Friday, February 15, 2013

"Rand Paul Permanently Damaged"

That's the opinion of Daniel Larison in a blog post titled, Hagel Temporarily Blocked, Paul Permanently Damaged (my highlights)
The attempt to invoke cloture this afternoon on the debate over Hagel’s nomination failed 58-40 (with the majority leader voting no in order to be able to reconsider the motion at a later time). When Hagel’s name was first floated as a possible nominee, I thought it would have been extraordinary if half that many Republicans opposed him, but I underestimated the degree to which most Senate Republicans remain bound to their party’s disastrous foreign policy record from the last decade.[...]


The most disappointing vote was Rand Paul’s decision to vote no. It was bad enough that Sen. Paul chose to side with the people who loathe the foreign policy of restraint he was describing last week, but what made it even worse is that a yes vote from Paul would have concluded this drawn-out farce of a confirmation process and allowed the Senate to vote on the nomination itself. Four other Republicans voted for cloture, and none of them had just given a speech outlining an argument for a “more restrained foreign policy.” If any Republican in the Senate should have rejected the extraordinary filibuster of a Cabinet nominee, it ought to have been Paul.

Sen. Paul could have been the deciding vote to clear the way for Hagel’s confirmation, but instead he opted to vote the other way, and the justification he gave may have been the worst of all. If Paul had some irreconcilable disagreement with Hagel on principle or policy, it would have at least made sense to vote as he did. Instead, Paul endorsed one of the worst, least credible anti-Hagel arguments of all, which is essentially the Ted Cruz argument that Hagel needs to “prove” that he is not in league with foreign governments or sympathetic with terrorists. If he ended up voting yes on the nomination, Paul could repair some of the damage with antiwar conservatives and libertarians, and he could make good on his claim to being a realist, but most of the damage will likely be permanent.

I should add that it isn’t just the Hagel vote that has alienated Sen. Paul’s potential supporters. Sen. Paul has voted for cruel, ineffective Iran sanctions, and a lot of antiwar conservatives were willing to cut him some slack on the grounds that he was still opposed to war with Iran. He offered an entirely unnecessary security guarantee to Israel, and many of his potential supporters were still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Voting to block Hagel was the final straw for a lot of people, but it’s important to understand that this reaction is not limited to dissatisfaction with today’s vote. The decision to vote with his party to block Hagel is part of a pattern of bad calls that Sen. Paul has made in recent months, and in each of these he has ended up siding with people who hate restraint and prudence in foreign policy and who also hate Hagel because he represented some measure of both.

31 comments:

  1. Speaking of Rand Paul. Peter Schiff asked him earlier in the week what he thought about Marco Rubio's statements after Obama state of the union address. Rand said something along the lines of "he made some good points" PAUSE... and then onto the next subject. Rand Paul doesn't want to say anything that might bite him in the ass in 2016. After all, he would probably be more than happy to be Rubio's VP pick.

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    1. instead of screaming at rand paul, some of these arm chair writers should run for senate and house.

      lets see what they got.

      And Juslen, i looked at your profile. if you are so capable as you claim to be, why dont you run for Senate and prove Rand Paul wrong.

      I am not Rand Paul supporter anymore, but I do see your hypocrisy.

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    2. Kumar, are you aware of the fact that most of us that comment here are anarchist? We don't run for congress because we don't believe that will solve anything. We don't believe we can change government. We want to abolish it.

      Would you have asked Lysander Spooner why he didn't become a slave owner and do it better than the slave owners he criticized?

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    3. Has it occurred to you, Kumar, that some of us are anarchists? Let me spell out what that means. We don't believe in political solutions and, thus, running for office would run against our principles. Does that mean we are not allowed to criticize Rand for leading a life of coercion? I think not.

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    4. i am not anarchist.

      how will you persuade 200+ governments around the world to abolish themselves. not in a 1000 years.

      you want to leave statist dystopia and go back to stone age anarchist dystopia, where massacre for fertile women and food is commonplace?

      anarchism is the evil twin of totalitarianism. you always need minimum govt to protect life and property. cops, firefighters, military, treasury, judiciary, foreign affairs.

      other than that i agree with you. abolish 90% of federal govt today, and i'll be happy.

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    5. to Ed Ucation:

      "criticize Rand for leading a life of coercion"

      where are your priorities? Is Rand Paul the most coercive Senator out of 100?

      Shouldnt you be focusing your ire on McCain, Graham, Rubio...

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    6. "minimum govt to protect life"

      Pick one; you don't get both.

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    7. Kumar, you sound like you've never even study the topic of anarchism (the anarcho-capitalist brand, that is). Please do so you can at least put forth an actual argument against it.

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    8. i am not anarchist. "

      It is YOUR problem if you don't see an inherent logical contradiction in your beliefs in a "minimal" state.

      People who believe in some government will never have a good, rational argument against big government. Your opinion on where government should be limited will always be purely subjective and therefor as irrelevant as the opinion of a socialist, because just like the socialist you still believe in the monopoly of aggressive force and state power.

      Why should 90% be abolished, but not the 10%? What proper argument do you have for that? Why is government NOT allowed to impose force on you for education or endowment of the arts, but IS allowed to impose force on me for police, firefighter or army monopoly?
      Your belief rests on extreme hypocrisy; NOT juslen's comments.
      And by the way, that LAPD is sure doing a good job "protecting life" when they turned a car with two innocent women into Swiss cheese, isn't it?

      You also prop up the fallacy that there would be no rules and laws in anarchist society. Typical of a statist to prop up such tired ignorance or lies.

      But never mind that. WE ARE anarchists, and therefor will criticize Rand Paul whenever we feel like, without you making any point with your Tu Quoque fallacy nonsense about needing to do a better job than him.

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    9. life does not run on logic or reason alone. Life is much more complex. to hold all life hostage to reason means to live under tyranny of reason.

      i dont want to offend, but your rants are foolish.

      not in a 1000 years will anarchists achieve their Eden.

      may be on a small island somewhere in pacific, but even that is doubtful.

      this ideological boxing between "statism" and "anarchism" is just a huge time sink with absolutely no value to how humans actually behave.

      it is the ultimate foolishness to dabble in such theories, unless you have inherited a fortune and nothing else to do in life.

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  2. Hagel is in favor of bringing back the draft. That's a show stopper right there.

    I fail to see how nominating him is anti-war.

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    1. hagel voted for iraq war. hagel is a globalist who wants more powers for IMF, World Bank, BIS, and UN.

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    2. yes, sure is but since the War party hate and despise him and he will ask a few inconvenient questions now and again, he sounds better than some of the other cretins out there.

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  3. Bryan Doherty, probably the only author worth a damn at Reason.com, also talked about this.

    Take a look at the comment section. THAT is why Rand Paul needs to be taken down again and again. These people present themselves as libertarians, but just come off like a bunch of Republican cheerleaders who adopted the label "libertarian" because it was hip.

    One even goes so far as to say that he can't understand why anyone would NOT see the Iraq War as a "major pro-liberty policy".

    I get the feeling the actual libertarians that were once there in the comment section got disgusted and just left.

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  4. Rand Paul has just shown once again that he is not the irretrievably incompetent fool in foreign policy that his father is.

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    1. That's it, keep living the fantasy Phil. Man....it's amazing how people want to hold onto government as if it were God.

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  5. So voting to block the appointment of chuck hagel (a foreign policy interventionist, pro-war dem, who voted FOR the Irag war and is in favor a national draft) damages Paul's reputation? Please explain.

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    1. It's because of his reasons for voting no. The article spelled that out. Nobody would've cared if he voted no because he thought Hagel was an interventionist. Hell, he voted no on anti-war principles I would've gave him props, but that ain't what happened.

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    2. Since Rand Paul is in the senate, maybe you can tell him which guy would actually be better as pick.

      Wouldn't surprise me if Rand would prefer a Zionist warmonger over Hagel, just because the Zionist warmonger is playing on Team R. After all, Rand endorsed Romney.

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  6. What else will it take to open the eyes of fellow libertarians that Rand is not one of us. I dont buy into this "realist" crap or that he's trying to "fool" the establishment.

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  7. Sen. Paul could have been the deciding vote to clear the way for Hagel’s confirmation, but instead he opted to vote the other way. ! Thank God!

    During the Bush administration, Hagel maintained a "traditionally Republican" voting record, receiving "a lifetime rating of 84 percent from the American Conservative Union

    Hagel also voted for Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, McCain-Feingold, the Iraq War, Senate Joint Resolution 23 authorizing “necessary and appropriate U.S. Military force” in Afghanistan, and supports NATO involvement, and funding in the War in Afghanistan

    Hagel voted to establish the United States Department of Homeland Security, and supported increasing Defense Department spending, voting in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act every year he served in the Senate

    So why you such a big fan of Hagel/George Bush???

    This is a smart move by Paul to distance himself from Bush fascist/republicans

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    1. I think the conventional wisdom is that the Republicans blocked Hagel because he was insufficiently neoconservative, and didn't tow bush's line enough. That's actually what McCain stated about him as well. I don't know how he's distancing himself from them by voting lock step with them...

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    2. "So why you such a big fan of Hagel/George Bush???"

      Straw man.
      The question is not if Chuck Hagel is good (he isn't).
      The question is if there is anyone better, that both Democrats and Neocon warmongers would prefer.

      According to neocons, Hagel isn't Zionist and warmonger ENOUGH. One can only guess what kind of man they would want to see instead of Hagel.

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  8. I'm in favor of filibustering all nominees, at all times. I'm also in favor of filibustering almost everything they come up with.

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  9. I was under the impression that the cloture vote was about getting more info on Ben Gazi.

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  10. Rand Paul is finished.

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  11. I dont know why we're still discussing Rand People . How many lives does this guy have . He should have been pronounced dead to us when he endorsed Mitt Romney for president . I dont understand why he should get credit for having Ron Pauls bloodline . We're all related in an anthropological sense yet the diversity of the political bend of the worlds population could not be greater .

    As for Kumar , you obviously dont know jack about economics . Why do you believe in market efficiency and effectiveness for certain industries but not for the military / firemen / judiciary etc ? Its funny , you're legitimizing some of the worst performing and most destructive government institutions . I'd rather the government have a monopoly on the textile industry than be allowed to have a military . Mass murder is something even you must admit is immoral .

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  12. Rand Paul is like the Titanic, he tragically has a rudder that is insufficient to steer him out of harm's way. Although in his case the rudder he lacks is not made of iron, but of the lack of core beliefs that his father appears at times to possess. Rand's rudder is a weak and feeble instrument that was cleaved by the desire to appease the Christian Zionist of Republican Party, and at the same time be lukewarm to the Libertarians who put him in office.

    To libertarians and those who love liberty, I say, spit this Neocon errand boy out.

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  13. Hagel voted to create the Department of Homeland Security. EPJ supports that I that it. Ron Paul already denounces Hagel and now Rand has voted against him.

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