George W. Bush has signed a new executive order:
…all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,
(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or
(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;
(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or
(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.
Wow. So I guess that means George W. Bush is planning to have the government seize his own property, and the property of Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Tenet. After all, these are the individuals who have through their actions most threatened the peace and stability of Iraq. Right?
Oh, darn it, wrong. Looks like some clever lawyer read it first and tacked on this sentence at the bottom:
This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.
So Bush is just going to seize the property of people outside the government who are fucking up Iraq.
I especially love this section of the order:
Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
So if you do anything that avoids violating the provisions of the executive order, that’s prohibited too. This would include things like, say, not violating it, which is the tricksiest game in the pro-terrorist book. But avoiding prohibiting the executive order is also a prohibition set forth in the order. So that means that if you do anything to avoid avoiding violations of the executive order, that’s also prohibited. And that, in turn, means that if you do anything to avoid avoiding avoidance of violations of the executive order, that’s prohibited too.
In short, anything you do, including violating or avoiding violating Bush’s executive order, is a violation of Bush’s executive order. And he can have your stuff.
So come on now, citizen, evaluate yourself. Are you sitting there, drinking your cup of coffee, tussling your kids hair, or in some other way avoiding violating Bush’s executive order? Well, then, you’re in violation! Go turn yourself in to your Homeland Security minder right now, and be sure to bring the deed to your house and your car along with you.
P.S. Wait a minute. If avoiding violation of the executive order is also a violation of the executive order, then that means avoiding violation of the executive order is impossible, which means that you can’t violate the executive order, which means that we’re all innocent. But wait, that means we’ve all avoided violating the executive order, which means we’re all guilty. Oh, this is making my Homeland Security brain implant hurt. Make it stop.
” Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
So if you do anything that avoids violating the provisions of the executive order, that’s prohibited too. This would include things like, say, not violating it, which is the tricksiest game in the pro-terrorist book. But avoiding prohibiting the executive order is also a prohibition set forth in the order. So that means that if you do anything to avoid avoiding violations of the executive order, that’s also prohibited. And that, in turn, means that if you do anything to avoid avoiding avoidance of violations of the executive order, that’s prohibited too. ”
Although I think what Bush is doing is absurd, I have to point out that I think you misinterpreted this part of the bill. I think he was trying to say ‘Any transaction by a United States national or anyone in the borders or jurisdiction of the United States evades or avoids this order, has the purpose of evading or avoiding this order, or attempts to violate any of the provisions set forth in this order is prohibited. ‘
Oh, I agree that’s probably what he meant to say, but it’s not what the order actually says. That’s not the only piece of muffed edicting in Bush’s executive order, which seems very much like a rushed sophomore term paper. Goodness, they didn’t even get the paragraph spacing right. And don’t get me started on the margins!
No, I mean you were misinterpreting what the words actually said on the paper. Let’s separate the sentence into its parts:
Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States – subject.
…that evades or avoids – action 1
… has the purpose of evading or avoiding – action 2
… or attempts to violate – action 3
… this order – object.
Looking from the text, your interpretation doesn’t seem to be what the order actually says.
…any of the prohibitions set forth in this order – object, actually. Lemme correct that .
When you corrected yourself, you got it right.
…evades or avoids any of the prohibitions
…has the purpose of evading or avoiding any of the prohibitions
…or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions
That’s what the parallelism of the sentence in the executive order does.
I think I have come to a new understanding of Bush’s executive order.
When the executive order sets out punishments for “threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq,” it cannot mean to punish those who would destabilize or work against the peace of Iraq. Since Iraq is not at peace and is not stable to begin with, and nonexistent states cannot be put in jeopardy. I think that Bush means to punish people who threaten to put Iraq into a state of peace or stability. Yes, that’s what he must have meant.
I think it’s based on a semantic confusion between a prohibition and the thing prohibited.
For example:
If you consider running a red light to be a prohibition, you would avoid the prohibition by avoiding running a red light.
But if you consider the prohibition to be “do not run a red light,” you would avoid the prohibition by avoiding NOT running a red light–i.e. by running a red light.
Running a red light is not a prohibition, it is an action. A statement forbidding the running a red light (i.e. “do not run a red light”) is the prohibition.
I’ve also got to say that a certain reading of the following sentence (which as far as I can tell is the correct reading) leads to some pretty amusing conclusions:
This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.
If we shrink this back closer to the root sentence, I believe we get something like this:
This order is not intended to…create any right…enforceable at law…by any party against…any other person.
I don’t think we need to worry too much about this law. Though we may have all run afoul of it by avoiding its prohibitions, no party has any legal right to enforce it against any other person.
Oh, I see what you mean, Ralph.
So, Ralph, maybe the law only applies to non-persons and organizations conveniently identified by the Treasury Secretary, such as al-Qaeda..and the ACLU.