MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin

> So... clearly Obama is in violation of the War Powers Act. What now? We respond in
> accordance with our party agendas, or according to the rule of law?

Violation is debatable. Really. I can't speak to the other two "wars" he started that you are referring to (refresh my memory?), but we still haven't hashed out the legalities of treaty vs Constitution. What he did, until proven otherwise by the supreme court, was legal. He assisted Allies in accordance with a NATO treaty.

Bush skirted the spirit of the law by "Legally" declaring war under false pretense. Obama skirted it by not declaring "War", "Legally".

> This isn't a campaign issue, it's a cross-roads for America. How American's respond
> to a Presidential violation of Congressional Law sets precedence for future
> presidents to start unauthorized conflicts; future Koreas, future Vietnams.

The cross-roads happened in '90. Again in '01, '03, and now in '11. They'll keep on happening too. We've responded in many ways. We've given the "'Merica, eff yeah!" response. We responded by blaming whoever is in office, electing someone from the other side. We've begrudgingly accepted. We've shown indifference. We've done a lot of things, none of which have been minding our own damned business.

This isn't an issue over liberals vs conservatives, Republicans vs Democrats, mayonnaise vs miracle whip, or orange jello vs strawberry jello. This is an issue of uninformed and misinformed masses who are too busy worrying about who Ryan Seacrest is boning to be bothered with understanding the real reason our world is so fucked.

I have a buddy whose convoy was hit by an IED two weeks back. It was briefly covered in the paper, and on the cable news networks. The differences between his first and account, and every other account, were criminal. I'm not talking about a few missing details either. Not one outlet mentioned all the guys that aren't coming home. Instead we focus on needing better armor, or the need to pull out, or the serious threat the enemy posses. We'd never be at war again if everyone could really see the pain it puts some of our own in. I don't blame the politicians. I blame us for letting them, and I mean ALL of them, do this to us. We want to feel justified 10-fold for our pain. To get that done we need to conveniently hide those of our own that get hurt in the process, and the hurt we are causing to "The Enemy" as well(who is our enemy again?). The media distorts every story to fit it's purpose that week. EVERY outlet. With lawmakers so concerned about their image in said media, I would almost go as far as to say the media has just as much power as congress itself (or at least decent power over it).

I've learned to live my life under a few simple rules as of late. One such rule is "If I saw it on TV or read it on the internet, I shouldn't be using it as a valid argument for anything." Feel free to write that down.