Rand Paul rips JD Vance's assertion that executing cartel members is the 'best use of our military'

Fox ^ | 9/8/2025 | Nitzberg

[Phoenix8]

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky strongly objected after Vice President JD Vance asserted in a Saturday post on X that "Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military."

"JD ‘I don’t give a s[---]’ Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military.’ Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation??" Senator Paul wrote.

[aspasia]

You win.

[SamuraiScot]

Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?

Who cares about a pot-boiler-Commie-dystopian fantasy?

I think he should make a resolution to stop quoting ancient, sucker-bait novels as if they embodied reality when our actual national security is at stake.

[Da Coyote]

“Senator” = A sligtly less stupid congress critter than a Representative. (Democrat critters are not included, since their stupidity exceeds all bounds.) Shove it, Rand Paul.

[aspasia]

He’s put the spotlight on Fauci, FWIW.

[Mark17]

Hes an idiot.

Here, here.

[dadgum]

Rand is a weak little man.

He should be nowhere near any weapons.
He should be nowhere near where military operations are planned and executed.

Maybe he should take up crochet or basket weaving.

[Brian Griffin]

“The I’m Alone became the first foreign-flagged rumrunner sunk by the Coast Guard on the high seas resulting in the death of a foreign national.”

“Arbitration between the United States and Canada lasted well beyond the repeal of the Volstead Act. Canada originally asked for more than $350,000 in damages. After it was uncovered through analysis of crypto intercepts and shoreside liquor raids that the I’m Alone was American-owned, and not Canadian, the award was significantly reduced. The final report never determined the legitimacy of the hot pursuit, but declared unequivocally that both the Canadian-American Liquor Treaty of 1924 and international law did not justify the sinking. It was simply ‘an unlawful act.’”

“Because of this finding, the commission agreed on a sum to compensate those directly affected by the incident. The United States would “apologize to his Majesty’s Canadian Government” and pay out a $25,000 settlement to Canada for the insult and property loss. In addition, the arbitration commission awarded $25,000 to Jack Randell and his crew.”

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2013/may/use-all-force

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Sinking Drug boats is a fine idea.

[dadgum]

Oh, maybe get a cat, too.

[datricker]

Maverick rand paul must have missed that day in school where it was explained why the exception proves the rule

[al baby]

Noriaga was going to spill the beans on him clinton the cia and mena

[nathanbedford]

Drugs are a threat to civilization. The war on drugs is a threat to civilization.

Drugs are killing our children, ruining lives, devastating neighborhoods and whole cities, generating crime, despoiling our culture, dehumanizing our spirit and threatening to undue the great American experiment. Drugs are corrupting our police, our judges, our politicians, and whole generations of ordinary citizens.

Yet, the war on drugs is a spectacular failure. The more law enforcement is able to reduce the supply of drugs, the higher that drives the price because demand is essentially inelastic. The higher the price, the greater the incentive to supply drugs.

Fentanyl is the greatest killer of our young males who were born long after Richard Nixon commenced making war on drugs and long after Ronald Reagan declared war on drugs. Their children will be dying at increased rates from the next generation of drugs if we persist in waging war on drugs.

As the war on drugs fails on its own terms, it compounds the very evils that animate us to wage this hopeless war because the war against drugs ensures the profit in purveying drugs. Indeed, the more we succeed the more we guarantee failure. The more we strive, the more we finance our own corruption. The more we profess to enforce the law, the more we undermine the rule of law. The more we make hypocrites of ourselves in promising the impossible, the more we demoralize our culture and respect for law.

As the gap widens between the aspirations for a drug free society and the reality of unrestrained drug abuse, the more aggressive become the exertions of politicians to deliver the impossible. Impossible, that is, short of blatant abandonment of every principle that animates the Bill of Rights. Either we retain respect for the integrity of the individual that makes America what is, or we sacrifice the sacred safeguards that have become part of our corpus juris as the price to create a drug-free society.

We simply cannot win the war on drugs and still have our Bill of Rights.

Law enforcement does not become a war by calling it a war. The law of war is an entirely different matter with entirely different rules. We separate powers and charge the judiciary to protect individual rights against overreach by law enforcement. We consolidate power in the executive to wage wars that necessarily involve death and destruction with very little regard for individuals involved.

The Bill of Rights must not be nullified by the cynical misapplication of a label.

The issue in this particular case is not whether the boat in question was illegally running drugs, I have no doubt it was. Neither, I suspect, does Sen. Rand Paul. The issue for both of us is not this boat, but the next boat, and the next. The issue is to protect the Constitution, from vigilantism, fascism, or just plain frustration at our inability to save America from cultural decay.

In 1934 with the advent of a new administration in power, the nation faced a similar dilemma over its failed effort to render America free of alcohol. We chose to legalize that drug and regulate it. The new approach was not universally successful nor was it perfect, but it was certainly better than prohibition.

[Brian Griffin]

WIKI

The Confederacy had little industrial capability and could not produce the quantity of arms and other supplies needed to fight against the Union. To meet this need, British investors financed numerous blockade runners that were constructed in the British Isles and were used to import the guns, ordnance and other supplies, in exchange for cotton that the British textile industry needed greatly. To penetrate the blockade, these relatively lightweight shallow draft ships, mostly built in British shipyards and specially designed for speed, but not suited for transporting large quantities of cotton, had to cruise undetected, usually at night, through the Union blockade.

Between 2,500 and 2,800 attempts were made to run the blockade, with at least an 80% success rate. By the end of the Civil War, the Union Navy had captured more than 1,100 blockade runners and had destroyed or run aground another 355. The Union had also reduced the American South’s exports of cotton by 95 percent from pre-war levels, devaluing the Confederate States dollar and severely damaging the Confederacy’s economy. Various historians have estimated that supplies brought into the Confederacy via blockade runners lengthened the duration of the conflict by up to two years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_runners_of_the_American_Civil_War

[Seaplaner]

I’ll have to go with Vance on this one.

Yes, I strongly support Vice President Vance's stance.

Does Mister Paul appear to take perverse pleasure in (metaphorically) pottying on what we believe to be a critical issue commanding our support?

If Mister Paul seeks attention, maybe he should just wear a dress or get a forehead tattoo (either might go with his coiffure).

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

You either support due process consistently or you support fascism when it is your guy in the White House.

I disagree with your framing of the issue.

It is entirely possible to support due process being required within the jurisdictional borders of the United States, but not support due process being required outside that jurisdiction.

That's a clear, brightline rule.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Rand Paul is a military expert, huh?

[Locomotive Breath]

To Kill a Mockingbird was one of biggest lies ever written. It’s author was not Harper Lee. It was essentially ghost written by Yankee Quaker Tay Hohoff who never set foot in the south.

[brooklin]

The real harm to the cartels would be to get their money. It is laundered somewhere

[TigersEye]

Yeah, right.

[Jane Long]

This Lil Midget needs to sit down.