Zandar on Rand Paul’s trip to Berkeley:
His message of course being “You people are stupid to not vote for me even though I’m clearly trying to manipulate you and split the left, leaving Republicans in charge of everything so we can abolish nearly all of the social and civil rights advances made in the last 80 years.”
And we’re not buying it, especially whenever President Obama does acknowledge race in America, he’s immediately portrayed by Republicans as divisive. Race doesn’t matter unless it’s a situation where Rand Paul thinks it should matter?
Take your privilege and shove it, man.
Surveillance and privacy are critically important issues, but Zandar pretty much nails what the Pauls real game is, and always has been.
Zandar does realize that Berkeley probably isn’t anything like the out-dated caricatures, right? It’s certainly not the leftist outpost it once was, I’d bet.
Exactly! Even during the heyday of the “Free Speech Movement” UC Berkeley had a pretty sizable and active conservative student contingent. It’s a large university, and hence will have a large College Republicans club, and enough other wingnut hangers-on who would easily pack an auditorium for the likes of Rand Paul.
When you’re a libertarian hammerhead like Paul, everything looks like a Big Gub’mint-issued nail.
For me the “stopped clock” metaphor works better for libertarian views. An occasional opinion that matches mine is nice, but the hateful, dysfunctional “judgment” that goes along with that is completely unacceptable.
So this sounds pretty good from Rand:
“I believe what you do on a cellphone is none of their damn business,”
But as Zandar points out you’ve got the 24×7 operation of the clock churning through this:
Yes, and meanwhile Rand Paul wants to make it his damn business what women do with their uteruses.
What really gets me, though, is how he wants to militarize the border. It would be interesting if he could explain how he’s going to do that without violating anyone’s civil liberties. But that’s modern conservatives for you–they want a small, limited government that makes sure no one crosses a 2,000 mile border without written permission.
(Actually, even more repulsive than the border security aspect is his idea that you can end illegal immigration by gutting the welfare state. If you look at his immigration page, you’ll see a gratuitous demand for English-only laws, but no recognition of the real reason so many people cross the border illegally–to work. The racism isn’t even that subtle when you’re lying about and denigrating an entire class of people.)
How fortunate for the RonRandPaulInc family cottage business that the evidence of NSA dirty tricks arrived just as their old schtick of legalizing pot was running out of steam as people that really cared about the issue (IOW not RonRandPaulInc) were finally beginning to rack up some successes.
CPAC hires Palin to turn on the guys that continue their affair with RonRandPaulInc. Demonstrating the emotional maturity of fifteen year olds.
He’s the only real progressive option. He’s with us on all the important things. Politics is about compromise, after all — mostly it’s about those things you refuse to compromise on.
Does dope count as a ‘privacy issue’?
Every so often, a story comes up in my daily blog reading that makes me want to click over to the News Blog to see what Steve Gilliard has to say on the subject.
This is one of those stories.
Damn.
I love Zandar. I really love Zandar.
I’d pay for the wedding of Zandar and Sarah Elizabeth.
God, I was SOOOOOOOOO jealous of the name when I first saw it.
Do you really believe this bullshit, Booman? Really!!!??? That the whole Paul movement is simply a trick to roll back social and civil rights advances? That it is all a pack of lies!!!???
Unbelievable. Ron Paul is about as real as a human being can be. If you can’t tell that just from looking at him you have lost your natural-born sense of discernment.
Look at him, fer crissake!!!
Look at him and his wife!!!
This is no power-mad couple, scheming to take the rubes off so’s they can reimpose some daft form of racism on the world.
Get real.
If anything, they are “rubes” themselves. Only taken to another power.
Get real.
I’m tellin ya, Booman. Sooner or later…probably sooner, the way things are going…the people you are supporting are going to fall flat on their overprivileged faces. Now…maybe the old guard RatPubs will take up the slack, but then again…maybe not.
Maybe not.
Let us pray.
It’s about all we have left, really.
Let us pray and then let us open our minds!!!
Please.
Later…
AG
I tried to look at Mr. Paul, AG, I really did, but I kept getting distracted by the overstuffed bodyguard behind him who looks like a long-lost deputy of Bull Connor’s, or maybe a third Ford brother.
A “real person” can also be a real racist (and a real right-wing asshole on a whole host of issues – and yes, I used a link that started with a comment that sounded strikingly like something you might state). Pictures of the “nice” neoconfederate couple smiling do not change his record. From your perspective, it might suck that very few people beyond die-hard Paulbots buy into the bullshit, but asking people who in many cases have devoted their whole lives to causes that the Pauls are openly hostile toward to change stripes and support the Pauls is asking too much. Besides, others, such as Bernie Sanders, who are in actual positions of power, are working to address the abuses perpetrated by NSA, etc., and they do so without being knuckle-dragging assholes about it.
You write:
We are again back at the ideas of strategic goals and the tactics used to achieve them.
These devoted people to whom you refer…and I fully believe that most of them truly are “devoted” to a strategic goal of equality and freedom…have confused their devotion to that goal with devotion to the tactical path that they chose to achieve that goal. So-called “liberalism” for want of a better word. Whatever American liberalism might have been at its inception, it has now been thoroughly colonized by powers that have…on the evidence of their actions rather than their speeches…the exact opposite of those strategic goals in mind. They are working towards subjugation of the human spirit in the name of control from above.
Neoliberalism, in a word.
Big Brotherism.
Permanent Government by the owners of that government.
And we are now at a crux point in history.
Do the people rise up against this security state subjugation or do they finally give up in the name of…in the name of safety, really. In the name of fear.
I do not know the answer to that question, but over the next year and a half or so we will begin to get a good idea about which way the winds of change are really blowing.
Watch.
The old liberalism is dead, Don, but the idea of freedom remains alive.
Tactics are the question now.
Tactics.
AG
`
If you are from the left, there is no tactical advantage to giving aid and comfort to right-wingers. To pretend otherwise is a fool’s errand. But if you insist, please proceed…
Two dimensional thought is not enough, Don. We are past “left” and “right.” The center is the deal now. Massive and unmoving, it eats left and right alike. It is an equal opportunity consumer and its maw is wide.
Once again…exactly where are these “leftist” national pols that I should be supporting? Pols within rational striking distance of the White House. Obama was sold to the American people as one, but on plentiful evidence he is center to the core….owned and operated by the corporate PermaGov.
Lemme see…who is demonstrably anti-war, anti-security state and opposed to the centralized financial system that supports Wall Street’s maneuvers 100% of the time?
Lemme see…
Oh.
I know!!!
Hillary Clinton, right?
No?
Joe Biden. it must be!!!
No again?
Oh.
Well…
Nevermind.
I’ll just go hide under the covers and ignore the ongoing fall of this civilization.
It’s nice under there.
I can read Marx and all.
Online, even.
Dreamtime. It’s what’s for dinner in Leftiness Land. Dream on.
Or…
Wake the fuck up and smell the decay.
Yours truly…
Arthur Sheridan Gilroy
In other words, you refuse to address the elephant in the room. Your challenge was to demonstrate how, given the track record of both Pauls (which is already been documented time and time again), partnering with them and their allies would be a tactical advantage for those holding leftist ideals (or even if we get away from leftist, merely liberal/progressive ideals). You chose instead to bloviate…again. I would think that those who might have interest in, say advancing GLBT rights (one that is very near and dear to my heart), reproductive freedom, what very few advances have been made toward racial/ethnic equality, economic equality and so on deserve a more thorough and thoughtful response given that your preferred candidates are on record as being hostile to what might matter tremendously to each of us potentially seriously negatively affected by a Paul regime. Being talked down and threatened with the end of civilization was not what was needed to make your case. In two words to summarize your effort to make your case: you failed.
I give up. You’re right, Don. All people who want GLBT rights and reproductive choice, the totality of our various and sundry minorities and majorities of all shapes and sizes will be better off under Democratic rule. Equal lack of opportunity for all, I say!!! The Permanent Government and the Deep State do not discriminate against anyone. All are equally enslavable. Let’s cut to the chase and raise the minimum wage to $10.10/hour for everybody!!! (Except the owners and the overseers, of course.)
And…
This is surreal, Don. The inmates lauding the prison guards because they are equally vicious to all prisoners.
WTFU.
Goodbye.
I must be going.
AG
you are such a sucker.
And you are such a PermaGov tool.
So it goes.
AG
Awwwww. He looks like a nice grandpa. I bet he would buy a white kid an ice cream cone…
For all your bullshit about image, you sure do keep bringing up Ron Paul’s “cuddly look” to make him more endearing.
Image speaks.
Artificially produced image speaks lies.
What? You think Ron Paul’s acting?
I don’t.
That’s who he is.
Can you imagine Ron Paul cavorting on a country club golf course? Taking a multi-million dollar vacation somewhere fashionable?
I can’t.
But Obama?
Please!!!
There are millions of Americans without sufficient food or shelter. Millions more out of work. A shattered economy. A shattered healthcare system. A shattered educational system. Major cities going bankrupt. Even on a simple public relations level, OBbama’s extravagance is insufferable.
His real image?
The truth of the matter?
Narcissist.
An intelligent narcissist.
Disgusting.
We have had three rich narcissists in a row in the White House. Ain’tcha tired of it yet?
I am.
AG
Here’s an image for you: Rand Paul’s good buddy the Southern Avenger.
I mean, seriously, do you have any idea at all why liberals find the Pauls distasteful?
Yes. I do have an idea of why liberals find the Pauls distasteful. Do you have any idea why I find the Permanent Government of the United States…up to and including the present administration and Congress…so distasteful?
Rand Paul had an aide who was way off to the right. So it goes. They parted ways in July, 2013.
Barack Obama has the blood of thousands upon thousands on his hands, as do every prominent member of his administration and every member of congress who has voted for funding the foreign adventures of the United Staes of America. That rubric includes just about every congressman and every real presidential candidate of the past 14 years with the exceptions of Ron and Rand Paul. Yes, those two made a couple of bad votes as far as I am concerned, but not being privy to their local political necessities nor to the actual functioning of long-establishedquid pro quo practices in congress, I am inclined to give them a break. On the basis of their stated aims, I prefer the Pauls to any other national-level politicians of the past several decades.
Deal wid it.
AG
Well, good for you.
Given that you’re lecturing people on a progressive blog, trying to morally browbeat us into supporting the Pauls, it’s nauseating to see you try to dance around the fact that the Pauls want to tear down the New Deal and Great Society programs and return us to economic feudalism. Not very progressive of them.
And it’s well past nauseating to read on as you studiously ignore their reprehensible positions on civil rights, voting rights, women’s choice and corporate power. The repellent nature of their positions are greater than the sum of “a couple of bad votes.” All in all, it’s a return to the thrilling year of 1890.
Finally, how about the wide gulf that we find today between father and son when it comes to the Ukraine? Memory serves that you spent thousands of flop-sweat-covered words defending Rand’s tongue bathing of the military-industrial complex and his establishment that he would try to assert American hegemony over Europe. Poppa disapproves- how are you processing that?
>>Surveillance and privacy are critically important issues
and Paul is the ONLY politician who appears to agree. He’s wrong about almost everything, but what he’s right about, he’s the only one talking about.
all it would take is a couple leading Democrats getting on the right side of this issue, and they could steal his thunder.
<crickets>
Bernie Sanders has also expressed an interest in those issues, and introduced legislation in the process. I’ve grown weary of the “Ron and Rand Paul are the only ones who try to do anything about surveillance and privacy” memes that seem to circulate among people who really ought to know better.
It’s been Wyden and Mark Udall taking the lead on this. Rand Paul was fantasizing about drones bombing Starbucks.
Yep. #StandWithRand my ass.
Is it possible any longer to find a republican to support because she/he has a good idea? I’m not saying I would vote for Paul as president and I don’t even live in KY, but why not encourage his disdain for the police state and the NSA? Can’t we adopt his good ideas and reject his bad ones without being a traitor?
That used to be how stuff got done.
I mentioned one who at least has introduced legislation and has a record of consistency in advocating against and voting against our nation’s surveillance abuses (Sanders) and Booman mentioned a couple others who have been taking the lead this session (Wyden and Udall). In other words, we can actually safely disregard just about anything old Grandpa Paul or Aquabuddha have to say just because they and their fanboys happen to scream louder than everyone else.