June 20, 2013

Politics

‘We are now engaged in a limitless war’: Rand Paul’s filibuster

BY: TIMOTHY P. CARNEY MARCH 6, 2013 | 2:09 PM
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Photo - WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 25: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks at the March for Life on January 25, 2013 in Washington, DC. The pro-life gathering is held each year around the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 25: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks at the March for Life on January 25, 2013 in Washington, DC. The pro-life gathering is held each year around the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)

“When we ask the president ‘Can you kill Americans on American soil with drone strikes?’, it should be an easy answer,” Republican Sen. Rand Paul said on the Senate floor today. It was at the beginning of his speech (now more than 2 hours in) filibustering President Obama’s nomination of John Brennan to run the CIA.

“If you’re saying crazy things and they happen to be against your government,” Paul asked on the floor, “is that enough for a Hellfire missile to rain down on your house?”

It’s a notable shift in American politics that a Republican is the one to stand up to extrajudicial killings of U.S. citizens, but Paul’s speech has made a good case why his position is the conservative one. It’s about the idea that a government can’t just head-on attack every problem it sees. Government needs to be constrained by rules.

Here are two conservative journalists writing on Paul’s fight, Jim Antle and Charles Cooke.

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