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At least Ron Paul has started the conversation about constitutional rights…where the hell is everyone else?

Hat tip to The Liberty Papers

So I guess this YouTube ad is supposed to get you thinking about the “ripples” or impact each person makes in society. But actually, it might make you think Mike Gravel is just a tad more crazy than you thought:

“The point of the spot is not the rock but the ripples it leaves in the water,” Gravel said Monday. They represent what he hopes to accomplish “as an ordinary citizen who’s trying to make a difference by doing something and it causes ripples in society.”

Gravel explains…

I am a conservative. What I thought conservatism represented was an allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, states’ rights, limited government, a strong defense, free market capitalism, low taxes, and traditional American values. These days, I find myself more disenchanted with conservatives (not just Congressmen, but regular blog-surfing Americans) than I ever have before.

It seems like establishment Republicans, including regular people, have forgotten what conservatism is. They’ve forgotten what the U.S. Constitution says, except when it will fit within the conservative construct of their own minds. I call this principle “constitutional on demand” syndrome. For example, recently the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a legal American resident dubbed an enemy combatant by the executive could not be detained indefinitely without being charged and would be afforded habeas corpus protections. This ruling should make sense to conservatives. Under the 14th amendment, those who are citizens of the United States or within the jurisdiction of the United States are afforded due process of law:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

You would think conservatives would applaud this decision as it upholds the constitutional rights of a legal United States resident. Don’t get me wrong - I am NOT condoning this man’s alleged personal attempt to aid and further terrorist activities, but this man was a United States resident, and as such, he should be awarded constitutional rights and protections.

I communicated this very thought to what I thought were like-minded conservatives and this is what I got:

Your statement of “terrorist or not” is ridiculous. You would make the Constitution a suicide pact. You think it is good to protect foreign enemy combatants that do not even fight against us under the flag of another government but just simply get in under the guise of our pathetic immigration law and seek to destroy us.

You feel good because you think you are protecting some high and mighty principle of freedom in theory but you do not care one iota about protecting that principle of freedom in reality.

I believe that the People and the President that they have elected have a say on this issue. It is not the principle that you seem to think that it is. I do not accept giving foreign terrorist combatants the rights of our citizens.

The fellow poster later apologized for saying that I didn’t care for one iota about protecting freedom because I told him I had gladly served in Iraq, but that’s besides the point.

My point in the above example is that establishment Republicans and conservatives are so worried about security that they are willing to throw constitutional protections in the toilet in order to defend the very freedoms enshrined within it! I just don’t get it. I used to think that Republicans/conservatives and Democrats/liberals were distinctly different. I don’t think that anymore. Both political parties or factions of the populace want bigger government, but in different areas. Democrats want big government to turn this country into a socialist state and to increase government dependence. Republicans want big government for the sake of security, at the expense of our liberty. Both scenarios are equally as damaging to our republic and our way of life as Americans.

Hahahahahahahaha! Paris Hilton went screaming and crying out of an L.A. courtroom today, on her way back to jail:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paris Hilton was taken from a courtroom screaming and crying Friday seconds after a judge ordered her returned to jail to serve out her entire 45-day sentence for a parole violation in a reckless driving case.

“It’s not right!” shouted the weeping Hilton. “Mom!” she called out to her mother in the audience.

She had been brought to court in sheriff’s custody today for a court hearing on her early release from jail after back-and-forth decisions on whether she could participate by telephone from her home.

Hilarious…read the full article from the Associated Press…

A victory for our country, at least in the short term. John Hawkins at Rightwingnews.com has the lowdown about what happened today and why Harry Reid pulled the bill. Thank God for Jim Demint:

A GOP Aide, who’s one of my sources in the Senate, gave me the rundown on what happened to the Senate bill today.

After the 2nd cloture vote failure at noon on Thursday, Harry Reid could not get unanimous consent to call up amendments to the bill because Jim DeMint refused to give his consent. This was extremely problematic for Reid because he wanted to get in votes on 6 more amendments before the last try at a cloture vote.

At that point, all the senators who were participants in the “Grand Compromise” AKA the “Masters of the Universe” by the opponents of the bill, leaned on DeMint to try to get him to give consent for the bill to move forward. Unfortunately for them, DeMint wouldn’t budge. This essentially killed the entire afternoon that the pro-amnesty side hoped to use to shore up support for the bill.

While DeMint was gumming up the works, the opponents of the bill, including most prominently Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, and Tom Coburn, huddled and came up with a list of conservative amendments they wanted considered.

The “Grand Compromise” crowd didn’t want a lot of these amendments to be voted on because either some of the amendments would have been accepted and it would have killed the bill or alternately, they would have had to vote against common sense enforcement measures and made themselves look bad.

Eventually, after the process was tied up all afternoon and failed a third cloture vote, Harry Reid yanked the bill even though the opponents of the bill said they were willing to stop gumming up the process as long as all the amendments they wanted were voted on today.

Read the whole thing…

So I was surfing around on the web today checking out random political news and I came across this John Edwards YouTube video. Now I’m not really a fan of John Edwards in the slightest; he’s a socialist in Democratic clothing and he should not be president of anything in my opinion. Anyway, this interview with John Edwards is a more laid back one, though he offered the typical socialist rhetoric of improving America’s international reputation by holding conferences.

I noticed at the end of the video that the interviewer did a “shotgun” round with Edwards asking if the things he named off were rights or privileges. Take a look at Edwards’ insanity and socialistic nonsense:

Obviously, Edwards doesn’t know that owning a gun is a RIGHT as outlined in the United States Constitution, something he’d swear to uphold if elected chief executive. Liberals like Edwards don’t realize that many privileges we have in the states are results of the free market and its liberty-based development. Get a clue John, we don’t need more government messing around in our affairs or any more $400 haircuts while you talk of “Two Americas.”

I usually don’t really care about dumb Paris Hilton or her craziness, but this just down right pissed me off:

Due to an undisclosed “medical condition,” Paris Hilton has been reassigned from jail to her home, where she will wear an electronic monitoring device.

“She was not released, she was reassigned,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. spokesperson Steve Whitmore said at a press conference Thursday.

Reassigned my butt. So now instead of paying for her crimes, she can now sit in a comfortable mansion being tended to with all the luxuries money can buy. To me, this is not only absurd, but offensive. It PISSES me off that those with money can just buy their freedom. I usually don’t have a problem with rich people, but this just makes me mad. What the hell has the justice system come to in this country?

Everybody knows a regular, middle class person would have to do the time, or at least most of it. Hell, Paris only stayed in jail for five days. What a crock.

Well, I watched the entire debate non-stop last night and here are my thoughts on the event:

First off, I’d like to say that like Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer is a HORRIBLE debate moderator. You could just sense the bias coming from his mouth, trying to place blame on the Bush Administration for “mistakes” and trying to trip up the GOP candidates who believe in what the president is doing. He was also a downright time-Nazi and would always try to cut everyone off in the middle of a thought. Blitzer downright sucks and I NEVER want to see him moderate another debate. Anyway, on to the debate:

Mitt Romney was my favorite coming into tonight (as everyone knows). While presenting a good explanation of the Iraq War in the beginning of the debate, he tripped up from there, more or less. He got called out on his support for banning assault weapons and seemed to just skip over questions that would clearly be answered by more conservative candidates (think Tom Tancredo). When questioned why he aired campaign commercials in Spanish, Romney went on a rant about optimism. Frankly, I wish he would’ve just answered the question. In my opinion, REAL conservatives are proud to be conservatives, and if Romney’s a true conservative, he should have just answered the questions he skipped over.

Romney grade: C+

It’s not that I hate Rudy Giuliani, it’s just that he’s a big government moderate, much in the mold of George W. Bush. While I support his stance in the war on terror, we need a president who didn’t just get there running on post 9/11 leadership. I feel he is definitely lacking the credentials that could appeal to social conservatives who care about things like abortion, traditional marriage, and gun rights. Fortunately, Rudy had a good night bashing Democrats about how wrong they are on basically every issue and was the strongest candidate when it came to defending the war on terror. Actually, Rudy might have looked comfortable on stage and finally got that commanding presence he so desperately needed to compete with Mitt. Overall, strong on national security, weak on domestic issues.

Giuliani grade: B+

Basically, McCain killed his chances to be President of the United States last night. His immigration compromise with Ted Kennedy and RINOs in Congress earned him absolutely no points with the GOP base. Immigration was a huge issue last night with every other GOP candidate going after him. I have to respect McCain for standing up for the bill, but he eventually caved saying it wouldn’t have been the bill he’d written if given the opportunity. McCain’s steadfast support for Bush’s plan in Iraq was not unnoticed however, and I give him credit for that. But since he’s STILL a liberal in conservative clothing, I’m deducting points.

McCain grade: D

Duncan Hunter had command of the military issues last night and even threw a comment or two in there about losing industrial and manufacturing jobs and China’s looming economic threat. Hunter knows about the military and I wouldn’t be surprised if he made inroads with one issue, wartime conservatives. He showed a strong knowledge on foreign affairs, though he seemed a tad bland on social issues like healthcare. He again strongly spoke out about securing the border and near the end of the debate, actually attacked Romney, Giuliani, and McCain for cooperating with Ted Kennedy at some point during their political career. It was awesome. Overall, strong on national security, generic on domestic issues.

Hunter grade: B

Tom Tancredo had a great night in my opinion, at least when it came to his core issue, illegal immigration. I was very impressed when Tancredo said that the problems with illegal immigration did not just stem from social spending or breaking the law. He actually turned the immigration debate into a debate about a clash of civilizations, the effects of non-assimilation, and social survival. I was very impressed. Unfortunately, Tancredo is not the best orator and I don’t think he made any inroads with independents because of it. I always look forward to Tancredo debating however, because he always manages to throw in a quote from the founding fathers that is still relevant today.

Tancredo grade: B-

I really want to like Ron Paul, but he’s not growing on me at all these days. In the beginning, I preferred him to other candidates because he was the only one defending the Constitution of the United States. I respect him because he’s still the only constitutionalist in the race, but unfortunately, instead of getting better in debate performances or more deeply explaining his positions, he keeps going on rants about foreign policy and the history of the GOP. It’s actually kind of disheartening. Anyway, I really haven’t heard much about Paul’s domestic policy positions, but that may be moderators’ fault. I just hope he doesn’t go down in history as the GOP’s raving libertarian.

Paul grade: C-

Mike Huckabee, what can I say? What a defense of Christianity and God himself! I don’t think he has what it takes to be President of the United States, but Huckabee is the man when it comes to defending God and Christians in general. He was simply amazing when it came to answering the question on evolution and faith. Great performance at that point, take a look:

Huckabee grade: B+

The other candidates not mentioned above really did nothing to satisfy me in the debate and their performances are not really worth mentioning. They just all seemed too generic and did nothing to make inroads with the GOP base.

Mitt Romney is my favorite coming into tonight’s debate. As always, I’d prefer a strong showing for him tonight. McCain and Giuliani haven’t really grown on me since they announced their candidacy, so I’m not really expecting anything spectacular. In fact, I’m kind of hoping Ron Paul goes to town on Giuliani when it comes to foreign policy. I don’t agree with Ron Paul, but someone needs to actually debate Rudy on the issues. Afterall, the former mayor has nothing to run on except his post 9/11 leadership and that’s not enough for me to vote for him.

I really hope McCain is attacked tonight by all nine candidates on his immigration stance. In my opinion, immigration will kill McCain’s chances of ever becoming President of the United States. The GOP base is becoming increasingly frustrated with his kind in Congress and I expect that anger will translate into someone else getting the nod next February.

I really want to hear more from Tancredo, Hunter, and Paul and I hope they get the airtime. The debate is live in 26 minutes.

So I recently got orders to go to Mississippi for a month of technical training. So I may not be blogging as often as I’d like. This, coupled with two online summer classes and the beach will definitely keep me busy. In the meantime, feel free to check out my favorite links on the right side of the page to keep up to date with the latest political news and analysis.