I was right, you're just void of common sense and American tradition.
Eric Holder is a lawyer. He claimed not to be concerned with the specific language used, despite the fact that his language on the topic has always been very carefully chosen.
Very carefully chosen to not rule out exactly what I said he literally wasn't ruling out.
He doesn't have to say "We reserve the right to bomb you" to literally admit that he reserves the right to bomb us. "Well there are some circumstances in which we might bomb you (implying possession of the right, obviously)" is factually the same information. It's literally the same information. He doesn't have to literally say the exact words to literally convey the same meaning.
You misunderstand the word and you're trying to accuse me of ignorance of language because you disagree on content. So you disagree over whether or not he expressed certain meaning. That's a legitimate dispute you're not making because it'd get silly for your position very quickly--you're quoting a lawyer saying he didn't really evaluate the specific language, which is riduclous, and you're claiming to believe him.
So instead of you squabble over my use of the word "literally." Which is irrelevant. So you disagree with my point, resulting in your position that my use of the word is not appropriate. Shouldn't we be talking about my point, not my use a word which you only dispute the appropriateness of because you disagree with that point?
Holder never said that "that attacks beyond an imminent threat scenario would be unconstitutional." He redefines the words like "threat" and "imminent," and he went to great pains to NOT rule out the legal authority to bomb anyone, anywhere, ever. He only committed to a very few vague words which he obviously has loose definitions of and can stretch to mean pretty much anything. Went to great pains not to use meaningful language to define any limitations on the administration's power.
Given that you have so much trouble with Holder's language, it's even more humorous that you're ranting about my use of a word. Your disagreement is with content. Your opinion that I misuse the word is a result of your position on content. If you want to grow up and talk about content, I'll be here. Maybe if you win that debate I'll admit that my use of the word "literally" in this case wasn't accurate.
But of course, you're arguing that Holder wasn't lying when he said he didn't concern himself with the specific language. Which is ridiculous on its face. You're arguing that he ruled anything in particular as under the authority of the administration to do. Which is, again, ridiculous on its face. You could make the argument that you've listened to all the testimony and have concluded, with your educated legal mind, that he specifically ruled out X, Y, and Z, with real meaningful language, but you're not going to attempt to do that here because he didn't do it.
He literally ruled out nothing. By redefining words like "threat," "combatant," "imminent," "security," etc, he painstaking chose his language specifically to not claim any limits on the president's legal authority (and he went further, to claim that any high ranking administration official has this power) to bomb anyone has any limitations. His reference to anything being beyond the president's power was extremely vague and couldn't rule anything out, given his new definitions of the words he used.
But rather than make any argument that I'm wrong--that he didn't literally leave open the door to anything--you're just crying about my use of the word "literally." So tell us, what did he rule out? Because he can call all kinds of things a threat:
They've already bombed an American citizen driving home from lunch at a cafe. He wasn't a combatant--he wasn't armed. He wasn't a threat--he was involved in no known plans to harm America. Nothing was "imminent"--He was in another country driving a civilian automobile.
And Holder didn't rule out bombing someone in precisely the same scenario here. I count that as "literally" not restraining administration power. How exactly am I wrong? What limitations did he put on administration power? That it can only bomb combatants in war, while we're at endless war and unarmed people driving home from lunch are combatants? By those definitions, which mean literally nothing (ie, the words can mean literally anything), Holder literally limited Administration power in no way whatsoever.
That's my position. I've explained it, while others have spammed void of any content and harassed me. If you want to disagree with position, that'd be swell. Because obsessing with a subsequent disagreement with language based upon disagreement with my position is silly and entirely unproductive. No, you didn't just have a "gotcha" moment, you just revealed a lack of understanding of the bigger picture in which your disagreement is situated and dependent upon.
I'm not interested in an apology. I am enjoying our discourse!
In this thread I simply stated that stupid comments are posted on "literally" every type of blog/article. Given this, I asked why Einstein thought it was relevant that a particular article had stupid comments posted to it. Simple question. Simple context. No answer, just harassment and spam.
[I wish I could obey forum rules]