Comments on: Democracy is the Real Victim in Honduras’ Coup

By: redhen689

redhen689 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:18:22 +0000

dbjones,
Micheletti was next in line for the presidency. He was put in that position by constitutional law and has the backing of the congress and the supreme court. He knows his time in this position will only last until the swearing in of the new president after the November elections. btw, He is from the same political party as Zelaya. (The interesting thing is that even Zelaya's political party wanted him out.)
I have attempted to reply here 3 times, but the posts keep disappearing. Either there is a glitch, or I'm being moderated. I'm hoping that all 3 posts don't show up now, because that would be annoying.

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:02:25 +0000

The Honduran government did remove him legally. The military was responding to a court order. It was not a coup.
The Honduran constitution allows for the immediate removal of the president for attempting to extend his term in office.

But not BAMN.

By: redhen689

redhen689 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:56:37 +0000

The following quote is was written by Anabella Hedman:
“…How is that kind of intent sanctioned in our Constitution? With the immediate removal of those involved in the action as stated in Article 239 of the Constitution which reads: “No citizen that has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.” Notice that the rule speaks about intent and that it also says immediately –as in instant, as in no trial required, as in no impeachment needed.

This immediate sanction might sound draconian, but every country knows its own enemies. Requiring no previous trial might be crazy, but in Latin America a President is no ordinary citizen, it is the most powerful figure of the land and historically the figure has been above the law. To prevent that officer from using its power to stay in office Honduras has constitutional rules such as the mentioned one.”
“No matter what the international community says, the Honduran people are PROUD, happy, and at peace that DEMOCRACY HAS PREVAILED in our country. We have accomplished what other stronger and more economic stable countries have not been able to do; we have done what Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Iran have not been able to accomplish – we have LEGALLY FOUGHT attempts from our now ex-President and his socialist supporters (Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, etc.) to change our Constitution to allow for re-election of our presidents, an article that is CLEARLY not allowed for reform EVER! The Honduran people have LEGALLY FOUGHT attempts to abolish democracy and we have prevailed!!!”
~Anabella Hedman~
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/grou...

By: jonabark

jonabark — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:18:21 +0000

According to your peculiar and undemocratic logic, the people with organized firepower( police and military) should make final governing choices and can depose elected officials without a just legal process. You justify this logic with name calling. The people who are leading this coup have a far more sordid history of death squad actions and torture than the moderate President. Theirs are real crimes , not arguments over constitutional process.

Your arguments are dangerous tactics that justify repression and violence against political ideas and organizations; if these tactics were turned against Republicans you would cry foul. According to your name-calling Europe and Japan are slave societies, and Social Security is a movement toward slavery. You are out of touch with the vast majority of Americans who would never tolerate your ideas being applied to their own country.

I believe you are angry because you have been misled by a dangerous ideology that has been revealed as a massive hoax.

By: JamesM

JamesM — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:57:16 +0000

Do you ever stop questioning the motives of the authors of the blog posts here?

By: ando

ando — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:32:26 +0000

Do you ever have anything positive to say?

By: JamesM

JamesM — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:24:03 +0000

Your comments would be a whole lot more credible if you did not take it upon yourself to go beyond the four corners of what has been written and you would address the concerns articulated in the posting. You seem to make sport of trying to impute a motive to Ashley Morse which has no basis in facts that you can ascertain. This is not the first time you have done this, and I have serious doubts about whether it will be the last.

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:00:19 +0000

Does Ms. Morse also hold the position that the proceedings to remove Nixon from office where undemocratic and illegal?

Read the entire post again — if you remember, the U. S. military did not remove Nixon from office.

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:34:20 +0000

Maybe you ought to consider asking yourself that question. I'm not trying to be snarky in saying that, but my concern is law and justice, not unexamined ideology.

By: JohnH54

JohnH54 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:16:58 +0000

How is it possible for you to be on the wrong side of every issue?

By: 1Grace

1Grace — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:57:09 +0000

Happy Fourth of July everyone . God Bless, be safe .

Mick

By: bhaack

bhaack — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:33:36 +0000

Is it now the official position of the Christian-political left to embrace democratic authoritarians?

According to the Honduras Supreme Court Zelaya broke the law and so they ordered the military to remove him.

Is it the official position of Sojournors that Democracy means that the checks and balances on an elected official are meaningless?

Ms Morse says: "While there are many discussions about whether Zelaya’s actions were legal...this does not justify the military’s storming of the presidential palace and forceful removal of the president". I am curious what exactly does justify the removal of an elected official if breaking the law does not. Does Ms. Morse also hold the position that the proceedings to remove Nixon from office where undemocratic and illegal?

Perhaps the Hondurian courts should have waited to try to remove Zelaya from office AFTER he had further consolidated his power as the now democratic-dictator Chavez has done in Venezuela. Perhaps that would be more to Ms. Morse's democratic sensitivities.

Thanks for weighting in Ms. Morse.

By: dbjones

dbjones — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:43:08 +0000

I concur with those who remind us that no issue is as simple as right and wrong. To respond effectively i would probably need months of study on Honduran politics, but nevertheless, i have some thoughts. The first is, democracy does not come easy. Rousseau came up with the myth that people “give” authority to leaders, but i can't think of much data to substantiate his theory. Mine is that people with power assume leadership, and that people without power follow for protection from threats, either outside the community, or from their own leaders. So democracy is not natural. Our own American myths tell us that we became a country for the common good of our citizens, but we have had to redefine citizen several times over the last 233 in order to be truly democratic (acknowledging room for debate on whether we are there yet). Back to Honduras: they broke the rule of law and did not follow through established procedures for removal of the president. Protesters have been mistreated. Sad, wrong, undemocratic. However, the military acted under authority of elected representatives. The representatives based their reason for removal in the constitution as affirmed by the judicial branch. Nobody died (to my knowledge). So in a way this is progress. Let's hope that our leaders and those of our hemispheric neighbors will work with Zelaya and the current government to mediate a positive solution which will not alienate them and reverse what progress they have made.

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:02:39 +0000

That's not what it's really about. Read the post again — in fact, there is a mechanism in place to remove the president legally if need be.

By: Minnesotan

Minnesotan — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:54:35 +0000

I caution Sojourners from painting this as “saintly ,President unjustly ousted by evil military.” This is a much more complex situation, and the President was trying to take over the government, like the presidents of Venezuela and Bolivia have, establishing one man, strong arm rule over the people. Please do not make this sound like it is the “rich” fighting the “poor,” rather than a greedy many eager for power bending the rules and getting caught.

By: BlueDeacon

BlueDeacon — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:05:51 +0000

You simply do not enforce the law by breaking it, nor by abrogating the principles on which the law stands. Also remember that military coups are fairly common in that part of the world — the army doesn't like someone it gets rid of him/her. But, to you, it's all about ideology, no?

And as for “bearing false witness,” you might want to take your own advice because calling anyone a “neo-Marxist crony” is nothing more than a slur, let alone a lie.

By: FilmDoctor

FilmDoctor — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:26:09 +0000

The Honduran President violated the law. The police and military authorities have the option to enforce it, especially in this case where the President was obviously trying to establish another Neo-Marxist dictatorship in the region, in an illegal manner (no one is above the law). Once again, Barack Obama and his Neo-Marxist cronies distort the truth to the point perhaps of even lying. Anyone recall that verse about not bearing false witness? Socialism is a return to slavery! www.americanvision.org, www.abidingtruth.com, www.answers.org, www.equip.org, http://twitter.com/FilmDoctor, http://www.republicanassemblies.org/, http://www.chalcedon.edu/blog/blog.php.

By: ando

ando — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:05:06 +0000

I think bloggers should put their true beliefs and opinions in their writings. For example, what does Ashley Morse think of Hugo Chavez or Raul Castro? If Zelaya were a conservative, would she be as interested in criticizing the coup? The history of Latin America, at least in the last 100 years, has been Right vs. Left with little to no wiggle room for those in the middle. For those on either extreme, they always think they're in the middle and the other side is the problem.

Some of us think that both extremes are the problem.