Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was quite sharp yesterday evening during the CNN republican debates, even if no one on stage took him on. His attempts at engagement with Marco Rubio and Donald Trump fell flat, but he showed some centrist leanings that cause him to stand out. The crux of this common sense seems to be the way he views how the United States should deal with terrorism. To quote the man himself, " As commander in Chief, I will do whatever it takes to defend America, but in defending America we cannot lose what America stands for." He rejects ideas of supposedly monitoring the internet or possibly restricting access, because they are honestly absurd. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush condemned Trump's insane plan to ban all Muslims from the United States. Some candidates are showing themselves to be at least a bit less heartless than originally thought, unlike a certain neurosurgeon and potential child-murderer running for office. Doesn't this just warm the cockles of your heart? Do these candidates have any ulterior motives for being rational human beings besides wanting to beat Trump?
Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/16/politics/who-won-republican-debate/
6 comments:
I agree with the4th3rd to a certain extent. While I can’t say the debate “warmed the cockles of my heart”, I do think that the candidates stayed surprisingly calm. There was the expected backlash to Trump’s outlandish ideas of banning all Muslims or building a wall and Jeb Bush went on the offensive in a relatively childish manner saying that his low rates “don’t really matter.” I am not a supporter of Rand Paul’s, but I do think that maintaining American ideals while still maintaining defense is essential. I also agree that restricting access to the internet would intrude on people’s freedom. However, I think that monitoring the internet for certain things, such as ISIS or any other terrorist groups is important. If the government had this ability before they may have been able to predict the San Bernardino attack and prevent them. I personally think and would like to believe that the candidates are rational human beings and that these are policies that they would support as commander in chief; while everyone does want to beat Trump they also need to be able to keep the country running.
It may seem strange that some of the candidates are starting to move more to centrist ideas, but aside from these candidate showing a little humanity on television it may actually be a good strategy. The best politicians are the ones who try to appeal to the more moderate voters because that is where the majority of the population stands. So with that in mind, it makes much more sense for the candidates to seek support from the moderate majority instead of getting support from the few Americans that believe in extremely Right Wing ideals such as the ones Trump is proposing. Therefore, it is probably in the Republican candidates' best interests to distance their ideals from radical ideas such as banning an entire people from our country based on religion and making Mexico build a wall to keep their own people out of the US. Of course the candidates do have a little sense of humanity... probably. But these moderate comments made by Jeb Bush and Rand Paul seem to be more about strategy more than actually doing the right thing.
Similar to Claire and unlike the4th3rd, the GOP debate did not "warm the cockles of my heart." When I heard the Republican debate would focus on national security, I anticipated lots of dangerous anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant debate. In that regard, I was not disappointed. Jeb Bush stressed the importance of good relations with Muslim countries for defeating ISIS. However, Muslims matter beyond where we stand on someone else's foreign policy. I was surprised that there was no mention of gun violence and gun control as they are both very prevelent issues that I thought would be touched upon. I believe the winner of the debate was Jeb Bush as he reminded us of the mature, realistic and electable Republicans of years before and emphasized the need to maintain respectful relations with the Muslim world. On the other hand, the loser of the debate was Donald Trump as he called for the fact that terrorism is the use of violence against civilians for political purposes.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/16/politics/who-won-republican-debate/
I was particularly impressed with Rand Paul's response to Donald Trump's inane comments threatening the families of ISIS members. During an appearance on Fox and Friends on December 2nd, Trump stated that "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families." This comment was then brought up at the debate, and Trump reaffirmed his position, saying "I would be very, very firm with families." Rand Paul then challenged Trump saying, ""If you are going to kill the families of terrorists realize that there's something called the Geneva Convention we're going to have to pull out of. It would defy every norm that is America." International law confirms this statement that killing the families of terrorist would be an international crime. I was impressed with Paul's logical and coherent argument, especially compared to Trump's illogical and incoherent speech (What else would we expect from him?). Paul's argument depicts him as a rational being, not just someone who wants to beat Trump. While I highly doubt Paul can win the nomination, it is nice to see some moderate views; however, these were also found in the other candidates. I agree with Claire that I'd like to believe that the people running for the Presidency and Commander-in-Chief are rational people with a passion for public service, with the exception of Mr. Trump, of course. It was also nice to see people disagree with Trump's ridiculous ban on Muslims; however, this is the expected and RIGHT response; therefore it doesn't particularly "impress" me.
Source:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/17/rand-paul/rand-pauls-right-geneva-conventions-bar-donald-tru/
Although this debate did not "warm the cockles of my heart", it was definitely reassuring to see the widespread opposition of Donald Trump's insane policies. Some people were worried that Trump's ridiculous claims would influence the other candidates to become more extreme, especially with media coverage. Although this may be true for Carson, it is good to see that the other candidates are publicly denouncing Trump. It is completely un-American to ban all Muslims from our nation, and I agree with Rand Paul in that we cannot let this happen. However, I disagree with him when he says that there should not be an increase in monitoring of the Internet and other private matters. Especially in times like these with ISIS as a constant threat, the US needs to find a balance that satisfies citizens' rights of privacy as well as their safety. These candidates may be making these centrist comments as a strategy, but I also think that they are rational human beings and are trying their hardest to not let Trump win no matter what. We'll have to see if their more moderate views can attract enough votes.
Matters concerning the Republican Party very seldom "warm the cockles of my heart." However, I will say that Rand Paul was very smart to try appealing to the centrist voter, especially considering his position as a Libertarian. He was fairly successful in his approach, especially when rejecting Trump's familiarly dictatorial plan to ban all Muslims or make them carry identification cards. I agree with Blogger Brian; in a time where we are on the cusp of spiraling into a world dominated by fear and terrorism, the last thing we need is to ostracize an entire body of people.
Some unpredictable activity did take place during the debate nonetheless. Rubio, the supposed polling front-runner, was the most attacked person on stage. He was confronted or mentioned negatively 22 times, following Clinton at 29 and Obama at a whopping 41 (Silver). Perhaps the candidates should focus a little more on attacking Trump and Carson... Or have they merely run out of things to criticize?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fifth-republican-debate-ends-in-a-nine-way-draw/
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