Rand Paul Wins Primary!

[Adam Weinberg]

This incident just demonstrates the leftist bias of the media. These kinds of questions are philosophically legitimate, but as a test of actual policy making they are only intended to distract from the fact that Rand Paul has got the goods on policy and Jack Conway only has the Obama agenda to run on.

As the debate becomes more substantial between the two candidates, Rand Paul will destroy Conway. Conway can't go until November on this stuff. Rand Paul is not some LP activist who is going to debate the merits of personal nuclear weapons.

He's going to talk about balanced budgets, term limits, an end to bailouts and printing money and Kentuckians are going to agree.

Including the huge number of Conservative Democrats who can't stand Conway.

[Cypress]

This incident just demonstrates the leftist bias of the media. These kinds of questions are philosophically legitimate, but as a test of actual policy making they are only intended to distract from the fact that Rand Paul has got the goods on policy and Jack Conway only has the Obama agenda to run on.

As the debate becomes more substantial between the two candidates, Rand Paul will destroy Conway. Conway can't go until November on this stuff. Rand Paul is not some LP activist who is going to debate the merits of personal nuclear weapons.

He's going to talk about balanced budgets, term limits, an end to bailouts and printing money and Kentuckians are going to agree.

Including the huge number of Conservative Democrats who can't stand Conway.

No one asked Rand Paul if he thought citizens have the right to bear nuclear weapons. That’s a red herring, and I seriously doubt any legitimate journalist is ever going to ask him that question.

Rachel Maddow asked him some hard-ball, but eminently fair questions: does he think the government has the authority to prevent discrimination in the work place and in businesses. That’s an entirely fair question. If the libertarian’s position is sound and principled, and if Rand Paul believes in his position, he should be able to articulate it and defend it. There’s nothing “leftist” about Rachel's question. Indeed, Most republicans themselves are running to the hills to dissociate themselves from Rand’s ideological premise that discrimination, however unpalatable it is, should be free from government regulation in private business.

Don’t take offense at this, but I’ve mostly been given the impression that libertarians often proclaim they are above the fray. Policy wonks, flying magically above the fray of standard American political electioneering. Yet, I’ve routinely seen libertarian’s caricature liberals as “statists”, “socialists”, and “leftists”. In American lexicon, the word “leftist” and statist” is a direct substitute intended to conjure up the image of Bolsheviks, Sandinistas, or Maoists. So, I would only note to you that it is very disingenuous for libertarians to claim to be above the fray, while themselves engaging in cartoonish and/or disparaging caricatures.

Rand Paul said yesterday that Obama was being “un-American” because Obama was being too mean to British Petroleum. “Too mean” to British Petroleum? LOL

Has anyone called Rand Paul un-American?

Now, Rand Paul has cancelled his Meet the Press appearance on Sunday. Reportedly, only one of three people in the history of MTP to cancel an interview. That’s fine. But every question he has been asked has been eminently fair. This is politics, and if libertarians are proud of their positions on the interstate commerce clause, or the landmark civil rights cases, they should be expected to articulate them, make the case for them, and defend them. If your positions are sound you should be able to sell them.

If there’s some level of deep-seated shame of the more extreme libertarian positions, and some of these libertarians candidates would rather keep them under the radar while flying into elected office on softball questions about a a gold standard, or the proper role of anti-smoking laws in public establishments, that’s fine. That is reminiscent of political entities that tried to conceal important elements of their ideology before they were in positions of power. Bolsheviks and Sandinistas indeed.

The applications of the interstate commerce clause, and landmark civil rights cases are firmly at the core of american domestic policy. Blabbing about the gold standard or eliminating the department of Education is fine. But, almost everything the federal government does at the domestic level – civil rights enforcement, domestic spending, transportation, and environmental protection – is tied at some level to exercising the authority of the Interstate commerce clause. This is the core of american policy and questions directed to Rand Paul with regards to this are eminently fair, and are completely legitimate questions.

[SmarterthanYou]

I see the wingnuts are out in full force against Paul...

both sides apparently. they really hate the libertarians moving in on their power structure, don't they?

[christiefan915]

I see the wingnuts are out in full force against Paul...

I don't follow Libertarian politics so I honestly had no prior knowledge of Rand Paul and his opinions or platform.

But after watching the entire 20-minute program, I was very, very uncomfortable with his take on civil rights. What I got out of it is that Paul says he's 100% against discrimination in the public sector but that others in the private sector should be allowed to make their own rules about who they cater to. This is a slippery slope that, IMO, could bring back all the abuses of the past.

If I misinterpreted Paul, let me know how.

[Professor Baxter]

If there’s some level of deep-seated shame of the more extreme libertarian positions, and some of these libertarians candidates would rather keep them under the radar while flying into elected office on softball questions about a a gold standard, or the proper role of anti-smoking laws in public establishments, that’s fine. That is reminiscent of political entities that tried to conceal important elements of their ideology before they were in positions of power. Bolsheviks and Sandinistas indeed.

There are tons of books on libertarian philosophy that explicitly address these and other subjects. They are difficult and fairly nuanced subjects that are not easy to explain in short sound bites. Libertarian candidates that ignore such questions concerning what they think about some obscure point that has little to no relevance to today's world are no different than Democrats and Republicans whose platforms only deal with today's issues and there priorities concerning them.

That is standard procedure for Dems and Repubs. It makes sense in the world of politics. For instance, we all know that Dems want more than what passed in the HCR. But, nobody demanded that Obama focus all his attention defending his comments in favor of a single payer system. Instead he focused on his interim measure. Frankly, there is not much reason to demand that Obama defend single payer healthcare since it is not on the table yet and will not likely be in this term or even a second, if he gets it. Rand Paul will be dead and gone before there is any possibility of a vote on the CRA of 64.

You want a double standard where those opposed to more government are forced to defend the extremes instead of focusing real world policy proposals. That to a large degree is what happened on HCR where the left attempted to force the right/libertarians into defending completely free market healthcare or the status quo. The first is a virtual straw man, since it was not on the table, and the other is an actual one since opponents of big government did not support the status quo but instead were proposing market reforms.

The Republicans do it too. For instance, opponents of the war in Iraq were cast as supporting Saddam or just wanting to ignore any attempts he might be making to aquire WMDs. But, that was not what was being offered as a counter policy.

[Professor Baxter]

Another, point... Opinions change. If you pulled up something I posted years ago it might not agree with my views today. That is true of all rational people who consider new information and don't just constantly use confirmation bias.

For instance, my views on abortion have changed and morphed. One reason for that is I was always on the fence a bit on the subject. I went from being pro-life, to pro choice with limits on late term abortion, to completely pro choice and then back to pro choice with limits on late term abortion (see the thread I started on "When Does Life End"). I think, my position now is probably stable as I delved deeply in that thread to find a bedrock where I could take my stand.

Note: I would not oppose a late term abortion for legitimate medical reasons, not necessarily requiring that it be life theatening, but not something as trivial as weight gain or the normal problems associated with pregnancy either.

I don't know that is true in Rand's case, but he is certainly entitled to change his opinion. I am sure if he did you guys will claim he is just doing it for political reasons and maybe that would be true. Or maybe this uproar will force him to look deeper into his views on the subject and sincerely come to a different conclusion.

I doubt there is any real interest on this subject which would only really make sense for a sc nominee or if there was some legitimate interest in repealing the CRA. It's just the usual political attempt to smear.

[Adam Weinberg]

No one asked Rand Paul if he thought citizens have the right to bear nuclear weapons. That’s a red herring, and I seriously doubt any legitimate journalist is ever going to ask him that question.

Don’t take offense at this, but I’ve mostly been given the impression that libertarians often proclaim they are above the fray. Policy wonks, flying magically above the fray of standard American political electioneering.

So, I would only note to you that it is very disingenuous for libertarians to claim to be above the fray, while themselves engaging in cartoonish and/or disparaging caricatures.

This is politics, and if libertarians are proud of their positions...

The media is leftist, though. When will Jack Conway have to answer for the philosophical extremes of left-wing policies that are not part of his campaign?

Like you, it defends more government at every turn by carting out progressivism as the reason for our country's prosperity rather than our Constitution. That an expansive interpretation of the Supreme Law is necessary to us moving ahead is a consistent belief you have expressed, and its led to very imprudent government we can't afford.

Now, anyone with a limited government view, who literally should be anyone with any sense of what's in store for us if we don't cut back, has to just sit there and take the label of racist or Anarchist, or segregationist because they propose a policy of less government.

The refrain being "well, the segregationists said they were for limited government too." Again, this is because Rand Paul is dangerous to his opponents. I don't need to defend his philosophical underpinning of what he believes would be ideal, because that's not what he's running on.

What Stringfield said. You worship at the altar of government solutions, much like a caricature of a leftist I might add, but if you were a candidate yourself, you would offer solutions that your voters care about consistent with your beliefs...or you would fail trying to give them something they don't want.

Failure is not an option here, and after a little bit of organizational stalling, Rand realized the national media (who is not all that relevant to his victory in November) wants to pigeon-hole him as a libertarian ideologue who has to choose between all or nothing in his campaign to limit government.

That exercise is senseless. He developed his own platform in the primary that is just as applicable to Kentucky voters in the general and he needs to stick to it.

The fact that those ideas are catching on is a threat worth downplaying to a lot of people.

[Professor Baxter]

To be fair, I think Conway should be asked how he feels about LBJ and the Democrats gutting of the 1957 CRA.

[Threedee]

I don't follow Libertarian politics so I honestly had no prior knowledge of Rand Paul and his opinions or platform.

But after watching the entire 20-minute program, I was very, very uncomfortable with his take on civil rights. What I got out of it is that Paul says he's 100% against discrimination in the public sector but that others in the private sector should be allowed to make their own rules about who they cater to. This is a slippery slope that, IMO, could bring back all the abuses of the past.

If I misinterpreted Paul, let me know how.

Paul takes a hardline liberty over equality (a core principle in American life) approach to reform. I think we can all agree that the CRA has floated along some great ideals, but at the same time, they are one of numerous examples of where we promote equality and security over individual liberty.

Most people are willing to brush that under the carpet and hope for the best. Just not Rand Paul.