Saturday, September 1, 2012

Rand Paul versus Clint Eastwood at the Republican Convention

Here's the difference between when you are intimidated by the neoconservatives and the country club establishment Republicans and when you are not.

Rand Paul: Stuck to Republican establishment approved script.

Clint Eastwood: Paid no attention to approved script, spoke what he believed.

Rand Paul speech comments on Guantanamo:

None.

Clint Eastwood speech comments on Guantanamo (to President Obama):
Well, I know even people in your own party were very disappointed when you didn’t close Gitmo.
Rand Paul speech comments on Iraq and Afghanistan:

None.

Clint Eastwood speech comments on Iraq and Afghanistan (to President Obama)

 I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that’s okay. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK...you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how did...there for 10 years.

Rand Paul mention of libertarians: No

Clint Eastwood mention of libertarians: Yes

11 comments:

  1. Rand should really think about chucking his strategy of making nice with the Republican Party establishment, and well, go rogue in the tradition of his father.

    Ron Paul supporters, which are Rand's natural base, left Tampa more PO'd with Romney and the party establishment than ever before because of their strong-arm tactics to muzzle Ron Paul supporters at the convention.

    Rand needs to appreciate that his main appeal has always been to people who are libertarian or lean libertarian (like Tea Party people), and these are people who want to see dramatic changes in the leadership of the party.

    At the same time, the neocons may be less hostile to Rand than they were to his father, but they are never, ever going to accept Rand as one of their own.

    Moreover, Romney is likely to lose to Obama. In-trade, put the odds of an Obama victory, post-convention, at 56-57%. If Romney loses this election, particularly in a landslide to Obama, the party establishment who backed Romney to the hilt will be discredited, and there will be many calls, not just from Ron Paul supporters, for heads to roll. Why stay aboard a sinking ship?

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    1. Unfortunately, Rand Paul does not have a sincere identity with the principles of liberty that Ron Paul has. Rand is just another ambitious power-seeker, just another pol, IMHO.

      If you want anyone close to a Ron Paul in the political world, you might look at Tom Woods (although he doesn't seem interested in entering politics) and Jacob Hornberger (who has run for the U.S. senate in 2002 and for President in 2000).

      Rand exploited his father's liberty movement and the Tea Party movement in general for the sake of his own personal ambition. People need to face that and move on. Brandon Smith has the right idea:

      http://www.alt-market.com/articles/1007-it-is-time-for-the-ron-paul-revolution-to-move-beyond-politics

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    2. Well, first, I see Rand as a player, but not a leader of the libertarian movement in the same way his father was. He hasn't paid his dues fighting for causes like his father did, and people don't have the necessary trust in him at this time. But having said that, I do think people should cut Rand some slack as he has been in office only since 2010 (as part of the Tea Party wave that year). I think he is getting bad advice from the people around him. He needs to appreciate the anti-establishment sentiment of his libertarian oriented base, and the fact that his base is pretty upset with how close he seems to have gotten with Romney and the Republican establishment.

      Regarding Tom Woods and Jacob Hornberger, I love their stuff, and if they were to pursue politics, they would seem to have potential to emerge as leaders of the libertarian movement. Woods in particular knows how to effectively argue a point and has excellent communication skills. He may not be interested, but he would be an excellent politician, and libertarians everywhere would rally around him I am sure.

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    3. Anonymous, as I recall, Ron Paul's principles of liberty motivated him in 2008 to support a party of Biblical dominionists after the end of his own campaign. Tom Woods is no better, being a fundie Catholic.

      You could do a lot worse than to regard both of them as dangerously deluded and criminalminded, as I have found ALL pious Christians to be. The best that we can hope from Ron P and TW is to inspire a revolt during which the shackles are thrown into the air, only to fall and to become fastened as they were before.

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  2. Why are we talking about Rand? The post is about Eastwood. I haven't seen so many queasy Republicans since Ron's last debate.
    Good for him. He made my day (Oh God, forgive me for that.)

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  3. Rand is a perfect example of how pervasive the collectivist mindset can be, even in liberty-minded people. Rather than treating him as an individual, people grouped him into a Paul category, along with the judgment that all Pauls are libertarians. If we did that, we wouldn't be wasting our time whining about his betrayal, just like we don't whine about the other 99 power-whores in the Senate.

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  4. Based on his speech, Eastwood should have voted for Ron Paul. Neocons don't want to close Gitmo or get out of Afghanistan.

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  5. It was the perfect opportunity for Rand to use that speech to spread some libertarian ideals. Nope he didn't. So much for cozying up to the establishment. When will he use his politicking skills and begin to spread libertarian ideas to the republican establishment? He is the establishment now! I was skeptical of Robert Wenzel's assumption of Rand at first, but I am now convinced. Keep up the good work, Robert.

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  6. Number of times Clint Eastwood proposed to cut military spending?

    0

    Number of times Clint Eastwood called Obamacare unconstitional?

    0

    Number of times Clint Eastwood commented on who built America?

    0

    This is a childish game. Even worse, it is deceptive. If you parse his words, it seems to me Eastwood endorsed keeping Guantanamo open, and on Afghanistan he was merely paraphrasing Mitt Romney (as he said himself) in claiming that if you're going to tell them when you plan to pull out, you might as well pull out now. Again, he didn't endorse a pull out. Rand's position on those issues is far less ambiguous.

    This site advertises itself as an economics site. It should stick to that. The heavy-handed and gratuitous political propaganda is not very well done. Nor is it even consistent as this site was touting Rand for Romney's VP not all that long ago.

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  7. Again, Rand shows he is better than Clint Eastwood.

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