Featured Yea, now he wants to work with congress for the first time

And this was several years after their decision to be completely obstructionists, in 2010 to be exact. And, you do not put it in context.

Quote:

So, he was saying, you did not help so don't try to claim the front seats of praise on the economy now.

 

Wouldn't it be great if both sides were complete obstructionists? Gridlock is way better than a congress that acts in unison to deprive us of our rights and freedom. Imho of course.

 

So who do you think showed more insight and intelligence? Those who wrote the US Constitution, or the present administration and Congress? We the people are depending on the leadership of Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Speaker Bonehead, and Nancy Pelosi. Look who is Secretary of State, John Kerry. Does anyone remember his campaign of 2004 against President Bush? Our Secretary of Defense, Hagel, does he make you feel confident?

Or, do you think that patriots like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and John Adams were wrong in giving the Congress the power to declare war? Since WW2, we have not had one legitimate conflict in accordance with the Constitution. Our government is based on a check and balance of three branches. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq parts one and two, Afghanistan, Somalia, Croatia, Libya, and now Syria are basically the actions of one branch, one person, the President, to decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of American troops. We never learn. It is the same pattern over and over. Our nation was never designed to be the moral policeman of the world. Each nation is sovereign.

The question is, why do we go to war? The answer is to defend the United States. We have learned to go to "war" for every other reason. War was meant to fight to win, win swiftly, and exit swiftly. What do we do, we fight within limits, we linger, then help everyone rebuild their country. Some of these conflicts have lasted well over ten years.

I wonder quite seriously how many of you understand the Constitution? What is your idea of patriotism? Waving a flag at a 4th of July parade and singing "God Bless America?" Most of your extent for sacrificing for this country is watching CNN news cover the launching of missiles from you seminary dorm rooms on TV. If your carcass was on the line to launch weapons at Syria, bet you would scurry to the nearest rat hole.

 

I was going to address crabby's ridiculous claim that the Dems and the Great Pretender have "pulled the economy out of the ditch" but this thread isn't about the economy, so I've moved those comments to a new thread at http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=88463

 

Of course it is right that they included this power among those belonging to Congress. But they also made the President (or in this case, the Great Pretender) the Commander-in-Chief, and while he needs to consult Congress, he isn't declaring war. He is considering (though I doubt he has the necessary fortitude to carry it out) a surgical strike that may perhaps take out Assad, who after all has committed genocide. We determined to do the same thing with Hitler, with Ho, and with Saddam. In those cases we got a war powers resolution to do so. But to act in a limited fashion, we don't have to do that. Sorry if you disagree, but it is the truth.

Did Ford ask for Congressional approval to go in and get the USS Mayaguez[/U]? No, and he didn't have to. Similarly, Reagan acted in Lebanon and Grenada, and Clinton in Kosovo, without getting Congressional approval involving a full-blown war powers resolution. And let's not forget the inept peanut farmer and his miserable effort to act "decisively" in sending in a troops in an ill-fated Iran hostage rescue effort. However, even if they had not sought such approval, they would have still been within not only Constitutional guidelines, but even a doubtfully constitutional law passed in the Nixon era.

In 1973, in frustration with the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which was enacted over a veto by President Richard Nixon. The resolution required that, in the absence of a declaration of war, the president must report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing armed forces into hostilities and must terminate the use of U.S. armed forces within 60 days unless Congress permits otherwise. Obviously this milquetoast of a Great Pretender doesn't plan on engaging Syria for that long.

That said, the War Powers Resolution Act directly contravenes the Constitutional standing of the president as Commander-in-Chief. He alone has the authority to command and commit military personal and operations. What a declaration of war does, in reality, is simply align Congress with the intent of the White House, in effect providing unity in the eyes of the populace. Congress over-reacted in passing the Act, due to their unhappiness with Lyndon Johnson over the waging of the Vietnam War, even though they had passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was, in effect, a declaration of war.

It matters not whether they later thought they had been hoodwinked or not -- and perhaps they were -- the fact is, they passed the resolution. It is unlikely any president at any time in history has told Congress the whole story, or has not embellished certain facts in order to get the approval to do what was necessary at the time.

 

So with all the examples you cited, basically arguing for the need of a half way step to a declared war, why do you think our Founding Fathers did not see the need to put this into our Constitution? Again, I ask, who is more insightful and intelligent, Barack Obama or James Madison?

The Gulf of Tonkin resolution, as you know, turned out to be a false event. If Congress had taken the time to declare war, maybe that fact would have come to light and 58,000 Americans would have not died.

President Richard Nixon, and I voted for the guy and shook his hand, was handed the Vietnam War from LBJ who had already set the tone for the war. While neither of their actions were that honorable, I put the blame on the disaster of Vietnam (aside from failure to abide by the Constitution) squarely on Johnson, McNamera, and Westmorland.

It is worth repeating, if war is to be fought, it is to be fought to win swiftly, with a swift exit. We have been in Korea for over SIXTY years. We were in Vietnam for 13 years. It is now a Communist nation. We were in Iraq for ten years. I do not call that a swift exit.

Your argument for the War Powers Act is to give the President the power to act swiftly. Where do you see the evidence for that given the time we have spent in some of these places. What justification given the history of even having the act. The War Powers Act should be repealed.

Go back to the Constitution. There is a reason the founders insisted the Congress declare war, to prevent a centralization of power. Think through each of the conflicts since WW2 and imagine what would have happened if a declaration had been required. Many more brothers, dads, fathers, and sons would be alive today. To me, American blood is more precious than the dishonest motives of a self indulgent politician.

 

All the founding fathers saw fit to do was give Congress the authority to declare war, which enables the government to nationalize some essential businesses and commit them to the war effort, ration supplies needed for the war effort, institute a draft, etc. None of those actions have been necessary since World War II. Really, you didn't know that is the purpose of a declaration of war? That it institutes a state of emergency? Is that what you want every time there is a conflict? Providing the government with what are essentially steps to institute martial law? I'm pretty sure that is precisely why the founding fathers instituted congressional control of the declaration of war, not to keep us out of war, but to assure that it wasn't used haphazardly when the president's powers as commander-in-chief are sufficient almost all other times.

I'm not going to argue the merits of a war you don't understand, nor wish to understand.

Wrong. The disaster rests on the shoulders of the politicians and the media who would not allow the military to fight the war. What is the point of having combat veterans in positions of command authority if you won't listen to them? The war was fought by manipulated public opinion, not military science. Had it been fought the way it should have been fought, we would have begun and ended it in six months, and Vietnam would be a free and democratic state today.

Spoken by someone who hasn't a clue as to what war is, and what is necessary when it's over.

Again, I must comment that you didn't read the post, nor did you read it carefully as you claimed to have done. I am not a fan of the WPRA. It is likely unconstitutional, and serves no useful purpose other than to foul the machinery.

Which is exactly what I said above, what I vaguely (and admittedly, poorly) alluded to in describing its ability to instill unity in the government and the people.

Perhaps you haven't talked to an Iraq or Afghan veteran. Find one. Look him in the eye. Ask him, "Was it worth it?" You will find very, very few who will say it was not. Even those who left a piece of themselves on the battlefield -- and while I am physically whole, I can be counted among those who did so, and will let you surmise what I mean -- will emphatically state that it was well worth it, and it isn't bravado or self-justification that leads them to say it. But you won't understand them when they tell you that, you won't understand me if I try to explain it, so live on in your ignominy like your fellow isolationists. Nothing I can do for you. Best I can offer are the word of Martin Neimoller, a protestant pastor and anti-Nazi during the German Reich movement.

"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

"When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

"When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

"When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

"When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."

I'm sure you don't think that's applicable to this situation, or to Vietnam, Iraq, Grenada, the Philippines of the 19th century, or a host of long-forgotten post-scripts to American history. But like it or not, it is.

Freedom isn't free, and it is worth giving to others. Otherwise, when they come to take ours, there will be no one to speak for us, either.