Mr. Paul goes to Washington!

This has been an interesting week in American politics and probably the most interesting item on the political agenda was the unscheduled filibuster on the senate floor by the junior senator from Kentucky--Rand Paul. Paul did his filibuster antics as a way of highlighting the issue of drone strikes on non combatant American citizens on United States soil, something that has never occurred before and may never occur at all. Paul used the occasion of the confirmation of John Brennan to be the Central Intelligence Agency chief to pull off this stunt. The social media universe apparently exploded in support of what Paul was doing and there was widespread support from some quarters that one would not expect in view of the views that this libertarian senator from Kentucky has so often espoused.

The issue at hand would appear to be the use of the drones, a subject that has caused wide spread concern across civil libertarian circles. However, we feel that this is a complete side show and was merely used by Rand Paul to garner up support for his contemplated run for president in 2016. It is interesting to note that senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina took to the senate floor the next day after Paul’s almost thirteen hour spectacle to note that even during the darkest days of the George W. Bush administration even the most strident democrat opposition never accused the administration of thinking about using drones on American soil as a means of assassination. Attorney General Eric Holder sent Paul a letter stating that the answer to his query about the drones was that no American president would have the right to kill a non combatant by their use.

One of the things that the Paul filibuster has been compared to is the 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The media was alive with references to this film in the days after the Paul affair. There is very little to compare the Paul affair with the movie other than both of the main protagonists engaged in a lengthy time on the senate floor. Jefferson Smith, the Mr. Smith from 1939, was a recently appointed senator from an unnamed western state who was very idealistic, something that the very cunning and cynical Rand Paul is most defiantly not. Jefferson Smith took to the senate floor in opposition to a bill that he felt was a travesty and part of a very crooked affair. There was never any mention of Smith having to go to the bathroom to end his filibuster as he went on for several days before collapsing on the floor of the senate just before the shoddiness of what was happening was exposed. Paul had to end his marathon due to a need to use the facilities, an apparent senate rule that was not around in Jefferson Smith’s times. To prove that this was nothing but a stunt it needs to be noted that at the same time that Paul was droning on, the Republicans were doing one of their silent filibusters against an appointee to the federal judiciary, one of a series of these that has deprived the president and the nation of a full federal court over the now four plus years since Barack Obama has taken the oath of office.

As we have stated previously, Rand Paul is taking over the mantle that has been passed to him by his father--Ron Paul, a former congressman from Texas who has espoused the libertarian line for many years and across more than one presidential election cycle in which he has been a candidate with a loyal following of mainly young supporters who believe that we should have a smaller government and a significantly smaller imprint on the world’s stage. When thinking about either Ron or Rand Paul, one does not have to think much further than the state of Kansas where their benefactors--the Koch brothers--a pair of multi-billionaires reside. The Koch brothers have been the foundation behind much of the neoconservative movement for many years, founding, among other things, the neoconservative Heritage Foundation.

The Koch brothers want as little government as possible and as little taxation, particularly on themselves, as they can get. And they have been deeply involved in politicians lives like Rand Paul. However, we feel that Rand Paul may be using the Koch brothers to achieve his own ends. Chris Matthews noted on one of his recent Hardball broadcasts on MSNBC that Paul has referenced the career of Adolf Hitler many times in speeches since he hit the national scene before 2010 when he was elected senator from Kentucky. Matthews is among a growing number of impressionable media people who believes that Hitler should be forgotten and not used as an example of what can happen to a nation gone astray. However, Rand Paul has not forgotten Hitler and mentioned him again during his marathon on the senate floor the other day. Matthews decided that in spite of all of this, that he kind of liked what Paul had done, mainly because he too has concerns about the drone issue.

The only way we see that the drone issue as Paul has constructed it could become a legitimate concern is if someone like Rand Paul were to happen to be elected president of the United States. There is no reason to be concerned about this issue as long as Barack Obama is in the Oval Office because he keeps a strict reign on what can happen with these new instruments of war. American political history is filled with paradoxes. To believe that one has to look no further than George W. Bush’s statement during the 2000 presidential campaign in which he said that his administration would not be involved in any nation building. After September eleventh, that is all that the Bush’s tried to do across their eight year reign in both Iraq and Afghanistan as they used the terror threat to justify so many of the things that they did. The difference between Bush and a potential Paul administration is that George W. Bush probably believed what he said in 2000. We do not think that Rand Paul really believes much of anything that he says.

Like Adolf Hitler, Rand Paul looks to us like a sociopath on a grand scale who will say and do anything to get where he wants to go. His sincerity seems to us, to be all too convenient, and we look at his origins and who is backing him for the real truth behind the Paul phenomenon. Paul is a tea party darling along with people such as the new senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, and we feel that either one of them might have the potential to emerge as the new American Adolf Hitler. Paul is looking to expand on his base of support and his giving a new definition to those who believe in black helicopters to now believe that Barack Obama is now going to send drones to bomb them will defiantly accomplish that goal. We saw a cartoon recently where a man was staying up all night looking out his window awaiting Obama coming to confiscate his guns while his wife is begging him to come to bed. Now people of this ilk can add drones to their list of potential, phantom adversaries as they scan the skies in search of something that is not likely to ever be there. This type of person is useful to Paul! Hitler had a whole cast of people like these!

There are going to be people who will disagree with us about the Hitler comparison and we understand that fact. However, there is a vacuum in the leadership of the neoconservative Republican party at this time and nature abhors a vacuum. Paul already has a base that he has inherited from his father and doing a well publicized filibuster will only add to those numbers as he works to achieve his goals. Dragging a few liberals along by bringing up issues that are of concern to them only sweetens the pot. The greatest paradox surrounding people like Rand Paul may be people like the Koch brothers. They think that they are achieving their goals by using people like Paul, when, in reality, he may be simply using them. Hitler found his bogyman in the Jewish population of Germany, whom he persecuted unmercifully. If and when Paul achieves power, he may turn on the very rich because they and they alone have the funds to do what a Rand Paul may be wanting to do. Any way one cuts it, manufacturing an issue like drone strikes on non combatants in the United States is, to us, the beginning of a long and dangerous road that this nation would be better off not to travel at all. From past history we know, however, that Paul knows his history and we feel that he will not hesitate to us it to help the nation and the world to repeat its past mistakes once again.

IOVHO,

Regards,

Joe

To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.