Video
Rand Paul Speaks Truth to CNN Power
Rand Paul: Sequester A "Pittance" That Nibbles At The Edges WOLF BLITZER, CNN: All right. You heard the president lay out the choice. Are you willing to compromise on the way he described them? ... SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KENTUCKY): I'm not really willing to discuss in it the framework that he's made up for himself. I mean, for goodness sakes, it was his proposal. He proposed the sequester. It was his idea. He signed it into law, and now he's going to tell us that, oh, it's all our fault? I voted against the sequester because I didn't think it was enough. The sequester cuts the rate of growth of the spending, but the sequester doesn't even really begin to cut spending, which we have to do or we are going to get a credit downgrade, another credit downgrade. BLITZER: So you don't think that the $85 billion this year, that would be the forced cuts this year, from your perspective, that's not enough? PAUL: It's a pittance. I mean, it's a slowdown in the rate of growth. There are no real cuts happening over 10 years. – Real Clear Politics
Dominant Social Theme: It's business as usual on Capitol Hill because business works!
Free-Market Analysis: We've been critical of Senator Rand Paul because we believe he had an opportunity build a true free-market (libertarian) coalition that would cement his place in history as a Great Man and possibly change the course of Leviathan.
But this is an interesting interview Rand Paul gave to leftist CNN's Wolf Blitzer. It seems to confirm the idea that while Rand Paul has not proven to be a political version of an anarcho-capitalist – as much as a politician (like his father) can be – he will keep enunciating libertarian viewpoints.
Few people aspire to being Great Men because of the cost and danger involved. Changing the direction of the American Empire is no easy task, even for someone so determined as Rand's father ... the contrarian, free-market congressman Ron Paul.
So Rand Paul has settled for being a conservative senator with libertarian leanings. He is the new "go to" guy when it comes to conservative/tea party issues. His face is all over US TV. He's gotten as much media play in a few months as his dad got in his whole career (up to when he began running for president anyway).
Obviously, this was the plan. Rand Paul had to choose between making history (and possibly ending up dead) and working within the dialectic of the system as a conservative-libertarian opinion-maker. He chose the latter, which almost surely guarantees him a high profile as a public speaker and political official with all the respect and financial awards that such positions garner.
In the recent past he's come out against drug laws and in this interview with Wolf Blitzer, he is very clear that the US is on track to bankruptcy. Within a formula of his own choosing, Rand Paul is speaking truth to power.
In order to do so, he had to compromise on the one issue that made his father a true change maker. Rand Paul had to accept the White Man's burden – the idea that the military-industrial complex was credible and that a purpose was served by attacking "them, over there," so they wouldn't "come here." You can see a previous article of ours on this here: Rand Paul, the Next GOP Nominee for President.
A differentiation between legitimate self-defense and the rhetoric of militarization is the dividing line between civil society and empire – and empires always decline. Rand Paul's father refused to compromise on this critical point. He saw clearly what was necessary from the standpoint of national security and understood the corrosive nature of the military-industrial complex.
Of course, it is highly doubtful that even principled men can reverse the current direction of US Leviathan on their own. Rand Paul, had he been willing, might have been able to capture this technology-based sociopolitical and economic trend and utilize it to create a career of incredible significance. But surely this is a lot to ask.
Conclusion: Rand Paul has circumscribed his field of action but apparently he doesn't intend to abandon it.
(Video from Eduardo89RP's YouTube user channel.)
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Posted by 1776 on 02/22/13 04:32 PM
Rand Paul returns $600,000 to US from his Senate office budget Kentuckian credits keeping close tabs Feb 21, 2013
Click to view link
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Posted by DrBryant on 02/22/13 09:31 AM
I am more discouraged by "sour grapes" Republicans/Libertarians than I am the worst Dimocrat liberal.
People like SoCal contribute as much to deteriorating our situation as do the Communist now working in the White House.
Not all battles end in victory, but that does not lose the war.
I see Rand Paul as a significant way to make the badly needed turn this country needs to avoid Leviathan. I also have hopes for Rubio, Cruz, and Jindal, but I don't see them having the "pull" that Rand Paul can command if he can keep from getting stabbed in the back by "supporters".
Rand Paul's support for Romney was simply a "choice of two evils". Those that would have preferred him to "stand alone" on the national stage are simply too naive to understand that politics is a game of chess, not checkers. OPENLY standing on principle will certainly please one's base of supporters, but has doubtful success in swaying former opponents to your side, particularly with a corrupt Press ready to distort or completely lie about your position. Does anyone really think Obama could have won if he had openly admitted that he AND his closest advisers were Communists?? Those on the gov't dole readily accept a lie when it has no immediate effect and resides just past their nose.
For me, I would now urge, well before the final "drop date", Rand Paul to make the formal move to the "Liberty Party" with the intentions to capture the most conservative voters within the Democratic Party, while taking a "fatherly" approach to explain to other conservatives/free marketers that beating a dead horse (Republican Party) will not make it run faster. Imitating the Light Brigade (compromising with Dimocrats) will not end differently, either.
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Posted by jwoop66 on 02/22/13 07:23 AM
Took one hundred years for the left to get us where we are in washington. Its going to take a while for free marketeers to take it back. Short of revolution that is... Of course voters have to vote for Tea Party/Rand Paul types and stop whining that the election was over two hours ago and the country is still the same!!
The question is will it happen?
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Posted by banh on 02/22/13 12:07 AM
Rand Paul threw me and millions of his dad's supporters a curve ball. Many thought he turned into the usual Beltway sellout, but I think he is fast becoming our Trojan Horse and he may turn out to be the most intelligent man in Washington politics.
Rand Paul is not the hopeless political romantic his legendary father has been his entire life. Ron Paul is an American hero, but he is still considered a Don Quixote. Too idealistic to bend (me too), too focused on ethical behavior and not focused enough on how to "work through" DC corruption and get to the goal post. Rand is more clever, more savvy, and I believe he will take the ball from his dad and plant it right between the eyes of the behemoth corrupt Washington machine. I think he will gain support in record time because he knows how to "cooperate" and keep his ethics in a town of spineless suits who NEED a leader to follow. He will demonstrate his leadership as Obama's regime attempts to bring the American population to its knees through his king-ish behavior. Rand Paul is a doctor, just like his dad. He knows how to "fix" our political immune system.
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Posted by Bosco Hurn on 02/21/13 11:48 PM
SoCal fellow nails it. Rand is a sell out. Endorsing Romney before he had won the nomination was like flipping the bird to his dad's supporters. Unforgivable.
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Posted by taxesbyanyothername on 02/21/13 05:24 PM
Rand is obviously closer to free-market in his thinking than anyone else high in our government. Both stated positions on defense and his party-suck-up endorsement of Mitt lost him any respect from millions of libertarians, and teaparty people as well. Mitt might as well have been a cardboard cutout of Obama. Corruption of some, and compromise of principle by others who wish to stop them, is what got the world into the mess it is in. Rand will make no difference at all, if he can not see that war is the health of the state, no matter how much he wishes to restrain other spending, especially since slowing other spending will be politically impossible withour actual default.
I don't think there was ever much chance of him affecting real change no matter what he did. Whatever chance he did have is either gone or going.
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Posted by jdwheeler42 on 02/21/13 01:25 PM
I admire Ron Paul's integrity, but honestly, the biggest difference he made was raising Rand. I think Rand has great political savvy. Now is the time for him to build his political capital, not tilt at windmills. By concentrating on what he can accomplish, hopefully he will gain the following that will allow him to take on the big issues.
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Posted by SoCal fellow on 02/21/13 01:12 PM
Senator Paul is a sell out, in my opinion.
We gave the legal maximum to Ron Paul's campaign, and I could not be prouder of that.
I will give not a cent to Rand Paul, though. I do not trust him to put principal ahead of power.
Leviathan will fall (1) of its own weight as it withers from financial starvation and (2) as people wake up -- especially when their government checks bounce -- and drag their feet in the face of government control efforts.
Half measures from Rand Paul do not speed up the process, it seems to me.
