Party and Ideology Aside Senator Rand Paul Makes Valid Arguments...

by: Les Carpenter 

 This fiscal conservative and social libertarian certainly does not agree with or advocate all of Senator Rand Paul's positions. Nor is it clear at this point the Senator from Kentucky has the attributes to eventually assume and execute the duties of the presidency of the United States of America. However, the points the Senator makes in the following video with respect military action and how our nation has reacted to current world events, especially in light of our Constitution, are worth serious consideration. Our world has changed and continues to change at an ever accelerating pace. With the above in mind can someone, anyone, point out errors in Senator Rand Paul's speech? If so what are they and why do you believe they are errors in judgment?



 Full text of the Senator's speech and be found BELOW THE FOLD. 

 Via: Memeorandum 

 Cross Posted @ Rational Nation USA

Honey, we never had kids!

Someone told me that the Church of the Latter Day Saints is the fastest growing religion in the world, but it isn't -- not if one can call a family of beliefs that share the philosophy that nothing you hear is true a religion.  Of course when it comes to Sunday Supplement health and nutrition articles and the books that make diet Doctors rich, little of it may actually be true, but there is no end of things that are really beyond reasonable doubt and should largely be beyond unreasonable doubt too.  I wasted some time last week for instance with a fool who insisted no airplane could have hit the Pentagon because of the "ground effect"  although I certainly know better than to do that.

But no, the winner, the fastest growing most universal faith is Denialism and I think it's time to stop looking at it as anything but a Religion.  It has a canon and a catechism, albeit simple:  Whatever happened didn't happen and I have a conspiracy to explain it.  I have proof that nobody ever went to the moon because the pictures they took would have been ruined by the Van Allen belts.  The pyramids were built by aliens because how else?  The World Trade Center must have been sabotaged because steel doesn't melt at the temperature of burning jet fuel. . .  No, don't go away, I'm not going to explain why this is the purest of bull, I'm more interested at how nothing true is exempt from Denialist interpretation  any more.

Sure, it's a big country and you can find a few people who think anything and deny anything.  It makes them feel important, but like most religions in today's America, they have their preachers and politicians and lobbyists spreading the faith like it was Ebola.  Think nothing is true and they're coming for your shotgun?  Who ya gonna call?   Rand Paul!  

Imagine someone calling you up and insisting that not only did your daughter not die in the school shooting at Sandy Hook, but she never existed!  Birth certificate?  Hey we know about birth certificates, don't we?  And we know about Photoshop too - you can't fool me with your pictures!  Hey, it was all a scam to allow the government to take our guns and you know they have no other purpose than to take your guns!

Rand Paul thinks so too, or at least he wants the nutjobs, nitwits and whackadoodles to think he does because after all, lunatics, idiots and devout Denialists need representation too.  Nope, nobody died, it never happened and if you know somebody who died, you're a liar, because they never existed. 

Stunning, isn't it, but that's the world of Denialists, or "truthers" as they often like to be known.  Who says they're immune to irony?  They're good at it, even if they can't see it. 

Hillary vs the Man-Child

I don't know if you heard, but on September 11, 2012, there was an attack on the Benghazi consulate that killed 4 Americans. Since then, the GOP, who's always been jealous that Bush had his "My Pet Goat" day over a decade ago, has been trying to spin it into some kind of monumental failure of intelligence. They've also been trying to claim that it's evidence of the incompetence of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

Let’s look at it from a clear-eyed perspective, though. It occurred at the same time as riots across the Middle East, because of the trailer for a film called Innocence of Muslims, which was seen to be blasphemous by followers of Islam.

The timing of the attacks caused some confusion, which the Republicans have been trying to exploit politically ever since.

Secretary Clinton set up an Accountability Review Board to investigate the actions of the various players, and while it pointed out some failures in the process, none of the problems were the fault of the Secretary of State.

Despite the fact that the review had already taken place, the Congressional GOP wanted to waste time holding their own hearings on the attack. Because if there’s one thing that Republicans enjoy, it’s getting to waste their time and other people’s money while getting to act like massive dicks on television. And one of the biggest dicks at the hearing was Rand Paul (whose hair looks suspiciously pubic anyway), who decided that he didn't need to ask questions, he was just going to lecture his betters for just under 2 minutes.

(You have to appreciate how, at right about the 40 second mark, Hillary realized that somebody had pressed his "bag of douche" button, and just closed her notebook, put her chin in her hand with a bored look, and just let him hump her leg until he was done.)



Couple of thoughts on that.

First of all, it isn't the job of the Secretary of State to read every cable from every one of the 285 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic facilities worldwide.

Second... well, let's put it this way.

For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program — well below the $2.15  billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration’s request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012. (Negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate restored about $88 million of the administration’s request.) Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans' proposed cuts to her department would be "detrimental to America’s national security" — a charge Republicans rejected.

But really, that's not the best part here. Let's consider just five short sentences from the middle of Little Randi's spew.

"I'm glad that you're accepting responsibility. I think ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it's inexcusable."

Isn't that great? He thinks this is the worst tragedy since the original 9/11. You know, I'm curious how he came to that conclusion. Really. I am.

Is it because it was an attack on an embassy? Well, we've had seven embassies and consulates attacked since 2001.

Was it because four Americans were killed? Well, hell: we lost 4,409 military, 13 DoD civilians and 2 journalists in Iraq since we invaded in 2003; we've lost 2,047 US military personnel, 3 DoD civilians and 27 journalists (of varying nationalities) in Afghanistan since 9/11. And little Randi, who's served a big two years in the Senate, supported the war in Afghanistan and was opposed to withdrawing troops from Iraq.

And bear in mind, Junior said "worst tragedy" - we have to consider hurricanes, fires, floods, shipwrecks, car pileups, school shootings, and cases of horse-induced arson or airborne fire extinguishers.

Had I been president... I would have relieved you of your post

We should just ignore the monumental ego that it takes to cough up a joke like that, and just be thankful that Rand Paul has less chance of getting elected President than his father ever did.

The World is the Battlefield

I find it remarkable that the proposed provision of the Defense Authorization act enabling a President to detain anyone suspected of belonging to a terrorist organization indefinitely and without trial, can be presented as one of those bits of "evidence" that Barack Obama is trashing the constitution. Obama's Indefinite Detention Powers is the title of more than one article. Remarkable indeed since he's threatening to veto the abomination if it passes.

I do recognize that since the Authorization for Use of Military forces (AUMF) that Congress approved after the September 11 terrorist attacks was used to bolster somewhat unfair arguments that Bush was trashing the revered document, an equal and more ridiculous counter charge has to be leveled against his Democratic successor. That is a principle we had beat into our consciousness when Bill Clinton had to face charges, some contrived and some with marginal merit that were so like unto those Nixon was glaringly guilty of.

But I digress. I'm not surprised to hear such things slithering in the murky Senatorial cistern, but I'm surprised at the bipartisan support of Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) bill and the astonishing lack of debate over this shocking redaction of the Bill of Rights. I was however surprised and pleased to hear Rand Paul declare opposition is heatedly as I would do, given the chance.

I was nauseated and enraged to hear our former Presidential contender, John McCain rail about how dangerous "these people" were without regard to how we determine fairly whether or not the accusations are true. I have been raised to think that justice demanded a fair trial and no decent civilization has failed to provide a process to determine the truth of an accusation, sometimes made under duress or torture or out of jealousy or greed or worse. A less stuffy writer might simply ask: how the hell do we know the charges are true without a trial?

Senator McCain doesn't seem to care, although with his history, he might just give the opposite position tomorrow and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) seems proud of his shiny new black boots, claiming that now we can jail any American citizen because "it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland." Did he mean to say Vaterland?

"The FBI publishes characteristics of people you should report as possible terrorists. The list includes the possession of “Meals Ready to Eat,” weatherproofed ammunition, and high-capacity magazines; missing fingers; brightly colored stains on clothing; paying for products in cash; and changes in hair color. I fear that such suspicions might one day be used to imprison a U.S. citizen indefinitely without trial. Just this year, the vice president referred to the Tea Party as a bunch of terrorists. So, I think we should be cautious in granting the power to detain without trial."

writes Senator Paul in the National Review.

Yes, I think our legislators have earned their 8% approval rating and can only wonder why it isn't lower. John McCain, you're a goddamn terrorist yourself, attempting to make Americans afraid for political purposes. Rand Paul: you may be far right, but you're damn right too!

Dim Bulbs in Congress

If you are diabetic, die quickly!

I should refer, figuratively speaking, to House Republicans; but this time I am talking literally about light bulbs, as TPM reports:

Given Republicans' public disdain for energy-efficient lightbulbs [sic] and the new GOP majority's earlier decision to remove biodegradable utensils and food containers from the House cafeteria, we thought we might have another Styrofoam cup situation on our hands … Energy-efficient lightbulbs -- "the little, squiggly, pig-tailed ones" -- have long been the subject of the GOP's scorn.

Take Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY):

"I think there should be some self-examination from the administration on the idea that you favor a woman's right to an abortion, but you don't favor a woman or a man's right to choose what kind of light bulb, what kind of dishwasher, what kind of washing machine."

Speaking of false equivalences, perhaps Wall Street should be required to view an ultrasound of your bank account before they abort the economy.  Here is the most galling part:   Who was president when  “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007" was signed into law?  Not current President Barack Obama, but former President George Dubya Bush. Yet, Tea House Republicans want the public to believe that this is another liberal-commie-big-government plot to control your life and your purchasing decisions.  Another clarification:  The Act of 2007 merely establishes an efficiency standard; it does not issue any mandates.

According to a 2010 energy audit, energy-efficient light bulbs installed in Congressional offices will save an estimated $178,000 per year. What the hell!   It’s only taxpayer money, but symbolism can be priceless.

How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb and then lie about the cost of changing it?

Update: How Conservatives and Big Oil are Using a Phony Scandal to Undermine Obama, Clean Energy, and Government Itself (Yes, Virginia: The Solyndra loan was originally pushed by the Bush administration and backed by the ultra-conservative Walton family … who now want to divest themselves of all blame).

Next: Snakes on a Plane (the comments are a hiss).

If they're for it, we're against it.

By Capt. Fogg

The natural state of men, before they were joined in society, was a war, and not simply, but a war of all against all.

-Libertas, Thomas Hobbes -


Scanning the Facebook page of my congresscritter, Tom Rooney (R-FL) I find the real interest not to be the simplistic banalities and the strained attempts to generate outrage against Barack Obama. It's not the continuing effort by Rooney to portray the assistance being given NATO's actions in Syria as a constitutional violation; it's more about the truly demented calls for impeachment by the people who post there; calls that remain in view without comment by Mr. Rooney, who claims that he maintains the page to be more "in touch" with the sentiments of his constituents rather than as a tool to promote irrational rage for political purposes.

If he has some constituents other than me who disagree with the "Oh I just hate, hate him" and "Oh he just makes me sick" and the "he uses the constitution to line his bird cage" swamp dwellers, they must indeed like me, be very reluctant to post comments there under their real names. He's created a milieu quite hostile to reason and reasonable people offering constructive criticism.

Yes, of course there are many questions about the legality of George W. Bush's legacy, some of which -- too much of which -- remains in place, but the War on Obama is not really based on his alleged and often misrepresented constitutional infractions, and we know it because they weren't presented as such during the previous administration and indeed were eagerly supported by the reactionary beasts who hang out on the Rooney page to congratulate themselves and outdo each other on the size of their hate. Indeed, that place is a microcosm of our war against ourselves, a war of all against all.

It's not that I like Senator Rand Paul or his familiar pose of principled outrage, but I am indeed on his side when it comes to addressing the real constitutional outrage of the Patriot Act. I have to smile at what may be the end of his naivete because it isn't the Democrats at war with the Leahy-Paul Amendment, designed to allow greater oversight of ever increasing Government warrantless surveillance powers under that cynically named act. It's the Republicans supporting precisely the kind of power they pretend to oppose while posturing as libertarians to the frothy-mouthed and furious rabble.

“Unfortunately, what we’re finding now is that the Democrats have agreed to allow me to have amendments but my own party is refusing to allow me to debate or present my amendments.”

Said Paul. Imagine that.

But as the man said, the joining of people into a society serves to prevent the chaos of nature, and I have to ask myself whether the effort to portray anything social or designed for the common good as the unqualified evil of Socialism, did not have the promotion of that very bellum omnium contra omnes; everyone at war with everyone and every man for himself as a purpose. Perhaps when everyone is against everyone, such things as consistent viewpoints are illusory as is anything resembling principle. If you're for it, I'm against it may be as close as we can get.

Freedom is slavery

By Capt. Fogg

A mind is a terrible thing to make up, uncertainty being a fundamental building block of nature, but I've come close to making up my mind that a mind is, unlike all other things, not really subject to change and so those who spend their time trying to change minds damn themselves to a great deal of suffering.

So then, I'm not going to try to convince you that Rand Paul is having another one of his captious fallacy fests by trying to convince us all that if one believes that Americans have a right to have a certain degree of health care, one believes, ipso facto, in slavery.

Why try to go through his tortuous logical progressions and attempt to refudiate them as factually or logically false? Why indeed, since humanity runs on a blend of unconscious bias and packaged rationalizations. Who would read the list of ingredients on a pack of cigarettes anyway and who bothers to question politicians who mock people you don't agree with? We just inhale and we like it and we come back for another pack.

So, to reiterate the claim that freedom from untimely death is slavery will be enough for me this sunny morning when I should be enjoying life instead of following the lives of celebrity idiots. I'll just leave it to you. You may think of Orwell and smile, you may dream of being the only man in the world and growl in approval, you may jump off a cliff, you may do as you please. I've got mine and screw all y'all, as it says on the Tea Bag and if my wake upsets your boat, or you're thrashing about in the water, screw you twice, loser -- I'm nobody's slave.

Pickin' on Paul or Kentucky Windage

Face it, it's become traditional for Republicans to declare that a Democratic election winner is a failure before he takes office, and in Obama's case, even before he was elected. Reality is no longer a prerequisite, if indeed, it ever was.

So why shouldn't I take this opportunity to declare that Rand Paul is a failure as the Senator from Kentucky and why not start off with a nasty, childish nickname like Runt Paul, to reflect his father's superior claim, in my opinion, to be respected for his views. Oh, come on, it's an American tradition and I'm not even claiming he was born in Nepal -- nee-Paul, get it? Of course we don't know for sure, do we? He's ignored my request for a birth certificate. By the way, isn't is suspicious that he want to an expensive, elitist Ophthalmology school? Who paid for it and why can't he produce board certification? Where is Orly Taitz when you need a nutjob attorney?

And look, I've even got a plausible story. Remember how cutting earmarks was the important part of reducing the cost of government both in Runt's rhetoric and that of the GOP in general? Well, that was then and now that we've put away the Punch and Judy puppets, he's now just fine with earmarks as long as they are earmarked for Kentucky. But of course he's still not going to let Washington - or reality - change him as he explained to the Wall Street Journal. I mean he still hasn't let the end of segregation change him. He still thinks it's a violation of property rights - kinda like freeing the slaves.

Of course the federal porkbarrel is not all that large when held up against the Supertanker of Federal spending, even though that spending as a percentage of the GNP isn't quite as huge as it appears when spoken of in dollars, but that sort of relativity sounds socialist or at least overly obscure to the public and we don't need to go into it. Besides, and to his credit, Runt accepts that we're going to have to look at the Massive Military Budget too. Good for him! but maybe that's just a Liberal Conservative ploy and if Kentucky is chosen to build some trillion dollar superbomber to win the cold war that ended before he started to wear a hairpiece, things will be different, so let's just assume, in the fine American tradition, that he's already gone back on his word - on all his words, actually. I mean, he might, so he already did. All's fair, right? If Obama raised taxes by lowering them, Rand Paul has already increased military spending - or maybe cut it. It doesn't really matter. It's all really about whose side you are on anyway so let's not get picky.

So did you hear that Rand Paul wants to make our country weak and is soft on Terrorism?

Fundamentals of the Social Contract: Why Rand Paul Is Wrong

According to aspiring legislator, Rand Paul, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went too far in prohibiting racial discrimination by private businesses. All the while asserting that he would have voted yes for the Civil Rights Act, Rand nonetheless believes that private businesses should be allowed to refuse goods or services to black people, at least that's what he told Rachel Maddow in an interview. His words have thrown the GOP into something of a frenzy as they try to distance themselves from his remarks and yet reap the benefits of his popularity with the tea party contingency.

I have a very personal reaction to Paul's observations. I grew up in the era of Jim Crow when segregation was the norm. White Only and No Colored Allowed signs were as common as traffic signs. All businesses were legally allowed to discriminate, to deny goods and/or services based on the color of the consumer's skin. I don't have any desire to return to the good ole days. I also don't hold with the thinking that given time to evolve, Jim Crow would have died a natural death. Jim Crow wasn't born. The system of racial discrimination known as Jim Crow was artificially and intentionally created as a response to the post civil war efforts of black people to claim their rightful place in the social, economic, and political hierarchy of this country. There was nothing natural about it. It couldn't die; it had to be executed. I have no doubt that without government action legal segregation would still be a part of the fabric of this nation.

Rand Paul's position is seriously flawed; however, based on the comments littering the Internet on this topic, there are a lot of folks out there who have succumbed to the same flawed thinking. Much of it stems from worship of the cult of individuality. A characteristic of this cult is a belief that my individual rights supercede all other rights. Of course this is totally irrational. If my rights are more important than your rights, then aren't your rights more important than mine? What about Mary Sue next door, where do her rights fit in this hierarchy? Although said much more eloquently by such diverse thinkers as Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Hobbes, it's this tension regarding individual rights balanced against the needs of the whole that necessitates the formation of governments. (My listing of only western philosophers is not intended to suggest that only white males have wrestled with these issues. It's just that as a product of a limited American public education, I am most familiar with the works of Eurocentric writers, which is an entirely separate topic to be addressed someday.)

Society is the whole, individuals are the parts. Societies were formed by the individuals to create a system in which the individuals could agree to live governed by rules to protect the common good. Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Jefferson and many others have defined this concept as it relates to the purposes of goverment. Those who do not wish to agree to the social contract are free to live outside of it but cannot then also benefit from it. (i.e. you don't have to own a business) This is the basic flaw of Rand Paul's argument that a private business has the right to engage in discrimination. Businesses are by definition public enterprises. Its goods and services are sold to the public and as such the business is part of our system of commerce. The regulation of commerce is constitutionally assigned to Congress. If the businessman wishes to engage in discrimination, he may do so but not via his public enterprise. It's up to him to figure out how to run a profitable business enterprise without engaging in public commerce, if he wishes to engage in discrimination as to whom may partake of his goods and/or servces.

The most extreme example of those who place individual liberties tantamount to the society as a whole are those who commit crimes. The thief believes that his/her needs are superior to the needs of all others thereby justifying their right to take what they need. Indeed, if we follow the argument of the superiority of individual rights to its logical conclusion, then those who commit criminal acts are merely choosing to place their individual needs above the needs of the whole. Under this logic, our prisons are populated by true libertarians.

However, in a society, we all agree to subvert our individual liberties to the benefit of the function of the whole. To not do so results in anarchy and a society in which no one has any security. Whatever property that I may have secured would constantly be at risk of being taken by someone who had the strength to do so in a world governed by the supreme right of the individual. Instead, we have laws, enforcers, and systems of punishment to maintain order so that property rights, mine and yours, are not subject to the arbitrary will of might makes right. Which brings me to the final element of the social contract, governments are not instituted to protect the rights of the strong but rather to ensure that even the weak have protections. Otherwise, in the words of Hobbes,we would be in a constant state of war, and man would be a solitary being living an existence that is nasty, brutish and short.

P.S. A good friend, Mark Olmsted, writes for the Huffington Post. In his most recent piece, People and Property: What Rand Really Wants, he presents an astute assessment of Rand Paul's disturbing views which suggest that civil rights should be optional. Check it out.

The will of the WASP

Rand Paul is not Ron Paul and I'm not flattering him by saying it. There is a difference between principle and bull-headed intransigence and Paul the younger seems as unclear about that as he is not quite up to the task of successfully debating Rachel Maddow about his distaste for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Asked whether he thought a restaurant had the right to refuse service to black customers, Paul commenced a rather evasive dance around the subject by trying to describe regulation as ownership.

"What about freedom of speech?" asked the less than candid Candidate. "Well what it gets into then is if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says 'well no, we don't want to have guns in here' the bar says 'we don't want to have guns in here because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each-other?'" Paul replied. "Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? These are important philosophical debates but not a very practical discussion."

Unfortunately, more than just being grammatically confused, he's wrong. He's equivocating and the debate is, of course, entirely about practical matters. Can we agree, for instance, that being black in a restaurant is fundamentally different than carrying a gun in a bar and if so, his analogy is defective and a fallacy of distraction? Certainly a speed limit is not Government ownership of my car, health regulations imposed on food producers aren't the equivalent of owning the family farm nor is forcing Woolworth to stop creating two Americas with their policies isn't Marxism.

Is the government of and by the people allowed,as the founding documents imply, to promote liberty for all, to promote peace and domestic tranquility by imposing limitations on individual behavior? Is he arguing for a government so impotent it must inevitably fall into feudalism and exploitation? Those are the questions he begs and the questions he avoids. Sorry Doctor, I think the balance between individual liberty and being a free country is a practical and necessary discussion.

Is it practical to have a society so far beyond the control of its members that justice becomes only a matter of the will of the strongest and the richest and most well connected -- the will of the WASP? No, unlimited individual license does not allow for a society at all, much less a free one.

Still it's all about the practical as opposed to the relentlessly repeated and self referential principle and we've all heard of or can easily come up with examples where freedom cannot be unlimited for many reasons; where behavior that needs to be restrained cannot be restrained by anyone other than Government. Is it preferable to allow my neighbors to forbid Baptists to live on my block and ignore my freedom or is it better to protect the minority against the majority, which is a common definition of democracy as distinguished from mob rule. No, if this is but a "philosophical" discussion it's because he doesn't want to address the inevitable questions Libertarians invite when they refuse to discuss its inherent limitations.

The traditional 'best government is least government' trope reduces to absurdity all by itself as quickly as does his argument that any restraints or obligations put on behavior or business practices constitute ownership and are an unnecessary stain on the pure and absolute freedom we've somehow decided is our birthright. Certainly although he assures us that he would never patronize a business that discriminates, he realizes that his sentiments are not universal. He realizes that he's giving license to anyone to debase any group he likes and to diminish their lives, their liberty and their pursuit of happiness. He realizes that such a nation as he dreams of would be fractured, Balkanized, a loose, weak, unstable confederation of hostile groups no more pleasant than a baboon troupe and with each of us at his neighbor's throat. He must realize that he's appealing to bigots, racists and sociopaths of no conscience -- and all in the name of principle and freedom.

So why is he debating as though the balance between too much and not enough wasn't worth discussing? As though that wasn't the real question? Perhaps its because he's pandering to an audience somewhat less rational than Ron Paul's: to an audience whipped into irrational fury by the basic requirements of civilization; too hungry for revenge against a maturing world and too angry and self centered to give a damn what he can do for his country.