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January 31, 2006

Why do they hate our freedom?

"I am who I am. I'm my own person. And I'm not like any other justice on the Supreme Court now or anybody else who served on the Supreme Court in the past" - Samuel Alito during Senate confirmation hearings.

Why is Alito unlike any current or past justice? Because of his single-minded dedication to the extremist Unitary Executive Theory which essentially says that the president is the sole arbitor of how, why or when laws, statutes or treaties are obeyed in whole or in part by his or her administration.

John Yoo, the former justice department official who wrote the crucial memos justifying President Bush's policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance without warrants is a fellow Unitary Executive Theory zealot. Sidney Blumenthal explains:

Sidney Blumenthal: "If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?"

John Yoo: "No treaty."

Got that? If president Bush deems that he's got to torture you, he can accomplish his task by having your child's testicals crushed and it's perfectly legal according to the Unitary Executive Theory that Yoo and Alito believe in. Blumenthal continues:

The "unitary executive" is nothing less than "gospel", declared the federal judge Samuel Alito in 2000 - it is a theory that "best captures the meaning of the constitution's text and structure".

And...

In his application to the Reagan justice department, Alito wrote that his interest in constitutional law was "motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren court decisions ... particularly in the area ... of reapportionment" - which established the principle of one person, one vote.

No need to even ask how he would have ruled on Bush v. Gore in 2000.

In the Reagan justice department, he argued that the federal government had no responsibility for the "health, safety and welfare" of Americans (a view rejected by Reagan); that "the constitution does not protect the right to an abortion"; that the executive should be immune from liability for illegal domestic wiretapping; that illegal immigrants have no "fundamental rights"; that police had a right to kill an unarmed 15-year-old accused of stealing $10 (a view rejected by the supreme court and every police group that filed in the case); and that it should be legal to fire, and exclude from funded federal programmes, people with Aids, because of "fear of contagion ... reasonable or not".

Well... so much for the Bill of Rights. Alito apparently believes that the president can dole them out, or not, as he alone sees fit.

I'm not okay with this.

Question: According to Bush himself, the fact that we are allegedly at war gives him broad discression (ie. Unitary Executive Theory) to interprete the law. Assuming that the War on Terrorism isn't concluded by then... according to Unitary Executive Theory what authority can compell Bush to step aside once his term of office is over in 2008?

Posted by Kevin at January 31, 2006 03:07 PM