{"id":4121,"date":"2010-05-25T12:44:39","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T16:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4121"},"modified":"2010-05-25T12:50:42","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T16:50:42","slug":"who-is-rand-paul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/05\/25\/who-is-rand-paul\/","title":{"rendered":"the gospel of the rands…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rand Paul’s Libertarian La-La Land<\/a>
Washington Post<\/strong>
By Eugene Robinson
May 25, 2010<\/div>\n

Not so fast, everybody. Rand Paul can’t abruptly disavow the extremist views on civil rights that he’s been espousing for years and expect us all to just move along. Was he lying then? Is he lying now? Or has the Tea Party movement’s newly crowned Mad Hatter changed his mind?…<\/p>\n

Actually, there are quite a few direct questions that Paul will be asked. Does he still believe it ought to be permissible to deny Americans access to housing because of the color of their skin, as he argued a few years ago?…<\/p>\n

I’d also like to know whether Paul really believes in a conspiracy among the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments to turn North America into a "borderless, mass continent" bisected by a 10-lane superhighway. Because that’s what he said in 2008. "It’s a real thing," he said of the imaginary threat to U.S. sovereignty, "and when you talk about it, the thing you just have to be aware of is that if you talk about it like it’s a conspiracy, they’ll paint you as a nut."<\/p>\n

Very little paint is needed.  <\/font><\/strong> <\/p>\n

And while we’re at it, what about Paul’s recent analysis of the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? The Obama administration faces growing criticism for not being tough enough on BP for its failure to stop the gushing flow of crude that is fouling Louisiana’s ecologically sensitive coastal marshes. Paul, however, sees things differently. "What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of, ‘I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,’ " Paul said. "I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business"…<\/p>\n

"We had a mining accident that was very tragic," he said. "Then we come in, and it’s always someone’s fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen"…<\/p>\n

Sarah Palin accused reporters of practicing "gotcha" journalism in seeking to elicit Paul’s views. As we know from the 2008 campaign, Palin’s definition of a "gotcha" interview is one in which actual questions are asked…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In Atlas Shrugged<\/font><\/strong>, Ayn Rand’s protagonist, John Galt, makes a ninety page speech. It’s the ultimate expression of Social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. In the novel, John Galt has convinced the movers and shakers of America to drop out, to stop letting the people who have not contributed by hard work, brilliance, etc. to take advantage of them any more. It is the anti-thesis to Marx’s Communist motto: from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs<\/font><\/strong>. It seems fitting that Ayn Rand, a Russian Immigrant fleeing Soviet Communism should be the one to write the book. Says her character, John Galt:<\/div>\n
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You know that you can’t give away everything and starve yourself. You’ve forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it’s your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn’t built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth. <\/div>\n

Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than ikts neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others. <\/p>\n

To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.<\/font><\/strong> If you’ve understood what I’ve said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don’t accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don’t exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don’t sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it. <\/p>\n

The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath: I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine…<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Marx had a point. So did Ayn Rand. What they shared was the fallacy of false dichotomy<\/font><\/strong><\/a>. In a real world, one can immediately poke holes in either argument in a blue second. Rand Paul has the same problem. In his zeal to present the dangers of "too much government," he takes one side of a two sided argument and opens himself up to tsunami of legitimate criticism – like Eugene Robinson’s indictment above. <\/div>\n

If anything, in today’s world Rand Paul has things backwards. Right now, the leeches in our society are the rich, particularly the financial services rich, who siphon the money from our markets. The heroes are the workers and immigrants who cut our grass, who clean our offices and houses, who do the work of running society. The victims are the small businesses who have closed their doors in the face of corporate greed and its modern great recession. So in today’s world, the unemployed are those people – disenfranchised by the monopoly players on Wall Street and the Corporate conglomerates. <\/p>\n

Robinson leaves out one of Rand Paul’s complaints – The Americans with Disabilities Act<\/strong>. It is the perfect example of his use of the fallacy of false dichotomy<\/font><\/strong> run amok. It is beyond reasonable for society to take care of people who cannot take care of themselves. To lump such people with ne’er do wells of the world is silly. On the other hand, The Americans with Disabilities Act<\/strong> is perhaps our most abused system. The truth lies in between – fighting the abuse while preserving the essence of the program. <\/p>\n

I say let Rand Paul talk all he wants. He says out loud what his fellow Republican Conservatives hide with their spinning wheels. Let him preach the Gospel of Ayn Rand’s John Galt "that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil<\/font><\/strong>" because he makes the one sided arguments of his colleagues so immediately transparent. He’s championing a cause that’s brought us unparalleled corruption and prejudice, embarrassing his friends who would like to keep their message disguised. Preach on, Rand Paul. Your candor is illuminating the darkest corners of your house of cards…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rand Paul’s Libertarian La-La Land Washington Post By Eugene Robinson May 25, 2010 Not so fast, everybody. Rand Paul can’t abruptly disavow the extremist views on civil rights that he’s been espousing for years and expect us all to just move along. Was he lying then? Is he lying now? Or has the Tea Party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}