Rand Paul won the Republican nomination for Senate in Kentucky. Yawn!
Rand Paul is like Daddy, a social conservative who pretends to be libertarian, especially when fund raising. Some foolish libertarians want to claim Paul is a libertarian. Michael Tomasky, a writer at the left-wing Guardian newspaper, headline a column "Rand Paul, not a libertarian." Tomasky is right. This reminds of the Fox News Commentator interviewing Bob Barr, who was also pretending to be a libertarian, who had to explain to Barr what libertarianism is and how Barr wasn't one, even if the morons that infest the Libertarian Party thought he was.
Tomasky warns that Rand Paul is a libertarian when on "safe ground," issues where Tea Party conservatives would agree, "But when need be, he's a religious conservative. A perfect amalgam of what the tea party movement is. But don't look for any consistency." In other words, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.
Tomasky notes Paul's positions on abortion and marriage equality, which mimic daddy's positions perfectly, or imperfectly from a libertarian viewpoint. One consistent pimp for conservatives in libertarian clothing tries to excuse Paul's view by saying he is merely against government involvement in marriage. Sure, that's the ticket. He's against state involvement in marriage right up to the moment he got his own marriage license. Both Daddy Paul and Little Paul have never had problems with marriage until gay people try to get married. While they have no such principles about straights getting married they do have them when gays marry.
Anyone who thinks that is principled ought to see me about a bridge I want to sell.
Political scientist Stephen Voss, of the University of Kentucky, described Paul fairly well: "When he's talking economics and money, he is philosophical a libertarian. When he talks social issues, he's sending guaranteeds tot he right wing that he's not libertarian."
In Rand Paul's view a woman who is raped, and becomes pregnant, must be forced by the state to carry that pregnancy to term. Even if her father rapes her she is a slave to the fetus. Even is the pregnancy may kill her she is forbidden by Big Brother from aborting. But Paul insists he wants to keep the state from intruding on people's private lives, ...except when he doesn't.
Remember that when Jerry Falwell's front group, Christian Voice, was rating the votes of congressman in view of fundamentalist morality, they gave Paul the Elder a score of 92%, almost perfect. That was after Daddy Paul voted to keep "sodomy" a criminal offense in Washington, D.C., something he excused by distorting the bill in question. Rand Paul has learned how to con libertarians almost as well as his father. But there are at least two differences, Rand Paul opposes earmarks, while Ron uses them and tries to justify them. And Rand is not good in foreign policy mattes, there his father is better.
That either of these men are better than many other candidates is a given. That doesn't say how good they are, just how bad the other choices are.
