Saturday, July 14, 2012

Rand Paul Cozies Up to the Neocons and AIPAC

GQ magazine tells us (my bold):
At a private office in Dupont Circle, he talked foreign policy with Bill Kristol, Dan Senor, and Tom Donnelly, three prominent neocons who’d been part of an effort to defeat him during the primary. “He struck me as genuinely interested in trying to understand why people like us were so apoplectic,” Senor says of their two-hour encounter. “He wanted to get educated about our problem with him. He wasn’t confrontational, and he wasn’t disagreeable. He didn’t seem cemented in his views. He was really in absorption mode.”
It gets worse. From GQ (my bold):
The following month, he met with officials from the powerful lobbying group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which has frequently clashed with Ron Paul over what the group views as his insufficient support of Israel. Paul, according to one person familiar with the AIPAC meeting, “told them what they wanted to hear: ‘I’m more reasonable than my father on the things you care about.’ He was very solicitous.

11 comments:

  1. It's fine for neocons to be cemented, but no one else?

    Young master Anakin appears to be on his way.

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  2. Justin over at antiwar.com already discussed this. And the article from GQ is back from Oct. 2010.

    This is a bit old Bob.

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    1. Yes, but considering the fact that some people still refuse to understand why some of us no longer care for him (in so far as we ever really did), it is still relevant.

      If only because his endorsement of Mitt Romney, his vote for sanctions against Iran and his vote for a multi-billion dollar loan to Israel, are NOT dating back to 2010.

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  3. One month before the GQ article was published, I read Raimondo's take.

    http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/09/23/the-hollow-man-rand-pauls-father-complex/

    This is why Rand's Romney endorsement was neither a surprise, nor a disappointment. I wrote him off while he was still campaigning. The best way to think of Rand is not as "Ron's son," but just as an elected Senator. If you start from that premise, you can be encouraged when he actually stands up for liberty, instead of discouraged when he sells it short.

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  4. Hey Rand, they are STILL going to support your opponent next time. Selling your soul and getting nothing in return in stupid, brother.

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  5. Yet Rand will still claim to be pro-life. What a joke

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  6. I meeting with cockroaches and being nice to them would further the chances of the liberty movement, I would do so to. Listening to your enemy is never a bad thing.

    Rand Paul has had more success legislatively than any other politician (including Ron Paul) in my lifetime. As a diehard anarcho-capitalist, it saddens me that you will consistently try to tear down a friend of the liberty movement. He may not be as extreme as you want him to be. He may not even call himself a libertarian. But if you followed his votes you would see that he is doing a great job.

    I agree with "your" side of the libertarian divide more than I agree with the cosmotarians and constitutional conservatives. But that doesn't mean I'm going to constantly belittle them. Heaven knows we have greater enemies.

    With the exception of Ron Paul, Rand is the closest we have to a voice in the senate. And he puts his career on the line when he votes. I appreciate that.

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    1. How dare he tell the enemy that he is more reasonable than his father on their issues?

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    2. As a "diehard anarcho-capitalist" you should see that praising someone like Rand Paul, a man who endorsed warmongering fascists, votes for sanctions against Iran, votes for multi-billion dollar loans to Israel when spending should be CUT, would give the cause of liberty and peace a bad name by association. I find it puzzling that a diehard anarcho-capitalist wouldn't mind the stench of association with someone capable of endorsing a potential future mass murderer.

      Well, forgive those of us that do mind the stench of associating with someone who endorses Romney while considering the label of libertarian to be an "albatross around the neck". He's had more nice things to say about the neocon-fascist that is running for president of the empire, than he has about internet anarcho-capitalists.

      You seem to have quite a lot of faith in the system if you are willing to forget or forgive these things for the "benefit" of his so-called "great" non-statist inclinated votes.

      Someone whom is willing to look the other way, and expects others do so too, because he likes the crumbs he's being thrown by a politician is hardly "diehard".

      And then there's this gem:
      "And he puts his career on the line when he votes. I appreciate that."

      That's funny. I always thought politicians GOT PAID to do their jobs the way they're supposed to, rather than put their careers first.
      Only now am i finding out that they're just doing us a favor in the few instances that they do what they're paid to do. What a hero.

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    3. Go off and read Walter Block's treatise on slaves and the plantation. There is no shame in negotiating with your owners while trying to get rid of them. I support Rand in doing this.

      If Rand thinks that personally endorsing a warmonger will further freedom (which he does, and has said so repeatedly), then I wish him the best. He's free to do so. I disagree with him and will not vote for such endorsees. But I can understand his rationale that endorsing Romney will get a swathe of the idiots who make up the elephant party to vote for him. I wish him the best.

      I support your right to constantly spew vitriol against Rand and Johnson and De Mint and Friedman, Jr and whomever else you want. I think it is a sad, little-minded, unworkable approach to furthering liberty, and try not to do so myself. Unfortunately it makes reading Reason an easier undertaking than reading Lew Rockwell and Wenzel (people with whom I agree with philosophically and economically 99% of the time).

      Cheer up, chill out, and smile occasionally. It'll win a few more people to our cause than chicken-littling it 24/7.

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    4. 1) I don't need to go off and read all of Walter Block's many justifications of making deals with the 'state'. I already know the argument and up to a certain point agree with it.
      And even then, only in so far as people do it for themselves and don't make deals with the devil while 'representing' a whole movement.

      2) Rand is not negotiating with his "owners" to get rid of them for his own sake. He is part of the leadership of the slave-owning plantation and is - according to you, apparently - trying to get rid of them for the sake of the American people. In reality he is not even doing that. He is merely making compromises to decrease the amount of whippings while still believing that the institution of slavery is necessary, and that the occasional flogging is justified.

      3) You wish him the best with his dumb methods, which will merely give ammunition and legitimacy to a future potential mass murderer. It is obvious why a lot of us wish to completely distance ourselves from that.
      But fine, wish him the best. The issue is not your personal opinion. The issue is that you complain about us having ours and expressing them. We criticize Rand; you criticize us.
      Why don't you "wish us the best" with our legitimate criticism of him, when you do "wish him the best" with his endorsement of a fascist? Do you have your priorities straight in proper order of severity?

      4) It's funny how you have more "vitriol" for our criticism of politicians, than you want us to have for politicians and their various anti-liberty and anti-peace methods with which they give power and legitimacy to the system. This is why i sincerely doubt you when you try to pass yourself off as a "diehard" anarcho-capitalist to try to give your words some kind of extra weight or authority. Mission failed.

      5) You overestimate the effect any of this has on my personal mood. I can separate mood from argument just fine.
      As for winning more people over to "our cause", it all depends on what people would define as "our cause". I don't, for instance, share the same cause with people who think endorsing a war monger is an acceptable compromise for a long term, baseless promise of liberty that was never actually made in the first place.
      I stand by my opinion that liberty and peace oriented people should do whatever they can to distance themselves from those who make compromises with warmongers. In my opinion, the movement can only be damaged by the notion that we are willing to accept mass murder, just so we can wag our tails and, maybe, get some scraps at the table at a possible Rand Paul administration.

      6) JIM DEMINT??? Tell me you're joking...

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