Rand Paul filibustering over drones

http://washingtonexaminer.com/rand-paul-filibustering-over-drones-i-will-not-let-obama-shred-the-constitution/article/2523425

by stfu • 13 years ago

220 198 13 years ago

washingtonexaminer.com

VengefulCynic• 13 years ago

If the filibuster prompts further public discourse and a closer look at the use of lethal force without due process of law, it's positive. The real question will be if all of the other Senators vote for cloture just to get the issue swept back under the carpet.

Impediments on the power of government aren't particularly popular to those who wield the power of government, regardless of the branch they occupy.

stevesearer3• 13 years ago

Yeah, I've been wondering if it will amount to anything as well. My gut tells me that it won't.

That said, I've had it running for around and hour and have found it interesting for no other reason than understanding how filibusters actually work. From what I can tell, he has just been spending time reading articles critical of drone strikes or reading other documents while providing commentary on them as he goes.

He's even been taking time to eat a snack which provides comedic pauses in the listening experiences.

Rand also gets small breaks from others who come forward to ask questions - most of which seem to be staged to help him cover additional points, reiterate his already made points, or just generally use up more clock.

Based on the view behind him, it appears that all other senators need not be present while he speaks. Is that true and has this always been the case? I'd imagine that the tactic might be more compelling and useful if everyone had to sit there and listen.

twoodfin• 13 years ago

I'm unfamiliar with the specific rules of Senate decorum, but no, I don't think any other Senators except whoever's presiding are required to be present.

Senators would get very little done if they had to sit in the Senate Chamber any time any one of them had something he or she wanted to say. They're all pretty garrulous.

hkmurakami4• 13 years ago

Lawrence Lessig provides a great description of how our representatives "rush in" in time to vote and then rush out immediately to make more phone calls to solicit contributions.

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress/...

lmkg• 13 years ago

The important thing to understanding filibusters is that they're a dirty, dirty hack. They were never really intended to be part of the legislative process, they're just some enterprising senators noticing and exploiting some loopholes in the senate's debate rules.

While the House puts some limits on debates, to move things along, the Senate is a more deliberative body (by design) and therefore doesn't vote on an issue until it has been completely debated. There is no strict definition of "completely debated" beyond "someone still has something to say." As any half-awake hacker no doubt will notice, this means that you can prevent a law from getting voted on, and therefore passing, by simply not ending the debate. This is what a filibuster is.

There are technically some restrictions around debate, and the band-aid fix that a supermajority vote can stop debate and bring a vote, but that's about the only thing stopping it in practice.

The main technical restriction is that, if the Senate doesn't have anything else to do, any one Senator only gets one monologue. They can't stop one day, and then filibuster again the next day. This rule can be stretched, but not broken. Hence, the content of most filibusters tend to be long space-fillers, which is what you're seeing. There's also a rule that the debate must be 'on topic,' but that's too vaguely defined to be worth anything. Famously, one Senator said something to the effect of "this law is not in the interests of my constituents, who are as follows:" and then proceed to literally read the phone book for a few hours.

anigbrowl31• 13 years ago

the use of lethal force without due process of law

This canard has been debunked so many times on HN that I've lost count, but carry on as if the constitutional, legislative, ethical and historical justification for drone strikes had not been repeatedly explained in copious detail. It's much easier to pretend there's a conspiracy of silence and that nobody has ever stepped up to present an argument for the administration's position.

camperman2• 13 years ago

Constitutional justification for drone strikes? Interesting claim. Any links?

InclinedPlane8• 13 years ago

The administration's position is, frankly, bullshit. It amounts to little more than the executive branch reserving for itself the ability to call any location outside of US territory a battlefield and to designate anyone they wish a threat worthy of summary execution.

Now, all of this is couched in the most justifiable of terminology and is crafted to follow the broad outlines of judicial procedure but the fact remains that the administration has given themselves this authority and retain whatever oversight, if any, is involved with it.

This is utterly antithetical to the principles set forth in our constitution and if any of the founding fathers were alive today I'm quite certain they would vomit at the idea.

harrylove• 13 years ago

Live right now on C-SPAN2: http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/

vxNsr• 13 years ago

It's most interesting to hear what he's talking about and how he can just keep talking and talking and talking. He'll repeat himself and then say it again in a third way, it's great.

retrogradeorbit2• 13 years ago

I like the other senators helping him out by 'asking him to answer questions whithout relinquishing the floor'.

Zerohedge coverage here with some quotes: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-06/rand-pauls-filibliz...

krschultz• 13 years ago

The letter Eric Holder sent that caused this.

http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/BrennanPaul.pdf

anigbrowl31• 13 years ago

That's a letter from John Brennan, nominee for head of the CIA. This is the letter from Eric Holder: http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/BrennanHolderResponse...

In my view it's entirely reasonable, and Rand Paul is full of shit. His filibuster is nothing other than pandering to a right-wing fringe that considers Obama to be the reincarnation of Josef Stalin.

Uhhrrr3• 13 years ago

Don't you think there should be legal limitations on the President's ability to order someone's death? Note that Holder's letter recognizes no such limitations.

stevesearer3• 13 years ago

This isn't necessarily proof against what you're saying, but many articles I've been reading are chock full of commenters saying they dislike Rand Paul and usually disagree with him, but agree with him on this matter.

So from what I can tell, many people agree with him on the matter of drone attacks on US soil.

shill2• 13 years ago

Would you say the same thing if there was a Republican in the White House touting the power to execute you without a trial?

olympus2• 13 years ago

Filibustering is great and all, but how about introducing some legislation clarifying the issue that US citizens are off limits to drones? It would be too easy for Holder or Obama to say, "okay, we won't do it" and then go back on their word. Having the law on the books makes it a lot tougher for Obama and any future presidents to kill citizens without affording them their full right to trial.

homosaur• 13 years ago

I'm sure that will happen sooner rather than later, but Brennan's dog and pony show is a perfect place to make a nice point about the issue since he's one of the prime advocates for the drone movement.

SoftwareMaven• 13 years ago

Don't we have something more powerful than a law on the books now? The 5th Amendment is pretty clear on the subject: you must follow due process.

I honestly don't see how a strike on US soil against a US citizen could be seen as constitutional. But then, there have been a lot of things over the past 15 years that I've felt the same way about.

olympus2• 13 years ago

The 5th Amendment is great, but that doesn't mean that Congress can't pass something clarifying how drone strikes fit into that framework and settling the issue before someone gets blown up by a Hellfire missile. I don't see how anything like drone strikes on US soil could be constitutional either, regardless of what the memos and briefings from the Attorney General's office say. But I'd sure like this to be put to bed before someone dies from it, and I think that Congress should be the place to do it. It would be almost impossible to vote against such legislation and would probably help Congress' approval rating because they will be doing something worthwhile.

jff• 13 years ago

The standard process seems to be to violate the Constitution, then continue doing it until the Supreme Court tells you you've been very naughty.

anigbrowl31• 13 years ago

Well, there's this other stuff in the Constitution about Congress having powers to define the rules of war and Congress has exercised that power. You have to take the Constitution as a whole, not just the bits that suit your argument.

InclinedPlane8• 13 years ago

The letter of the law doesn't bring the dead back to life. And what's written in the constitution is irrelevant if 2 branches of government brazenly decide to ignore it, as has happened far too many times in the past.

tokipin• 13 years ago

if it wasn't drones it would've been something else. everything in the senate is filibustered by default, quite literally. there isn't anything special about this case except the drone issue itself

ericcumbee• 13 years ago

No this is different there are two different types of Filibuster. a Filibuster lite which is more or less a procedural trick. and then the full blown Mr. Smith Goes to washington keep talking until you drop filibuster. this is the full blown filibuster and it's actually quite rare.

tptacek20• 13 years ago

Rand Paul asked a stupid question†† of Eric Holder, one of the top lawyers in the USG, and received a predictably stupid answer. That question, distilled: "is there any conceivable situation in which drones could be used to attack US citizens on US soil'. How could the answer to that question be anything but yes? All you have to do is imagine a far-fetched scenario in which an al Qaeda terrorist who happens to be a US citizen is going to kill hundreds of Americans, imminently, but for an intervention that will only be effective via drone strike.

A simpler way to frame this that hundreds of people have now pointed out, which has the helpful property of extracting the scary alien new "drones"† from the equation: the authority Holder is claiming for the administration is the same as the one that would allow them to down a jetliner hurtling towards the Sears Tower: an intervention only available to the military.

There were good questions available to Rand Paul before he decided to prematurely declare victory over common sense. Two I can come up with:

* Does the administration claim the right to use military resources to attack US citizens on US soil if compelling evidence exists that they are al Qaeda terrorist when no specific evidence exists that such a person plans to imminently attack the US? Can the US use an airstrike against an al Qaeda terrorist who is a US citizen simply to keep them from "getting away"?

* Does the administration claim the right to use airstrikes against al Qaeda terrorists of any nationality when a reasonable person could infer a likelihood that such a strike would cause harm to Americans in the vicinity of the strike?

There are more good questions, I'm sure. "Could there ever be a case when..." is literally the "ticking time bomb" question; the dumbest of all questions.

† Scared kids in combat boots with M16s have done far more damage to innocent lives, both at home and abroad, than drones will ever do; drones are often a way of affecting concern for the lives of people 'like us' while ignoring the safety of civilians and servicemembers on the ground.

†† "What stupid question?" This one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5335285

Lost_BiomedE• 13 years ago

Personally, even in your far-fetched scenario, I would prefer a 'no'. It would have to be much further far-fetched for the only answer to that threat to be a drone.

Should we arm some in air drones for such a scenario? All sorts of slippery slope. The answer should just be a no.

tptacek20• 13 years ago

Holder himself says the scenario is far fetched. Which is why one wishes Rand Paul would ask better questions that don't admit to far-fetched answers.

But that aside: the irrational fear of drones is a little crazymaking. Not because armed drones are a good thing, but because conventional warfare is so awful. Soldiers deployed in theater are basically teenagers with combat rifles, and, not to put too fine a point on it, they routinely shoot and kill innocent people and there's practically nothing we can do about it because modern warfare is such a complete clusterfuck.

You know you're talking to someone who does not quite grok how bad war is in 2013 when they use words like "battlefield". What battlefield? Since at least 1914, your battlefield is my suburban hometown.

signalsignal• 13 years ago

What do you mean by "Scared kids"? These soldiers we send into combat are adults and trained professionals. If anything they should be better able to assess a situation in combat with boots on the ground, not flying above the area thousands of meters away firing missiles.

Additionally, there is nothing stupid about what Rand Paul is doing. The American government is based on a system of checks and balances. Rand Paul is doing the job he is paid to do.

tptacek20• 13 years ago

Many of them are adults and trained professionals, but many of them are also literally teenagers.

As for Paul, reread what I wrote. I said something specific, and you generalized it to rebut something else that I did not say.

dctoedt2• 13 years ago

> What do you mean by "Scared kids"? These soldiers we send into combat are adults and trained professionals. If anything they should be better able to assess a situation in combat with boots on the ground, not flying above the area thousands of meters away firing missiles.

I believe we have some combat veterans among the HN crowd; you might ask them whether you've got a realistic view of the stress of a combat situation.

lostlogin2• 13 years ago

Trained professional? All of them? Have you about the atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan etc? They might be mostly professional, but that isn't good enough unfortunately.

waterlesscloud• 13 years ago

Our attorney general isn't capable of handling a "stupid" question?

That's a primary qualification for the job, isn't it?

jarrett• 13 years ago

The question I would most like to see asked and debated (in Congress and here) is whether there is or should be any legal distinction between drones and more traditional weapons. Here's why.

It has long been established that the federal government (like state and local governments) may, in certain limited circumstances, kill a US citizen on US soil without any formal process. Some familiar examples: a gun-to-the-head hostage situation, a mass shooter, and a person opening fire on law enforcement. In these scenarios, the perpetrator would typically be killed by law enforcement.

There are also circumstances in which the US military may kill US citizens on US soil. The Civil War is perhaps the best example. The Confederacy was not deemed a sovereign nation. Its soldiers were deemed US citizens engaged in criminal activity. When the US armed forces killed Confederate soldiers, they were killing US citizens without trial. I say this without an ounce of condemnation. It is just the bleak historical reality.

So it is clear that both federal law enforcement and the military may at times kill US citizens on US soil. But in the examples I've given, drones were not used.

Which returns me to my original question: Should drones somehow be treated differently? What about manned aircraft? Artillery?

tptacek20• 13 years ago

I think that's an entirely reasonable question.

Personally, I am less scared of drones than of conventional weapons, which tend to be deployed in the arms of mammals who get twitchy and fire them irrationally out of fear, excitement, or anger.

philwelch• 13 years ago

Since the Confederate states were dropped from the Union and later readmitted over time, that's not a crystal clear interpretation. There's a case to be made that the Confederacy seceded only to be reconquered by force.

pdeuchler5• 13 years ago

I know you're trying to be a realist about this, but there's honestly no excuse for backing down on your morals.

We are not CONSTITUTIONALLY at war with any nation. In fact, we are not even in the process of congressionally (i.e. CONSTITUTIONALLY) authorized military engagements.

So, then. If we are proper citizens of this Earth and respect the rights of our fellow man, who we all believe to be equal, do we allow the use of pre-emptive force, even non-lethal, outside of our borders?

I honestly don't see any other answer than an emphatic "No". Any other answer leads down a slippery slope, no matter the incline (if you will). I don't plan on supporting any slippery slope that I'm standing at the bottom of.

tptacek20• 13 years ago

I do not require an excuse to tell you what I think is actually going on in a public policy dispute.

mpyne15• 13 years ago

> We are not CONSTITUTIONALLY at war with any nation.

You could quibble about North Korea, but either way we are at war with the military elements of the stateless group known as Al Qaeda. The relevant law (2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force [1]) does not say "The U.S. declares war against Al Qaeda", but it does specifically mention that the law implements the War Powers Act, which is one of the ways by which Congress has pre-determined how it will handle its right and responsibility to handle who the U.S. is at war with.

> do we allow the use of pre-emptive force, even non-lethal

Uh... yes? That's the only correct answer. Imagine if Churchill had been Prime Minister in 1938 and not Chamberlain.

Imagine if France had managed to bring down Hitler's government by rebuffing his action to remilitarize the Rhine basin?

Imagine if the Allies had refused to allow Czechoslovakia and its formidable defenses and military forces to be simply absorbed into the Reich.

Imagine if a military jet had been flying point behind the United 175 before it hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. How many thousands of lives could have been saved by shooting down that airliner before impact? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_175

Absolutely it can be appropriate to use pre-emptive force when there is a clear and present danger.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

hkmurakami4• 13 years ago

or that was the exact kind of answer Rand Paul was looking for with that question.

tptacek20• 13 years ago

Yes, I agree.

PKop5• 13 years ago

A instance of your first question by Ted Cruz: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/holder-government-has-no...

themgt• 13 years ago

I am a firm believer that we cannot shape law around worst case scenarios. This is how we legalize torture also, because what happens with the ticking time bomb?

The right answer is under horrible extreme circumstances, leaders will sometimes act outside the law, and these actions can be tacitly ignored by the rest of the political system, or used for impeachment/prosecution if the country disagrees with the actions.

What we must not do is imagine worst case hypotheticals in our heads and then unwrite the Constitution, handing absolute legal power over anyone's life and death to one man in the name of protecting ourselves from our nightmares.

rdl2• 13 years ago

I'm ok with categorically banning attacks with drones on US citizens in the US if those citizens do not pose an imminent threat. It's the same legal standard as for the police to take a shot at someone vs. arresting him. The question specifically mentioned "imminent threat". I mean, if someone poses an imminent (and unlawful, and extreme/lethal) threat to me, I'm legally ok to shoot him myself, as a private citizen.

Any competent attorney, particularly one representing the US Government, should have said exactly that and moved on.

What is clearly terrifying to people is the use of drones in a more expansive way than a simple replacement for a precision marksman -- persistent monitoring of a target, signature strikes, and personality strikes with the standard of "we'd probably detain him, but it's easier to Hellfire", which is what we do in Yemen and Pakistan due to dysfunctional local governments. If we start doing that in e.g. the Southwest because we don't have the funding for enough CBP agents, we're clearly in the wrong.

logn5• 13 years ago

> †† "What stupid question?" This one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5335285

That's a nice way to frame your point, but it's not true:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/03/06/qa-rand-paul-drones... See the linked PDFs "one", "two", and "three" in the 4th paragraph there.

Do you have a government pension or something? Edit: that's just a joke, but you're very pro-establishment. Maybe you're a devil's advocate, maybe you're tempering our views, but you seem to approach the situation as defaulting to trusting the government, whereas I do not.

defilade• 13 years ago

It's a complete and utter fallacy to say that the government doesn't have the authority to kill people without due process. The police and Federal law enforcement do it all the time. It's called justifiable homicide.

erichocean• 13 years ago

It's called justifiable homicide.

And it requires an actual incident, with some kind of "eminent harm".

That's a lot different than what Rand Paul is talking about, which is targeting someone who is just going about their day that the government would prefer to dispatch without going to trial.

(If you object to the "just going about their day" part, that's exactly how we do drone strikes outside the US.)

ameister145• 13 years ago

I don't really understand the argument against what Rand Paul is talking about. Even if you think he's being ridiculous, what's the problem with declaring due process applies to drone strikes on American soil?

Personally, I think this is exactly what I want from my political representatives.

BlindRubyCoder• 13 years ago

Good for him. Maybe more of the general public will actually start talking about it. Right now I think most of the populace is blissfully unaware of the program.

DanielBMarkham• 13 years ago

So let me see if I understand this.

One guy is filibustering the CIA nominee based on an incomplete and vague set of questions and answers -- which one side says is nothing new and the other side says changes the game. The filibuster has no chance of succeeding, and all the little political wonks are coming out of the woodwork and taking sides based on the party of the senator involved.

More dysfunctional Washington? A man standing up for his morals? A pointless charade? Just bluster and theater in preparation for the next presidential race?

I don't care. Drones are bad news, especially armed drones in the hands of governments watching over their own citizens. For the next few hours, I could care less which party Rand Paul is from. I stand with him. We can all tear him down tomorrow. There's plenty of time for that later.

mpyne15• 13 years ago

> Drones are bad news, especially armed drones in the hands of governments watching over their own citizens.

What I don't understand, is why when John McClane was shot at by an F-22 Raptor in Live Free or Die Hard, why there wasn't a big outcry at that time. There were no complaints, no HN threads that I remember, and certainly no filibusters in Congress.

None of the reviews talked about some "dystopian future America", they said that shit blew up and it was otherwise an action movie.

Why is it OK for the American military to use an F-22 Raptor on one of their own citizens but drones are no good?

Mind, I understand completely why people are concerned about why the military could or could not be employed domestically; I just don't understand why people are fixated on drones as opposed to black helicopters, rocket launchers, bazookas, motorized anti-aircraft weaponry, bum-standard rifles and carbines, etc.

PhearTheCeal• 13 years ago

It's just another weapon that the government has now. When the government gets more powerful, the citizens get less powerful than their government. Most citizens fear being totally helpless against their government's power. So small incremental increases in government power, like drones, usually spell bad news for the citizens.

AJ007• 13 years ago

You just compared the reaction of viewers of a theatrical event in a fictional action movie to reality.

guscost• 13 years ago

This is pedantic but an F-22 can't hover. That was an F-35B.

notdrunkatall4• 13 years ago

That was a movie, and this is real life.

Did this question really need to be asked?

hkmurakami4• 13 years ago

To quote Lessig from his Twitter today (which is how I found out about the filibuster and started watching at work):

There is plenty to disagree with Rand Paul about. But this filibuster is not. Thank you, sir.

http://twitter.com/lessig/status/309415470879100928

readme• 13 years ago

The Pauls are not neoconservatives, that is for sure. They are traditional paleoconservatives.

There are few politicians we'll agree on everything with. I think that political parties are just dangerous hiveminds. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, ALL parties are inundated with dogma.

My votes go to politicians who are sincere, honest, and intelligent. Not to republicans or democrats.

nextw33k• 13 years ago

I agree, I think that there shouldn't be parties. Representatives should be individuals serving their people.

However if you do away with parties, you are not that far removed from China's one party system. Which isn't heralded as a utopian government by any stretch.

rdl2• 13 years ago

The sad thing is drones probably could be used in a way which helps individual rights vs. the government.

In an arrest scenario (even for the most trivial of crimes), if someone resists an individual officer, it can easily turn into a justifiable self-defense shooting by the officer. If you struggle, grab for the officer's weapon, or if he even thinks that is happening, training and prudence is that he should end the threat as quickly as possible.

OTOH, if someone resists a robot, I'm fine with the robot being destroyed; just send two more to effect the arrest. Only in a situation where someone would be escaping and immediately harming other human life would it be justifiable for the drone to use lethal force.

I have zero faith that our government would restrict its use of drones in that way, though.

alberich• 13 years ago

"if someone resists an individual officer, it can easily turn into a justifiable self-defense shooting by the officer."

That reminds me of that robocop scene where a robot enters the room and starts shooting everything heh.

logn5• 13 years ago

> So let me see if I understand this.

> One guy is filibustering the CIA nominee

Yes.

> based on an incomplete and vague set of questions

No. See [1]

> [vague set of] answers

Yes. See [2]

> The filibuster has no chance of succeeding

No. They can go ad infinitum. Already others are joining in so the debate doesn't die. Eventually if we want a CIA head, we'll get a new nominee. Also, Paul is repeatedly saying that with firm answers, he'll end the filibuster.

The rest of your post is spot-on. Makes me finally proud of or political process for the first time in a few years.

[1] http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/Brennan1.pdf http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/Brennan2.pdf http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/Brennan3.pdf

[2] http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/BrennanPaul.pdf http://paul.senate.gov/files/documents/BrennanHolderResponse...

criley• 13 years ago

They cannot go ad infinitum. The longest is 28 hours and Paul ended his around 13 hours. This is because if Paul himself leaves, the filibuster he started ends. He can let others speak but he must stay the entire time.

He didn't use the bathroom for 13 hours, and as some pointed out: a long filibuster is less a contest between a speaker and a Congress and more about a man versus his bladder.

samolang2• 13 years ago

I watched on C-SPAN and a Democrat named Ron Wyden participated and in the process implied he had multiple discussions with Paul about the morality and constitutionality of drone strikes. Perhaps I'm naive, but I believe he was standing up for his morals and that it was a sign of Washington actually functioning.

notdrunkatall4• 13 years ago

As Ron Paul's son, I would expect nothing less from Rand.

samolang2• 13 years ago

"It turns out this isn’t just a fleeting alliance. For some time now, Wyden and Paul—along with two other senators, Republican Mike Lee of Utah and Democrat Mark Udall of Colorado—have been working together to try to curb the broad authorities the Obama administration has asserted in the war on terror. The advent of this group, which calls itself the Checks and Balances Caucus, is certainly not the first time in political history that the libertarian right has allied with the civil-liberties-minded left. Yet at a moment when inter-party cooperation is almost nonexistent in Washington, any bipartisan alliance—especially one that includes some of DC’s most committed ideological opposites—is both unusual and noteworthy."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/26/rand-paul-a...

SCAQTony• 13 years ago

Did anybody write the President after they heard about Holder's outrageous comments? If not please do.

Tangaroa2• 13 years ago

Did everyone here skip US History in high school and college? One of the main reasons for creating the Constitution was that the Articles of Confederation made it too difficult for the government to use military force against US citizens on US soil, e.g. Shays's Rebellion. The Constitution allows Congress to raise and use an army -- such as through an Authorization for the Use of Military Force -- and to destroy "Insurrections", i.e. US citizens on US soil. And when the President swears to defend the Constitution against "all enemies, foreign and domestic", what did you think "and domestic" means?

And no, you don't have a Fifth Amendment to not be shot at when you join the enemy during a war; and no, being a citizen does not give you rights, and the Constitution does not grant you rights. The Constitution grants the government powers and limits those powers. All people inherently have rights by virtue of being born. Read Blackstone's Commentaries; the Founding Fathers did. That was the standard law textbook in the colonies at the time of the Revolution.

Remember that this whole drone nontroversy arises from the killing of al-Qaeda's leader Anwar Awlaki and a few of his followers who all happen to have been US citizens and who had invaded Yemen and carved out their own country there. The drone question is not about hypothetical harm done to innocent Americans, it's about whether the army may use military force on al-Qaeda when there is a Congressional law explicitly directing that the army do so. Why is this even a question?

logn5• 13 years ago

Yeah, did ya get the memo? http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/06/16870230-4-key-qu...

This isn't about true war and combatant enemies. This is about worst-case-scenario 1984 happening soon by having a perpetual war with a nebulous enemy. Whether you think this is a legitimate worry or not is irrelevant. The President is claiming broad, never before used power. Maybe he can be trusted with this, but no president ever has, and there will be future ones. (He's challenging principles from the Magna Carta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta which was the basis for various rights of due process in the Constitution)

Also, we drone struck Anwar Awlaki's 16-year-old son from Colorado while he was overseas looking for his father (whom was dead due to another drone strike). When asked about it, the administration (Robert Gibbs) commented, "I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father". So we go after your family if you've ever been against the US and haven't since publicly renounced that stance. That's cool with you? If it is, keep in mind this is all hypothetical anyhow since nobody's getting a trial.

mkhattab• 13 years ago

One of the problems I see with this is that a Republican is leading the charge on this rather than a Democrat. And because Rand Paul says a lot of stupid things, as do most Republicans, I think many people will dismiss this as partisan politics (which it probably is).

I think we need another president as bad or worse as Bush again (perhaps Romney or Palin) to put enough pressure on citizens to become actively engaged again and take to the streets.

noarchy• 13 years ago

>I think we need another president as bad or worse as Bush again (perhaps Romney or Palin) to put enough pressure on citizens to become actively engaged again and take to the streets.

You're all but saying that you don't think that people will take to the streets when a Democratic president is in power. I'd submit that Obama has been worse than Bush in a number of areas. In particular, he extended every major Bush-era power-grab, ranging from the Patriot act, to warrantless wiretapping. And then he piled more on top of that.

It might be more accurate to condemn both major US parties as loving power and war. If people won't condemn both, and prefer instead to remain tribalistic in their allegiance to one of the parties, then there's really not much hope for any change (not that I was ever optimistic about that).

mandytolliver• 13 years ago

Rand Paul, Justin Amash, Jason Chaffetz. Is some sanity creeping into our political system?

Rand Paul filibustering over drones

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