Posted on 06/04/2015 4:07:21 PM PDT by presidio9
Politicians talk a lot, and the more a politician talks, the greater the risk he or she will say something regrettable. If you run your mouth for 11 hours at a stretch, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is wont to do, the chance of putting your foot in it goes up correspondingly.
So maybe it was statistically inevitable that Paul would cover himself in the opposite of glory by declaring, during his Monday Senate speech against National Security Agency counterterrorism surveillance, that "people here in town think I'm making a huge mistake. Some of them, I think, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me."
Amid the fury of his Republican colleagues, who were the implicit targets of this self-pitying smear (and annoyed that Paul was raising money off such grandstanding for his presidential campaign), Paul admitted on Fox News that he might have strayed into "hyperbole" and "impugning people's motives."
Then again, what if hyperbole, combined with a certain passive-aggressiveness, is not incidental to Paul's political style but essential? This is hardly the first time the presidential candidate has found himself explaining away an impolitic surfacing of his internal monologue. He's still trying to live down his
-SNIP- As is becoming increasingly apparent, however, Paul represents a darker, angrier corner of the libertarian imagination, the part that's not just concerned by government overreach in pursuit of legitimate objectives — fighting terrorism, say — but positively haunted by spies, war "hawks" and maybe killer drones. Also, the Federal Reserve, which Paul would subject to an "audit."
Paul has tried mightily to mainstream his brand of politics, distinguishing it from that of his father, Ron,
-SNIP-
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Has he taken off his sunglasses?
Darker is evil, huh? Sounds like a racist to me. This guy needs to be fired immediately.
Dark to The evil NWO Government and it’s press lackeys.
This was my office until the summer of 2001.
I probably know some of the people in this picture.
I can't believe that I would ever say this about any Republican candidate, but should Rand Paul win the nomination, I will have a tough time choosing between him and Hillary Clinton. I would trust him to give voters and honest answer if someone asked him what color the sky was.
I believe he was being quite gracious by saying that they would only wish for such an attack.
Not to worry: After President Paul dismantles the national security apparatus, ends all foreign deployments and closes Guantanamo, history is sure to repeat itself.
So we'll get another chance.
I guess you mean "after President Paul brings the national security apparatus back within its Constitutional limits".
The Nazis had a very efficient national security apparatus. A totalitarian one.
If America "needs" to have a similar apparatus, made even more powerful than Nazi Germany when leveraged by technology, then the terrorists will have already won, because there will be no Constitutional America left to defend.
What the NSA was doing was an unconstitutional abomination, and Senator Paul (however wrong he may be on other issues) was absolutely right to do everything in his power to expose and destroy it.
It’s a badge of honor that the Washington Post has taken out after Rand Paul. He’s right about the NSA. No government agency should be collecting American citizens’ private information.
Why are we protected in these areas by the 4th amendment?
For those quick to blow up the 4th amendment, I’d suggest to them that the point of the 4th is exactly the same as the point of the 2nd.
We protect ourselves from tyrannical government.
Rand Paul still sucks, and is still pro-choice.
Pro-tyranny is also anti-life.
What does that have do with Paul being pro-choice and his trying to move the GOP left on abortion and gay marriage, and being weak on defense, and to drop social conservatism?
The article is about the NSA stand by Paul.
I thought you had read it.
Yeah, and all I posted to you and anyone else who reads this thread is, that Paul still sucks, and is pro-choice.
And what I said is that pro-tyranny is also anti-life.
That and the pro-choice candidate’s badge of honor.
???
The guy is too pro-choice, too anti-marriage, too anti-conservative, too weak on national defense, and too committed to moving the GOP left, to get a badge of honor.
But you’re glad he stood up on this NSA thing.
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