The Filibuster Show

Sen. Rand Paul uncorked an old-fashioned filibuster yesterday, speaking over 13 hours into this morning on the topic of drone strikes against U.S. citizens, with particular attention to presidential orders of same.

It's not so easy a question as it should be. We have to remember a few things:

• We do give everyone the right to use deadly force when threatened with same, at least in theory.
• In practice, we don't always follow through -- ask George Zimmerman about that.
• The reason we don't is because viewing a threat level is going to be subjective.

My rule of thumb on government power is this -- do not grant power to a government unless you are prepared to accept the use of said power on yourself. A lot of conservatives didn't worry much about the Patriot Act when George W. Bush was in power, but now they are quite worried because Barack Obama has the same power. Conversely, you mostly get silence from liberals these days on these issues -- ask Cindy Sheehan about that.

I don't suspect you can unpack a 13-hour filibuster in a blog post, but there are a few things that need to be said. First, on balance Sen. Paul is correct; from what I can tell, the use of drone strikes has become increasingly indiscriminate over time. I'm not sure you can pin that entirely on Barack Obama, however. Second, those of us who are advocates of the 2nd Amendment need to remember that the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments are equally important. It won't do to pick and choose on these issues. The point of the Bill of Rights was to constrain governmental power in very specific ways. The government we have now has lost constraint over time. It's going to take a long time to roll things back, but first we need to decide whether we want to roll anything back. It's hard to argue that limited government is popular when Barack Obama gets reelected.