TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Jill Lawrence on Rand Paul’s filibuster:

Pretend for a moment that you are president of the United States, responsible for the safety of the entire nation. Do you really want to rule out any means of preventing terrorist attacks?

Rand Paul’s drone filibuster, while admirable as an expression of principle, took place in a theoretical world of civil liberties. Presidents operate in the real world of Americans under continuing threat – just ask President Obama or George W. Bush – and their top priority is to avoid terrorist killings on their watch.

For as much heat as Obama is taking for his administration’s view that in an extraordinary circumstance, a drone could be used against an American inside the United States, imagine what would happen if he didn’t have the tool he needed to avert a nightmarish attack involving an American member of al-Qaida.

Just to be clear, the option Lawrence wants to keep in the executive’s hands is to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil that pose no imminent threat with a drone strike. Just to be clear.

The president’s top priority should not be to “avoid terrorist killings on their watch.” If that’s the case, why have impediments like due process and “unreasonable” search and seizure? Requiring police to have probable cause and a warrant to conduct searches absolutely impinges on the president’s ability to fulfill his top priority, avoiding terrorist killings—so why have them?

It’s something obvious to most people: because there are contravening priorities, like individual freedom, that we all find more important than safety. Safety is not our top priority—it is a priority that must be pursued without harming others. Lawrence dismisses Paul’s “expression of principle” as living in a “theoretical world,” but there’s nothing theoretical about it when there are people literally proposing that the president should have arbitrary and complete power to provide for the country’s internal and external security.