He’s a politician. This makes it rational for him to be a stuntman. But I don’t have to like that the people guiding my society have more in common with Evel Knieval than a presiding, non-activist leadership. I would like to think that Paul can go higher in the game, but for his libertarian approach to be successful, people would have to accept taking responsibility for their families and communities in ways they currently do not. He can sell “don’t tread on me” all day, but selling the notion of a government that doesn’t make a business of bailing out failure is quite a different thing.

We are at war with them. McCain doesn’t see that, Graham doesn’t see that, Christie doesn’t see that; but a few, like Paul and Cruz, do see that. We gotta go with what/whom we’ve got.

We have to find the enemy’s weak spots, and focus like a laser on them [heard that expression before?].

Rand Paul found a weak spot, and he focused like a laser, and the good guys finally scored a hit when the authoritarian side blinked.

It’s a start.

No, the reason for the filibuster had nothing to do with the nomination at hand. At this point, I’ve stopped giving a %$#@ about niceties and whether holding up a nomination to publicize an unrelated issue is really a non-sequitur of sorts. We’ve got an enemy to defeat.

Was Rand Paul’s filibuster a stunt? I don’t give a %$#@ (the same one as in the preceding paragraph). We’ve got to get to work finding and exploiting weaknesses in the regime* before it’s too late. We’re already behind by a few decades. It was a stunt in the same way Sandra Fluke’s fifteen minutes of fame was a stunt. It derailed the opposition (with a little help from George Stephanolopous) and got Fluke’s side talking about what ^their^ side wanted to talk about. Never mind that it was a distraction and a fabrication.

(*by “regime”, I do ^not^ mean the current administration; I mean the regime of control of the culture and institutions by the authoritarians, which has been ongoing for quite some time now.)

The question of the geo constraints is merely one of resources. If America has enough resources it can keep some, most, or even all of it’s freedoms on its own land. America can defend itself except from itself.

If everybody would get on board and recongnize Islam for the horror and crime that it is, then America would quickly dispose of the problem.

But we won’t until it is nearly too late and in between that time and now we seek the power to combat Islam and Socialism because our academia, entertainment, culture, and gov’t suppresses the truth and ecourages its spread.

Our gov’t suppresses the truth to capitalize on the situation and grow large and socialize our institutions. Rand Paul sees the agreement between the two forces; he sees how both the socialists and Islamists are working together to destroy our country. If they are successful, there will be a fight between them, but after we have beens subdued, who cares.

So, you’re missing the point to argue about whether Paul’s filibuster was a stunt or whatever it was. How riduculous to even be attracted to that argument when the threat is the duo forces of Islam and Socialism cooperating together. Rand knows full out war is not possible and seeks to mitigate the consequences of a police state wherein the final assholes, the socialists, seek to overcome our Constitution. He knows we must fight the Socialists at home while fighting Islam abroad.

He defends the Constitution while our own Party, which is stupid beyond belief, focuses more on petty definitions than the incredible threat from Islam and Socialism.

Dumb asses.

Funnily, I agree with everything you say in that post. Over the past 8 or so years I have been searching for something politically and not really knowing what it was. I think I have finally gotten there (or at least close). I am looking for conservative policticans that understand the philosophy so deeply that their response to any issue whether thought out or extemperaneous is from a conservative place. That they have totally internalized the history of the country, where the governing philosophy, natural law, and all the rest of it comes from. I want them to draw from that well rather than from a “power point deep” level which is dependant on place or situation. I want them to be able to automatically question and correct premises and assumptions and then draw their answers from a deep understanding of conservatism.

I have a favorite quote (I think from “Finnegan’s Rainbow”) that goes: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers. That’s what the liberals do. They control the conversation. They set the tone, the assumptions, and the Repubs are continually left playing catch up. Paul turned the tables (and so did Cruz by not letting Holder get away) and stole the control. That’s what I’m looking for in a conservative.

Trying to justify this by saying Obama might have made a good decision, is not seeing the true nature of evil. Well, there’s plenty of company for that. Just look at McCain and most other Republicans.

I am aware that some American citizens heard the call to defend the fatherland. They were viewed the same as any other German soldier, and rightly so. Americans on American soil in the “war on terror” will not be wearing jihad uniforms. Unless they are engaged in an act of violence against Americans on our soil, due process must be followed. Its called the 5th Amendment. It should not require a filibuster to clarify this issue.

In war, American citizens who join the enemy are not immune from the status of enemy. There are precedents for America killing enemy Americans in war, eg, the Americans who fought for their fatherland Germany against their country in the world wars.

An official state of war includes a legal framework. The challenge and controversy has been adapting the legal structure for conventional war to the unconventional War on Terror. On the question of American enemy combatants, Bush tried to retain as much as he could of the established legal framework in order to firewall the Constitution. Obama, in contrast, uses a looser threat standard, and that’s the issue. Neither President has given a free pass to terrorists with American citizenship. Bush just cared more about preserving the constitutional side of the balancing act than Obama does.