Cheat Sheet

...not if they followed due process, they didn't. Both sides are saying the same thing: we support democracy, but the military did a coup. Until we know more, we shouldn't be commenting.

Just to add; apparently the members of the legislature thought that it was such an emergency that they couldn't be bothered to carry out a proper imeachment, for which there is ample provision in the Honduran constitution.

Additionally, since the move by the judiciary, legislature, and armed forces committed actions that have been labelled

"supplanting of popular sovereignty and the usurping of power as crimes of treason against the fatherland."
http://countrystudies.us/honduras/84.htm

I have not found a copy of their constitution in English.

Non - binding...my gluteus maximus!!!! With lefists, non binding referendums have a way of being pushed to binding along with civil unrests and attempts at "binding" referendums. Either way even if it was a "benign" non binding referendum, he was told REPEATEDLY that it was an illegal act. Zelaya thought he could arouse the rabble and they could storm the barracks and get his way. Small problem...he was not that popular.

If Obama or Reagan or Bush or Clinton had done the same exact thing, they would have been brought up on charges of insurrection and imprisoned as we awaited an impeachment . Then the instigator would have gotten a minimum of 10 years in the supermax in Colorado. The rule of law must be followed or should it only be followed when it favors leftist..sorry, liberals(oops sorry you guys hate that term) eeeerr progressives..

By the way Slave revolt, you speak of the bourgeoisie and the oligarchs as though they are not republican(littleR) There are processes for ammending the Constitution, but Zelaya did not want to go that route. He would have the non binding referendum and then push that non binding referendum as somee sort of legitimate vote and conveniently forget that it was non binding.

I love you Neo Bolsheviks(you demonize the neocons, now I demonize you). You will not give up you will push push and push and you will make it sound...oh so reasonable, when all you and your ilk like Chavez and ortega and Morales along with the Chavez brothers want is to deprive people of their liberty. To confiscate wealth because ....well, you were too lazy to make it honestly. You support the rule of law if it inflicts pain on the lovers of freedom and liberty and capitalism, but you never acknowledge the abuses of the thugs you romabticize like Castro and Chavez. You seem to be a sniveling child who wants things but you don't have the balls to work for it. You're kind of like Zelaya.

A few points worth distinguishing

a) generalizing about a group of people according to your perception of their political philosophy is generally not the way to have a meaningful exchange of ideas.

b) misjudge the popularity of a man whose support includes the entire OAS, the US gov't, and, most importantly, thousands of Honduran citizens who are now protesting

c) you're right to say the rule of law shall be followed. Like the law that sets the procedure for impeachment. It does not involve midnight raids and extra-legal exile before the proceeding

d) Rather than mis-ascribing your goals as a conservative (though you honestly sound more like a reactionary) I simply assert the goal of progressivism in this case is to remedy an inequitable distribution of resources that still holds over from colonial times.

e) not to be a smart-aleck, but it seems that the armed forces, at the behest of the legislative & judicial branches are the ones who PUTSCHED in this case.

Now wasn't that much nicer? (I would recommend you not poke the bear, BTW)

Hey rapierwit here are a few things to consider.
1) Generalizing is very much in order on this site since you guys lambast those that seek a robust America that does not get pushed around. If it hurts to hear that you are a milquetoast spine of water...well, then so be it.

2) Prior to this Zelaya was a second rate functionary in a third world country, the fact that the OAS supports him does not surprise me since the Americas are filled now with center left to harder left Governments like Brazil and Argentina along with Cuba, Nicaraugua, etc. The fact that Obama cannot see what Zelaya was trying, pretty much implicitly means that he sides with the like s of Chavez and Castro who will turn the constitutional provisions on their head to serve their means. Additionally I would argue that there was a large number of Hondurans that wanted him gone as well
3 ) While I might admit that sending the guy into exile was a bit harsh, should the Honduran legislature have allowed the guy to operate and totally flaunt the law and a direct judgement of the Supreme Court. Should they have allowed him to continue civil unrest until he got his way or there was real bloodshed - these things usually turn bloody down there.

4)My goals as a conservative are not reationary, forgive me if I don't approach everything with an European nuance to everything, I would assert that the goal of progressivism is to somehow assert that those who got rich did it on the backs of the poor and that the enlightened will determine what is fair on the distribution of wealth on some sort of arbitrary basis that brings about substantive fairness as oppossed to procedural fairness - that's the real difference between conservatives and progressives, you want fairnesss in results, we seek fairness in application, i.e. all accussed are entitled to a lawyer rich or poor. All are entitled to the pursuit of happiness- not the acheivement of said happiness you cannot guarantee that although progressives seek to make that happen. Somehow you believe that government can somehow lead to a more perfect society and to mankind. conservatives reject that notion. to quote Sting, " men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one."

5) The armed forces acted as an agent of the other two branches of government in Honduras, Zelaya was violating the Constitution, he was causing civil unrest, he was pushing insurrection and sedition when he ignored the Congress and SC and stormed the military barracks.... they were right to arrest him. he should be tried...he got off easy and made it to sunny Costa Rica.

I can be nice, but I still consider many of you progressives as Neo Bolsheviks- take from the rich and give to the poor whether they actually earned it or not. it's equality of opportunity , not equality of result.

1) Your tone does nothing to elevate the level of discourse.
Your tendency to call names and generalize weakens your argument.

2) Our president's job is to encourage the peaceful transfer of power.
It is not his job to interpret Honduran constitutional law.

3)a-Armed removal of an elected official is more than "harsh" it is illegal and against international norms.
b-Asking for a referendum does not encourage civil unrest.
It provides the opportunity for direct democracy, something we need more of here.

4) equality of access ensures fairness in the pursuit of happiness. You've been in Central America, so you know how much racism there is towards those with more Indian blood and how much more advantage those with more Spanish blood have as a result of the Conquest. Children should not be born into hopeless poverty. Period.

5) The Armed Forces acted on illegal orders from the judiciary and the legislature.
Zelaya's movement was and is peaceful in nature.

Equality of opportunity can only exist when people are given equal access to medicine, primary education, employment that will keep them fed, and safety.

Everything more than that should be decided on merit.

I look forward to continuing our discussion in an intelligent and civil manner.

BCaldwell:

You can try to paint the situation in whatever manner you want but you're diverging from the facts. Yes, it was NON-binding, period. In your mind you want to turn it into something that maybe could eventually sorta become binding. Well that's not the case BCaldwell however much you want it to be. Show me anywhere that it says it could become binding. It is explicitly a NON-BINDING referendum. (But no matter how many times I say it you'll still believe what you want to believe anyway.) The danger to the oligarchy from this NON-binding referendum was in the potential leverage it could give Zelaya by showing that the Honduran electorate is in agreement with him that their right-wing constitution needs to be changed. This would be unacceptable to the Honduran oligarchy so they acted to have him deposed by military force. All the lipstick in the world isn't going to make this fascist pig of a situation look like something it isn't.

Regarding Chavez and Morales they are both democratically elected presidents like Zelaya. In case you haven't noticed, Latin America is fast going leftist. The days of those countries having governments that represent the interests of the tiny wealthy minority as well as their buddies in the U.S. instead of representing the interests of the average person in their own country are on their way out. I know you want them all to forever be good little toady states living under America's thumb but that isn't where the future is. You're living in the past.

Regarding confiscating wealth "because they're too lazy to earn it themselves" this is a retarded way to look at it. Do you think that whether you're talking about in the U.S. or in Venezuela or wherever that people are born into the same opportunity? That nobody is born in shantytowns and nobody born into more wealth than they will be able to spend in several lifetimes? Wealth redistribution and land reform are very necessary and eventually when there is worker ownership of the means of production and exchange you will consistently see a higher standard of living for the average worker than could ever be achieved in an economic order that is set up to make the rich richer and to hell with everyone else. So in sum, you're defending an outrageously lopsided social order that favors those who already are wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Defending a stasis that keeps kids malnutritioned, that keeps people living in dirt-floor hovels, that keeps people illiterate and homeless while a vastly smaller minority fortunate enough to be born into wealth have more money than they know what to do with. To move away from the one-sided bulls**t of the greed-based economy toward something more equitable is what's known as progress. It isn't my fault you haven't raised your level of understanding beyond the primordial swamp of pro-greed thinking. The "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" conservative b.s. is something designed to make you feel better about yourself for being a tool of the rich and a cudgel for those who care nothing for the average worker as long as the wealthy keep getting wealthier. You're being used in the worst way and don't have it together enough yet to realize it.

bcaldwell

1) See, there you go again with the ad hominim attacks.

2) Why don't you explain a quarter of the reasons we "do the things we do"? Even a tenth would be better than that.

3) Perhaps you should give us some idea of "what we've done".

4) That "NeoBols" thing, is that yours? Did you just make that up on your preceding post? I really don't see it catching on.

God bless

BCaldwell:

"If you knew half the reasons we as a country do what we do"

Oh what a sense of humor you have there. There is one reason and one reason only that the U.S. does whatever it does whether that is invading a country that isn't provoking it (like Iraq) or having its C.I.A. overthrow a democratically elected government (like Guatemala and many others) and that reason is economics. What you obviously don't realize BCaldwell is that the U.S. government is basically nothing but a big committee for managing the common affairs of the American wealthy ruling elite, the big business bourgeoisie. This should be pretty easy to figure out if you look at America's sordid history of foreign interventions but hey, you can't even grasp that a non-binding referendum is non-binding so what do I expect?

So what exactly did the U.S. do for Central America in the 1980s? Let's see... When Nicaragua's U.S.-backed right-wing dictator Somoza got overthrown and the Nicaraguans elected a leftist government the senile piece of s**t figurehead Reagan considered that unacceptable. Yes, how dare the Nicaraguan people elect a government that is the opposite of what the U.S. wants? So the C.I.A. funded, supplied, trained and armed a bunch of castoff right-wing douche bags from the Somoza government and had them carry out a guerilla war against the elected government of Nicaragua for several years. When Congress got wind of it and shut off funding for the Contras the C.I.A. found another method of getting the money: Smuggling cocaine into the U.S.

You served in Panama? Helping overthrow a guy that was a big-time drug dealer for the C.I.A. when he switched sides. See, it's OK to be a drug lord when you're working FOR the C.I.A. but not when you turn your back on it right? What a pawn you are. It's people like you that keep the military well-stocked with fresh bodies to use as their chess pieces in their wars for energy resource dominance that are marketed to ignorant, naive people like yourself as a "War on Terror". Wow, I wonder why the "War on Terror's" theaters all revolve around energy resources?

Wrong, Caldwell. All neocons ARE chickenhawks. A glittering generality, you say? Well, the head neocons, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc. are chickenhawks. (And don't say that W served. That's bullshit and everybody knows it.)

Evening rapier, how goes it? Had a lot of fun with the Squigmund Freud thing! I reckon it's been a hoot! LOL
If the popular referendum led, non binding, to a questioning of the changing the constitution which their Supremes said would not be legal, why let him stir up trouble with the people? Why allow him to hi-jack the country in this way? Referendums must be about something essential to the health of the state. Zelaya seems to be using it as a referendum for himself. That is what has me bothered about this whole thing.

Evenin', I'm glad you like your new moniker, Squigmund!
I had two finals today so I've stayed off the boards until tonight.


But since you used the word hi-jack, is that usually done with a ballot or a gun?

and who used what?

Even more than one man trying to grab power, this smells like an institution trying to keep itself protected from change. I refer you to my earlier post wherin I claim that the military, acting at the behest of the leg & judiciary, have technically committed treason.

Do you really want to back a side that's willing to commit treason over a decision improperly based on a technicality?