Why Don't They Move to North Korea?
Today is Friday, 30 June 2006.
As mediamatters.org yesterday noted, at least one political commentator/entertainer on Fox News (Brian Kilmeade) has called for imposing an “Office of Censorship”, which would have the power to determine what the American people could and could not be told by the news media about the warmaking conduct of their government. Such would-be censors invariably claim this is justified by the “global war on terror”.
Those who advocate censorship almost always claim to be strict constructionists of the Constitution. That is, the Constitution must be interpreted only in the terms in which the Framers conceived it, and according to their explicit words only.
Very well. The First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law … abridging freedom of speech, or of the press”. Strict constructionism can only conclude that “no law” means “no law”; no exception is stipulated for wartime. Strict constructionism means that, if the Framers intended press censorship to be within the inherent powers of the Executive as Commander in Chief in wartime, the Framers would have had to explicitly state this, and they did not.
Even if there were such an intention explicitly stated, according to the Constitution, the “Congress shall have the power … to declare War”. (Article I, Section 8) The Constitution says nothing of a “use of force” resolution as a substitute for a Congressional declaration of war. Therefore, as Congress has not declared war, there are thus no “wartime conditions” to justify press censorship, even if the Constitution allowed it, which it does not.
The strict constructionist analysis of press censorship is inescapable: it is patently unConstitutional.
It's worth asking: Why did the Framers vest the war power only in the Legislative, and not in any degree in the Executive? Because the Framers had first-hand knowledge, as well as historical knowledge, of the abuses that almost always occur when the Executive is invested with monarchical powers in such areas as warmaking.
The only “war” is in Bush’s mouth, and is rhetoric and propaganda, not Constitutional substance. If Bush wishes to claim war powers, he must ask Congress for a formal and Constitutional declaration of war (and even then he has no Constitutional power to censor).
If Bush is unilaterally claiming and exercising war powers, he is unConstitutionally usurping the power of Congress and thereby overthrowing the Constitution, a high crime and misdemeanor for which any president should and must be impeached and removed from office and, for the good of the Republic, probably indefinitely detained as an enemy combatant against the Constitution. (I suggest chained to a stake in Death Valley as an appropriate detention venue for such an egregious miscreant.)
Of course, since World War II, cowards in Congress and in the citizenry have allowed every president to wage wars while calling them by other names, thus mocking and overthrowing the Constitution. Real strict constructionists would condemn these presidents. The fact that those who pretend to be strict constructionists refuse to do so only confirms their deceit and hypocrisy.
If the Kilmeadians of this nation want press censorship and war at Big Government’s whim, I suggest they move to a country which embraces such anti-American values, and, in a decade or so, send us an eyewitness account.
If they don't like it here, why don't they move to North Korea?
The Museum of the Bourgeois will gladly contribute $10 for Kilmeade & Company’s one-way plane ticket to North Korea, and encourages others to do the same.
_______________________________
On this day in history:
1934 --- Press censorship advocate A. Hitler murders hundreds of political opponents in the purge known as “The Night of the Long Knives”
As mediamatters.org yesterday noted, at least one political commentator/entertainer on Fox News (Brian Kilmeade) has called for imposing an “Office of Censorship”, which would have the power to determine what the American people could and could not be told by the news media about the warmaking conduct of their government. Such would-be censors invariably claim this is justified by the “global war on terror”.
Those who advocate censorship almost always claim to be strict constructionists of the Constitution. That is, the Constitution must be interpreted only in the terms in which the Framers conceived it, and according to their explicit words only.
Very well. The First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law … abridging freedom of speech, or of the press”. Strict constructionism can only conclude that “no law” means “no law”; no exception is stipulated for wartime. Strict constructionism means that, if the Framers intended press censorship to be within the inherent powers of the Executive as Commander in Chief in wartime, the Framers would have had to explicitly state this, and they did not.
Even if there were such an intention explicitly stated, according to the Constitution, the “Congress shall have the power … to declare War”. (Article I, Section 8) The Constitution says nothing of a “use of force” resolution as a substitute for a Congressional declaration of war. Therefore, as Congress has not declared war, there are thus no “wartime conditions” to justify press censorship, even if the Constitution allowed it, which it does not.
The strict constructionist analysis of press censorship is inescapable: it is patently unConstitutional.
It's worth asking: Why did the Framers vest the war power only in the Legislative, and not in any degree in the Executive? Because the Framers had first-hand knowledge, as well as historical knowledge, of the abuses that almost always occur when the Executive is invested with monarchical powers in such areas as warmaking.
The only “war” is in Bush’s mouth, and is rhetoric and propaganda, not Constitutional substance. If Bush wishes to claim war powers, he must ask Congress for a formal and Constitutional declaration of war (and even then he has no Constitutional power to censor).
If Bush is unilaterally claiming and exercising war powers, he is unConstitutionally usurping the power of Congress and thereby overthrowing the Constitution, a high crime and misdemeanor for which any president should and must be impeached and removed from office and, for the good of the Republic, probably indefinitely detained as an enemy combatant against the Constitution. (I suggest chained to a stake in Death Valley as an appropriate detention venue for such an egregious miscreant.)
Of course, since World War II, cowards in Congress and in the citizenry have allowed every president to wage wars while calling them by other names, thus mocking and overthrowing the Constitution. Real strict constructionists would condemn these presidents. The fact that those who pretend to be strict constructionists refuse to do so only confirms their deceit and hypocrisy.
If the Kilmeadians of this nation want press censorship and war at Big Government’s whim, I suggest they move to a country which embraces such anti-American values, and, in a decade or so, send us an eyewitness account.
If they don't like it here, why don't they move to North Korea?
The Museum of the Bourgeois will gladly contribute $10 for Kilmeade & Company’s one-way plane ticket to North Korea, and encourages others to do the same.
_______________________________
On this day in history:
1934 --- Press censorship advocate A. Hitler murders hundreds of political opponents in the purge known as “The Night of the Long Knives”
posted by HH at 9:59 PM
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