[Peace] News-Gazette Letter to the Editor | Duckworth breaks oath with vote

[Robert Naiman]

Well, I give credit to Duckworth for responding directly to the author.

But the response is shameful.

First of all, she is saying: don't look to me to defend your Constitutional
rights, look to the courts. This is not a response one we should accept
from an Illinois Senator. The position of the ACLU, correctly, is that
legislatures should not pass unconstitutional laws. We shouldn't have to go
to court to defend ourselves from unconstitutional laws. Legislatures
shouldn't pass them in the first place.

Second, she is saying: don't worry, the House is probably not going to pass
this, might not even take it up. That is another form of
responsibility-shirking. It was her job to vote the right way when the
issue was in front of her, not shirk responsibility for voting the right
way to someone else.

Durbin voted the right way. Why couldn't Duckworth do it?

===

Robert Reuel Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1





On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 6:39 PM Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Robert, the author is a friend, I have cc’d her on this email
> communication. She just today received a response to her letter from Tammy,
> please see:
>
> "​The concerns regarding freedom of speech implications are rightly being
> litigated before Federal courts and would be subject to further debate and
> amendment in the House of Representatives, if that chamber even takes up
> the bill. This bill does not protect a state or local BDS law from being
> challenged in court by an individual on constitutional grounds.
>
>
> On Feb 7, 2019, at 16:31, Robert Naiman via Peace <
> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>
> http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/letters-the-editor/2019-02-05/letter-the-editor-duckworth-breaks-oath-with-vote.html
>
> Letter to the Editor | Duckworth breaks oath with vote
> Tue, 02/05/2019 - 4:15am | The News-Gazette
> <http://www.news-gazette.com/users/digitalmedia>
>
> U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth's vote for S.1, the "Strengthening America's
> Security in the Middle East Act," is a Constitutional disgrace.
>
> This legislation will encourage state and local governments to restrict
> Americans' right to free speech, a right that all members of Congress take
> an oath to protect.
>
> The time-honored sanction of boycotts was used in Montgomery, Ala., South
> Africa and currently in Iran, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, Syria and many
> places around the globe — purportedly to pressure governments to become
> more democratic and more humane, at least that's what successive
> administrations and Congresses have told Americans.
>
> Whether this is what our government should be doing (or actually is doing)
> is left for other debates.
>
> This letter asks: Why has Duckworth hypocritically voted to restrict
> Americans' right to use boycotts to fight Palestinian oppression, the same
> boycotts the U.S. uses across the globe?
>
> Duckworth's support of S.1 demonstrates her contempt for democratic
> freedoms. It violates her oath to uphold the Constitution.
>
> How can Duckworth vote against the very freedoms at home that she
> presumably fought for in Iraq?
>
> Emma Lazarus, whose sonnet "The New Colossus" is engraved on the pedestal
> of the Statue of Liberty, also wrote: "Until we are all free, we are none
> of us free." Duckworth's vote is insensible to understanding freedom, or
> she just doesn't care about some people, which amounts to racism.
>
> She allows liberal use of sanctions everywhere but Palestine. This makes
> her motives and actions suspect.
>
> SHERI DALEY
>
> Champaign
>
> ===
>
> ===
>
> Robert Reuel Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> (202) 448-2898 x1
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace mailing list
> Peace at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>
>
>
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