Posted on 01/22/2013 4:16:44 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), son of the recently-retired libertarian Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), was recently announced as a featured speaker for this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
CPAC is essentially a litmus test for the Republican Party; it provides a general sense of the party’s direction. Backed by tremendous Tea Party support, Rand Paul is eyeing a 2016 bid to take the reigns of the country, and he doesn’t care if you know it: "I am different than some in that I'm not going to deny that I'm interested," said Paul.
The GOP finds itself in an identity crisis. Among others attending CPAC are Sen. Marc Rubio (R-Fla.), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). Throw in Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, and you have all the heavy hitters chomping at the bit for the 2016 GOP bid.
With disciplined libertarian Ron Paul retiring, there is some expectation that Rand Paul will succeed his father in spearheading libertarian causes. After Romney’s mystery campaign many await what a reinvigorated GOP will entail. Does Rand Paul’s rise represent anything transformative in the GOP?
Rand Paul is a rare breed: He is a self-described libertarian, but envisions a world where the government controls matters regarding basic women’s rights, even in cases of rape and incest. The libertarian affection for choice, freedom, and minimalist government gains an interesting meaning for Paul: “I think the answer really is that we need to somehow find our way back to God.” Despite the continued moral decay noticed by some after the Newtown tragedy, government imposition of religious morality hardly defines any libertarian worth his salt.
Rand Paul might be characterized by tea party sentiment, “Get the government out of my life!”
(Excerpt) Read more at policymic.com ...
The force structure can be modified and mission assignments changed for more efficiency no doubt, but claiming the defense budget can be cut in half by doing away with the lavishness in the existing budget is just silly. The type of silliness that I predict will prevent most conservatives from voting for a Libertarian.
If Rand is a Conservative he deserves consideration but if he is a disciple of his father, and the fact that many of the folks defending him appear to subscribe to the beliefs of his father then I wont and cant support him....
The answer is YES, I've seen it all, so don't even go there.
...but claiming the defense budget can be cut in half by doing away with the lavishness in the existing budget is just silly.
Again, you don't know what you're talking about.
If Rand is a Conservative he deserves consideration but if he is a disciple of his father, and the fact that many of the folks defending him appear to subscribe to the beliefs of his father then I wont and cant support him....
Good luck with Christie or Jeb then.
Good luck with your libertarian loon...
I would never trust the fate of the nation to those so deluded that they see any possibility that the DOD budget can be cut in half..that's flat out dip sh*t crazy...
Anyone who is a Neville Chamberlain think alike IS a nutcase. Ron Paul was rightly judged guilty of being a nutcase.
OTOH, Rand Paul ought not be blamed for his father’s insanities. He deserves the chance to be judged on his own track record.
It is not libertarianism per se which disqualifies Paul the Elder. It is his idea that a competent Pentagon need wield only three rowboats, a few blunderbusses and a supply of tri-cornered hats (preferably with beanie propellers on top) and then only for domestic political displays while letters of marque and reprisal will be sufficient to deal with any threats from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Al Qaeda, etc. I can accept the wisdom that we may be a bit overcommitted but Paul the Elder inspired no confidence whatsoever on foreign and military policy.
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You seriously misrepresent libertarian military philosophy, and need to relook at it. A policy that says strong defense and staying out of other people’s business is a wise policy IMHO.
Having Chomskey be totally correct in his predictions about US overseas adventures engagements twenty years later is an indictment of our present policies of adventurism and world cop status. No I do not want our country to become a UN baby, as a matter of fact the faster we are out of the UN and the UN is out of the States the more I will celebrate.
However, sending our troops overseas to die for issues that apparently are mostly related to oil and propping up dictatorships of the most unseemly kind is not what your minimizing “a bit overcommited” implies.
I disagree with your perspective that the next candidate needs to be strongly politcally prolife. We do not live in a country that will make that a reality on a national basis, but by bringing the issue back to a very libertarian state’s rights issue, it very will could become a reality. As far as homosexual and lesbian marriage, this is a hot button issue that isnt worth its drama or damage. Marriage IMHO should be relegated to the sphere of religion and not to government.
I have been a conservative for a very long time. And I was a leftist before that so I have had the good fortune of seeing issues from both sides. I can say without reservation that there is no room in the current two party system for small government, large defense, border protection, and financial continence. Thus I am very comfortable in being a conservative within a libertarian structure.
Do you even know how big the defense budget is, or how many bases we have throughout the world, many of them obsolete or otherwise useless, except to drive host nations’ local economies?
We will have to just disagree because I see you are a person who is simply out of touch with reality as it concerns the DOD...and the threats posed by radical Islam. You claim you have been there done that but I have a hard time comprehending that as you seem to just be parroting Ron Paul's lunacy
No, I work with DoD every day and see all the gratuitous waste with my own eyes. Do you? Or are you simply an arm chair budget warrior, armed only with the latest editions of Jane's Compendium and Defense Weekly?
I dont suffer fools...
Apparently you don't have to since all you have to do is look in the mirror.
KEY, as you say, is a drop dead date for conservatives to throw their own pick overboard and come together behind ONE candidate, to save what is left of the Republic. Looking back, I regret underestimating MONEY, the killer of being on financial life support and in no condition to even think of running a campaign.
The Tea Party found its glue on looming fiscal collapse, bailouts and the sure appearance of nationalizing this and that, at will. THAT issue remains a winner.
Rand Paul is at the helm on matters of fiscal reorganization.
He is no Ron Paul, so far, on much of anything else, and no one accuses him of being a clone of the socialist Mitt Romney.
I don’t hear Rand P speaking much on the scourge of our nation— abortion, or on legislating for gay marriage and against all things that support the structure of, and help salvage, the American family.
Christians are coming under increasing attack in their own land. Surely, Rand Paul recognizes the urgency of turning it back, as well as saving the Constitution, written by Christians.
Rand has returned from Israel and made no secret that the US is funding their enemies and ours. Israel must know by now, and appreciate, that he wants to cut some of the funding to Israel and replace it with trade? I forget. Help me, here.
The Libertarian machine was rising with a phenominal measure of rowdiness, suitable for the times, and force against the GOP. It was far more than we conservatives mustered. Harness that and we have a resistance.
Last, your number 8, is a must. No answer to America for Action is a sure defeat for the Republic.
That quote from Reagan goes back to 1975. Back before Libertarians were RINO scum as they are now.
It’s was obvious that Reagan was not a lib and would be appalled at the crap they endorse these days.
That's all I'm saying, too. At this point, unlike during the primaries, we have the "luxury" of scrutinizing likely candidates. We have several years to watch them.
I like a lot of what Rand says, but I don't have to make up my mind just yet. I'll probably be defending him on here in the coming months. A lot of FReepers want to dismiss him simply because of his Dad without actually considering what he says.
I think that's a mistake.
Thank you for your kind words! May God bless you and yours!
Thank you for your kind words.
I believe that Rand Paul is sound on abortion. On that issue, the real question is HOW Roe vs. Wade will be overturned. SCOTUS might take the easy path and return the question to the states respectively which would restore the LEGAL status quo ante by again ALLOWING the states to individually prohibit abortion. Fifteen or twenty states would then act promptly to outlaw most (realistically) abortions but that obviously does not restore the CIVILIZATIONAL status quo ante circa 1972. The pro-life cause has sustained the damage of Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton (think twin Pearl Harbors) and their evil spawn of subsequent decisions and also there have been about 55 million surgical abortions and therefore many millions of women (and all too often the men who fathered their slaughtered babies) who have an emotional investment in the status quo of the present. Sending the matter back to the states can be easily justified under the Tenth Amendment. Argument: Neither Congress nor the executive nor the federal courts are specifically empowered by the Constitution to legalize or prohibit or regulate abortion and therefore it is a matter for the states and the people respectively. Herod Blackmun is dead. Sandra Day O'Connor is retired. Breyer is not a warrior for abortion although he may favor it being legal and probably does not want to keep refighting the war. Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito appear to be rock solid. Maybe Kennedy would be inclined to kick it back to the states.
Far better would be a personhood decision recognizing the unborn as persons from conception and protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan will NEVER vote for personhood. Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito MIGHT vote for personhood. Kennedy may decide that issue. After 2016, wit the right POTUS, Breyer may retire and Ginzberg may be dead (at least one bout of uterine cancer already and she is now a widow. It would not be our first death watch over SCOTUS in 40 years of this barbarism.
On other issues, I tend to agree with your post. I suspect that Rand Paul would opt for a Tenth Amendment approach to the matter of "gay""marriage" but might well also allow the states to ignore one another and rely on the Tenth Amendment as a later enactment to trump the "full faith and credit" clause of the original constitution.
That would allow Rand Paul the room to really open up on the fiscal issues, the deficit, taxes, downsizing the rampaging Leviathan that the fedgov has become, defunding much of the insanity, slashing away wholesale at regulations. Done well, his first thousand days might exceed those of Ronaldus Maximus. Doing it well means really connecting with constituencies not normally Republican: the libertarian young, foreign and military skeptics (not too rigidly and hopefully backed by old Reagan hands like Frank Gaffney), Blacks, Latinos (both groups on social conservatism and an aggressive policy to topple the status quo welfare state in favor of an opportunity society that includes the ambitious and honorable poor, industrial restoration, populist and anti-elitist tone overall with plenty of well-chosen but aggressive rhetoric. Putting the hay down where we goats can get it, as George Wallace used to say.
Rand Paul's attack on Hillary and her tired and dishonest, victim card playing, insults to human intelligence on Benghazi and her manifest and humiliating failures and Obozos, was magnificent, and his tone was just about perfect and what the public is looking for. Her answers were as bad as her failures to protect the embassy personnel. Bravissimo! Senator Paul.
I have no idea of what America for Action may be. I almost hesitate to ask but tell me anyhow! Is this the Obozo campaign organization preserved and funded (tax exempt no less) to push public policy? If not, what is it?
So far, it looks like he may be able to unite libertarians who followed his father, conservatives who resisted his father and many other constituencies. I don't know what his solution for Israel may be. I do believe that he would refuse all of the following: to attempt to push Israel around, to try to force a peace agreement down Israel's throat, to care at all what the anti-American poobahs of the United Nations may want, to prohibit Israeli purchases of American weapons systems with Israel's own money or have a civilized lunch with Israeli Prime Ministers who wish to visit. He also would probably not object to Israel acting on its own behalf to stop Iran from achieving nuclear weapons which is a very good side of non-interventionist policy. I am an interventionist but I believe that Senator Paul can probably be trusted unlike his father.
Resistance! God bless you and yours!
Absolutely! On each and every word.
YOU seriously misunderstand the capacity of many libertarians to care about any morals not directly bound to their individual financial ambitions. Fortress America isolationism is a verrrrry dead issue. See Chamberlain, Neville. See also the shameful American war resisters of the pre-Pearl Harbor years. That the America Firsters have a handful of eccentric supporters in the 21st century is a testament to the gullibility of a tiny slice of our population. Once Pearl Harbor had been bombed, America First folded their tents at a 12/8/41 press conference in Chicago featuring John Flynn (Executive Director of America First and Editor of the New Haven Register), Colonel McCormack, Charles Lindbergh and the rest of the leadership. Robert A. Taft became a supporter of the war. He later advocated abandonment of Europe which had rejected its chance for freedom and urged support for nations in the Third World and the Pacific Rim who had not had or rejected freedom. Ron Paul was no Robert A. Taft. His son Rand appears to be a far wiser man. Give us who were enemies of Ron Paul enough room to give you SOME of what you want by supporting Rand Paul. No guarantees but many of us intent to give him a fair hearing in the hope that he avoids the heresies of his father.
BTW, this conservative has verrrry little appetite for boots on the ground. We have technology. Death from the sky and mass destruction of infrastructure from the sky is a better route. It also allows us to avoid a lot of civilian casualties. For surgical matters, the drones do a very nice job. I remember an Islamolunatic cleric who was confined to a wheelchair but was whipping up street trash to attack Israelis being taken out by a drone. The attack was so surgical that his body was disintegrated except for his relatively unmarked head which was sitting on the undamaged seat of the wheel chair. How DO they do that? That was quite impressive. My compliments to Bibi Netanyahu! May we be governed by someone of his steel spine after Obozo is finished.
If God wanted American troops everywhere on the ground, why did He provide a world in which the US Navy has the missiles to reduce any enemy to radioactive ashes without American service casualties? IEDs don't work so well under the sea or in the air.
Small domestic government, large defense and financial continence. Three out of four ain't bad. Quit while you are ahead.
Otherwise form a Kumbaya party with Noam Chomsky, a baby-killing, devil may care libertarian party that supports the posturing of perversion as "marriage," and maybe favors recreational drug legalization and absolutely avoids anything smacking of religious conviction while worshiping only the almighty dollar.... Oh wait! The Libertarian Party already exists and beckons the bitter enders and offers all that and more! Sayonara, Mr. Galt, Mr. D'Anconia, Mr. Danneskold, and Ms. Rand!
You and I also disagree on bordermania. Seal the border. Fine first step only. Then we must welcome the generally law abiding (except for bordermania) Hispanics who simply want to be part of our country (amazing that anyone would want to be Americans after eight years of Clinton and four years and counting of Obozo). Actively respect them and learn about them, get to know them and, yes, seek their votes when they have become actual citizens. Find the remnant of responsibility in the black community and develop programming that will free their kids from P.S. 666 and give them a real and moral education in the private sector and give hope and results to their parents in exchange for their earnest effort to earn and fully participate in the fruits of the American Dream as private sector workers.
Now, the real policy differences that matter. We actual conservatives have not fought Roe vs. Wade for forty years to settle for such weak tea as a Tenth Amendment solution to Roe vs. Wade other than as a very unsatisfactory temporary expedient. Eventually, only a personhood policy will suffice. If necessary, considering the vast number of human lives already sliced, diced and hamburgerized and the potential number yet to be butchered, SCOTUS must do personhood. Let the babykillers have a daily collective nervous breakdown, be wildly indignant about nearly everything (what else is new???), leave the country with babs Streisand and George Clooney and Lady GaGa. When we have SCOTUS, then the left should be treated as tenderly as the babies have been treated for forty years.
As to marriage, America is not the Stonewall Bar nor La Cage Aux Folles writ large. We are not Canada where daily butt-smooching of the lavender left is becoming mandatory.
Religious freedom (from funding abortion and contraception via Obozocare) is also non-negotiable. It is right there in the very First Amendment.
If the country goes broke because the GOP-E and the libertarians want to join the leftist enemies in Margaret Sanger's Last Stand, so be it. Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way but the little libertarian tail will NOT be allowed to wag the big conservative dog.
For 2016 I’d like to see a ticket of Paul Ryan/Rand Paul or Rubio/Palin...
Paul/Cruz 2016...not interested in Rubio at all.
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