Look, it’s simply a matter of record now. From bowing to despots, to breaking the underpinnings of capitalism, the bedrock of American finance. Rick Santorium nails it.
“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.”
Santorium is absolutely correct, but then are we really surprised? After all Obama is a far left liberals, again that is without question. His assault on the unborn, the coddling of despots such as Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Abinadab are telling the true tail of Barack Obama and where his true affections are. Liberals have always blamed America simply because they hate America and everything she stands for.
As Obama continues his assaults on our American way of life we do well to take note, as I hope all Americans will. 2010 and 2012 are just around the corner upon and I believe by then Americans will begin to realize the horror they wrought in 2008, and begin the process of removing these enemies of the United States from power.
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My favorite GOP hand-wringing of the week « It’s still burning!
April 11th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
1[...] summit last week. I can understand why certain people would have a problem with this. These are the same folks who think Obama hates America because he acknowledged that the country made a few missteps over the [...]
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