Hi Christopher,
The problem is how one defines a free court. I read English law many years
ago, and one of the problems which was pointed out to me about the court
system, was how the judges are appointed, or in the case of some US courts,
elected, where they come from, their background, education, class, position in
society, their education. In the Supreme Court they are appointed by the
President for life, no matter what their incompetence or competence is...This
is supposed to preserve their independence in judgements. A judge brings with
him/her not only legal knowledge to a court and its judgement, but political
biases and prejudices, often sub-conscious, sometimes reflecting the ideas and
philosophies of their leaders or class or the establishment, or the political
party they belong or the loyalty they have towards the present incumbent; this
bias/independence which derives from their peer group, their family or cultural
background and experience. One has only to look at the present structure and
the future structure of the US supreme court to see how those legal judgements
work out in practice. Each judge whether they be conservative or progressive,
or republican or democrat, couch their judgements in legal text, using legal
principles, philosophy of law, common law and such like, but in many cases they
are just dressing up their political or personal opinions as if they were legal
judgements. Take the death penalty, so many Americans have been found guilty
of crimes based upon their race rather than the evidence, particularly in those
states where the populations has been brought up to see attitudes of white
supremacy as the norm, or Christianity as the norm, and Islam or atheism as
abnormal.
Iran and the US or the UK or Russia, or China or France or Germany are no
different in that. How does one justify a President who loves his children,
then taking a decision to use drones for instance, which kill babes in arms and
then says it is collateral damage, all because of some signature or other?
Those decisions happen every day in the USA, as it does in the UK, Israel and
the various other countries I have mentioned. Using drones saves American and
British and Israeli and French soldiers lives they say, but, as Brennan poses,
are American lives more important than other lives, and he says no...but...he
represents American lives. One can only follow orders, even though the
American justices and prosecutors argued differently at Nuremberg, when
prosecuting the Nazis for doing that very thing. According to US legal theory
and philosophy, and the principle which was established at Nuremberg, there was
a higher human right, the right not to obey orders of the state. Just because
a state has a law which denies human rights, orders you or I to kill or
torture, it does not mean that those who abuse the rights of the people are
exonerated from blame.
Read Brannon's view on cryptome twitter which is published in the New York
Times is well worth reading to see the contradictions...
see url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/magazine/john-brennan-president-trump-national-security-state.html
courtesy cryptome twitter...
ATB
Dougie.
On 28/06/2018 22:23, CHRISTOPHER BURKE wrote:
both iran and usa have problems but i think america has free courts
On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 9:38 PM Douglas Rankine
<douglasrankine@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:douglasrankine@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
see url: https://www.rt.com/news/431195-zarif-trolls-pompeo-statement/
I like this sort of thing. Too many countries attack others on the
question of human rights or badly treating their citizens. Iran has
turned this on its face and re-addressed the statement interchanging the
USA with Iran and vikki verki.
Enjoy.
ATB
Dougie.
