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Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX) met with area business owners, community leaders and public servants last week, to talk about the state of Washington politics, as well as his new position as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

McCaul stopped in on his way to meet with Gov. Rick Perry in Houston.

McCaul started off the meeting by telling members that the infighting between the two parties is due to one side being stuck in perpetual campaign mode, instead of governing. His specific target was President Obama.

"He is in a mode where he says let's talk about immigration reform, let's talk about everything but the economy," McCaul said. "He's in campaign mode."

McCaul told the audience that despite his position on the Homeland Security Committee, he hasn't been invited to the White House for meetings once.

"No attempt, despite all the talk about coming together," he said.

McCaul focused a lot of his criticism on the White House and Democrats in the Senate not passing a budget in the last four years; instead they have relied on continuing resolutions just to keep the government running.

"Four years without a budget," he said. "It's one of the most irresponsible things I have ever seen."

He also said that the recent Presidential election was about scaring voters, rather than talking about tough budgetary decisions that need to be made.

"This president won the election pandering to people that receive entitlement benefits," he said. "He was scaring the hell out of people."

McCaul said that Obama's recent attempts to demonize Republicans in the eyes of the voters don't help solve the problems facing the nation.

"We all agree that there needs to be a safety net, that we need to help those less fortunate, but it shouldn't be permanent," he said.

"Greece. That's where we are headed if we don't change our way," he added, referring to the debt riddled nation with a struggling economy.

McCaul went on to talk about his ascension to the chairman's seat of the Homeland Security Committee.

The Congressman went on to say there are numerous things he currently disagrees with the Obama administration on, specifically naming the Benghazi attacks and al-Qaeda's presence in Africa.

(The Obama administration's) narrative is that the al-Qaeda threat is over," McCaul said. "The African theater proves it is not."

McCaul said that al-Qaeda has seen resurgence since the Arab Spring uprising in North Africa, raising money and securing weapons.

"Al-Qaeda has reconstituted in North Africa, raised $100 million and grabbed arms caches from Libya, so we need to make sure that stays over there," he said. "These are serious weapons when compared to what they or the Taliban possessed."

Another concern of McCaul's are the recent calls from the Arab world to release Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, otherwise known as the Blind Sheik, who was convicted and jailed in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. McCaul said the fact that the United States has imprisoned Rahman, combined with recent al-Qaeda chatter promising "shocking" attacks in the U.S., is a big concern to him and members of his committee.

When it comes to the Benghazi attacks, McCaul said he has a hard time reconciling the stories presented by the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with other accounts presented about the attack that killed a U.S. ambassador.

"I brought up a classified security document that was sent to (Clinton's) office and she admitted that she never saw it, her staff never saw it – well, who saw it?" he said.

Much has been made in the mainstream media the past few days, of an exchange between Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Texas' new U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.
The exchange was during a committee hearing regarding Feinstein's proposal to ban certain firearms and high capacity magazines.

To those who haven't seen the exchange, here it is in a nutshell: Cruz asked Feinstein if she would make exceptions to other amendments in the Bill of Rights, like limiting which books we can read under free speech regulations. Feinstein replied that she was "not a sixth grader" and that, while not a lawyer, she understood the Constitution and didn't need a lecture from Cruz. She feigned being offended to the max, all while never addressing Cruz's legitimate question.

Feinstein's hissy fit made for good television and thus, predictably, the media focused solely on that exchange. There was another moment however, while quieter and gentler, screamed much louder and speaks many more volumes.

Towards the end of the exchange, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) pipes up and says "none of these rights are absolute."

Wow.

Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote our nation's Declaration of Indepen-dence, thought otherwise. He declared in that document that there are certain inalienable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are only endowed by our Creator. In other words, those rights are natural and absolute – not given by man or governments, but rather we are born with them.

He also stated that: "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated, but with his wrath?"

Other's have said that there are no absolute rights and they even point to a Jefferson quote as proof, when he said: "All natural rights may be abridged or modified in their exercise by law." They use this quote to justify laws that trample individual freedoms, or limit those freedoms. They are wrong.

I believe what Jefferson meant was that when one's exercise of their natural rights tramples basic human morals, or the natural and absolute rights of others (i.e. murder, rape, pillage, etc.) then the people as a whole (government) has a right to step in and take that offenders rights away via prison, death sentence and other means. What it does not mean is that government has a right to limit other citizens rights, merely because someone may or may not do something in the future.

To say something as Durbin did either shows a complete lack of judgment, or a lack of common sense – neither of which is needed in the upper chamber of our legislative body.

The belief that no rights are absolute, is a belief that leads to tyranny.

Many folks will pass that statement off as paranoia, or as hysteria. However, while it is my belief that many who come down on the side of Feinstein's bill, or that discounted Rand Paul's fillibuster are wrong, I do not doubt their sincerity, their passion or their belief that these measures will keep others safe. I do, however, doubt those that will come later and still have these powers and I am not willing to sacrifice this nation's ideals or principles in the name of a little safety and security now.

It's too big of a slippery slope. After all, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.