Posted on 01/27/2014 6:46:58 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
According to reports from Politico, Southwest Florida Congressman Trey Radel is resigning from Congress.
Radel pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in November and was sentenced to one-year probation.
He also just completed a stint in rehab.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbs12.com ...
Byron Donalds can run again now. I liked him the last time.
OK, that’s a good point. According to my Christian Religion, we are all sinners before God. T’is Grace that saves us...
However, the politicians that represent me must be of the best possible character and judgement. They RUN for office, and struggle against each other to be considered by the voters to be the best. If one has issues, he/she should stand aside and let a better take his/her place. Otherwise, OUR political opponents will use this to assault and batter our cause, and it is our cause that must prevail.
When I was in the military, I had a very good friend, a SMSgt (E-8) like me, who had already served 20 years, get caught driving through the Tyndall AFB gate with a Blood Alcohol of .218. Yes, he was a great guy, great leader, level headed, but he chose to go golfing with old friends and had way too many at the clubhouse afterward and then got behind the wheel. He told me later he didn’t even remember leaving the clubhouse, let alone driving back to Tyndall, and I believed him. I may have even drunk too much and driven myself(oh yes, lots of times—before they court-martialed for it). Still, he was court-martialed and kicked out. Lost his position, pension, everything. We all hated it like hell, but we all knew the consequences, too. When the consequences were spelled out to me, and the military got on the drunk driving-no-tolerance stick, I stopped drinking and driving.
As I said before with the Representative, it is very sad, and I wish him God speed, but he can no longer represent.
“Byron Donalds can run again now.”
My biggest fear, though, is that RINOish ex-Congressman Connie Mack IV will run to reclaim his old seat in spite of his embarrassing performance in the 2012 U.S. Senate election.
Ugh, I pray to God Mack does not return. The guy is a disaster.
Well, don’t look now, but Mack is hinting at a comeback: http://www.nationaljournal.com/hotline-on-call/trey-radel-resignation-starts-scramble-for-safe-republican-seat-20140127
For violating contraband law? LOL.
Maybe that one is over my head, but I do not understand why you think that is funny, sargon. Please explain.
If Mack declares, Radel should rescind his resignation.
Or we can beat Mack in the primary.
If we’re so afraid of a RINO with money that we’d rather keep a cokehead in Congress for another year, then we’re really up Shiitake Mushroom Creek without a paddle.
Because making somebody a felon for violating contraband law is the epitome of nanny-state Tyranny.
Prohibition not only doesn't work, but it makes criminals out of huge swaths of everyday citizens who want nothing more than to pursue happiness as they see fit.
When an individual's "pursuit of happiness" is defined by the State or a mob (majority Tyranny) it loses its core meaning.
Putting somebody in prison for possessing the wrong plant (or chemical, or medicine) is morally wrong.
If an idividual infringes on somebody else's rights via force, fraud, or negligence, that is when the law is legitimate.
In all other cases, the law is arbitrary, Tyrannical, and downright Unamerican, IMHO, and it's no wonder that so many everyday citizens lose respect for its legitimacy and disregard it when they see fit.
The only people "good enough" to represent conservatives will be goody-two-shoes church ninnies.
Conservatives deserve to continue to get destroyed in the power game of politics.
They don't know how to play and it looks like they will never learn.
OK, so you’re coming at this from the decriminalization of drugs.
I think you could make the case that true freedom also means the freedom to do with your own body what you want to do. I always wonder why it took a Constitutional amendment to ban alcohol but a simple congressional fiat to ban other chemicals.
I am open to the idea of decriminalization of drugs from a liberty standpoint.
However, this representative broke the existing law, which he is required to uphold. We all are. If we think the law is wrong or unjust, we should fight to change it.
I question you this: Did he ever put his money where his mouth is, so to say, by submitting a bill to decriminalize drugs? Did he vote against any and all funds for drug law enforcement? If so, not only is he now a felon, but a hypocrite, too.
When Clinton stood before a crowd praising a new sexual harassment law (which I thought criminalized free speech) to get more votes from women, only to have that same law used by Paula Jones against him, I thought it was deliciously ironic. There is not a separate law for our masters and another, more draconian one for us peons. All are equal before the law.
Come on SoFlo, dude is a cokehead, we don’t need that.
Poltics1 has Mack the lesser in italics (meaning potential candidate), please God no. No no no no no.
Can’t find any mention of Byron Donald being interested.
He’s a coke head passing laws to put other cokeheads in jail. Perhaps we should give both him and Barack medals for service to their country?
The same could be said about many gun laws. Do you think a patriot in California should submit to a law which bans an SKS?
IMHO, Tyrannical law should (or at least can) be legitimately scoffed at. I definitely don't think any less of any individual, whether selfish or not, for ignoring arbitrary law, and I don't think we as Americans are obligated to submit to such law. Indeed, to a certain extent, I believe Americans have a duty to hold such law in open derision and defiance.
One of the central themes of the Revolution was the notion that laws have to be justifiable against a very challenging and expansive vision of individual Liberty and the rights of man, and to fall short of that dilutes Freedom itself.
What I'm trying to express is that I believe America shouldn't be a place where the "least common denominator" of Freedom is what prevails; it shouldn't be a place where vocal minorities, bullying majorities, or an arbitrary State whittles Liberty down to something minimal in nature.
Just to be clear, my vision of Liberty doesn't embrace ridiculous notions like forcing society to redefine traditional marriage, for example. But it does mean asking various subgroups of people being willing to tolerate individual behavior which they might personally dislike.
Liberty and Justice for all should be the eternal goal we strive towards.
In any event, nice conversing with you.
He has said he’ll decide within the month.
According to Ballotpedia, Byron Donalds is looking at a 2014 run (he made some sort of statement of interest less than two months ago): http://ballotpedia.org/Byron_Donalds
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