Breaking: And so begins the fall of our Constitution.

I would argue the opposite, Splitt.  For far too long, the President has run amok with unchecked powers, furthering his crazed understanding of the "unitary executive".  Congress has repeatedly abdicated their oversight powers and given the purse strings as much slack as the President has asked for.

While I'm not for partisan bickering, nor pork-feeding legislation, I do support the Congress actually having a backbone and reigning in this President who has become more like unto a dictator than anything else.  

Far from abandoning checks and balances, this is one of the first times we've had such checks and balances in several years...

I'm still not sure what to think of this.  The Dems know that it will get vetoed, and they know that they won't get the 2/3 majority to overturn the veto so why pass the bill?  It makes them look good for '08.  It further polarizes the issue, which isn't necessarily a good thing.  It shows our weakness to the world.  

At least I have the right to own a gun (for the time being) to protect myself and my family.  If the Dems win in '08, i wonder how long it will take before they start restricting that and other freedoms...

Splitt is right, Congress voted to go to war, and now because of polls they want to change things. If congress wants to end the war they need to cut off the funding, the problem is they don't have the guts or the votes to cut off the funding. It is unfortunate that this has happened, but I am confident that the constitution will not fall but it will get very close. I believe that there are enough Americans that when that time comes who will stand up and protect the constitution. We will have to get to the point of the constitution hanging by a thread before that will happen.  

"where i would disagree is that i believe the checks and balances revolve around law, not war. "

What about the *law* that Congress only has the right to declare *war*?  The two are far more intertwined than most are led to believe.  The fact that we are even in Iraq and spending countless billions of dollars shows how the law has been abused and ignored.

"If you agree or disagree with the way Bush has handled the war, it is irrelevent. Regardless he will be held responsible as commander in chief."

We are not in a formally declared war. Bush's assumed role as Commander in Chief, then, is ill-practiced.

More info at http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr100802.htm

<em>Splitt is right, Congress voted to go to war...</em>

Incorrect.  Congress has not declared war.

<em>If congress wants to end the war they need to cut off the funding, the problem is they don't have the guts or the votes to cut off the funding.</em>


Very true.  But as we've seen, they're too interested in giving out freebies to special interests.  

<em>It is unfortunate that this has happened, but I am confident that the constitution will not fall but it will get very close.</em>

The Constitution already fell last fall when the Military Commissions Act was signed into law and the Bill of Rights cast aside to be trampled under the feet of our neoconservative administration.  America died on that day.

Drat, I keep forgetting that HTML isn't allowed.  Splitt, time to move to wordpress... ;)

This is not a matter of checks and balances or even funding or defunding the war. This is about opposition to the current administration and posturing for the '08 elections. The dems will do whatever it takes to make the president look bad and them to look good. Pelosi herself has admitted that she is doing what the majority of the american public wants. Unfortunatly for them, Pelosi and Reid are wrong in the way they are going about it, and may be doing more harm for their posturing than good. If they really wanted to end the war right away, they would defund the war immediatly. They would follow the example of Newt Gingrich and shut down the Federal Government. They would do away with this artificial withdrawal date. They would do something that they know would receive a 2/3 vote instead of doing this veto dance with Bush.

"And yes, according the Congress they did "authorize" the use of Military force which is a declaration of war"

I disagree that it is a declaration of war.  We have yet to make any formal declaration of war against a nation state.  We are merely invading countries and using military force.  Hence, the name of the bill was to authorize "military force"---not war.

As Ron Paul states in the article I linked above:

"But I am very interested also in the process that we are pursuing. This is not a resolution to declare war. We know that. This is a resolution that does something much different. This resolution transfers the responsibility, the authority, and the power of the Congress to the President so he can declare war when and if he wants to. He has not even indicated that he wants to go to war or has to go to war; but he will make the full decision, not the Congress, not the people through the Congress of this country in that manner."

Connor is mincing words. There may not be a formal declaration of war, but the authorization for military force is very clear and specific.
Here is my concern when it comes to the constitution being overruled because of majority vote: (Helaman 5: 2-3)
For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were dripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted.
Yea, and this was not all; they were a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they could not be governed by the law nor justice, save it were to their destruction.

"There may not be a formal declaration of war, but the authorization for military force is very clear and specific. "

Ah, so we are then agreed that what we are doing in Iraq is NOT a formal declaration of war.  Instead, our military is being used as pawns in preemptive foreign policy.  The authorization of military force is outside of Constitutional bounds, and as such should be stopped.  

As Normal Peale once said, "Americans used to roar like lions for liberty. Now we bleat like sheep for security."  After 9/11, Congress was all too eager to give the President full power to do *anything* he wished.  That mentality brought about the end of the USA our Fathers envisioned, as the Bill of Rights were trampled and simple liberties were infringed upon.

Good scripture you cited, Desechado.  I am reminded of the following quote by John Adams:

"We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

Connor McLeod stated: ...what we are doing in Iraq is NOT a formal declaration of war.  Instead, our military is being used as pawns in preemptive foreign policy.  The authorization of military force is outside of Constitutional bounds, and as such should be stopped.

The President is Commander-In-Chief of the military. In this constitutional role, he has the power and authority to wield the military for national security. Clinton used the military in Bosnia and Kosovo. Reagan used the military in Lebanon, Libia and the Falkland Islands. (US Marines supported and fought alongside Great Britain so that Great Britain could maintain control of these islands from Argentina).

In this role, President Bush has seen fit to use the military to fight this war on terrorism. As a smart commander would do, he choose the battlefield as being Iraq and Afganistan, instead of letting the terrorists choose it for him (the terrorists would choose urban areas in the US and Western Europe). By doing so, he is insuring our national security. Since the inception of this "war", when have we seen a terrorist attack on US soil? As long as the president can establish and maintain a battlefront of his choosing, the terrorists will be fighting our soldiers and marines there instead of inflicting casualties to our citizens like they did on 9/11.  

Before you get high n mighty you might want to check out the pork attached to the republican suplemental bills and then we will talk about the measly 4 billion attached to this one.  As we all know the flagrant spending of the current crop of repubs make the excesses of the democrats seem almost quaint by comparison.