IS HIS HILL STEEPER THAN IT LOOKS?
By Will Folks || Rand Paul isn’t his father … nor is he your father’s “Republican.”
He’s a man being tugged in two directions … while at the same time trying to lead his party out of the political wilderness. That dichotomy is evident in Paul’s own mannerisms. Cautious, calculating and borderline standoffish behind closed doors, Paul is polished and peppy on the stump – the consummate “Happy Warrior” of which former president Ronald Reagan used to speak.
It’s early in the 2016 race, but at this point Paul is arguably the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination – a role he’s been embracing lately via stepped-up criticism of Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee.
Of course it’s a role he achieved by upsetting many – including this author – with his dubious endorsements of GOP establishment figures.
Can a man serve two masters? In the Biblical admonition against attempting such dual servitude, God and money were pitted against one another. In Paul’s case, God and money (a.k.a. the GOP establishment) are on the same team – it’s those pesky people his father Ron Paul got all riled up who need to be tamed.
You know the people I’m talking about: The free market fiscal conservatives and social libertarians who look beyond the sound bites and rhetorical fluff and insist on substantive ideas – and ideological consistency in their implementation.
If Paul can successfully meld those people to the shrinking Republican base … his future is, as Tom Petty once crooned, “wide open.” In fact his argument to that shrinking base – which is reticent to accept atheists, gays, blacks, etc. – is that they no longer have a choice in the matter. At least not if they want to win another national election.
Can Paul pull it off though? Is this Hegelian dialectic he’s envisioning really advancing toward some sort of electoral synthesis? Or is his bid to shove free thinking capitalists into the same tent as corporate cronyists and sanctimonious moralizers doomed to fail?
“If you want a bigger party you need to be bigger, better and bolder,” Paul told a crowd of 400 Palmetto State “Republicans” this week – outlining his plans to fold libertarians and minorities under the GOP banner by making individual liberty and social justice centerpieces of his forthcoming campaign.
According to Paul, these ideological pillars are centerpieces of Republican dogma anyway … which should, theoretically anyway, make it easier for the GOP to embrace them.
“Let’s be what we’re for,” he said.
And what, exactly, is that?
Good question …
It changes from audience to audience, Paul says – with some voters needing to hear the GOP’s message on the Second Amendment and others needing to hear its message on the Fourth Amendment. Younger voters, in particular, need to hear the Fourth Amendment message.
“What’s on my cell phone is none of the government’s damn business,” Paul said, later adding that Republicans were “the Bill of Rights party.”
I agree … my website’s been preaching those rights for years. But did Paul run this perspective by “Republican” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham? Because last time I checked he has a vastly different view on that. In fact when Paul strode to the well of the U.S. Senate last spring to filibuster on behalf of individual liberty (namely your right not to be killed by a government drone), Graham attacked him.
Paul also boldly proclaimed the virtues of parental choice – citing it as a necessary step in fixing a broken “public” education system that disproportionately harms low-income minority children.
“Let’s be the party that has a plan for that – choices, vouchers, charter schools,” he said.
Again, I agree … my website’s been preaching that for years, too. But did Paul run that perspective by “Republican” S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, who has abandoned her previous support for parental choice in favor of a big government approach to education?
Or what about Haley’s embrace of Medicaid expansion over and above the average pro-Obamacare state?
Herein lies my fundamental problem with Rand Paul …
It’s not that he’s wrong on the issues, it’s that he wants to be president so bad he’s willing to look the other way when members of his party act in direct contravention of the ideals he’s espousing.
Which brings me back to the whole “two masters” thing. Paul can certainly continue to preach (quite non-specifically, I’d point out) the familiar rhetoric of his brand of Republicanism – lower taxes, less government, individual liberty, academic freedom, etc. – but if he remains silent while the rest of the party tramples on those virtues, what’s the point?
Paul likes to talk about government handouts diluting the value of the dollar (I agree with him on that, also) – but what happens when hypocrites like Graham and Haley (or Mitt Romney, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, etc.) dilute the value of his party?
There’s no practical difference in Washington, D.C. between Republicans and Democrats – and there hasn’t been for decades. The GOP’s addiction to big government fueled the recent recession, and the Democrats’ addiction to bigger government has turned it into a lasting malaise.
So why is Rand Paul running as a “Republican?”
One of Paul’s favorite turns of a phrase is that the GOP needs to adopt the perspective of painter Robert Henri – who once advised his students to “paint like a man coming over the hill singing.” Such cheery optimism, he believes, will recapture the spirt of Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America.”
Maybe he’s right … but if Paul fails to confront the rampant “Republican” hypocrisy all around him, how is he ever going to make it over the hill in the first place?
Will Folks is the founding editor of the website you are currently reading.
45 comments
More Trikki Nikki scandals…this shit is boring.
Rand Paul has no firm convictions. He’s campaigning on platitudes and feel goods.
That might have worked if he didn’t have Ron Paul for a father and he had been properly groomed in the GOP establishment around 14 years ago.
But now, aside from the fact that demographics make it almost impossible for the GOP to win the Presidency again now, that’s a plan that isn’t going to work because there’s no way hold the shrinking factions together.
He’s trying to sell his soul to the devil, but even Satan can’t influence enough people under the current demographics.
He’s trying to sell his soul to the devil
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He’s already mortgaged it to the hilt in Kentucky – he’s upside down.
Sounds like an asset bubble to me!
Maybe he can go back to his father and ask him about why bubble develop in the first place so he can be told it’s due to inflation.
:)
Ahhhhh…you speak Austrian.
I think that’s Satan’s first language.
He’ll probably start with a liberty lesson.
http://altdrudge.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/like-it-or-not-im-going-to-teach-you-a-thing-or-two-about-liberty-ron-rand-paul.jpg
Is this Hegelian dialectic he’s envisioning really advancing toward some sort of electoral synthesis?
*Whistles softly*
Dayum.
Well put by him and you. I was surprised at that sentence.
*by
uzbekibekibekistaninKant.
It’s not that he’s wrong on the issues, it’s that he wants to be president so bad he’s willing to look the other way when members of his party act in direct contravention of the ideals he’s espousing.
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Just what is it in the libertarian playbook that makes you think libertarian politicians are going to be any more trustworthy than any other?
Good point. It’s the basic argument as to why the ideal is that there is no government(because bad people with centralized and unchecked power is a bad thing).
That’s also why the self labeled libertarians are trying to walk tight rope(unsuccessfully)…which is also why I say personally that the word “libertarian” has been corrupted and is meaningless.
the word “libertarian” has been corrupted and is meaningless.
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“Christianity” is similar.
In the political world, if libertarian ever became a party, it would be the Republican Party. There’s nothing in libertarian world that prevents its representatives from being on the take and representing the rich against the weak. As a matter of fact, it encourages it. Lip service to freedom will always accompany tyranny in America, no matter who is on the take. But when your platform takes such a cynical view of the weak, and lionizes the rich – you can count on it – they aren’t there to help.
“In the political world”
That’s the key, libertarians in politics should resemble oil and water.
The true “freedom” agenda, sans politics, would acknowledge natural rights, natural order, etc. and try to effect a paradigm that implemented the non-aggression principle & property rights…which ironically has not one iota to do with politics and/or government.
If you stand back from the picture you painted a little bit, you can just see the similarity to a fantasy world that depends on people not to have human nature.
Nah, that’s why I made the comment about “would acknowledge natural rights, natural order, etc”.
If you boil down the success of any given society/civilization to be predicated in some fashion on the NAP and private property rights(which on the face of things would seem uncontroversial), then it becomes clear that voluntary organizations to further that notion would arise to combat those with “human nature” that violates the NAP/property rights.
The issue of what human nature represents is a fundamental debate. I tend to think that most humans, say arbitrarily around 80% are fundamentally good people and would develop voluntary organizations to combat the 20% if left to their own.
In fairness to most here, who are probably Christians, they might suggest the very opposite due to their beliefs, which says man is fallen and only saved by Christ…so they think that government(made up of men) is going to somehow temper that…they are trying to create some weird form of heaven here on earth. They probably have a viewpoint similar to veteran cops, where most of society sucks in their mind.
The way I see it, being most of society is decent, I see that government naturally draws the worst of society, the 20%, because the sociopaths see a chance to lord over everyone, satiating their desire to control while also affirming their own internal broken spirit while also enriching themselves in the process. So the sociopaths use government to disproportionately rule over the rest of us.
Nobel prize winner Hayek postulated this successfully, I think the ongoing government experiment has shown it conclusively, which is what makes this so funny and popular:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ5cGYBV2TQ
I’ve heard stoners talk about reality that way… that if everyone would see things like they are describing it, the world would be a place of peace and fun, and there’d be plenty of food and energy for everyone since no one would take more than they needed… but of course, they weren’t talking about Communism… just that everyone would be like they were at that moment – forever.
A change of perspective might be enough, but good luck with that. You can start going door-to-door, but it’s more profitable to sell something instead of trying to convince them of the “central problem with the way things are.” The Jehovah’s witnesses have that market sown up.
Scientology has had some limited success with convincing people to enter a community in which the ideals they think fixes everything are maintained like the temperature in an air conditioned house… but it looks pretty eerie from here.
“A change of perspective might be enough, but good luck with that. You can start going door-to-door, but it’s more profitable to sell something instead of trying to convince them of the “central problem with the way things are.””
Oh I have no doubt that no amount of convincing, proselytizing, etc. will change people’s minds.
BUT, a big “but”, when sites like this report every day on ever failure and malfeasance that government is responsible for…then it creates the possibility that even the dumb among us will eventually put 2 and 2 together.
How long will that take? Who knows. In the mean time, man conceptualizes for a reason, because it moves him forward most of the time…not backwards.
BUT, a big “but”, when sites like this report every day on ever failure and malfeasance that government is responsible for…then it creates the possibility that even the dumb among us will eventually put 2 and 2 together.
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They just blame it on the other party.
How long will that take? Who knows. In the mean time, man conceptualizes for a reason, because it moves him forward most of the time…not backwards.
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Oh I have no doubt that eventually women will stop fucking sociopaths, and they’ll die out – but from hairy ape to smooth skin took a long, long time.
Ok, so your argument is that people won’t change, never get it, etc. if I understand correctly.
IDK, I think history shows otherwise. Even though the American concept of government was laughed at by King George, it was unique for its time & place. Just like Athenian style democracy in its time.
So call me a rube for being hopeful(in the long run), I’ll take that lump.
Not “never will” but there’s no magic bullet.
Christianity made headway, but look at the result. Is it better than it would have been? I think yes. Did it change human nature? Some. Did it cause world-wide change? Maybe, but it didn’t change a billion Arabs, or a billion Chinese or a billion Indians. Change is a slow process.
Communism made changes – was it bad? For some it was. It might have been much worse in the final objective analysis without it, in China, in those years. Russia?… where was I? Oh.. changes. Well intentioned changes don’t always produce the results the proponents want. But they try anyway, and sometimes their vision is better than the alternative… but without letting the alternative play out, it’s just an opinion anyway…
Things being the way they are, the most passionate people are the ones we ignore to save us the trouble of going down each new plausible sounding rabbit trail.. we go through it all like a buffet and when our plate is full, we move on.
Ideas might take root, just because they make sense, but with all the marketing going on, you have to be the loudest, fanciest firecracker to get any ooohs and aaaahs.. and that’s just what you need, if I understand the marketplace at all.
You can’t go viral again with “can’t we all just get along?”
“but there’s no magic bullet”
I agree in terms of application.
But, the question is if you can’t agree to the NAP & private property rights, then where do you start?
I’m the kind of guy that agrees on principle with good ideas, but looks for the way my influence will do the most good.
That’s why I hate Republicans so much. They decided greed was the most good.
So you agree with the principles of non-aggression and property rights?
With caveats. I think a central government can be useful to provide necessary regulations. I think that any community has a responsibility not only to enforce property justice, but also an even higher form of justice for those who are weak, sick, old, mentally deficient and physically deficient. I don’t agree with Social Darwanism, or with the idea that letting the weak die out strengthens us. I don’t agree that if you don’t work you don’t eat. I think there should be protected commons, like yellowstone park.. I think we should try to avoid running out of food, water and energy through common effort.. food, drugs, travel, pollution, energy, education, space, technology.. should all be part of the commons. Something we do together to enrich our lives and provide for a richer future for ourselves and our children.
As for non-aggression… If you’re not threatened, you shouldn’t use force. But what is a threat? A 12 year-old playing with plutonium dust? An explosives manufacturer next to a school? Someone making nerve gas in their garage? How would you know? Are you threatened when someone says “I’m going to kill you?”
Non-aggression seems like a nifty requirement for war, but look at how they frame it.
In principle, it’s a good idea.
I suppose I should have expected this. I’m going to try to re-cap to make sure I understand:
You are for property rights, but conditionally. So if I’m correct in assessing your viewpoint my question is, who decides when you can keep your property or not? I would also respectfully suggest that you really can’t be for property rights if it’s conditionally. (You may argue that people acquire property immorally at times, to which I agree, but that isn’t the fundamental principle which is what we are discussing).
It seems like you agree with the non aggression principle, you are just worried about it’s application. I already acknowledged that application of any principle will never be perfect…but we are just trying to figure out what principles each other stand for.
It seems like you and I agree on #2(NAP), but #1 is potentially where we disagree…if I’ve understood properly.
who decides when you can keep your property or not?
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Certainly not Republicans! :)
I think a court system is still the way to go. The make-up of the court, as always, is the problem there. And the legal system is getting way out of hand.
You can’t really be for property rights if it’s conditionally
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You’re a smart little bugger! You got me there. My belief in group support for regulations and care for the weak means you pony up, or else… and it’s not a nice else. It’s because I believe survival includes quality of life for all, and its worth aggression to secure. I won’t fuck you up for treating your wife badly, but I might knock the shit out of you if you hit someone weaker (disabled, a baby, a little kid, maybe even a dog) in front of me. If you sell something that kills other people that I would never buy, I’d still want your ass locked up. Stuff that doesn’t affect me individually, I’m willing to go to bat for – and I *want* to live in a society that shares that viewpoint.
So I’m a dreamer, just like you.
You’ll probably get what you want before I get what I want. :)
“So I’m a dreamer, just like you.”
Fair enough. Let me just suggest though that you can be a caring person, concerned about all you list in regard to people starving, old people being taken care of, kids being educated, etc., and still be for hardcore property rights.
Ultimately this fundamental debate I referenced on the nature of man probably dictates your view on whether he would achieve these things on his own or requires the sociopaths in government to force him to do it….
I appreciate the respectful dialogue.
you can be a caring person, concerned about all you list in regard to people starving, old people being taken care of, kids being educated, etc., and still be for hardcore property rights.
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That’s what men say to get a woman in bed, then they never call. :)
Seriously, that’s the same shit Republicans are peddling. It just means that if you want a better world, build it yourself, we aren’t interested – we have fuel to steal from campaign funds.
Ultimately this fundamental debate I referenced on the nature of man probably dictates your view on whether he would achieve these things on his own or requires the sociopaths in government to force him to do it….
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sociopaths squirm their way into everything that has power associated with it, and we pay the devil to get rid of them. I wish we had a DNA test to keep them out of our legal system.
I appreciate the respectful dialogue.
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I don’t always leave the nicest reply when I haven’t met someone who asks an “innocent” question, thinking that they’re just another Bushie drone who needs macing – with a real mace.
You’re a good kid. We need more people like you. Just stay away from the Republicans, and you’ll be ok! And don’t take any wooden vouchers.
It’s hard for me to tell when one of these computer apes is actually sane, not being all that sane myself. I’ve been guilty of friendly fire more than once, but if you’re on the right side, it’s easy to see who my target is – and are aiming in the same direction anyway.
“Seriously, that’s the same shit Republicans are peddling. It just means that if you want a better world, build it yourself, we aren’t interested ”
No man, that’s my point, I really do care about those things…there’s not this hidden agenda you stated in “build it yourself, we aren’t interested”.
I just don’t see government as the solution to it and no one gets moral points for forcing people to do “good shit”.
“You’re a good kid. We need more people like you. Just stay away from the Republicans, and you’ll be ok!”
lol, no problem there. I like you too Max even if we disagree from time to time.
I’ve rejected the system as it is, as you can tell…so now I just throw bombs from various angles to try to get people outside their little boxes.
You remember that speech the Joker gave about a better class of criminal?
That’s me in a way, but let’s call it a better class of troll. You know why?
Because the people deserve it and I don’t care about having my “name” attached to my thoughts(or notoriety) in forcing people to think…so I can do it anonymously all day long. Just like the Joker admonished the criminals for caring about money and set it on fire to prove his point, I’m the same when it comes to ownership of ideas and/or troll fame. Let’s call it “Compassionate trolling” in Bush the Dumber speak.
:)
“Catapulting the propaganda!”
We disagree on where to draw the line on “good shit” – you draw it on property, I draw it a little further out on quality of life.
lol…precisely
Throw and run….or “shadow boxing” as someone that’s an ok guy put it.
I have a friend on the net that thinks explosives are more persuasive than ideas.
I’ve tried to convince him that explosives are an idea, too.
(I edit my messages a *lot*)
Because naturally I don’t log in, I can’t edit my response for your edits…lol
Anyway, to your last statement…the problem is always the sociopaths that tend to be elected disproportionately because they are, well, sociopaths. The easily lie, cheat, steal, etc. so it’s easy for them to get elected because that’s what it takes.
Those are the people that are subjectively deciding what they’ll do to you so you’ll do “good shit” if you’re world view comes into fruition(further from my perspective).
“Libertarian politician” is probably an oxymoron.
TBG believes Ron Paul is more libertarian than politician.
TBG fears Rand Paul is more politician than libertarian.
TBG hopes the apple didn’t fall far from the tree…
TBG is somewhat embarrassed to admit that he will vote for Rand because “he can’t say what he really believes and get elected. But once in office…”
“Libertarian politician” is probably an oxymoron.
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How about “Christian politician?”
Kook Jr.
Hillary gonna’ make him her BITCH!
Why is Rand Paul walking a tightrope on controversial positions? Because you cannot be elected President unless you are from one of the two parties. If he wants the Republican nomination then he has to triangulate an acceptable Republican platform.
We have all seen what happens when a candidate presents a less discrete libertarian image. Ron Paul, while sticking to principle, was never a threat to win the nomination. Ron knew this, and was satisfied with using his candidacy to educate and build a base. Rand apparently wants to be taken more seriously. Is he “selling out” or simply molding his libertarian message to be more palatable to the Republican base of 2014? As the Zen master said, “We’ll see.”
The hope is that we’re at a point where we don’t need Rand Paul, or anyone else, to tell us that Graham, Romney, Boehner, etc are all turds.
One of the primary ways Paul could shoot himself in the foot is getting into too many spats with the establishment. Their floodgates of money would open up and smear him into oblivion. The smear campaigns will be much less effective if they come out of the blue in desperation, rather than as a response to Paul taking them to task.
I don’t mind if he supports other repulicans as long as he keeps preaching and working for his principles. As his influence grows, his impact will grow. Short of revolution, that is how change happens.
Painting by Rand Paul’s numbers, you’d have to flip the canvas over so you can flop both sides with the paintbrush.
“It’s not that he’s wrong on the issues . . .”
Where is that damn Joe Wilson when you need him???
He’s running as a Republican because of the simple fact 3rd parties don’t win ya nitwit.. And like I’ve been saying for decades one guy doesn’t have to endorse every view that everyone in his party has and n Democrat does that either.. no two people can be exactly the same on all issues.. And he has gone after people in his party so I’m not even sure why you think he has this allegiance to his party other than to win. Once he wins he should say screw both parties ! !