Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The PATRIOT Act & 2 Who Care about the Constitution

More Examples of How Both Left and Right Pay Lip Service to the Constitution


Charles M. Kozierok (Mr. talkradiosucks.com) said, today:

Lawmakers swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. The House GOP made a grand spectacle of reading it at the start of the year. But there are very, very few who actually give a damn about it.


The ones who do end up forming some rather unusual alliances, such as Dennis Kucinich and Rand Paul, who joined together to oppose extension of the PATRIOT Act. Nobody in favor of that abomination cares about their constitutional oath, and that includes all the legislators who voted for it, and the Obama administration as well.


Kucinich is a guy I don’t care for much (especially after his dental nonsense last month), but he’s right on here:


“The 112th Congress began with a historic reading of the U.S. Constitution,” Kucinich said in a statement. “Will anyone subscribe to the First and Fourth Amendments tomorrow when the PATRIOT Act is up for a vote? I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization.”


On the other side — way on the other side — we have Rand Paul. He not only also opposes the PATRIOT Act, but he has come out vocally against a whole host of other unconstitutional measures as part of his cost-cutting proposals. In return, he has reaped the scorn of just about everyone on both sides of the aisle.


Witness a recent discussion over at FrumForum about how Rand Paul wants to gut the Department of Energy. Some valid arguments were made both in favor and against the proposal, but what’s most interesting to me is the comments that trash Paul as some sort of wild-eyed extremist simply by virtue of wanting to cut a lot of stuff out of the federal budget that, according to the Constitution, should really never have been there in the first place.


One commenter said that Paul’s position was “insanely ideological”. If so, that’s really less about Paul, and more a commentary on our present political climate, and how unimportant our most important law has become.



No comments:

Post a Comment