Some readers may have seen Rachel Maddow’s interview last night with Kentucky’s Senate primary winner Dr. Rand Paul on her MSNBC show. From what I’ve heard, Paul regrets his decision to appear on the show and considers himself not too well treated by Rachel. So let’s cue Waylon Jennings and the Marshall Tucker Band’s soulful lyrics, “Can’t you see, oh can’t you see, what that woman, lawd, she been doin’ to me?” and consider this a bit.
The source of the dissatisfaction, apparently, was the following: that intellectual pitbull on the pantsleg of opportunity Rachel just wouldn’t give up easily in her quest to get the good doctor to admit that one's philosophy may have consequences in the real world. In my own admittedly anecdotal experience, libertarians really, really hate it when you try to get them to admit that. It’s so unfair of you! They believe the free market (a myth) is the answer to all problems social, political, and economic. They're hopelessly wrong, naive and ahistorical in their understanding, but just you try suggesting that to them. I gather that the adoring dittoheads and teabaggery who flock to the well-spoken, eminently presentable and curly-locked Dr. Paul don’t pester him with annoying questions about his utter failure to historicize the concepts that authorize his philosophy and/or that pertain to it by way of extension and impact. Concepts like, oh, I don’t know – private property, capitalism, American federal and state regulatory practice, and stuff like that. I’m just sayin’…. I don't think Rachel was in any way suggesting that Rand Paul is personally a racist -- there's no reason at all to think that about him as an individual. The question was and is, rather, the real consequences of his beliefs and the reflection those beliefs cast backwards on our collective history as Americans.
Well, anyway, if you’re a meanie like “that woman” Rachel, what you’ll get instead of a cogent answer is exactly the response I heard coming from Rand Paul, which I'll meanie-paraphrase and draw out as follows: “I'm sorry I even talked to that person! I won't be doing that again anytime soon! Why is she bothering me with all this hypothetical talk about civil rights and human misery? It doesn't concern my abstraction-laced philosophy, which I know to be absolutely and always right in all things.” Abstractionists and ideologues always cling to their notions with great fanaticism because they sense, however dimly, that abandoning those notions would leave the abandoner in the middle of the street just waiting to be run down by what Allen Ginsberg called “the Drunken Taxicabs of Absolute Reality.” And this is an especially intense problem for libertarians, you see, because they pretty much consider the stop light that might halt any such careening Taxicab an infringement of their (and our) sacred personal liberty to do anything they (and we) want at any time. Okay, I admit that I sort of feel that way about stop lights, too, when they last more than about a minute. It's a weakness of mine, I know....
But I say to the Rand Pauls of the political spectrum, nothing human is perfect, Horatio -- including your and my “philosophy,” however different they may be. There’s much more to cover regarding the details of Rand Paul’s view of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but I’ll leave that to others’ commentary if they’d care to jump in.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteI think we were both working on a post about this topic at almost the same instant -- didn't mean to get in the way with my clumsy dino-twaddling. Feel free to post your own piece.
Dino, you know what they say about great minds thinking alike! :)
ReplyDeleteWhy thank you, Rocky. But I'm just a simple lizard in comparison with the Captain.
ReplyDeleteIn my eyes, you are both giants ... and each post complements the other.
ReplyDeleteJa, I wish I could twaddle half so clumsily. I did briefly take it down to make sure I wasn't saying the same thing only in less literate fashion.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks 8pus, but objects closer to you seem bigger than they are.
I hate that I missed the Rachel Disses Rand Show, but, since I did, I really appreciate having both posts available today.
ReplyDeleteO, ye gods, how long is it going to take for Ayn's influence to die?
Nance, you can watch the RDRS here.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun, if you enjoy seeing someone squirm and talk from both sides of his mouth when asked straightforward questions.
Of course Rand (was he named after Ayn?) abhors racism and any form of discrimination, but he stands for your and my right to discriminate as we please, the liberty lover that he is.
And he supports outlawing discrimination in the public sphere -- all those guvimint-ran areas; but private business owners should have the right to discriminate against anyone they don't like for whatever reason -- that's what freedom is all about.
He forgot to add (not that he needed too) that in his ideal liberteabaggery world there is really no room for guvimint and, ideally, everything would be run by private enterprise and regulated by the invisible (and unerring, of course) hand of the free market. It follows that in such a world -- Rand Paul's heaven -- discrimination would be legal and perfectly acceptable.
Now, just so we don't forget, he abhors racism. But he detests placing any constraints and demands for civility, fairness and justice on the ruling class (mostly WASP-y males, really) even more.
That's liberteabagging freedom for ya.
I think it was Hobbes who observed that without governments to maintain order life would be nasty, brutish, and short. Liberteabaggers (Elizabeth, I like your terminology)ae so obsessed with individual liberty that they completely ignore the question of the common good.
ReplyDeleteIf you do not want me to enter your home because of my skin color,then I won't argue that the government should force you to have me over fo tea. However, when an individual enters the world of commerce then that individual has entered into a social contract with society. My right to interact without being subject to overt discrimination outweighs your right to engage in discrimination. It is the government's purpose to maintain a safe and orderly environment which all of its citizens may enjoy. If Paul had even a fundamental understanding of the philosophy of government and the most basic theories underlying this country's governing principles he would have been able to avoid that deer in the headlights expression that he exhibited on Maddow's show simply by avoiding ever offering such inane views as a valid philosophical analysis of the purpose and authority of government. Someone should mount his head on a wall; it would make a nice ornament.
I think when we put together Elizabeth and Sheria's main points, we really have young Rand in a pickle:
ReplyDeleteHe says government shouldn't discriminate, but of course as a libertarian, he wants to eliminate or greatly reduce most government anyway, which would logically eliminate or greatly reduce most of the protections he claims to support.
He apparently finds it difficult even to conceive of the kind of "public space" or social space Sheria has outlined, so it's impossible for him to imagine that we can collectively contract to prevent any individual from doing whatever he or she wants even in the public sphere, including acts of dehumanization directed against others who are just trying to buy a sack of flour or a pound of coffee.
Which last point really links our well-dressed libertarian with the teabaggers, I'm sorry to say, via the Captain's point about them: they are "driven to an irrational fury by the basic demands of civilization": namely, the demand that they treat others fairly at least when we are all gathered into a common area and are pursuing some common task or goal or exhibiting some common need (a pound of coffee, bathroom facilities, medical care, schooling, whatever). It drives them utterly mad that they must observe such minimal requirements, and they begin turning purple and shouting things about "those people" who have "taken our country away from us" (by voting, no less!) Liberteabaggers indeed!
One additional point is that this fellow's prominence on the national stage is an EXCELLENT thing for Democrats. As I believe Rachel Maddow implied yesterday with her "tuning fork" analogy, we are now talking openly about basic issues (such as discrimination by "private" businesses) we thought had been put to rest for everyone in the political mainstream, right, left or center. And now we find that certain people or groups were never the least bit convinced by the arguments that put those issues to rest for nearly everyone else. The teabaggers are becoming the driving force behind, and the face of, the Republican Party, and they are manifestly irrational. In Paul's candidacy, we see them at their very worst. Keep it up, Kentucky! And while we're at it, let's get some Birchers to explain to us one more time why fluoridation is a communist plot to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids. Yes, no doubt the fall of the Soviet Union was nothing but a ploy to avert our gaze from this nefarious fluoridation plot. Genius, I tells ya, sheer genius!
ReplyDelete"so obsessed with individual liberty that they completely ignore the question of the common good. "
ReplyDeleteNow if I were a Birchbagger or whatever the hell they are, the "C" word there would look to me as though it were a neon sign since, in their minds, common is synonymous with "Commonism" as Joe McCarthy used to call it, or at the very least it's the portal to that evil underworld from which none shall return. ( even though it seems to collapse on its own in practice)
Words like common, community, collective and nearly anything suggesting the population as a whole will set them off.
In the ideal Randian dream, we're all isolated universes of one dimension and must be maintained in that rather impossible condition by constant vigilance. Yes, fluoridation is meant to turn us all Commonist. My county steadfastly votes it down with loud cries of "collectivism."
A while back, people were talking as though we'd now passed the age of "ism" and grand theories of everything, but we're not and may never be and the end of us all won't be the return of any imaginary character but the result of our own character.
UNBELIEVABLE! Here is Rand Paul saying “Obama Sounds 'Un-American' For Criticizing BP Over Gulf Oil Spill (VIDEO):”
ReplyDelete"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.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business," he said. "I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen."
From a sheer political standpoint, defending an oil company that has caused a massive amount of economic and environmental damage along America's coast seems like a tricky proposition -- even for a candidate from a landlocked state. (Though at least two Kentucky residents have sued the oil company over the current spill).
Even BP itself wouldn't go as far as Paul, declining to comment on its relationship with the Obama administration except to say, through spokesperson Mark Salt, that it continues "to work with the government on every aspect of the response."
Substantively, Paul seems to be arguing that sharper regulatory oversight, or legislation that raises BP's liability cap, are both redundant. BP, after all, has pledged to make full payments. And as for future spills, well, "accidents happen."
It's an element of libertarianism that may be ideologically pure but probably doesn't prove all that comforting for those affected by the spill -- or, for that matter, the national Republican Party.
Is this guy stupid beyond belief … in the aftermath of the worst environmental catastrophe in American history … or am I having one of those Kafka days?
Octo, he's not stupid. And you're not having a Kafka moment (although...)
ReplyDeleteHe's toeing the GOP line -- accidents happen, this is no big deal, offshore drilling is great, and Obama stinks.
It's all there, in the GOP/Beckbaugh's "Oil Disasters for Dummies" manual. (Also included: the assertion that the disaster was caused, on purpose, by the evil environmentalists, and that they should clean it up.)
And all the while the oil pirates make ever more gigantic profits. They could pay for every aspect of this cleanup with a week's profit, but that of course would be the Obama Bootheel, wouldn't it.
ReplyDeleteThey didn't say anything Rand old chap? Their money has been talking loud and fast, just like Exxon's did and to the same purpose, not that you're a lying sack of Fascist shit or anything.
Kafka never gave us anything this ludicrous. He couldn't have imagined it.