What a liberating feeling it is to actually feel represented in Washington. That is the way I felt and apparently so did millions of other Americans last week when Rand Paul took the House floor hostage for 13 hours to get the Obama regime to clarify weather they can have you killed in the US by a drone strike or not. He got there attention and got an answer, but he also exposed the GOP wave of idiocy that sends potential voters running for high ground.
His actions were the number one trend world wide on Twitter for two days with the #standwithrand handle and received immense praise from across a wide spectrum of people. He started out as one Senator talking and was ultimately joined by over 20 before it was all said and done.
Flash polls showed voters were siding with Rand on this issue 80% of the time. So it was only natural that McCain and Lindsey Graham tear him down and insult him on the Senate floor the next day. Rand was officially deemed a “wacko bird” by McCain for actually caring about the freedoms and liberty of Americans. But it doesn’t stop there.
Charles “The Hammer” Krauthammer and Bill Kristol also scoffed at Rand’s stand. The Hammer (who usually isn’t that bad) said that Rand’s concerns on drones were “absolutely ridiculous” and “not a serious issue.” How is it not knowing if you could have a drone strike ordered on you without a trial on US soil not a serious issue!
Bill Kristol’s recent comments about Rand Paul make The Hammer’s look tame. Yesterday fresh off of Rand winning the CPAC straw poll Kristol dumped on Paul for being “Dangerous” and ‘”Neo-Isolationist.” The full context of his sentence pretty much sums up why the establishment is hated by so many today. “I believe the Republican Party will end up nominating a national security hawk and not a Ron Paul neo-isolationist.” Sigh. Not even security hawks like security hawks anymore.
So there you have it. The excitement and enthusiasm that so many of us had after Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster was immediately slimed by the powerful establishment forces in the GOP. If caring about liberty, freedom and being passionate about an issue is something that brings you this much scorn from today’s establishment things look pretty bleak. I guess only time will tell. Until then, on this I urge all of you to stand with Rand. BM
I am a conservative not precisely a neo-con with all that implies. I am old enough to have been a conservative before that term came to be a descriptive of big-government conservatism and a robust defense and foreign policy. I am not the former, but I may be accused of the later. If it applies it is in terms of protecting our own culture which can require disallowing totalitarian hegemony elsewhere. I do not know where Rand Paul is for sure on matters of foreign and defense policy, research continues, and he would be well advised to clarify. Regardless, his stand before the Senate to call to task the Obamanation regarding American civil rights was important in and of itself and, as your article supports, to set an example for Republicans.