Governor Christie’s Demagoguery
Tibor R. Machan
In his put down of Senator Rand Paul for the latter’s defense of limited governmental powers in foreign policies, Governor Chris Christie has not produced arguments but engaged in demagoguery. Bringing up the grieving of relatives of 9/11 victims amounts to just that.
The issue is whether the government has the authority to exert military and similar power as it carries out the task of securing the rights of the citizenry. It must find a way and not violate rights, for which there is no excuse. If governments do engage in rights violation while securing the rights of the citizenry, they become criminal organizations and lose their moral authority, period.
Senator Rand Paul is asserting this line of thinking and to try to refute him by the demagoguery resorted to by Governor Christie demonstrates that ineptitude of the government. After all, officials of the government take an oath to carry out their task within constitutional limits. Just as cops must not overstep these as they do their job, so must federal officials. Only very rarely may there be exceptions to this policy, in cases of imminent danger.
It is really sad that a governor of an American state doesn’t grasp all this.
