On Partisanship and Drones

This week, Rand Paul staged a talking filibuster over the nomination of John Brennan to be the head of the CIA. There are two things I want to say about this episode.

First, I went from being impressed with Rand Paul to being disappointed with him. I am glad he used the filibuster to bring attention to an important issue. I was let down however when he ended it and declared victory after the Obama administration said they cannot kill Americans on American soil with a drone.

Rand Paul went after the most extreme aspect of what seems to be a clearly illegal policy. The Obama administration claims it can kill anyone, including American citizens, with a drone, away from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, with no due process outside of Obama making the decision, and using criteria that strain at least or more likely violate the authorizing legislation.

That the Obama administration, through AG Eric Holder (of whom I have no respect for anymore), at first claimed that authority on American soil and then backed away from that, does not address the fact they still claim the power everywhere else in the world. This is something libertarians and progressives who care about civil liberties should be appalled by. So while Paul's fillibuster brought some attention, it did not go far enough and is not much of a victory.

Second, the filibuster showed the power of partisanship, whereby people make decisions based not on policy but what team they are on. In this case, the one exception here in my mind is Rand Paul. I believe he would have done the same thing had this been a Republican president. I hope I am not wrong.

But throughout the filibuster, there were 13 Republicans and only 1 Democrat supporting Paul's filibuster on an issue of civil liberties. Had this been a Republican president, there would have been 40 Democrats and 1 Republican. In other words, I think both parties were following partisanship. I think many of the Republicans that joined Paul would not have confronted a Republican president (unless there are in fact 12 libertarian senators). And I know all those silent Democrats would not have been silent.

The New York Review of Books had an article about the War of 1812 declaring that it was not fought over British interning American sailors but was instead America's first partisan war, whereby supporters of Madison supported the war only because they were in Madison's party. (Just so you know this isn't the only alternative interpretation, James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, argues the war was really over subjugating the native American population.)

Let me be clear, I am not writing this to oppose political parties. The parties are supposed to be organizations of like-minded individuals with similar goals for government and society. The problem arises when people support the party even when it is promoting policies that contradict the ideas of the party. When this happens, people are supporting policies that are not in line with their ideals (which is always bad) for the sole purpose of protecting the party or its leaders.