Parts of the Problem

[solarbird]

It's part of the problem when "opposition" leadership backs retroactive immunity for blatant lawbreaking, shutting off the only functional avenue for investigation.

It's part of the problem when "opposition" leaders help you appoint judges who rule that your many of your constituents are unfit to have children.

It's part of the problem when "opposition" leaders cooperation moves the pro-torture party's leadership to tears of joy.

It's part of the problem when "opposition" leaders provide the key support to getting pro-torture appointees through the Senate they control. But I suppose they do get Beltway press support for it, and that's all that matters within the New Court at Versailles.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I might have missed a few clues here and there, so I'll ask straight out.

Ron Paul?

[solarbird]

He's got some skeevy bits, but really, I'll vote for whoever has the best chance of ending the US torture regime and renouncing the "unitary executive" bullshit. However, for that latter to really mean anything, it has to be done by Congress, which so far consists mostly of FAIL.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I think you've got a pretty fair shot with this dude; he's very strictly constitutional. Read here (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/06/paul/index.html).

(Exec. summary: This ain't your average Republican.)

[solarbird]

You can rest assured that I know who Mr. Paul is already.

[wrog]

This ain't your average Republican.

True. In some ways, he's even more crazy. Less so in others, perhaps, but I'm not sure the balance is all that positive.

he's very strictly constitutional.

On what planet?

I suppose if your copy of the US Constitution happens to be missing the 1st, 9th, 14th and 16th amendments, then you might have a leg to stand on.

In short, his constitution evidently doesn't have an Establishment Clause (i.e., no church/state separation). Also his take on free speech is decidedly unorthodox; flag-burning should be banned, but cross-burning is a.o.k! He is virulently anti-abortion, anti-contraception, basically anti-family planning in any way shape or form. And just forget about any kind of gay rights.

So this whole idea that he's a libertarian (at least in the sense that "libertarian" means anything at all) is just a complete lie. It's true that he is about destroying the power of the federal government, but that includes destroying the power of the federal government to protect rights, too (cf. the various "We the People" bills he's sponsored to remove the jurisdiction of the federal courts in equal-protection cases involving religion or sexual orientation).

About the only amendment he seems to really really care about is the 2nd and there it's complete absolutism, having sponsored legislation to remove a whole raft of restrictions on gun ownership (convicted murderers owning guns? No problem!)

Anyway, Paul is a nasty piece of work. Read here or here or maybe here, which also cover why, if elected, he would not only not halt the slide toward authoritarianism but would most likely accelerate it.

Admittedly, that last part is more about his militia-nutcase followers and the ways in which he legitimizes them, than about the carefully sanitized views he directly spouts himself. Main point is his playing of the Fear Card is every bit as bad if not worse than what GWB has done and what a President Giuliani would do -- just because it's NWO/Black-Helicopter Fear rather than Islamofascism Fear does not decrease the danger -- and unlike with Giuliani, there's a whole bunch of brownshirts out there ready to back him up.

[solarbird]

Rep. Paul routinely introduces bills to amend the Constitution in protest of legislation which has the same effect. The flag-burning amendment, for example, was such a case. He asserts that any such law is plainly unconsitutional; therefore, if you're going to throw a law at it, that's bullshit on its face and you should introduce an amendment instead, which he has a habit of doing and then voting against, as well as voting against the law in question. That's rather the opposite of stating that the first amendment doesn't exist; it's stating that it certainly does exist and if you want to do this you have to amend it.

You'll note he introduces a lot of Federal amendments.

He is definitively anti-abortion, stating that he wants control over reproductive rights at the state level, not the Federal. I, obviously, disagree with this. He and I have similar disagreements on many other issues, where I think it should not be controlled by government at all. However, this is also consistent, for better or for worse, with Federalist Libertarianism. It is not my preferred libertarianism (big- or small-L) wherein one of the legitimate powers - one of the shortlist of legitimate internal powers - of a central government should be to protect rights of citizens not only from outside, and not only from itself, but from abuse by local governments.

[wrog]

"Federalist Libertarianism" in the sense that the Bill of Rights only applies to the federal government and that state and local governments should be able to abuse people however they want, is a disingenuous abuse of language.

It may be a self-consistent position, but the people who hold it, to the extent they care about individual liberty at all, are the ones who are somehow worried about the federal government but simultaneously confident that the states&locals will never infringe on the liberties they care about. It's rather difficult to have this kind of confidence unless one has (or thinks one has) local majorities to enforce one's views. And really, the only reason to be opposed to having Federal-level protections is if it turns out the Feds are trying to protect stuff that you don't want protected.

... and gosh-whattaya-know 99.5% of the time it turns out to be people who are pissed off by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the school-prayer rulings, Brown v. Board of Education, Lawrence v. Texas, you name it. I'm sure this is a huge coincidence. And it's sure nice to be able to call oneself "libertarian" because for some reason that sounds nicer than "bigotted, racist pricks who miss the days when they had the niggers and queers well in hand".

With respect to Ron Paul's flag-burning amendments, I would be very interested to know if

1. he's stated any kind of opposition to such legislation coming from state & local governments, or if
2. there've been any instances of his rushing to the defense of DFH anti-war protestors burning flags (hm, how often does this happen really?) similar to his defense of white supremacists burning crosses.

[wrog]

Hm. looks like Dave Niewert has done the followup on flag-burning that I was too lazy to do and answered the question for me.

Apparently, Ron Paul indeed has no problem whatsoever with prohibiting flagburning at the state/local level.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's clearly yet another election where I'll be holding my nose and voting for the less stinky candidate. Pisses me off that these people - PEOPLE WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER - make us look bad to the entire fucking world.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

The second link doesn't seem to match the linked text, by the way.

Feinstein's stand (on all of these issues) is not a surprise. She's always been an opponent of civil liberties, going back to her days as mayor of San Francisco (actually, probably even before that). Schumer's support of the AG nomination is a disappointment, though.

I still assert this is a matter of a minority of individual members of Congress, rather than the party itself. You'll note that most Democrats continue to vote the right way. I have pretty much decided I can't vote for any of the current Senators running for the Democratic nomination during the primary, in part because none of them bothered to show up for the Mukasey vote, and none of them could take the time off from campaigning to organize a filibuster. I'm voting for Kucinich, Edwards, or Richardson, in that order of likelihood.

But as disappointing as the top Democrats are on these key issues, it still makes more sense to vote for the Democratic nominee than a third party candidate this time around. The Republicans are all far worse, particularly Giuliani, who is openly campaigning on authoritarianism.

[solarbird]

The second link doesn't seem to match the linked text, by the way.
Crap! Thanks.

I still assert this is a matter of a minority of individual members of Congress, rather than the party itself.
People kept telling me that about the fundamentalist movement back in the 1990s, too. If the leadership doesn't represent the membership, who do they represent, and why don't the members do something about it?

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

It's abject cowardice among the leadership, combined with the fact that confronting that cowardice might very well mean an even quicker rise of authoritarianism. Harry Reid should have filibustered any AG nominee who wouldn't clearly come out against waterboarding. I mean, really. There were at least 40 votes (the most votes against an AG nominee in more than 50 years), though it seems that some of those weren't willing to filibuster.

That's why I'm voting for Kucinich. I don't care if he's a Keebler elf; at least he's not enabling this. But at general election time, here's the reality: Jay Inslee, Patty Murray, and Maria Cantwell have in declining order been on the right side of these issues and deserve reelection. The alternative to Hillary/Obama/Edwards is going to be an open authoritarian, with only the particular flavor of authoritarianism in doubt. I will happily support even the least of those Democrats against any Republican. Happily. This isn't a lesser evils election for me. Not one of the Democrats openly espoused authoritarianism. At worst (Hillary, with her support of Kyl-Lieberman), the Democrats we'll have the option of voting for are simply cowardly opponents and enablers, and not active proponents of the authoritarian slide in this country. Hillary Clinton is the evil of the mainstream status quo ante, but compared to the Bush administration that's a step in the right direction. Once she or one of the others is elected, then we push to hold them accountable and reverse the damage of this administration (and with luck, the lesser damage inflicted during the Clinton years and before). At least with a Democrat we'll have a chance of being heard.

Oh, and who does the Democratic leadership represent? I'd say mostly the corporate interests that elected them, which include large legal firms, banks, insurance companies; not to mention the foreign policy establishment represented by middle of the road folks like Joseph Wilson and the CFR types from both parties. As a liberal/social-democratic/social libertarian non-interventionist, I find these interests largely abominable, but they represent a relatively responsible set of mainstream interests compared to the extremists backing the GOP. Some of the members have similar backers, so even if their personal views are more liberal/libertarian they are constrained in what they can do within the allowed Washington consensus. Then there's the fact that many of the members of the Democratic Party come from parts of the country that are deeply conservative, where "bipartisan" nomination of presidential appointees is considered the rule, and where torture is far too common in local prisons and most people would waterboard a suspected terrorist themselves given half the chance. Scary as it might seem, a Senator's vote to confirm Mukasey is often a good representation of the Senator's constituency.

Step one: get rid of the open authoritarians. Step two: hold the enablers accountable to ending the worst abuses, using every available method. Step three: undermine the power structure that let this happen in the first place and create a contrary constituency based around respect for the rule of law and respect for individual liberties and civil rights. But if we fail at step one, we'll have no means to do any of the rest.

[solarbird]

Fixed, btw.