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.
