Hugo Chavez is dead and many of us said “Good riddance” to a tyrant who took advantage of his people, intimidated his political opposition, and left his country in disarray.
Wednesday, Kentucky's Rand Paul seemed to be reminding us, “Why would we want a tyrant in America too?” That was the point of Senator Rand Paul’s nearly 13-hour filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor on Wednesday.
Yes President Obama is cool, and hip, and a man of the people. But with each hour Paul kept up his filibuster, you could feel Obama’s popularity melting away.
Paul seemed to be saying, “Does it really matter if he’s hip, if he wants to kill you -- an American citizen, on American soil?
Does it matter if he’s cool, and the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with, if he wants you dead without a trial?”
Heck, forget a trial, you won’t even get to hear the charges. Your president will just order a drone to hunt you down and blow up your car -- with you in the front seat.
You won’t ever know what hit you, you’ll never see your kids again, and you’ll never even know what you’ve done, you’ll never know who made the charges against you.
Perhaps they were false charges.
Perhaps it was over jealousy, or a grudge.
Perhaps it was political.
No matter.
You’re dead because the president believes you had no right to a trial.
That was why Rand Paul stood on the Senate floor for nearly 13 courageous hours embarrassing the president of the United States, with the whole world watching. Paul was daring Obama to end the filibuster by answering one simple question: “Do you have the right to order the killing of U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil, without arrest, without due process, without hearing charges, without a lawyer, without a trial?”
King Obama has become King George. Paul was reminding us this is why our Founding Fathers risked torture and death in the first American Revolution. This is why so many of our ancestors risked their lives to travel thousands of miles to a new country: for freedom... for rights... for due process...
To escape tyrants.
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