[luke warm]

helene_t, on Apr 21 2007, 09:14 AM, said:

luke warm, on Apr 21 2007, 03:35 PM, said:

the founders, rightly in my view, feared the tyranny of domestic government more than foreign, or more than individual citizens of the country... the purpose of the ammendment was to insure freedom from the potential tyranny of the very gov't they had established... the entire constitution, with emphasis on the bill of rights, was framed for that very reason

I've heard that argument before. Not sure if my problem is that I don't understand it, or if I just disagree, or if it's because times have changed since the constitution was written.

like i said, it isn't remarkable to me that europeans find the logic hard to understand, or even that they disagree with it... it's a matter of history and philosophy... and you and i disagree on the degree of change "times" have wrought.. governments are the same as they've always been, they all tend to usurp power until it's as centrally located as possible... the constitution as written is brilliant, it's the interpretation and application of that interpretation that has changed over the years

Quote

It seems to me that each citizens' right to writing his own blog without fear of government censorship is essential to avoiding governement tyrany. OTOH, I don't see how gun ownership could contribute. At least the present government meets more resistance from blogs than from guns. So will the next government, no matter if it's democrat, republican or whatever.

i agree that tyranny can be shown in different ways... you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed... elections? dictatorships have occurred in democracies before... our founders thought that only an armed populace could prevent that from happening here

Quote

How are citizens supposed to use their guns to control government tyranny? By shooting policemen, tax collectors, judges and politicians?

if the ones you mention are part of the constitution-destroying gov't, yes ... because of our history, as opposed to that of most european countries, it's my view that americans would fight if threatened with tyranny, unless disarmed to the point that "resistence is futile"

Quote

By shooting those criminals that don't get punished hard enough by the government? Suppose (well, "suppose") the government commits election fraud and illegal wiretapping, apoints AGs on the basis of political qualifications, and bans peace-marche participants from boarding flights. How would guns help citizens to fight back in that case?

no, the gov't has the right to punish criminals, not individual citizens (self-defense an exception)... the things you mention should be handled from within the framework of constitutional law, and it's my view that so far that is happening (congressional hearings, judicial procedings, etc)...

[Winstonm]

Quote

you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed...

A somewhat opposite but confiming approach was proposed by Thomas Jefferson:

Quote

The idea was, instead of a standing army, for every able-bodied man in the nation to be a member of a local militia, under local control, with a gun in his house. If the nation was invaded, word would come down to the local level and every man in the country would be the army

With no standing army, the government holds no threat against an armed governed.

However, Helene is right about today's America - there is simply no way the governed could defeat the standing army's military superiority. Today in America, the only thing that stands between the governed and a dictator is the side taken by the standing army if the President attempted to declare himself king.

A rather chilling group is Blackwater, a private paramilitary organization that has over 20,000 "contractors" - many call them mercenaries. These contractors are used extensively in Iraq and were used on patrol in New Orlean after hurrican Katrina. Being a private army, this group is not subject to any oversight to which this country's standard military is subject. Founded in 1996 by an rich ex-navy seal, a conservative christian, is it any wonder this group's government contracts have expanded exponentially with the increased presence of like-minded conservatives in high-level political jobs.

There is a story from The Nation about Blackwater here: http://www.thenation...402/scahill_vid

[helene_t]

luke warm, on Apr 21 2007, 09:05 PM, said:

i agree that tyranny can be shown in different ways... you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed... elections? dictatorships have occurred in democracies before... our founders thought that only an armed populace could prevent that from happening here

Most of Europe was governed by heavily armed dictators until recently. Byelorus still is. In Slovenia, the homeguard played an important role in overthrowing the dictators and in Romenia, the army sided with the rebels. For the rest, unarmed citizens defeated the dictators. The free flow of information paved the way for democracy. In Bosnia, Western Macedonia and Chechnya, hords of armed civilians contributed to political changes as well .......

This is not meant to deny the role U.S.A. played by its contribution to our liberation from the Nazis and more recently to the liberation of Kosova, and by protecting Western Europe during the cold war. And some historians think that it was the American victory in the cold war under Reagan that ultimatively defeated communism. This may be true, I don't know.

Quote

governments are the same as they've always been, they all tend to usurp power until it's as centrally located as possible... the constitution as written is brilliant, it's the interpretation and application of that interpretation that has changed over the years

I agree.

[Winstonm]

helene_t, on Apr 21 2007, 01:21 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Apr 21 2007, 06:56 PM, said:

The next day I went and purchased a shotgun with ammunition that is only used for large game.  I did this for only one reason - the feeling of total vulnerability, of total helplessness in being unarmed when facing an armed aggressor is so chillingly horrific as to be impossible to describe - it took years to get over - that I simply could not allow myself to be in that situation again if there was an alternative.

Thanks for sharing, Winston. I'll have to take back my phrasing that I cannot understand why anyone would want to own a gun.

Strange that this guy was released on bail. But OK, I'm not going to post jokes about the American justice system here. It could probably have hapened in Europe as well.

Actually, I messed up the story a bit - he was in jail for about 6 days before he was released on bail - however, our mindset over those 6 days did not change, we had been so truamatized (I know personally now what post-traumatic stress syndrome entails.) I did not buy the gun until we heard he had been released.

To say Jackie had ineffective legal counsel might be the greatest understatement in the history of the world. First, her lawyer originally had told us that we had no legal recourse to stop the estranged husband from holding the child and preventing visits. We later found out this was wrong. Had we known, the whole sordid tale would not have transpired.

The shooting incident occured in Pahrump, Nevada. In a recorded phone call to his mother from Nye county jail the night of the incident he said, "I tried to kill my wife but I think I missed." He made a plea-bargain agreement and pled guilty to "assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill."

The prosecution attorney and sentencing judge were dandies, as well, as the shooter was sentenced to no prison time and all of 3 years probation. Later, in Clark county, (with the original counsel) she lost the custody battle for her son (who had been in the back seat in the direct path of the bullet) although Nevada had recently passed a new statute that said perpetrators of domestic violence are automatically presumed to be unfit custodial parents (which we found out later on our own, and the attorney never brought up in court), and she was required to pay child support to the man who had tried to kill her, and could herself go to jail for missing a payment.

Ain't justice grand?

At least now as an ex-felon he can't legally own a gun.

[mike777]

Well reading these posts including mine you might thing the USA is the most deadly awful place of violence in the world. With private tanks, landmines, machine guns, home invasion and armed robbers it does sound frightful. Add in wiretaps, Gitmo, loss of prvacy and a few other subjects the last couple of years I could understand immigrants giving us a pass.

Please do not. We need you guys and gals to make us better, please come and visit and perhaps make us your new home. Heck even more Canadians are welcome.

[helene_t]

No worry, Mike. You know that we're just mocking out of envy.

And you already offered me a job as HRM at the justice department, so you can count on me.

[mike777]

helene_t, on Apr 21 2007, 04:10 PM, said:

No worry, Mike. You know that we're just mocking out of envy.

And you already offered me a job as HRM at the justice department, so you can count on me.

Welcome but note Washington DC may not be that safe. Congressmen get mugged there.

[pbleighton]

"And some historians think that it was the American victory in the cold war under Reagan that ultimatively defeated communism."

I differ strongly with these folks. They ignore the history they purport to study.

Communism fell victim to its "internal contradictions", to coin a phrase. It was an unsustainable economic system, whose major practitioner reformed itself peacefully. The big U.S. contributors to this reform were Nixon and Kissinger, whose detente policy opened up the Soviet empire to the political freedoms and superior economic performance of the West. These were so apparent that even a KGB trained dictator recognized what had to be done.

Contrast this productive approach with the hostility shown by Reagan, under the "intellectual guidance" of Jeanne Kirkpatrick, whose "doctrine" was that a Communist state could NEVER, NEVER, NEVER reform from within. It was theoretically impossible, and that was that. The Reagan administration also intentionally lied about the economic and military strength of the USSR, and thus the threat level (sound familiar?). The existing estimates by the career professional at the CIA and the State Department didn't fit their needs, so they brought in new people to create new estimates, which turned out to be totally wrong.

Bottom line: the Reaganauts try to claim credit for something they said was impossible. What a hat! What a rabbit!

This may be the only thread I'll ever have anything nice to say about Nixon or Kissinger, so for those of you who are inclined to enjoy it, I suggest you do so

Peter

[pclayton]

I've been away from this for a few days.

For those that are in favor of handgun control, are you just against handguns in general, or are you OK with handguns, as long as they can't be concealed?

[luke warm]

helene_t, on Apr 21 2007, 02:42 PM, said:

And some historians think that it was the American victory in the cold war under Reagan that ultimatively defeated communism. This may be true, I don't know.

yes, reagan's insistence on a 'star wars' program pushed the ussr into spending more and more on their military in an attempt to preempt any technological advantage (still unrealized) the usa might have had

[DrTodd13]

Winstonm, on Apr 21 2007, 11:40 AM, said:

Quote

you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed...

A somewhat opposite but confiming approach was proposed by Thomas Jefferson:

Quote

The idea was, instead of a standing army, for every able-bodied man in the nation to be a member of a local militia, under local control, with a gun in his house. If the nation was invaded, word would come down to the local level and every man in the country would be the army

With no standing army, the government holds no threat against an armed governed.

However, Helene is right about today's America - there is simply no way the governed could defeat the standing army's military superiority. Today in America, the only thing that stands between the governed and a dictator is the side taken by the standing army if the President attempted to declare himself king.

A rather chilling group is Blackwater, a private paramilitary organization that has over 20,000 "contractors" - many call them mercenaries. These contractors are used extensively in Iraq and were used on patrol in New Orlean after hurrican Katrina. Being a private army, this group is not subject to any oversight to which this country's standard military is subject. Founded in 1996 by an rich ex-navy seal, a conservative christian, is it any wonder this group's government contracts have expanded exponentially with the increased presence of like-minded conservatives in high-level political jobs.

There is a story from The Nation about Blackwater here: http://www.thenation...402/scahill_vid

Really? The Iraqis seem to be doing a pretty good job of fighting the US military to a standstill with small arms. All the big budget weaponry the military has is quite useless against a guerilla force embedded with the population. Guerillas can't win outright but they can wear you down until you give up. There may be some power hungry monsters at the top but if the resistance is widespread enough you'll get defections higher and higher up the military which can promote a coup to remove the tyrant. My view is that people need whatever weapons are necessary to make the military cease to have the will to suppress them. You don't need much more than rifles for this but you do need a lot of them and they need to be spread out. People are very naive. If politicians don't fear the populace they will do anything. Look at Russia...Putin is essentially a dictator now.

[cherdano]

pclayton, on Apr 21 2007, 04:26 PM, said:

I've been away from this for a few days.

For those that are in favor of handgun control, are you just against handguns in general, or are you OK with handguns, as long as they can't be concealed?

If you are asking how my ideal society looks like, I would prefer the Japanese approach where no civilian is allowed to carry handguns, and even the mafia can do without. If you are asking about what I would like to see changed in the reality of the US, I would like the ban on semi-automatic weapons reinstated (letting this run out was an unforgiveable mistake), and make it impossible to own a handgun without a license that is bound to some serious requirements (that are enforced in practice).
I would prefer to have concealed carry forbidden, but I care less about that.
I am aware that none of this will happen.

Last but not least, I would like to see the astronomically high crime risk among black American men to be understood as a problem that requires and is worth a lot of resources; if a complete ban of handguns in some city could help towards that, it would certainly be worth the sacrifice by some "law-abiding citizens". (Why do are handgun owners always called "law-abiding citizens" instead of handgun owners by gun advocates?)

[cherdano]

DrTodd13, on Apr 21 2007, 06:15 PM, said:

People are very naive. If politicians don't fear the populace they will do anything. Look at Russia...Putin is essentially a dictator now.

Yeah right. Russia was a perfectly fine democracy before Putin came along, but since there are no handguns or weapons around in Russia, he could become dictator. It has nothing to do with free speech, it is all about forbidding civilians to carry handguns.

I disagree with many here, but I can respect everyone's opinion except yours.

[Winstonm]

DrTodd13, on Apr 21 2007, 07:15 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Apr 21 2007, 11:40 AM, said:

Quote

you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed...

A somewhat opposite but confiming approach was proposed by Thomas Jefferson:

Quote

The idea was, instead of a standing army, for every able-bodied man in the nation to be a member of a local militia, under local control, with a gun in his house. If the nation was invaded, word would come down to the local level and every man in the country would be the army

With no standing army, the government holds no threat against an armed governed.

However, Helene is right about today's America - there is simply no way the governed could defeat the standing army's military superiority. Today in America, the only thing that stands between the governed and a dictator is the side taken by the standing army if the President attempted to declare himself king.

A rather chilling group is Blackwater, a private paramilitary organization that has over 20,000 "contractors" - many call them mercenaries. These contractors are used extensively in Iraq and were used on patrol in New Orlean after hurrican Katrina. Being a private army, this group is not subject to any oversight to which this country's standard military is subject. Founded in 1996 by an rich ex-navy seal, a conservative christian, is it any wonder this group's government contracts have expanded exponentially with the increased presence of like-minded conservatives in high-level political jobs.

There is a story from The Nation about Blackwater here: http://www.thenation...402/scahill_vid

Really? The Iraqis seem to be doing a pretty good job of fighting the US military to a standstill with small arms. All the big budget weaponry the military has is quite useless against a guerilla force embedded with the population. Guerillas can't win outright but they can wear you down until you give up. There may be some power hungry monsters at the top but if the resistance is widespread enough you'll get defections higher and higher up the military which can promote a coup to remove the tyrant. My view is that people need whatever weapons are necessary to make the military cease to have the will to suppress them. You don't need much more than rifles for this but you do need a lot of them and they need to be spread out. People are very naive. If politicians don't fear the populace they will do anything. Look at Russia...Putin is essentially a dictator now.

I have no overwhelming disagreement, Dr. Todd, because I know you are speaking about the necessities if an event like this were to occur - but in this day and age nothing so overt in America would ever occur - this kind of risk is no longer needed by the ruling parties and it would take the cooperation of the standing army. However, I concur that without a fear of the people, governments are more prone to do as they please.

The big risk today in America is that the illusion of a Republic could be maintained while a coup goes unnoticed, and power could be centralized with hardly a question asked. Even after it had occured, most of the public would be unaware of what had transpired and not nearly enough who realized what had occured could be organized to be an effective malitia/guerilla freedom fighter - they would be painted as conspiracy theorists, whackos, domestic terrorists, hate groups....nope, there wouldn't be a chance with the media no longer a government watchdog. So the reasoning of totally unrestricted weapon ownership in order to stop a would-be king is simply fanciful thinking - it might be right in a perfect world with a clearly identified declaration of Monarchy, but that will never happen.

Any coup that might occur now or in the future will be subtle and well-planned to present its face to the pubic as continuation of the status quo. And thus, no need to win over the army as a blatant coup would require.

So we might as well create sane gun control laws that protects individual rights while eliminating as much unnecessary violence as possible. I really don't see the need for Billy Bob Badass, freshly home after being wounded in the head in Iraq, with a serious drinking problem and a healthy case of post-traumatic stress syndrome, owning an Uzi so he can be part of the guerilla war against the government. Something in that scenario about the risk/reward ratio that seems skewed to me.

IMHO

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Apr 21 2007, 09:46 PM, said:

DrTodd13, on Apr 21 2007, 07:15 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Apr 21 2007, 11:40 AM, said:

Quote

you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed...

A somewhat opposite but confiming approach was proposed by Thomas Jefferson:

Quote

The idea was, instead of a standing army, for every able-bodied man in the nation to be a member of a local militia, under local control, with a gun in his house. If the nation was invaded, word would come down to the local level and every man in the country would be the army

With no standing army, the government holds no threat against an armed governed.

However, Helene is right about today's America - there is simply no way the governed could defeat the standing army's military superiority. Today in America, the only thing that stands between the governed and a dictator is the side taken by the standing army if the President attempted to declare himself king.

A rather chilling group is Blackwater, a private paramilitary organization that has over 20,000 "contractors" - many call them mercenaries. These contractors are used extensively in Iraq and were used on patrol in New Orlean after hurrican Katrina. Being a private army, this group is not subject to any oversight to which this country's standard military is subject. Founded in 1996 by an rich ex-navy seal, a conservative christian, is it any wonder this group's government contracts have expanded exponentially with the increased presence of like-minded conservatives in high-level political jobs.

There is a story from The Nation about Blackwater here: http://www.thenation...402/scahill_vid

Really? The Iraqis seem to be doing a pretty good job of fighting the US military to a standstill with small arms. All the big budget weaponry the military has is quite useless against a guerilla force embedded with the population. Guerillas can't win outright but they can wear you down until you give up. There may be some power hungry monsters at the top but if the resistance is widespread enough you'll get defections higher and higher up the military which can promote a coup to remove the tyrant. My view is that people need whatever weapons are necessary to make the military cease to have the will to suppress them. You don't need much more than rifles for this but you do need a lot of them and they need to be spread out. People are very naive. If politicians don't fear the populace they will do anything. Look at Russia...Putin is essentially a dictator now.

I have no overwhelming disagreement, Dr. Todd, because I know you are speaking about the necessities if an event like this were to occur - but in this day and age nothing so overt in America would ever occur - this kind of risk is no longer needed by the ruling parties and it would take the cooperation of the standing army. However, I concur that without a fear of the people, governments are more prone to do as they please.

The big risk today in America is that the illusion of a Republic could be maintained while a coup goes unnoticed, and power could be centralized with hardly a question asked. Even after it had occured, most of the public would be unaware of what had transpired and not nearly enough who realized what had occured could be organized to be an effective malitia/guerilla freedom fighter - they would be painted as conspiracy theorists, whackos, domestic terrorists, hate groups....nope, there wouldn't be a chance with the media no longer a government watchdog. So the reasoning of totally unrestricted weapon ownership in order to stop a would-be king is simply fanciful thinking - it might be right in a perfect world with a clearly identified declaration of Monarchy, but that will never happen.

Any coup that might occur now or in the future will be subtle and well-planned to present its face to the pubic as continuation of the status quo. And thus, no need to win over the army as a blatant coup would require.

So we might as well create sane gun control laws that protects individual rights while eliminating as much unnecessary violence as possible. I really don't see the need for Billy Bob Badass, freshly home after being wounded in the head in Iraq, with a serious drinking problem and a healthy case of post-traumatic stress syndrome, owning an Uzi so he can be part of the guerilla war against the government. Something in that scenario about the risk/reward ratio that seems skewed to me.

IMHO

Since a few are talking about estimating risk, humans are rather poor at this. We worry more about poison apples than car crashes.


Malevolent Strong AI?

Ok I guess nothing like this could ever happen, but I hope someone gets paid the big bucks to think out of the box and not linear.


Of course 250 million shotguns may also not be the best way to stop it.

[helene_t]

Winstonm, on Apr 22 2007, 04:46 AM, said:

The big risk today in America is that the illusion of a Republic could be maintained while a coup goes unnoticed, and power could be centralized with hardly a question asked.

Exactly. Some would say that this has already happened, or that it was very close to happening and was avoided 1 minute before midnight, during the latest midway elections.

The current U.S. president was initially elected by fraud and there have been rumors about preparations of more fraud in the future through connections between the government and the makers of ballot machine software. There have been many illegal attempts to silence the opposition (see Winston's many posts in this forum) and I'm sure at least parts of the establishment would like to go much further in that direction if they could get away with it.

Suppose the FBI knocks on Winston's door for some vague cover-up reason, probably the real reason being his posts about the 9/11 on this forum. Would the local NRA branch defend Winston?

Where does that fantasy about armed civilians protecting the democracy against upcoming totalitarianism, such as what the U.S. has experienced during this decade, come from? Surely we haven't seen civilians using their weapons to resist the deterioration of U.S. democracy so far.

Is the theory based on parallels from other countries? Like parts of Latin America, where the death patrols enforced their own law because the government was too soft?

The DoD was very visionary when they launched an information infrastructure deliberately designed to be impossible for a central government to control. I'm talking about the Internet. Not only has it brought us enormous wealth, it has also saved democracy in several countries. Yes, there has been some nasty side effects of the free flow of information as well.

Forget about weapons, when it comes to politics. It's a security issue, maybe even an important security issue. And not always a straight-forward security issue (it could be argued that the Peruvian government was right in giving the peasants weapon for defense against the guerrilla). But political power is based on information, not weapon.

[hotShot]

pclayton, on Apr 22 2007, 12:26 AM, said:

For those that are in favor of handgun control, are you just against handguns in general, or are you OK with handguns, as long as they can't be concealed?

No average citizen needs a gun/handguns.

The only people you should be allowed to have firearms are:
1) Police
2) Park ranger
3) Members of private security companies

4) Official Military forces inside their training areas.

5) If someone can proof that he needs a gun, he should be allowed ask for an exception, which can be granted by something like a court.
(e.g. living isolated in a polar bear region)

Weapons used for sport or hunting have to be designed to minimal firepower to make sure they usually won't kill a being of human size.

A weapons owner may not have a criminal record, he and his weapon must be registered together with a DNS-Sample, fingerprints and a sample shot.
This way both weapon and owner can be identified in case of a crime.

[bid_em_up]

helene_t, on Apr 21 2007, 01:21 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Apr 21 2007, 06:56 PM, said:

The next day I went and purchased a shotgun with ammunition that is only used for large game.  I did this for only one reason - the feeling of total vulnerability, of total helplessness in being unarmed when facing an armed aggressor is so chillingly horrific as to be impossible to describe - it took years to get over - that I simply could not allow myself to be in that situation again if there was an alternative.

Thanks for sharing, Winston. I'll have to take back my phrasing that I cannot understand why anyone would want to own a gun.

Strange that this guy was released on bail. But OK, I'm not going to post jokes about the American justice system here. It could probably have hapened in Europe as well.

Helene, you state that you find it is strange that the guy was released on bail.

This may be part of the "problem". In a justice system, such as ours, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a reasonable doubt. Unless the crimes you are charged with are so heinous that bail is out of the question, or you are considered a flight risk, the American justice system almost always grants bail. Now, that bail/bond may be so high that you can't afford it (effectively meaning no bail was granted). But you are usually at least given the opportunity to post one.

Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again. This, imo, is ridiculous, but the courts allow it to happen for a variety of reasons.

If the courts would lock these SOB's up the first time and not let them out, then maybe we wouldn't have the crime problem we do, nor would we feel the need to be able to protect ourselves from these hoodlums. In which case, the gun-ownership issue might be become less of a concern to many law-abiding citizens who otherwise would not feel the need to own a gun.

The hoodlums know the prisons are overcrowded and it is unlikely they will be given much punishment for anything other than the most serious offenses. And thats assuming they even get caught. When they are actually sentenced to time in prison, life in jail for them is a better life than they have on the streets. Jail is frequently referred to as "3 hots and a cot" in street terminology. Meaning they get three hot meals and a place to sleep. They don't have to work. They are provided with medical care. For a lot of the U.S. subculture, this is the ideal life. There are even some people who will commit crimes deliberately TO BE arrested for this reason. They would rather be in jail where they are essentially taken care of and provided for, than to perform in the "real world" where they would need to actually get off of their lazy asses and go to work.

This mentality is hard to perceive, especially if you have never witnessed it (maybe you have, I do not know). But our jails are overflowing with people who would rather take the easy way of stealing from others, than the way of working to earn them for themselves.

Sad, but true.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again.

The obvious solution is to define them as "enemy combattants" and make them subject to the Military Commissions Act - no bail, no habeus corpus, no right to a speedy trail - besides, what else are we going to do with the "Gitmo" when we run out of accused-terrorist to torture?

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Apr 22 2007, 04:57 PM, said:

Quote

Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again.

The obvious solution is to define them as "enemy combattants" and make them subject to the Military Commissions Act - no bail, no habeus corpus, no right to a speedy trail - besides, what else are we going to do with the "Gitmo" when we run out of accused-terrorist to torture?

Well if you are looking for suggestions, Winston, maybe we can start with World Chess champions as Russia is doing now.

I assume Mrs. Clinton will empty out the place when elected, we got to use if for something. Can we rent it out to the Chinese for big bucks?

Maybe Cuba has some use for it? Their prisons are overflowing but I guess no one wants to protest that.