Liberals Shaming Liberals
Saturday 9 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized
Paul’s filibuster was met with bitter scorn from many liberals. And some of those who didn’t criticize Paul rightly noted that liberals ought to be the ones who should be ashamed. Falguni A. Sheth in Salon:
Yet instead of expressing outrage, Democrats continued to acquiesce to the White House’s radical expansion of executive power. And they turned on Rand Paul, even though his objections should have been shared not just by liberals, but by everyone with even a passing respect for the rule of law.
So where’s the problem for progressives? Apparently, Paul’s question about killing Americans on American soil is deemed such a singular Tea Party-ish position that only two Democrats (Patrick Leahy and Jeff Merkley) and Independent Bernie Sanders joined Republican forces in challenging Brennan’s nomination.
Rather than challenge a Democratic administration in defense of constitutional principles that all citizens should insist be guaranteed, Democrats embraced party tribalism. As Kevin Gosztola pointed out, so-called progressives from Lawrence O’Donnell to Chris Matthews vilified the only politician who was asserting a — limited, mild, patriotic — challenge to the White House’s imperious expansion of unilateral authority. It was a challenge that every single Democrat, conservative, liberal or progressive should have been pushing for the last four years. Even those few, such as Sen. Ron Wyden, who exhibited some backbone, did so tepidly. After all, Wyden clearly stated that he would vote to confirm Brennan.
Many of the criticisms are simply stupid and without any real intellectual merit such as “we can’t possibly support Paul in this because he said he has issues with one provision of the Civil Rights Act (you know, the one that was passed nearly 50 years ago when he was a small child), and that Paul believes that free market principles would have also addressed racism with the use of government force, hence a racist. Sheth argues in reply,
Is Paul a racist? Here’s a better question: Is Paul any more racist in his economic and drug policy endorsements than the White House in its policies of kill lists, targeted killings, drone strikes, TSA no-fly and watch lists, Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Communities program or “See Something, Say Something” policy? Is Rand Paul more of a threat to black and brown populations (American or foreign) than the current administration, which deported more than 1.5 million migrants during its first term and separated tens of thousands of migrant parents from their children? Is Rand Paul more of a threat to our safety than the current administration?
No, Paul is NOT a bigger threat for believing in free market principles than Obama is for prosecuting the War on Drugs which disproportionately affects minority populations, or for violently separating families with draconian deportation policy, or for bombing brown people, most of who are innocent of any wrongdoing, many of them women and children, with death robots from above. Not even close.
Yet Sheth’s final point is a poignant one.
Democrats should have participated in Paul’s filibuster until the answer they received was an unconditional “no” to the question of targeted killings of Americans on American soil. There’s much more to be demanded of this administration, but support for Paul’s filibuster could have been a good place to start. And it should have been a no-brainer. But rather than forming a tactical alliance — no one was asking Democrats to convert to Tea Partyism — Democrats relinquished yet another chance to do their jobs: to question, challenge and push back on the Obama administration’s unceasing quest for power.
It’s TEAM politics all the way down.
2013-03-09 » madlibertarianguy