[Vision2020] Three Democratic myths used to demean the Paul filibuster

[Paul Rumelhart]

This is an interesting article on the reaction of Democrats to the Paul filibuster.  I thought it was quite insightful.

The article is too long to post it in it's entirety.  I'm posting a link to the article in the Guardian and will copy+paste the first few paragraphs.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/10/paul-filibuster-drones-progressives


Three Democratic myths used to demean the Paul filibuster
The progressive 'empathy gap', a strain of liberal authoritarianism, and a 
distortion of Holder's letter are invoked to defend Obama

Commencing immediately upon the 9/11 attack, the US government under 
two successive administrations has spent 12 straight years inventing and implementing new theories of government power in the name of Terrorism. Literally every year since 9/11 has ushered in increased authorities of exactly the type Americans are inculcated to believe only exist in 
those Other, Non-Free societies: ubiquitous surveillance, impenetrable 
secrecy, and the power to imprison and even kill without charges or due 
process. Even as the 9/11 attack recedes into the distant past, the US 
government still finds ways continuously to increase its powers in the 
name of Terrorism while virtually never relinquishing any of the power 
it acquires. So inexorable has this process been that the Obama 
administration has already exercised the power to target even its own 
citizens for execution far from any battlefield, and the process has now arrived at its inevitable destination: does this due-process-free 
execution power extend to US soil as well?

All of this has taken 
place with very little public backlash: especially over the last four 
years. Worse, it has prompted almost no institutional resistance from 
the structures designed to check executive abuses: courts, the media, 
and Congress. Last week's 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan's 
confirmation as CIA director by GOP Sen. Rand Paul was one of the first - and, from the perspective of media attention, easily among the most 
effective -Congressional efforts to dramatize and oppose just how 
radical these Terrorism-justified powers have become. For the first time since the 9/11 attack, even lowly cable news shows were forced - by the Paul filibuster - to extensively discuss the government's extremist 
theories of power and to debate the need for checks and limits. 


All of this put Democrats - who spent eight years flamboyantly pretending 
to be champions of due process and opponents of mass secrecy and 
executive power abuses - in a very uncomfortable position. The 
politician who took such a unique stand in defense of these principles 
was not merely a Republican but a leading member of its dreaded Tea 
Party wing, while the actor most responsible for the extremist theories 
of power being protested was their own beloved leader and his political 
party.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/10/paul-filibuster-drones-progressives
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