Rand Paul Gives Address on Civil Liberties

Rand Paul warned us on C-Span today about the impending vote on David Barron, whom the President wants to be Justice of the 2^nd Circuit Court or something.  The problem is that this justice has made very public his views on drone killings.  Rand Paul does not believe that this country should be killing its own citizens traveling in foreign lands even if their behavior is suspect, if they are not in overt combat with our forces in a war setting.  I agree with him.  Paul was rather long winded and repetitive but made some really good points.  He said that our Constitutional protections of the first, fifth, and sixth amendments were not particular for the people with “popular beliefs” like the prom queen of those on the Dean’s list.  Rather it’s for the minorities of a different color, so to speak.  It could be eccentric life styles, or it would be skin color, or out of the mainstream philosophy or an unpopular religion.  It could be Islam, but tomorrow it would be a Conservative Evangelist, should things take a turn for the worse.  But Rand Paul pointed out that “due process” does not mean the President conferencing with some hand picket attorneys telling him what he wants to hear.  You need that adversary system.  Rand Paul points out that even in Roman law the burden of proof was on the accuser.  We were upset with President Bush for “unlawful detention” and now we are just killing them.  Clearly if the President were of the other party, this nomination wouldn’t have a prayer of passage..  But Paul made another painful point I didn’t particularly want to hear.  He said that because the filibuster rule was done away with, it increases the likelihood of Justices with more extreme politics being approved for the federal bench, and this is not a healthy thing.   It should be noted that Ron Paul only trails Hillary Clinton for the nomination by seven percentage points, the same as Paul Ryan.  All of the others have an even larger gap to overcome.  It would seem that there is a libertarian streak here.  Thom Hartman interviewed this Arizona sheriff, who had some strange “constitutionally based arguments” about his right to only enforce state and county laws and has a perfect right to ignore federal laws.  I’d never heard that one before.  If President Obama were running for a third term he’d be really vulnerable on this issue, but of course he’s not.

The democrats weren’t sure whether or not they would just boycott this new select committee on Bengazi.   I think they should have boycotted and just allowed the Republicans to make boring asses of themselves playing to an audience of no one.   But today Nancy Pelosi on C-Span gathered her newly selected committee of three men and two women besides herself.  She said that the democrats wanted the right to subpoena witnesses also, in the true adversial trial scenario where the constitution itself has a clause that says “The defendant shall have compulsory means of obtaining witnesses in his favor”.  John Boehner said no.  Then they at least wanted to be apprised of the witnesses selected so that they could prepare appropriate questions in advance to grill him with.  Again, John Boehner said no.  Nobody said when all of this committee action would commence.  But clearly if the Republicans are somehow going to use the proceedings in some campaign ploy- - time for them is running out before summer, and then it will be campaign seasons, where these Congressmen and women will be on the road.

There was some lady under “Senate Session II” who talked about the need for a constitutional amendment to get dirty money out of campaigning.  If you want my opinion on this I have come around to thinking that this is an excellent idea.  I would never have advocated such a radical action ten years ago, but this issue of dirty campaign money has been clarified in my mind over the passage of these ten years.  She also wants to get Koch Brother dirty pollution out of Michigan, calling it a violation of our liberties to have these mounds of industrial toxins just piled up and getting into people’s homes.  Judging by what she and other people have said, whoever said that the Koch Brothers were NOT involved with the Canadian tar sands, were either mistaken or lying.  The trouble is that there is this “Wild West” attitude among libertarians, where anything goes, at least- - if it’s something the Koch Brothers are doing to us, where they would like to use the apperatus of government itself to guarantee that they can CONTINUE their “user” life-style.  There is this Marie Antwenette attitude that the rich have about the poor now. The trouble is that we aren’t the French of 1791 and have been conditioned and beaten down like animals, and have been conditioned by the media to “get used to the new normal”.  After her Dick Derbin spoke on the subject of college loans.  He reported that people show varying interests when he gives a speech somewhere but their ears always perk up when the subject of Student Loans comes up.  Then it was getting close to dinner time.

One black congressman on C-Span spoke on this whole VA scandal.  I didn’t want to hear another loser speech from our esteemed President, or any White House briefing.  This Black guy made the point that heads have to roll and that the buck stops with General Shensecki.  He needs to be the first to go.  We don’t need another committee or investigation.  For Christ’s sake don’t TALK about what you’re going to do, just DO IT, damn it!  There is a part of me that agrees with Rush Limbaugh.  It’s like Obama’s philosophy is just to use government to perpetuate itself and do things like screw up the whole Health Insurance industry and just stick its finger in everybody’s business, and micro-manage their lives.  If I wanted that I could have joined a religious cult.  I’ve had enough of people who’s chief talent is to make excuses for themselves and constantly talk pie in the sky, but in the end they accomplish nothing.  But they pulled up a few new cult “labels’ out of their ass.  That’s what my family did with me.  They just label something - - and then pronounce the problem “Solved”.     There was this guy who perported to know “the secret to what the government is planning for us in the economy” in a video.   I listened and listened, and after a half hour I threw in the towel and quit, completely exasperated.  The guy had managed to say absolutely NOTHING in a half hour.

People who do any activity most often are looking for either excitement or – they have some goal to do or accomplish something they haven’t done before.  Events that occur in a vacuum lose their relevance.  It’s like Dr Levy’s favorite kind of poetry he wishes we would all write.  It’s like Screwy Louie - - doesn’t really want people to find God, he wants them to “put on a show” in that old adage “are we having fun yet?”   In other words - - things assume real Value and Interest to a person if they are driven or prompted by something.  People like Dr Levy wants us to “go through the motions” and write down something when we have absolutely no inspiration or anything worth saying.  In fact when you think about it, Christianity is replete with this kind of thinking. There is one line from “In My Life” I just figured out.  “But these memories lose their meaning – when I think of love as something new”.   You always got the feeling – however subtle that you were somehow just “killing time” or your present activity was just a stopgap measure.  There is that line in a song of “He’s going back to a simpler life that he once knew” and I guess I hear that word “simpler” and my brain substitutes “bor-ing!”.   I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just getting old and synical.  It’s amazing how different things seem when you’re thirty years younger.

Today we have the power to cure many medical ailments that eludes us before.  The author of the book of Job, has Job come down with horrible skin leizhions or something all over his body, being in great pain.  But when he prays to God for a healing, God says to him "If I asked you to describe the things of heaven, you would say "I have never been to heaven" and if I asked you to tell of the mysteries of the leviathon, you would respond "I have not been down to the depths of the sea".  But as it was I asked you to describe the mystery of a leaf, or a flower, or a butterfly, and you were unable to do it".   I guess I'm wondering what God's point is here.  Because it seems to me to be a Complete non sequetor of unrelated issues.  After all people don't turn to others for Help because they KNOW everything, but because they DON'T.  Was God really looking for a lecture on stamens and anthers and pistols, or chloriplasts or the difference between the basic structure of plant and animal cells.  Maybe Job would have made a flippant George Burnes joke, "Oh, you want to give me a history exam".   But it's virtually clear to me that hat someone who had been to college started giving God a long lecture using academic terms - - God would have responded in a huff " I think you Know that is Not what I was looking for".   Then God goes into a lecture about the stars and constellations and say "Do you understand the mystery of how I control these?"   Parenthetically, it's worth noting that Constellations are man made abstractions, and there is no actual basis in nature and stars that appear to form certain patterns here on earth would appear entirely different viewed from another star.  Too bad God didn't know that.  Even the "inspired visions" of the Bible are very vague - - and often so laden with symbols it's almost as if even the visions themselves aren't meant to be "a report of what the person actually saw" if they "actually saw anything, and didn't just make it up".  It's like you hearing the story, unlike a novel you read, that you are not actually "there" but the speaker is shrouding everything in a fog of vagueness.  When a witness is questioned by the police, he is asked for details and specifics.  This for the most part is completely lacking in these apocraliptic visions referenced in the Bible.  The average dream a person tells his psychiatrist contains more actual details than you find here.