We need to track and monitor them all the time.

# #37 Ted S.

@Dave #33:

I probably should have made it clearer that my tongue was planted firmly in my cheek.

That’s the way I took it. I was simply pointing out that the reality is even goofier than the joke.

I probably should have made it clearer that my tongue was planted firmly in my cheek.

It is against the law to promote the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. It’s against the law to promote violence against the president. We put people in jail for promoting violence through words against the president…and…for promoting violent overthrow….That’s not a protected form of speech….

I was talking about what you would use…in order to target and in order to get a warrant….What I don’t want is the PATRIOT Act trolling through everyone’s records and saying if you go to a political speech or a political rally I disagree with, we’re going to throw you out of the country….

Let’s say that the police or the FBI or the CIA is investigating a group in Pakistan, and that group in Pakistan has made 25 phone calls to somebody in the United States. That to me is a warning sign, and probably enough to get a warrant. Say they also find that person is going to a radical Islamicist who is promoting the violent overthrow [of the U.S. government] and promoting the planting of IEDs to kill our soldiers. I think that is another warning sign that that person is a potential terrorist. Then I think you go to a judge and ask for a warrant.

The ultimate result could be deportation. We also have a lower standard for deportation than we do for…U.S. citizens. U.S. citizens cannot be kicked out of the country. But if you’re visiting…here on a student visa, you have to report periodically to the authorities where you are, that you’re in school; you can be deported if you’re not in school when you said you were in school….Sixteen of the 19 hijackers were here on a student visa; they should have been deported because they were not following the rules….

All I’m saying is that attending a rally where you call for the violent overthrow of the United States—one, it’s against the law to say that, but attending the rally would be supportive evidence for a judge.

It is still deeply troubling. For one, it shows Paul thinks that advocating violent overthrow of the government is against the law. It isn’t. As the Supreme Court ruled in Brandenburg, such speech is illegal only when it leads IMMINENT incitement of violence, AND is likely to lead to such violence.

On civil liberties, Paul just went from an A in my book to a D.

He did from me. I won’t get a response, tho, because I’m not in his constituency, but i gave him hell for those words. You can, too:
http://paul.senate.gov/?p=contact

#32 Ted S.

I think it’s somewhere in the Necessary and Proper clause. Either that, or some people use their cars in more than one state, so that’s interstate commerce.

Even if you never drove your car out of state and even if you built your own car completely from raw materials found within your state, the federal government would still have jurisdiction over it because the very fact that you built your own rather than buying one made elsewhere is considered an impact on interstate commerce. (Wickard v. Filburn)

The U.S. Supreme Court regularly takes the Constitution out of its glass case at the National Archives, flogs it, stretches in the rack, and waterboards it until it finally surrenders to their interpretation. Yep, the Supreme Court can make the Constitution sing any tune they want. And the public just whistles along perfectly in tune.

I think it’s somewhere in the Necessary and Proper clause. Either that, or some people use their cars in more than one state, so that’s interstate commerce.

I imagine that Rand is going to get a lot of flak from the C4L membership. At least I hope he does.

What the fuck are you talking about? How does supporting arresting anti-government advocates rally his base? The Paul’s attract a lot of anti-government types, and they live in the very same arc you talk about.

And what the hell does racism have to do with arresting anti-government types? They hate black people so they’re gonna support arresting the militia members they’re related to? None of that made sense.

And heaven forbid we privatize things and bring competition so the poor can choose the best services for the lowest price instead of whatever the local monopoly decides. What a shitty guy for doing such a thing.

I am coming to believe that there IS indeed a Shadow Council at play here. Their goal being a Totalitarian policy shift in the belief that True Americans ™ want their lives to be controlled and safe, just like the Bible says.

What I think happens is… a President, noob and wet behind the ears, is elected. He (Or she, so far it’s been he.) is approached by people he KNOWS are in control of back room shit… and filled in on the real deal. That’s the “Oh Fuck!” moment for the person.

They then have 3 choices.

1) Back the agenda and take the vig they offer. This furthers the Totalitarian Agenda for 4 or 8 years.

2) Say No! And have the testicles (Or testicle surrogates in the form of ovaries.) to resist them. no Problem! 4 or 8 years later… a new person will be in the office.

3) Betray them openly and risk getting hurt.

No matter what… the Totalitarian Agenda wins in the end. Exactly what we are seeing now. Fucking GHANDI could be elected president. It wouldn’t matter. That would just slow the process down a bit.

Check this news report from the West Coast:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43233984/ns/us_news-life/

The Fire Department just stood there and watched this guy commit suicide by drowning. And it took him an HOUR to do it. A mere 100 yards from shore. Not ONE Fire Fighter dropped his gear and jumped in to try to save him.

They are THAT afraid of the ramifications of policy. How did it come to this?

Totalitarian Regimes run on policy, not individual initiative. That policy is enforced by exile. Not exile from society, but exile from the position of authority.

Better to have a professional registration scheme. You don’t need to make it mandatory, but it’s existence alone solves 99% of the issue.

This is the point at which any self-appointed defenders of working-class Whites following this thread fire off a diatribe about how I’m just another bicoastal elitist who looks down on their kind (although probably on another site, since I’ve never noticed bigotry on this site and am not criticizing present company). In case they’re reading this, I lived for years on the margins of Amish country, anthracite coal country, and the Scots hillbilly territory west of the Susquehanna, so I know something whereof I speak. My problem in this case is not that the bigotry is being practiced by the poor, the uneducated, or the marginalized. It is that anyone who refers to another person as “that fucking nigger” (apparently most commonly used against Barack Obama in the Appalachians and Ozarks) or has a public conniption about the construction of a mosque (e.g., Murfreesboro) is an ass hat. It doesn’t matter how rich or poor, or educated or uneducated, said ass hat is, but there happens to be a particularly rich vein of that bigotry in the Appalachians and Ozarks, and I won’t abide by any exemption from criticism claimed by an historically oppressed group on the basis that I’m not one of them. (Plenty of white bigots have learned how to play the affirmative action card.) Certainly not when the offended bigots are fellow Americans whose votes affect laws and policies in our common nation.

That tangential screed is over, but I think it was relevant. Rand Paul will almost certainly raise the same nasty sort of wedge issues in the future, either to insulate himself from blame for a moribund economy or as a red herring to cover for his own elitist brand of class warfare. I know I’ve committed a rhetorical faux pas by using that term in a libertarian forum, but I can’t think of a more reasonable term for trying to privatize the hell out of basic services used by the poor and the ignorant, which is exactly what I expect Paul to try to do if he can get political cover. I hope I’m wrong, but he seems ideological enough to wave a bloody shirt in front of coal miners’ widows while he beggars them behind their backs.

As far as I can tell, he’s entirely consistent–he was bashing Bush and company for the same crap that Obama and company are now doing.

Obama’s approach on the War on Terror differs from Bush’s, as far as I can tell, mainly in the fact that his speeches regarding the WOT have better grammar. Obama deserves to be bashed for continuing those disastrous policies.

#15 Chuchundra

If Greenwald got a flat tire, he’d figure out some way that it was really Obama’s fault.

Obama doesn’t have the power to inflict flat tires on people. But, if he’s in office long enough I’m pretty sure he’ll get around to assuming that authority and Congress probably won’t even bat an eyelash.