: 28 Ron Paul - Score: 27 (Ils me disent que je ne suis pas d'accord avec RP au sujet de la Social Security et de l'immigration, ce qui doit plomber son score, alors que là encore je suis surpris du faible choix possible dans ces deux domaines : on ne propose que de privatiser la Sécu, pas de l'abolir. ) Fred Thompson - Score: 25 Duncan Hunter - Score: 25 Sam Brownback - Score: 23 Tom Tancredo - Score: 22 Mitt Romney - Score: 20 Joe Biden - Score: 18 Mike Huckabee - Score: 15 Chris Dodd - Score: 15 Barack Obama - Score: 14 Hillary Clinton - Score: 14 Mike Gravel - Score: 12 Dennis Kucinich - Score: 10 Bill Richardson - Score: 6 John Edwards - Score: 6
David Boring Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Ron Paul est opposé à la privatisation de la Social Security ?
Ash Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Ron PaulScore: 41 Agree Iraq Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Death Penalty Disagree Immigration Marriage ——————————-- Sam Brownback Score: 26 Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Marriage Death Penalty Disagree Iraq Immigration Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy ——————————-- Tom Tancredo Score: 25 Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Marriage Disagree Iraq Immigration Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Death Penalty Et les trois derniers c'est le trio Obama-Clinton-Edwards. Ca me semble correct donc. Le détail des réponses de RP : Ron Paul Question: What is your opinion on the war in Iraq?Answer: I favor immediate and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops. Explanation: On the House floor on January 11, 2007, Paul said, "A military victory in Iraq is unattainable, just as it was in the Vietnam war. As conditions deteriorate in Iraq, the American people are told more blood must be spilled to achieve just such a military victory. 20,000 additional troops and another $100 billion are needed for a ?surge.? Yet the people remain rightfully skeptical. Though we?ve been in Iraq nearly four years, the meager goal today simply is to secure Baghdad. This hardly shows that the mission is even partly accomplished." [More] Question: What is your position on immigration in the United States? Answer: Build a fence along the border. I am opposed to granting legal status to illegal immigrants. Explanation: In a column on April 4, 2006, Rep. Paul said, "We must reject amnesty for illegal immigrants in any form. We cannot continue to reward lawbreakers and expect things to get better. If we reward millions who came here illegally, surely millions more will follow suit. Ten years from now we will be in the same position, with a whole new generation of lawbreakers seeking amnesty." [More] Question: Do you believe the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts should be made permanent? Answer: Yes Explanation: Named House's "top tax cutter" by conservative Human Events magazine. Supported extending cuts through 2010. (Source: CNN) Question: Should federal funding of embryonic stem cell research be expanded? Answer: No Explanation: Asked at a May 3, 2007 MSNBC GOP presidential debate whether expansion of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research would progress under his administration, Paul replied, "programs like this are not authorized under the Constitution." Paul also voted against a bill expanding stem cell research on June 7, 2007. Question: Do you favor or oppose the concept of universal health care in America? Answer: Oppose Explanation: In an online column, Paul wrote, "The lesson is clear: when government and other third parties get involved, health care costs spiral. The answer is not a system of outright socialized medicine, but rather a system that encourages everyone ? doctors, hospitals, patients, and drug companies ? to keep costs down. As long as ?somebody else? is paying the bill, the bill will be too high." (Source: LewRockwell.com) [More] Question: Do you favor or oppose legalized abortion in the United States? Answer: Oppose Explanation: Rep. Paul is opposed to legalized abortion but says the issue should be left to the states. Question: Do you favor the concept of privatization of Social Security to any degree? Answer: No Explanation: According to the Cato Institute, "Paul contends that Congress must stop spending in order to best fix the problem of insolvency. Paul opposes personal accounts because he believes Social Security is unconstitutional. Instead, he believes that individuals should have total control over how to invest their money and is in favor of cutting payroll taxes to allow this to happen." [More] Question: Do you favor or oppose giving the president a "line-item" veto; that is, the ability to remove parts of a spending bill without needing to veto the entire bill? Answer: Oppose Explanation: In June 2006, Rep. Paul voted against a bill that gives the President the power to propose a veto of any provision of a bill that results in an increase in budget authority and establishes requirements and creates procedures for congressional consideration of the proposed vetoes. [More] Question: Do you support federal assistance for the production of ethanol and/or biofuel as an alternative to oil? Answer: No Explanation: Paul voted against the Long-term energy Alternatives for the Nation Act, which includes making funds available to accelerate the use of clean domestic renewable energy and alternative fuels. He also voted against the Bush administration's national energy policy which would have added to the requirement that gasoline sold in the United States contain a specified volume of ethanol. (Source: On the issues) [More] Question: Do you favor or oppose a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman? Answer: Oppose Explanation: On July 18, 2006, Rep. Paul voted "no" on a House resolution calling for such an amendment. [More] Question: Do you favor or oppose the use of the death penalty for certain crimes? Answer: Oppose Explanation: http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=260047
ts69 Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Ron Paul - Score: 27 (Ils me disent que je ne suis pas d'accord avec RP au sujet de la Social Security et de l'immigration, ce qui doit plomber son score, alors que là encore je suis surpris du faible choix possible dans ces deux domaines : on ne propose que de privatiser la Sécu, pas de l'abolir. ) Ouais, ce questionnaire nous enferme dans une vision très restreinte de ce que doit etre l'Etat. Social-démocratie ou rien…
Phil Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Ron Paul Score: 48 Agree Iraq Immigration Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Death Penalty Disagree Social Security John McCain Score: 37 Sam Brownback Score: 35 Duncan Hunter Score: 34 Fred Thompson Score: 34 Jim Gilmore Score: 31 Tom Tancredo Score: 29 Rudy Giuliani Score: 27 Mike Huckabee Score: 22 Mitt Romney Score: 19 Dennis Kucinich Score: 14 Mike Gravel Score: 9 Joe Biden Score: 8 Bill Richardson Score: 8 Chris Dodd Score: 7 Hillary Clinton Score: 6 Barack Obama Score: 6 John Edwards Score: 1 Clinton et Obama sont les mêmes.
Taranne Posté 25 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 25 octobre 2007 Rudy AwakeningAs president, Giuliani would grab even more executive power than Bush and Cheney. His mayoralty tells the story. By Rachel Morris If you drove through the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan in 1993, your first encounter with New Yorkers was likely to be with an army of men with squeegees who waded through the idling cars, wiping each windshield with a grimy cloth. (You knew to pay your attendant, because he might break your wipers otherwise.) On sidewalks, you'd be flanked by piles of garbage bags because the government was $2.3 billion in debt and couldn't afford to pick them up. On street corners of the Lower East Side, drug dealers furtively whispered code words for the sale of the day—"Express," "C-Town," "Bodybag." The local tabloids regularly carried news of race riots and gruesome crimes; more than 2,000 people were murdered each year. Esquire called the city "the worst place on earth," and 45 percent of New Yorkers said they would get out of town the next day if they could. During the mayoral election of 1993, expectations for city officials had fallen so low that New York Times columnist Russell Baker wrote, "My long experience of mayors leaves no doubt there are only two things city dwellers can reasonably expect of a mayor: one, collect the garbage; two, keep the streets paved." That year New York elected a mayor who was determined to do more. Rudy Giuliani, a dynamic former prosecutor, had been the youngest man to hold the number three position at the Justice Department, impressing his future employers with his talk of "vigor, vigor, vigor." Now, this spirit would be transferred to his hometown. Giuliani worked tirelessly. He immersed himself in policy briefings. He bargained hard with unions, cut spending and welfare, and laid off thousands of city workers in a town where one in five residents was on the city payroll. In concert with his police commissioner, William Bratton, he helped introduce innovative, aggressive methods of policing. He cracked down on the squeegee men and the drug dealers—as well as panhandlers, prostitutes, peep shows, turnstile jumpers, truants, three-card monte dealers, the mafia, the homeless, and people who rode their bicycles on the sidewalks. The city began to change. It looked cleaner and felt safer, and the crime rate plunged. In his famous article "The Tipping Point," published in the New Yorker in the summer of 1996, Malcolm Gladwell noted that New York's violent crime rate now ranked 136th among major American cities—"on a par with Boise, Idaho." That year, murders in the city fell to 984, the lowest total since 1968. The budget crisis receded, at least for the time being. In the fall of 1996, the Yankees won the World Series after an eighteen-year slump, and Giuliani triumphantly proclaimed the victory "a metaphor for a city that is undergoing a great renaissance." Liberal New Yorkers, who had shunned Giuliani in 1993, started to reconsider his appeal, and in 1997 he won reelection in a landslide. Giuliani's second term, however, would be rocky, as the personality flaws that people had sensed in his first term came to engulf New York City politics. Somehow, crackdowns on drug dealers bled into irrational vendettas against hot dog vendors and jaywalkers. The mayor ensnared City Hall in a number of ill-advised lawsuits (such as the time he was successfully sued by the Brooklyn Museum after trying to evict it for displaying a painting of the Virgin Mary smeared with elephant dung). And when New York police officers were implicated in horrifying cases of abuse, Giuliani's reflexive, belligerent defense of the NYPD antagonized minority groups and affronted many New Yorkers. By the time Giuliani left office, New Yorkers had wearied of his abrasive, vindictive behavior. At the same time, they were grateful to him for having cleaned up their city. Today, Giuliani is a front-runner for the presidency of the United States. Since 9/11 the office he seeks has been radically remade. Led by Dick Cheney, the Bush administration has expanded White House powers to levels unseen since the Nixon years. Claiming an inherent authority to act outside the law, it has unilaterally set aside treaties, intercepted telephone calls between citizens without court warrants, detained individuals indefinitely without judicial review, ordered "enhanced interrogations," or torture, prohibited by law, and claimed the ability to disregard more than 1,000 parts of legislation that it has deemed to improperly restrict its authority. To thwart oversight and checks on its power, all spheres of executive branch operations have been fortified by heightened secrecy. This expansion has warped policy decisions, undermined the country's authority abroad, and damaged the framework of laws, institutions, and processes that secure citizens against abuse by the state. It also prompts two of the most crucial, if as yet unasked, questions of the 2008 presidential race: Which contenders are most likely to relinquish some of these powers, or, at the very least, decline to fully use them? And, alternatively, which candidate is most likely to not only embrace the powers that Bush has claimed, but to seize more? The reply to the first question is complicated, but to the second it's simple: Rudy Giuliani. Many Giuliani watchers already understand that Rudy is a hothead and a grandstander, even a bit of a dictator at times. These qualities have dominated the story of his mayoralty that most people know. As that drama was unfolding, however, so was a quieter story, driven by Giuliani's instinct and capacity for manipulating the levers of government. His methods, like those of the current White House, included appointments of yes-men, aggressive tests of legal limits, strategic lawbreaking, resistance to oversight, and obsessive secrecy. As was also the case with the White House, the events of 9/11 solidified the mindset underlying his worst tendencies. Embedded in his operating style is a belief that rules don't apply to him, and a ruthless gift for exploiting the intrinsic weaknesses in the system of checks and balances. That's why, of all the presidential candidates, Giuliani is most likely to take the expansions of the executive branch made by the Bush administration and push them further still. The blueprint can be found in the often-overlooked corners of his mayoralty. Laying the Groundwork: Bringing On the Yes-Men Rudolph W. Giuliani was inaugurated on the steps of City Hall on January 2, 1994. As he pledged to end the fear that had infected the city, his seven-year-old son scampered around the dais, mouthing passages in unison with his father. The public advocate, Mark Green, was sworn in next, and delivered a typically florid address. "We need to hear more from the symphony of New York," Green intoned, "a glorious city in which each of us may rehearse and practice our parts alone, but the music is sweetest only when we come and play together into a more harmonic whole." Soon afterward, Green got a call from Giuliani's childhood friend Peter Powers, who had just started work as a deputy mayor. "The mayor didn't like your speech," Powers informed Green. "He thought it was too mayoral." That was Green's introduction to the Yesrudys. In his prosecutor days, Giuliani had insulated himself within a circle of close male associates. They were smart and dedicated and accompanied him with a certain swagger, and they could always be depended on not to outshine their boss. Others in the office derisively referred to them as the "Yesrudys" (according to the journalist James Stewart, the term was correctly pronounced with a southern slave accent). When Giuilani arrived at City Hall, he brought some of the original Yesrudys with him, including Randy Mastro (his chief of staff), Denny Young (his counsel), and Randy Levine (his labor commissioner). These men were competent, but they also owed their careers in public life to Giuliani and enforced his will unstintingly. From the first days of his term, Giuliani demanded a centralized operation that had no room for dissenters. He entrusted Tony Carbonetti, a former manager of a Boston bar in his twenties, with the task of installing loyalists not just in top positions but throughout the layers of the municipal government. The new recruits were quickly reminded that fidelity to Giuliani was their most important qualification; everyone knew the price of displeasing the mayor. "When Rudy read The Godfather," a former deputy mayor remarked approvingly to one of Giuliani's biographers, "he studied it from the point of view of how to communicate effectively down to the lowest ranks of an organization, so that every foot soldier understood his marching orders." Giuliani's determination to whip the municipal government into shape wasn't all bad. For years, New York City's prosperity had been held hostage to its feckless bureaucracy, and one of the reasons Giuliani was able to turn the city around was that he brought the government under his control. As with so much else, however, Giuliani didn't know when to stop. Most commissioners had to submit their speeches for vetting by Giuliani's aides. Giuliani boasted that he personally approved precinct-level detective promotions. A senior aide told James Traub of the Times that when Giuliani's communications director interviewed applicants, even for low-level jobs, she inquired whether they would "take a bullet for the mayor." Before long, his tough management style deteriorated into futile callousness. "People in his administration were terrified of him," said former Mayor Ed Koch. Giuliani drove out even his best officials for being insufficiently deferential. Police Commissioner Bratton, the architect of New York's crime-fighting successes, was ousted in 1996. Rudy Crew, a well-regarded education chancellor, surrendered in 1999, stalling much-needed reform of New York's schools. Ultimately, the entire city government became an extension of Giuliani's outsize personality. This allowed him to wield his authority to maximum effect, but the lack of independent voices also made him particularly susceptible to overreach. Testing the Limits of the Law Mayors of New York City have long enjoyed an unusual degree of power for an American government executive. They're able, for instance, to appoint judges and commissioners without any kind of legislative approval. In 1989, a revision of the city's charter (effectively the local constitution) granted even more power to the mayor, including greater influence over land use and contracts. Today, New York's mayor arguably has more power over the city than the governor does over New York State—or, for that matter, than the president does over the nation. Mitchell Moss, an esteemed historian of New York municipal politics, has said that the mayor "really is the king of New York." But for Giuliani, the kingship wasn't enough. The city council was a persistent annoyance to him, and he began skirmishing with it almost immediately. He also resented the intrusion of the two other major checks on his power: the Independent Budget Office, an independent financial watchdog created in 1989 as a counterweight to the mayor's enhanced authority; and the Office of the Public Advocate, which acts as an ombudsman for the city's residents. Giuliani tried to reduce the public advocate's budget, and refused to fund the IBO until 1996. Not long after his second term began, Giuliani sought to make more lasting changes. This time, he went straight for the city charter. Over the past forty years, only two commissions had been held to revise New York's governing document. During his time in office, Giuliani convened three. What's more, although the previous panels had been blue-chip affairs, Giuliani's commissions weren't very prestigious. The first, launched in 1998, was chaired by Giuliani's longtime friend Peter Powers. It was dominated by members who were undoubtedly experienced in government, but who happened to have acquired that experience by working for Rudy Giuliani. It was advised by attorneys from Giuliani's Law Department and usually met in secret. One of the first things it considered was a proposal dear to the mayor: abolishing the Independent Budget Office and the Office of the Public Advocate. Veterans of city politics were alarmed. One was longtime New York lawyer Frederick Schwarz, who had chaired the most recent commission in 1989. (He had also served as the chief counsel on the 1975 Church Committee, established after Watergate to investigate abuses of intelligence.) Schwarz sent a public letter to Powers, characterizing the commission's lack of independence as an "exercise of untempered raw power." He implored the commission not to enhance the power of the mayoralty. "[A] principal criticism of our work was that we had left a City with a mayoralty that was too strong. I did not think that was correct," he wrote. "What is crystal clear to me is that you and your Commission should not, under any circumstances, recommend an increase in the powers of the mayoralty. Nor should you recommend the elimination of independent offices … that, among other things, serve as a check on and balance to the enormous powers of the mayoralty and its huge bureaucracy." In the face of public dismay, the commission dropped its plans to eliminate the IBO and the public advocate's office. Nevertheless, as Giuliani knew, the panel still served a very useful purpose. A quirk in New York state law says that if the mayor holds a commission, neither the city council nor the public can put a referendum on the ballot. That year, the commission allowed Giuliani to prevent a proposed council referendum about the location of Yankee Stadium (Giuliani wanted to move it to Manhattan, but a referendum would have allowed voters to prevent the use of city money for the proposal). "Giuliani's commissions were painted with the brush of respectability, but it was a subtle device to block anybody else from getting a referendum on the ballot," a former city council staffer explained. Still, Giuliani wasn't deterred. The following year, he launched another commission. This time, the chairman was Randy Mastro, a former prosecutor pal, and eleven of the fifteen commissioners had once worked in Giuliani's administration or been appointed by him to a city board. Again, its mission was anything but high-minded. The first thing it considered was a revision that would ensure that if Giuliani were elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, his habitual foil, Mark Green—who as public advocate would automatically replace him—would be eliminated from the mayoral succession. When public opinion again caused the commission to retreat (even the New York Post ridiculed the proposal as a "bill of attainder"), the commission instead proposed a list of fourteen changes that would tilt the balance of power in city government further in the mayor's favor. In the end, voters rejected the changes resoundingly. Unabashed, Giuliani launched his third commission in 2001. Ultimately, his attempts to change the charter failed, but by blocking ballot measures for three years, Giuliani had managed to make his quixotic commissions work to his advantage. Breaking the Law In 1996, Doug Criscitello, a former federal budget analyst, started work as the first director of the Independent Budget Office. Criscitello expected to put his auditors to work immediately, but then he received a surprising communication from the mayor's office. It was a memorandum informing him that all the IBO's requests for data had to be referred to City Hall—despite plain language in the city charter stating that the IBO could get information directly from municipal agencies. Puzzled, Criscitello contacted Giuliani's lawyers, who reaffirmed the message. "They weren't nasty about it. They were very matter-of-fact," said Criscitello. " 'Here's how we've decided to interpret the charter, and if you disagree there's a legal process you can go through and we can get a judge to rule on this.'" Eventually, the IBO sued the mayor's office for the data, and in 1998 a state judge ruled that City Hall had violated the city charter and ordered it to start cooperating. Meanwhile, Giuliani had bought two years of time. Criscitello had run into what was becoming a signature feature of Giuliani's governing style. Chafing against the limits of his authority, Giuliani was taking an increasingly instrumentalist view of the law: it was only as good as how well it was enforced, and should be overstepped when doing so served his ends. His administration tussled in court not only with the IBO but also with numerous interest groups, the state comptroller, the public advocate, and the city council. "All of those were effectively cases that said, he's gone beyond the restraints on executive power," said Eric Lane, director of the 1989 charter commission and a law professor at Hofstra University. By 1999, the city council was forced to allocate money specifically for the purpose of suing City Hall, which had 685 lawyers on its payroll and had increased its legal budget by 41 percent since Giuliani took office. When Giuliani wanted to do something and was advised by his staff that it was illegal, it was "hard for him," one of his former commissioners explained to me. "As a lawyer, it offends him. He thinks, 'Isn't there a way around this?'" Giuliani often preferred to barrel ahead and force his opponents to go to court to restrain him. "I think he believes in a very strong executive branch, but he has a litigator's mentality," said Criscitello. "Some executive leaders do not want to rule with the constant utilization of the judicial branch, but given his background as a litigator, he's very comfortable with this." New York State's comptroller, H. Carl McCall, had a similar experience to Criscitello's when he tried to undertake routine audits of how well the city had provided services in areas ranging from restaurant inspections to policing. First, City Hall refused to provide the information. Then, in 1997, Giuliani booted McCall's auditors out of city agencies. McCall issued seventeen subpoenas in one month alone, all of which the mayor's office ignored. After two years, the state's highest court ordered his administration to turn over the information. By that time, however, Giuliani had already succeeded in the effort that mattered most to him: significantly delaying the comptroller's efforts. Not until 2000, for instance, would McCall be able to produce an audit of crime statistics, and when it finally appeared, the auditors noted that they were still unsure whether they had received all of the relevant material. As a "matter of policy," they wrote, City Hall had decided not to provide the customary document confirming that the data was accurate and complete. Giuliani also unashamedly flouted the First Amendment to crush dissent both inside and outside his government. He lost thirty-five First Amendment cases in court. His administration was found to have shut down or delayed legal protests, illegally prevented its own employees from making protected public statements, and illegally prevented New Yorkers from gathering on the steps of City Hall. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals took the unusual step of reprimanding the administration, noting, "[W]e would be ostriches if we failed to take judicial notice of the heavy stream of First Amendment litigation generated by New York City in recent years." In all of these cases, Giuliani was ultimately checked by the courts, even if his strategy had gained him valuable time. Sometimes, though, he got away with skirting the law because no one was able or inclined to restrain him. In 2000, when an off-duty security guard named Patrick Dorismond was shot and killed by undercover police officers, Giuliani released details from Dorismond's sealed juvenile record at a press conference—in plain defiance of state law. "The media would not want a picture presented of an altar boy," he said, "when in fact, maybe it isn't an altar boy, it's some other situation that may justify, more closely, what the police officer did." (Dorismond had, in fact, once been an altar boy.) In its defense, City Hall claimed—erroneously—that victims had no right to privacy after they were dead. Then it emerged that the administration had revealed details from sealed files to the media before, including the records of at least two police victims who were still alive. Although Mark Green wanted to sue the mayor's office for the leaks, the public advocate lacked the power to do so. The state attorney general didn't choose to pursue the case. Giuliani and his officials were never penalized. Resisting Every Prying Eye As his term progressed, Giuliani became increasingly unscrupulous in his manipulations of the bureaucracy to avoid oversight and transparency. He was especially sensitive about any agency charged with scrutinizing the NYPD. From the start of Giuliani's mayoralty, the need for monitoring of the police was evident. Between 1993 and 1996, complaints of excessive use of force by police rose by 56 percent. While some of the accusations may have been spurious, it was hard to know which ones, because the police department often "reinvestigated" the complaints internally and tended to find that they lacked merit. An outside body responsible for investigating police misconduct did exist—the Civilian Complaints Review Board, or CCRB. After he was elected, however, Giuliani had cut its budget by almost half. Although critics warned that the NYPD was getting out of control, Giuliani maintained that a "much better way to improve the police department is to get it to investigate itself." One month later, in August 1997, a Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima was arrested by police officers, taken to a Brooklyn precinct house, beaten, and then sodomized with the handle of a toilet plunger. In response to the public reaction over the Louima scandal, Giuliani allocated more money to the CCRB. Still, he managed to influence the outcome of its inquiries by staffing it mainly with ex-prosecutors sympathetic to the police. (One prospective investigator said that his offer of employment was rescinded after the administration discovered that he had worked for Democrats as a teenager.) Eventually, the police department was investigated by the Department of Justice, the Civil Rights Commission, and the state attorney general. Nearly half of the felony gun cases brought by the NYPD's Street Crimes Unit were found to be unconstitutional in 1999. Giuliani understood that the currency of oversight is information, and he exercised more control over information than any mayor in recent memory. His administration denied information to the public, borough presidents, the city council, and the public advocate. It improperly concealed policy decisions, contract announcements, and routine business. It forced good government organizations to file Freedom of Information requests for data they had once been given as a matter of practice, including such information as the number of working drinking fountains in public parks. Once, the city even denied a Freedom of Information request inquiring how many Freedom of Information requests had been denied. Reporters had an equally difficult time of it. The Yesrudys could be counted on not to leak to the press, and they enforced a policy of silence among subordinates. Press secretaries at city agencies weren't allowed to answer the most innocuous of questions without checking with City Hall first, including details about the water levels in the city's reservoirs that the municipal Department of Environmental Protection had once provided to the New York Times weather page. The NYPD made it harder for journalists to get basic details about daily crime. Although news organizations repeatedly sued for information and often won, it was expensive to do so, and the information often went out of date. One state judge admonished City Hall that the state's Freedom of Information law "provides for maximum access, not maximum withholding." The Final Days By 2000, Giuliani had exhausted New Yorkers with his habit of behaving as if he didn't need to observe the same rules as other politicians. Perhaps the epitome of this attitude came on May 10, when he announced at a press conference that he was separating from his second wife, without having informed her first. Two days later (on Mother's Day weekend), he allowed tabloid photographers to snap him and his mistress, Judith, taking a leisurely stroll. That year, his approval ratings fell to 37 percent (although they climbed back up to over 50 percent the following year). Still, his leadership would not have been remembered fondly were it not for the events of September 11, 2001. In the days following the attacks on the World Trade Center, Giuliani provided calm and comfort to a wounded city, and the gratitude felt by many New Yorkers erased much of what had gone sour in his mayoralty. It also kicked Giuliani's already abundant sense of exceptionalism into overdrive. One day in October, near the end of Giuliani's term, Mark Green got a call from a Giuliani aide asking him to meet the mayor at a makeshift command center on the Chelsea piers. Green, who was running for mayor, had no idea why Giuliani wanted to see him. As it turned out, Giuliani wanted to extend his term by three months so that he could finish the recovery work he had started. Would Green endorse the proposal? Green was startled. "I said, 'Well, I'm a lawyer and a historian of sorts, and even Lincoln during the Civil War went ahead with a normally scheduled election in 1864. This does not strike me as a good idea.'" Shortly after the meeting, Green said he received a call on his cell phone from Denny Young, Giuliani's soft-spoken counsel. "He made it clear to me that the mayor would be very unhappy if I didn't go along," Green recalled. "I've been in public life long enough to know what was being communicated." Green feared that if he declined, Giuliani would use his refusal to damage his mayoral campaign. Reluctantly, he agreed to Giuliani's request. Giuliani eventually dropped the proposal after a public backlash convinced the state legislature to quash it. One of Giuliani's final acts as mayor was to transfer 2,118 boxes filled with all his mayoral papers to a warehouse in Queens known as the Fortress, under the supervision of a private nonprofit that he controlled. This was an unprecedented move in city history; the law states that mayoral records are public property. (After Michael Bloomberg was elected, the city council passed a law that retroactively legalized Giuliani's action.) Seven years later, however, it's still unclear how many papers have been made available to the public. The Bloomberg administration, which is supposed to oversee the collection, doesn't know what it originally contained, and thus has no way of discerning whether any documents have been withheld. President Giuliani During his time as the mayor of New York, Giuliani's operating style became so ingrained, so pervasive, that we can imagine with some confidence what he might do with the power he would inherit as president. Already, he has surrounded himself with a group of accomplished legal advisors with especially muscular views of executive power and close ties to the Bush administration. Chief among them is Ted Olson, the solicitor general in Bush's first term. As head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan Justice Department, Olson helped develop the "unitary executive theory," which envisions a constrained role for Congress in regulating the executive branch. By Giuliani's own admission, he would, as president, perpetuate many of Bush's boldest assertions of presidential authority. In 2006, Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal that he would probably keep the detention center at Guantanamo Bay open, saying that its conditions had been "grossly exaggerated." This year, at a New Hampshire town hall meeting, he refused to say whether the Bush administration had gone too far in denying the protection of the Geneva Conventions to terrorist suspects. Giuliani has also indicated that presidents have the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial. At a debate, he declared himself opposed to torture but refused to say whether he would outlaw waterboarding, instead offering that interrogators should perform "any method they can think of." What is most disturbing is the likelihood that a Giuliani administration would venture beyond the expansive claims of executive authority staked out by the Bush White House. For instance, though Bush has demanded that Congress fund the war in Iraq, he has never openly questioned Congress's power of the purse. Giuliani, however, told a reporter that the president has the right to provide money for the troops to stay in Iraq even if Congress withdraws funding. Similarly, Bush has implied that critics of his Iraq policy are unpatriotic, but he has not declared that the government can silence their voices. This September, echoing the sentiments that he repeatedly attempted to enforce as mayor, Giuliani said that the "General Betray Us" ad paid for by the left-wing group MoveOn "passed a line that we should not allow American political organizations to pass." One might minimize the significance of these kinds of statements as the loose talk of a candidate trying to impress conservative primary voters—indeed, that is how the press has generally treated them. To believe that Giuliani is merely grandstanding, however, is to ignore his history. If he reaches the White House, he will almost certainly do what he did at City Hall: punish dissent, circumvent the law, conceal the workings of the government in secrecy, and use his litigator's gifts to obstruct mechanisms of oversight and accountability. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. once observed that the central conundrum of the American system of democracy is "to devise means of reconciling a strong and purposeful Presidency with equally strong and purposeful forms of democratic control." One of the weaknesses in the American form of government is that a leader, if determined enough, can thwart the constitutional checks on his power. The Founders weren't omniscient, and the governing apparatus they devised contains weak points that require a degree of good faith from its participants if the system is to work. In the past, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon, even the most forceful presidents didn't subvert the system of checks and balances as a matter of ideology or routine. Bush, Cheney, and Giuliani are different from each other in many ways, but they are alike in their scorn for the separation of powers. Defenders of the Bush administration's unreserved exercise of executive authority are fond of quoting Woodrow Wilson's observation that the president of the United States "is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit." Less often quoted is Wilson's unequivocal rejection of the "illegitimate means"—such as overriding or ignoring acts of Congress—by which the president can subvert the rule of law to exert his will. "Such things are not only deeply immoral," Wilson wrote, "they are destructive of the fundamental understandings of constitutional government and, therefore, of constitutional government itself." The Bush administration has walked a considerable length down such a road. Giuliani, were he to be elected president, would set off running. Rachel Morris is an editor of the Washington Monthly. http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/features…711.morris.html
Roniberal Posté 26 octobre 2007 Signaler Posté 26 octobre 2007 Les gens de RedState sont vraiment des crapules sans nom… http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/10/ron_paul Conservative Blog Limits New Ron Paul SupportersA leading conservative blog says it's heard more than enough from Ron Paul supporters, thank you. RedState.com announced Tuesday that all but veteran users are henceforth prohibited from posting messages supporting the long-shot Republican presidential candidate, whose fans have emerged as an usually vocal and motivated presence on internet forums. "Effective immediately, new users may not shill for Ron Paul in any way shape, form or fashion," wrote Leon Wolf, one of RedState's bloggers. "Not in comments, not in diaries, nada." "If your account is less than six months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in the other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul," he added. "Those with accounts more than six months old may proceed as normal." Erick Erickson, RedState's CEO and editor-in-chief, told Wired News that the decision was sparked by a flood of repetitive pro-Paul messages on forum threads by 20 to 30 Paul supporters, along with some off-color comments. New users are still welcome to join the site and post comments relevant to ongoing discussions, and even to express support for Paul, said Erickson. But he said he'd delete the accounts of those who pepper the discussions with repeated plugs for the candidate. "These people are not part of the Republican coalition. It's somewhat naive to think that these people will stay in the race with Republicans when Ron Paul is no longer in the race," said Erickson. "RedState is a private entity and they are free to do as they wish," said Paul spokesman Jesse Benton in an e-mail. "Our campaign is not involved in their decision or the work of independent individuals who use their service. It is ironic, however, that an outlet that bills itself as a clearinghouse of conservative ideas would eschew supporters of the one true conservative in the race." With more than 300,000 unique visitors a month and 1.5 million monthly page views, Redstate has a smaller readership than its leading Democratic-leaning counterparts. But it's nevertheless influential in the conservative world, making the Paul ban a controversial move. "The problem for me is that it's much more than a conservative blog -- it's an icon of the blogosphere," worried David All, a Republican internet-strategy consultant in Washington, D.C. "This doesn't hurt Paul's credibility as much as it does Redstate's," wrote blogger Ed Morrissey on his blog Captain's Quarters. "While Paul's supporters tend towards the annoying and repetitive, they have less impact because we can easily engage them and counter their arguments. Banning them simply for their support for a candidate seems more like an admission that RedState lacks that ability."
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