How can the president claim the lawful power to kill whomever he wishes and at the same time ask Congress to incapacitate our ability to defend ourselves against those who might seek to kill us?
Drones, guns and President Obama | Fox News
Published April 11, 2013
Does the government work for us, or do we work for the government? How can the president claim the lawful power to kill whomever he wishes and at the same time ask Congress to incapacitate our ability to defend ourselves against those who might seek to kill us?
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul struck a raw nerve in the weak underbelly of the Obama administration last month with his 13-hour filibuster. Paul was furious -- as every American should be -- that the president refused to admit that he does not possess the lawful authority to kill Americans with drones. The senator used the confirmation hearings of now CIA Director John Brennan as a forum in which to articulate the principled constitutional argument that whenever the government wants the life, liberty or property of anyone, it can only obtain that via due process.
Due process is the command of the Fifth Amendment. "Due process" is the jurisprudential phrase for a fair jury trial and the accompanying constitutional protections. The reasons we have these protections are the wish of the Framers that our natural rights -- here, the rights to life, liberty and property and to fairness from the government -- be guaranteed and their fear that they not suffer under another Star Chamber. Star Chamber was a secret gaggle of advisers to British kings that decided who among the king’s adversaries would lose his life, liberty or property without due process. Once that decision was made, it was carried out.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/11/drones-guns-and-president-obama/#ixzz2QCPlzzkJ
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