Posted on 04/09/2009 7:12:18 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
Watching President Obama apologize last week for America's arrogance - before a French audience that owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans - helped convince me that he has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions. His nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh to be the State Department's top lawyer constitutes further evidence of his disdain for American values.
This seemingly obscure position in Foggy Bottom's bureaucratic maze is one of the most important in any administration, shaping foreign policy in the courts and playing a critical role in international negotiations and treaties.
Let's set aside Koh's disputed comments about the possible application of Sharia law in American jurisprudence. The pick is alarming for more fundamental reasons having to do with national sovereignty and constitutional self-governance.
What is indisputable is that Koh calls himself a "transnationalist." He believes U.S. courts "must look beyond national interest to the mutual interests of all nations in a smoothly functioning international legal regime. ..." He thinks the courts have "a central role to play in domesticating international law into U.S. law" and should "use their interpretive powers to promote the development of a global legal system."
Koh's "transnationalism" stands in contrast to good, old-fashioned notions of national sovereignty, in which our Constitution is the highest law of the land. In the traditional view, controversial matters, whatever they may be, are subject to democratic debate here. They should be resolved by the American people and their representatives, not "internationalized." What Holland or Belgium or Kenya or any other nation or coalition of nations thinks has no bearing on our exercise of executive, legislative, or judicial power.
Koh disagrees. He would decide such matters based on the views of other countries or transnational organizations - or, rather, those entities' elites.
Unsurprisingly, Koh is a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court, which could subject U.S. soldiers and officials to foreign criminal trials for their actions while fighting for our security. He has recommended that American lawyers work to "undermine" official American opposition to the court.
If only Koh's transnationalism ended there. Our Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment? Koh believes it should be reinterpreted in light of foreign and international law to pay "decent respect to the opinions of humankind."
Old fogies like me believe we ought to pay more attention to the opinions of the Founders who wrote the Constitution and the people who have lived under it. If Americans want to end the death penalty, they can do so through their elected state representatives.
If foreign opinions trump those of Pennsylvanians on capital punishment, why not on other issues? Why not, indeed: Koh thinks "international comity" trumps American sovereignty. He believes that, since certain nations recognize a right to same-sex marriage, our courts should, too. He wrote that "the principles of human dignity and autonomy that are the essence of the modern right-protecting democracy demand that civil marriage be available to all couples and that the equality of all citizens triumph over historical attitudes."
What's beneath this legal jargon? Simply this: Even if marriage in Pennsylvania has always been understood as involving one man and one woman - even if Pennsylvanians, through referendum or constitutional amendment, decide it should remain so - none of that should count. What should count are the views of courts in other nations or international bodies.
"I'd rather have [Supreme Court Justice Harry] Blackmun, who used the wrong reasoning in Roe to get the right results," Koh wrote of the landmark abortion case, "and let other people figure out the right reasoning."
Stunning and revealing: Koh tells us it doesn't matter if the right to abortion can be found in the Constitution. In fact, he concedes that Blackmun's reasoning was wrong. But it is up to others to get it right. How? By finding out what the United Nations, European Union, or particular European nations think.
Koh tops the list of Obama's potential Supreme Court nominees. Is this what Sen. John Kerry meant when he once suggested that American policy must pass a "global test"? Or what Barack Obama meant when he said last week that we have failed to "appreciate Europe's leading role in the world"? Or when he spoke of "change we can believe in"? And just who are "we"?
The best way to control this guy now is through Congress. At the next Congressional election, things have to change and change big time. It’s time to bring this to a halt. I think we are beginning to see even the people that voted for him, understanding they made a big mistake. Actually, they are seeing they made the biggest mistake of their life.
Obama isn’t a real American. Thanks, media.
Couric gets an award for trashing Sarah when she should be fired for dishonesty.
I can only hope there are enough real Americans left to overturn this travesty.
I sincerely hope that 2010 brings this dive into socialism and slavery to a halt, but it might not. ACORN just got a huge amount of money.
Make sure you keep pounding your state legislatures for 10th amendment sovereignty legislation.
“America’s arrogance”
The left always confuse arrogance with Pride.
I am too - "These are the times that try men's souls.." -if they truly love America!
I am too - "These are the times that try men's souls.." -if they truly love America!
These people can be brutal, and if anyone thinks Koh is some sort of pacifist, they haven't been hanging around Korea-town USA long enough.
No doubt we could get him to draw up a policy position for the US that effectively "privatizes" torture!
HIDEOUS.
It’s likely to only get worse. I would like to have some hope for the mid-term elections but I don’t really.
Toooooooooo many indications flood all around that things are going to escalate toward globalism in horrid tyrannical ways.
MARANATHA.
Yeah I think he's moving slower then he would like to right now.
I wonder the same thing. I think, unfortunately, that most are of the type who never pay attention to the news. They saw a cool black man in a suit and had no idea what he stood for. Now they are probably back to not paying attenion.
It is so infuriating.
0 is an angry black man and he wants reparations. Trashing traditional values is a huge victory for him.
‘....At the next Congressional election, things have to change and change big time. ...’
exactly. imho, the only hope we have is to regain the Congress in 2010. again, imo, to do this we MUST educate the everyday person, including senior citizens, on how this Administration’s socialist policies will adversely affect their everyday lives i.e. how nationalized heathcare sounds good but when a senior citizen needs a test or scan and they have to wait 6 months.... or maybe be denied due to their age..... they may not be so willing to agree to nationalized care. We MUST educate people...or they will keep swallowing the drivel the President and his minions so “charmingly” put out to the public.
we have a man who probably has deep seated mental problems
WRONG, its his “culture” thing. Look at the State and City governemnts run by “AFRICAN-americans” plus the “independent” African countries, they are all a wreck primarily because the culture is to take every advantage of those preceived to be weaker and one’s personal interests are paramount.
Of course every Black American does not perscribe to that culture and are sensable and patriotic, they are mostly looked upon by other AFRICAN-americans as Uncle Tom’s bowing to whitey.
Any suggestion that they'd be in total power would've been laughed out of the room.
Yet here we are.
The reality is that we’ll never see another truly free, open and honest election in this country until after the next American Civil War and the death of millions. And the America we’ll have after that won’t be the America we started with - for good or for ill. It was always and ever up to us.
Wake up, people. You’re not going to talk or vote your way out of the tyranny that’s coming. And that’s precisely the point of tyranny, isn’t it? None of us have a Get Out of History Free card, either. None. Your circumstances can change overnight. That’s one of the great lessons that so many of us have failed to learn from the history of the twentieth century. Fat, happy, stupid and “it can’t happen here,” is how most of us are except for the ones who are actually cheering for it to happen here. And then there those of us who see exactly what’s going on and are prepared for the eventual outcomes.
Change is coming, oh yes indeed - but it’s not what any of that Marxist meat puppet’s worshippers bargained for. Rand had it right all these many years ago when she said that there is no personal neutrality today. Time to get off the fence. Time to stand up and be heard. Time to start getting together with like-minded people. Time to organize your list of Things To Do, Places To Go and People To Meet. Because when your favorite websites suddenly go dark, when your cell phones and other comm nets no longer work, when the roadblocks go up, when you hear the knock on the door - then it’ll be too damned late.
It will be too late unless you’re willing, like Atlas, to shrug - and then pick up a gun before they come for you. Unless you’re willing to take action, you aren’t going to get your country back, much less preserve your own freedom and dignity.
So don’t just sit there with a pile of ammo and a gun in your closet. Participate in the nearest Appleseed Project shoot and join a community of like minded people turning ammunition into skill. Join up with Glenn Beck’s 912Project - a latter-day network of the original Committees of Correspondence - to meet more like-minded folks.
It may be the last chance we’re going to get.
Ayn Rand once said, “The world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for. But not without Freedom.” Stand with me. Stand with us. And if you think that freedom is passé or over-rated, just wait until you see what your new masters replace it with.
You are absolutley correct!!!! I for one plan to check your list out.
Searching for dad.
I’m still in shock at how quickly our country is unravelling. I sometimes feel as though I’m in a nightmare. I never though I’d live to see what has happened since Jan. I’m usually an optimist, but I really do wonder if it’s not too late to save us. I utterly depend these days on the truth that Jesus is coming again. I just never thought I’d be here in my lifetime.
Yep, I’m with you.
The apostasy of the church, the obvious workings of Satan in both the church and in the non-believers,
and the absolute SPEED with which this is happening.
Revelation 2:5 (New International Version)
5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
That was true - right up until the time a Kenyan took over the country.
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