Graham, McCain Blast Paul's Filibuster as "Abuse of the Rules," "Not Helpful to Public," A "Ludicrous Question"

These guys seem to think that conservatism consists solely of supporting the accumulation of power into the executive and proposing war as a solution to every problem.

“I don’t think what happened yesterday was helpful to the American people,” said Mr. McCain, Republicans’ presidential nominee in 2008 — who topped Mr. Paul’s father, former Rep. Ron Paul, in that year’s primary.

And where even Democrats praised Mr. Paul for using Senate rules properly to launch a filibuster, Mr. McCain said it was an abuse of rules that could hurt the GOP in the long run.

“What we saw yesterday is going to give ammunition to those who say the rules of the Senate are being abused,” the Arizona Republican said.

Mr. Paul said he was filibustering to get the administration to affirm it won’t kill non-combatant Americans in the U.S. — but Mr. Graham and Mr. McCain said that was a ludicrous question.

“I do not believe that question deserves an answer,” Mr. Graham said.

Now it's possible they're suspicious of Rand Paul and think he's carrying water for his father's Doctrinaire Pacifism but under the false flag of a much more narrow issue on which he has the right; that is, they think he's trying to move opinion to the Doctrine Pacifist camp in the typical way the Pacifists and anti-American agitators do it, to wit, seizing one one particular grabby issue at a time.

I have to confess I have the same suspicion. I do believe Rand Paul is his father's son.

But even so, to just dogmatically bark that we should trust the president and the military on every question and assume they're "acting for our own good" is idiotic.

For one thing, the greatest crimes occur when large groups of people convince themselves they're "acting for the greater good."

For another thing, it is fundamentally undemocratic to tell American citizens their duty is to simply trust those higher-up in the chain of command and to not bother with all this questioning business.

American citizens are actually at the top of the chain of command: They're citizens. Or at least we used to think so.

McCain and Graham seem to have a military mindset in which orders come from command and duty comes from the troops. That is a fine and noble mindset... for people acting within the command structure of the Armed Forces of the United States of America for missions undertaken for the Armed Forces of the United States of America. It will not due for a Senator, though, and neither would it due for a Senator's superior officer, a citizen of the United States.

And while a soldier must obey his superior officer as to military business, in the ballot box he's his own man.

McCain and Graham should stop trying to be Good Soldiers and start trying to be Good Citizens for a change.

Baby Talk: There's an awful lot of political baby-talk these days. I consider McCain's and Graham's appeal to very vague and childlike things ("this makes you safer," "we should trust the president") to be Baby Talk.

I'm very tired of Baby Talk. I'm tired of Baby Talk from CNN when all it can do is whine "we should just get together and compromise on the sequester!" without bothering to share the details or the Republicans' plan with the audience, so that the audience may make the informed decision of an adult, and their Baby Talk tactic of avoiding all substantive and adult discussion of choices in favor of the Baby Talk of Serious You Guys Can't We All Get Along.

No more Baby Talk. We're goddamned adults and citizens and we demand we be treated as such.

posted by Ace at 12:39 PM

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