The Kill List Petition.
I am passing this on from one of readers.
I don’t know what all your positions are on this matter. I have very strong opinions on this drone campaign and I was wondering if, in the liberal spirit of the great dissenters, you post a link to this petition on the White House web site. Would your editorial staff support this. Would you persuade your readers to sign?
Here is the link to the petition.
First, to say we have an editorial staff would imply that we pay people to edit DL. Jason still owes us all checks from 2006. I’d rather call the 9 or 10 of us freelance volunteers.
Second, I don’t know where all of my peers here at DL stand on this, but I for one do encourage everyone to sign it. And I say that not as a wide eyed purist who is criticizing the President because I didn’t get my single issue pony. The area where Obama has let us liberals down the most is in the area of civil liberties. While he ended outright torture by our own government, and while he has tried to shut down Guantanamo but was stopped by Congress, but this Kill List with no oversight or due process is a tad bit far for even my pragmatic and practical tastes.
As a liberal I am perfectly fine with the President ordering the deaths of foreign terrorists on foreign soil. And those deaths can be accomplished by sniper rifle, drone bombing or archery for all I care. These are foreign enemies who have attacked us and they deserve whatever fate befalls them.
But such actions, and such weaponry cannot be used against American citizens on foreign soil. Especially when the action is taken without any due process or oversight, with the only thing standing between you and death is the moral compass and feelings of one man, the President of the United States. Seriously, if you happen to get on this Kill List as an American citizen, the only thing that may save your life is the compassion of the President. Here’s hoping you get consideration on a good day.
Now, you can argue that an American citizen would only get on this Kill List if he was a terrorist who has turned against us and is fighting with the enemy. Perhaps. What if a mistake was made? There are thousands of stories of mistaken identities being made on the “Do Not Fly” list. What if a mistake is made on the Do Kill List. Your only recourse, while dodging a drone, is the good graces of one man.
More to the point, if an American citizen is on the list, arguably and allegedly he is a traitor. Why do we have the crime of treason if traitors are to be denied due process and killed instantly?
But the main reason I oppose the Kill List with no oversight with respect to American citizens is the precedent it sets. We have Republican Governors like Bob McConnell of Virginia already wanting to have drones operate stateside. It is not hard to imagine in a few years American citizens being gunned down in the streets by mindless drones on the orders of one man.
Now, President Obama is a good man of moral character. Supporters of his can say he will never do that.
Well, he shouldn’t have the option.
Because his successors may not be good men and women, especially if they are Republicans.
So, all of you, sign the petition.
Of all the damage Bush inflicted on this country, robbing us of our national identity as law abiding world citizens hurst the most. It flows into every other sphere of life and general lawlessness in business and international relations is now, sadly, accepted.
It was the one thing that I had hoped President Obama could fix by executive order, and he hasn’t. That was probably naive of me.
Thanks for the editorial, DD.
Full disclaimer.. I’ll admit to being the reader and I signed the petition. Just so you all know where I’m coming from let me say this. I understand pragmatism and “politics.” I just don’t have to fall into its traps. For me Obama is certainly preferable to McCain, Romney (or really any Republican I can think of). I’m just exhausted by the lesser-of-two-evils gambit. No politician will change what they do unless you prove you won’t vote for them. What she or he SAYS she’ll do or what you think he believes is really immaterial. It’s either law/policy or it isn’t.
With a no due process kill-list, DOJ storming pot dispenseries in CA, military trials in Cuba rather that civil trials, watered-down bank reform, no war-crimes investigation for torture and no public option I plan on abstaining in November.
As I said, I fully appreciate some of these initiatives would be next-to impossible to execute. So what? Does that mean I have to like it or support it with my vote. Planting a garden and saying you support same sex marriage and ending don’t ask don’t tell is great, but it’s not enough in my view.
–DG
Well, I do not support or even remotely agree that comment, obviously. Not voting for Obama is exactly the same as voting for the Republicans, which is somehting I cannot do.
But to each their own.
The area where Obama has let us liberals down the most is in the area of civil liberties.
I have to quibble with this statement on technical grounds. Sure, Obama is abysmal on civil liberties, as all modern presidents have been, but he didn’t promise much in the campaign. So if your expectations were high for civil liberties you weren’t paying attention.
The biggest letdown was the tax cut extension. Unlike civil liberties, the tax cut expiration was his signature campaign promise, and that was the biggest letdown simply because he had farther to fall. And fall he did, all the way to the bottom of the stairs.
Abstaining is certainly not “exactly the same” as voting for Romney. If I were the only person in DE and I voted for Romney it’d be 1 nil. If I don’t vote it’s nil nil. Additionally there’s a principle involved. If Obama doesn’t get the vote of a socialist leaning liberal like me then it could potentially indicate that I’m not in the bag no matter what. C’mon DD… as much as I loathe this analogy… the Tea Party has already done exactly this at the other end of the spectrum.
Now would I or people like me vote for the “Democratic” equivalent of a Tea Party candidate, say Dennis Kucinich. Probably not. He can’t communicate the position clearly enough, like for example FDR could. (Although, if I could be honest, I think Bernie Sanders might have the same problem to a lesser extent, and I’d have a tough time not voting for him.)
It’s just sad that we are forced into this game…
I do not want to distract from the point of this post with the same old purist v. pragmatist arguments. We all know them. The argument is never ending. You will not change your mind on it and I will not change mine. So let’s just leave it there.
Fair enough. You know I hate the idea of being a “purist.” I can accept some compromises. But I just don’t think I’m getting that much from Obama that excites me or differentiates him enough. Being pragmatic is one thing, but some of this shit is the same as or worse than W. If he would just chill with the unmanned flying killer robots in Yemen and maybe stop raiding weed stores out west that’d be fine by me. I understand we probably need drones in the Afghan/Pakistan border area. I understand the public option was a big risk. Those required legistlation. But the military, the CIA and the DOJ… that’s mostly him. That’s all I’m saying…
(Sorry I couldn’t “leave it there.” You made a good point about the problems of the purists’ argument, so I wanted to respond. Thanks again. –DG)
Can Puck turn every topic to lamenting “tax cut extensions?”
Let’s see…The size of a spherical bubble in an infinite body of liquid is described by the Rayleigh-Plesset equation.
Go!
@Dorian, I totally agree.
Just filling the vacuum, my friends.