If the President Can Order the Assassination of U.S. Citizens, then What Can't He Do?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...explains-why-obama-can-kill-americans/246004/

I think everyone, on the left, right and middle ought to be concerned about the growing power of the executive branch, and the diminishment of the power of the other branches, the states, and the rights of the American people.

The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that no U.S. citizen can be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. And yet, Obama ordered a U.S. citizen deprived of his life without due process.

What makes this even more egregious is that Obama will not reveal the Justice Department memorandum that Obama thinks gives him the legal power to violate the Fifth Amendment.

I think that in all the craziness about the War on Terror, we are rapidly losing our freedoms to a President who recognizes no restraints at all on his own power.

A dangerous precedent has been set, but the usual voices for civil liberties on the left have been rather silent because they don't want to oppose Obama, and conservatives have been silent because the victim was accused of being a terrorist.

 

Well, I'm against it. In principle, anyway.

Do we really need a president? The executive branch has gotten too powerful, I definitely agree with that part. Things are unbalanced.

 

Well, he can't force you to buy stuff.
^ Sarcasm alert

 

Just a modern day Benedict Arnold. A turn coat and traitor. He joined the side who declared war on the USA and was active on taking the battle to us. Let's be clear this cleric wasn't killed for going on a picnic.

 

I don't think Benedict Arnold was killed, was he?

 

Dude..., where were you, and so many others, when Bush signed into law the ability for the prez to do anything F'n thing he wants?

 

I consider myself to be on the left and I am (*)(*)(*)(*)ed upset about this. What alarms me most is that so few others do.

And, in answer to your question about what can't he do...gee whiz, how about running a country, balancing the books or making good on his promises...like ending the wars. That's what he can't do.

 

I love the way some folk have of phrasing a personal opinion as an irrefutable fact...does it ever work?

 

You should be, on both counts!

Like he told the whining black faction, knock it off and start kicking some con asses!

 

Cool! Proof that Obama's rhetoric is taken as calls to violence amongst the most dimwitted of his followers.

 

Hmmm

So Bush did it and that make sit OK? Sorry, but I miss the logic of that.

 

Article II section also applies...and a citizen waging war against the USA from a foreign land is also an enemy combatant and takes his own chances.

 

I'm surprised you sided with the Ron Paul crowd on this one, Blackrook.

Awlaki gave up his Constitutional rights when he decided to join the enemy who we are at war with. If someone would have joined the German military during WWII and got killed on the battlefield, nobody would have scolded the US for killing a US citizen. This situation is no different. Awlaki was a terrorist and he got what he deserved. Well done US military.

 

Rule of law in America died a long time ago. This is just the gloves coming off now that the "government" is reasonably sure that the sheep will accept it without resisting. Several generations of public "education" is paying its dividends now.

 

If that's where it leads you... I'm not surprised.

No Sherlock... you missed it. That ol' nuthin' but black or white, yer either with us or agin' us, mentality bites 'em in the ass again.

NO, it's not alright.

 

You just wish that were true.

 

1. Obama is either so stupid that he doesn't understand written laws.
2. Obama is a dictator and does not care about written laws.

That being said, I agree that the outcome isn't real horrible. However, it does pave the pathway to a predator drone blowing up my house next week for this post.

 

Suck it up and move on. Bush made these kinds of things fashionable around the world.

 

As stated by fear and loathing, PAST INCOMPETENCE DOES NOT JUSTIFY CURRENT INCOMPETENCE. Blame Bush, 2012.

 

If ONLY the Bush effects would end at 2012! You'll be denying the truth for decades more, while wallowing in his horrors.

 

Another neo-con with no ability to think.

You've given up your Constitutional rights with your statist views.

 

Ok, so at this point, now that it's established that Obama can order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without due process (he refuses to reveal the secret DOJ memo that reveals how this is possible), what is to keep Obama from sening a killer drone to kill ME?

Certainly, the law does not protect me, at least not according to Obama's secret memo.

So is my only protection at this point the fact that it might be politically unpopular for Obama to do this?

This reminds me of this exchange from A Man for All Seasons:

When this war on terror is over, what will stand between us and the arbitary power of government that is no longer bound by the Bill of Rights?

 

What secret memo? This was part of the Bush regime that Obama inherited. Sucks to have your own crap suddenly come kicking it's way back up yer butt, eh?

He know's you?

Tell it to Bush and Cheney!

 

If the President orders a murder, that makes him a murderer -pure and simple.

 

Maybe not when the law say's it's OK to do so.