Originally Posted by
dukkha
The Democratic House wants to deny President Trump anything resembling due process.
It seems to view its role as akin to a grand jury with the Senate acting as a regular jury.
A suspected criminal has very few rights before the grand jury. His opportunity for due process is afforded at the trial stage.
This model has very little to recommend it, either by way of precedent or common sense, in the impeachment context. The two modern impeachment proceedings — of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton — weren’t handled this way. In both instances, the House adopted procedures that afforded the president due process.
The procedures approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments stated “[t]he President’s counsel may question any witness called before the Committee.”
President Clinton’s attorney questioned Ken Starr when he appeared before the Judiciary Committee and President Nixon’s attorney questioned each of the nine witnesses that appeared before the Judiciary Committee.
The procedures approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments stated “[t]he President and his counsel shall be invited to attend all hearings, including any held in executive session.”
President Clinton’s attorneys were allowed to call and question 14 expert witnesses before the Judiciary Committee.
Finally, it’s my understanding that in every prior presidential impeachment inquiry in American history, the full House voted to authorize the inquiry.
Our Founders knew the problems of this rule by tyranny of the majority and it is why they designed a Constitution to minimize its impacts everywhere they could foresee it as a problem. As John Adams wrote, democracy unchecked by rules to protect the minority produces naught but “fraud, violence and cruelty.” Alexander Hamilton wrote of it that its “very character” is “tyranny,” its very “figure deformity.” And as Madison wrote, “A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party.” Marvin Simkin, writing in the Los Angeles Times in 1992, gave those sentiments a more modern cast:
Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.
More openly than ever before in our Nation’s history, progressives desire pure democracy — at least so long as they hold a numerical majority by fair means or foul — for this country.
We are seeing it at the micro level in this impeachment proceeding, but we are seeing it at the macro level in everything else progressives do.
Whenever they achieve a majority, then they want the rules changed to a pure democracy so they can exercise unfettered power.
And with those rule changes come such things as Court packing, so that they will tie the hands of non-progressives and always rule over this country, even when out of the majority.
Our system of government is designed to respect the will of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority and the individual.
It is why our government is designed as a Republic rather than a democracy.
In the legal sense, “due process” exists to insure that the individual does not unfairly become the victim of the passions of someone cloaked in the power of government.
In the political sense, “checks and balances” exist to insure that, while the majority will is respected, the rights of the minority party are protected.
Are all of those to be tossed out now, sacrificed on the progressive altar of “orange man bad” and the belief that only progressives have an inherent and moral right to rule over the rest of us?
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