Rand Paul sells libertarian crack.
The Kentucky Senator deals in a designer drug of anarchism so powerful that it flows equally well in the ruby red arteries of liberty-leaning Republicans, as well as the deep blue veins of liberal Democrats.
This drug isn’t your run-of-the-mill small government chatter that all the Republican candidates parrot (save Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee, who are perfectly fine with trying to leash Leviathan). It’s beyond the flat-tax, abolish the IRS, away with the wacko environmentalists polluting the EPA points that Sen. Ted Cruz espouses.
It’s so addicting that lunatics and tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracists from both ends of the spectrum are attracted to it.
It’s the drug of social justice through mob rule.
The only difference between the liberal brand of this justice is that Democrats prefer their mob rule to be executed by Leviathan, while Paul’s drug demands that government self-annihilate and let the libertines rave.
On foreign policy, Paul pitches strikes straight from the mound into the waiting maw of liberal thought—militant, radical Islamists hate us because of us, not because they have a maniacal desire to rule the world and usher in the Twelfth Imam’s Caliphate.
You know the drug works when The Huffington Post publishes the headline “Rand Paul is Right: Republican Neocons Created ISIS.”
Undeterred by their predictable multi-trillion dollar debacle in Iraq, Sen. Rand Paul’s neocon detractors idiotically championed war against Libya’s secular Muammar Gaddafi after he had abandoned WMD and support for international terrorism. The neocons supported Islamic radicals in the overthrow and murder Gaddafi, which was followed by the plunder of his vast conventional arsenal by Islamic radicals. A power vacuum predictably followed, which ISIS exploited to gain a menacing toehold in Libya.
The Washington Post reported on Paul’s “Meet the Press” interview on May 17.
Paul, who is running for president, was asked whether his position on Iraq puts him at odds with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a White House rival who has said that “the world is a better place because Saddam Hussein doesn’t run Iraq.”
Paul’s response: “I don’t think that’s exactly how I put it.”
He continued: “We are more at risk for attack from people who are training, organizing and fighting in Iraq than we were before.” Paul called the Islamic State militant group, which controls many areas in Iraq and Syria, “more of an aberration than even Hussein was.”
In particular, questions about Iraq have tripped up Jeb Bush, a likely presidential contender. He gave different answers last week to the question of whether the invasion ordered by his brother was justified given that we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Bush eventually stated that he would not have gone into Iraq. Paul said Democratic presidential front-runner and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton should face similar scrutiny.
“They should ask her, ‘Was it a good idea to invade Libya? Did that make us less safe? Did it make it more chaotic?,” said Paul, adding, “I think the war in Iraq is a good question and still a current question, but so is the question of, ‘Should we have gone into Libya?'”
Paul would not have gone into Iraq, or Libya, or anywhere. His top priority was ending NSA spying and killing the Patriot Act, which he did rather deftly. The typical Libertarian (capital “L”) position is to build Fortress America, based on every patriot owning as many firearms as possible, and waiting for the barbarous hordes to arrive on our shores, so we can properly greet them using those weapons.
This non-interference strategy appeals to the inner-libertarians in both parties. You see, Democrats like to own firearms too. They just don’t want Republicans to own them.
On “social justice” (with scare-quotes, mind you), Paul has jumped the shark. Paul’s website details an alphabet soup of legislation he’d like to see passed: REDEEM, RESET, FAIR, and others without acronyms. What Paul would do, in a nutshell, is:
- Decriminalize controlled substance possession (“very small amounts”).
- Allow non-violent felons to vote.
- Provide for a stringent legal process and “clear and convincing evidence” for forfeiture of assets.
- Allow judges to depart from mandatory minimum sentences (essentially removing those minimums).
- Create a judicial process to seal adult non-violent criminal records.
I would support some of these, since on the surface they seem useful. But would we want to allow Bernie Madoff, Richard Scrushy, Allen Stanford, George Ryan, Rod Blagojevich, et. al. to vote again? Paul does.
Would we want the whole country to go the way of Denver and Seattle? Paul does.
Now, from Baltimore, Paul made his best drug pitch Tuesday in a speech to the Baltimore County GOP. He spoke about Kelief Browder, the boy who was confined at Riker’s Island for three years—much of it in solitary—awaiting a trial that never happened. Browder committed suicide Saturday after a long battle with depression.
Paul has been using Browder as an example of a failed justice system for several years, along with Jay Z and Rosie O’Donnell. His Baltimore speech was covered by (of all media outlets, why?) Al Jazeera America.
“I can tell you I didn’t grow up poor, I grew up middle class or upper middle class and this is me learning about how other people have to deal with life,” Paul said. “This young man, 16 years old — imagine how his classmates feel about American justice. Imagine how his parents feel. So the thing is until you walk in someone else’s shoes, I think we shouldn’t say that we can’t understand the anger of people.”
“Am I saying they did nothing wrong and it’s all racism? No,” Paul said. “What I am telling you is that white kids don’t get the same justice.”
The America that Paul sees is not a Federal Republic following Constitutional principles. He really doesn’t see the same America that Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio see. He sees the America that liberals see: unfair, burdened by racial injustice, and a corrupt system.
The libertarian crack drug Paul is dealing seeks to dismantle laws and government, and allow rogue prosecutors like Marilyn Mosby to rule by mob justice, and allow liberals in Washington and Colorado to have their way, all in the name of small government. The centralized Leviathan of big government that white old men of both parties favor is Paul’s enemy, and his allies are anyone who stands with him in his Quixotic war against the fetters of government, including radical leftists and the “occupy” movement.
Republicans who value the rule of law, the principles of Federalism, and the concept of an America guided by a morality based on absolute knowledge of right and wrong, should be careful of the drug Paul is selling. It might be appealing, and even addictive, but ultimately, it leaves the addict in the same place liberals would take us: mob rule.
(crossposted from RedState.com)
This post appeared on SGBerman
