Tuesday, February 22, 2011

New Rand Paul Book

Rand Paul is out with a new book, The Tea Party Goes to Washington. Tom Woods reviews the book here.

For those critics of Rand, who have charged he is not enough of an isolationist, there are encouraging words from Woods, who certainly can be classified as an isolationist:
The foreign-policy chapter, the book’s longest, is also its best and boldest. Rand dismisses the fourth-grade propaganda fed to the American public in the name of the War on Terror, citing and quoting at length from figures on his father’s recommended reading list for Rudy Giuliani. He has no patience for the messianic rhetoric by which the Iraq War was sold, and argues that the neoconservative foreign-policy program is not conservative at all. That may not be news to readers of this site, but when was the last time we heard such a thing from a U.S. senator who has the ear of much of the right-leaning public?
According to Woods, the book also provides insight into the Republican establishments early attempts to stop Paul:
I found Rand’s discussion of his campaign for the Republican nomination interesting and revealing. I did not realize the full extent to which the Republican establishment initially shut him out—at least until it became obvious he was a winner, at which point many of them couldn’t hop onto the bandwagon fast enough.

2 comments:

  1. How is that isolationist in any way?

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  2. Although the terms are similar in meaning, I think libertarians prefer the word "non-interventionist" over "isolationist" as they aren't advocating restrictions on trade and travel.

    Isolationist sounds so cold and lonely. We just want to stop the exporting of taxpayer money and war.

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