Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Breaking: A Rand Paul Speech the Neocons Will Love

Grace Wyler at Business Insider, who traveled to Israel with Rand Paul,  is reporting details on a speech billed as major foreign policy speech that Rand plans to deliver today at the Heritage Foundation.

The excerpts published by Wyler suggest that the speech, rather than being a straight forward speech detailing what type of direction Rand believes the country should go in, is a sing-song back and forth attempt to obfuscate Rand's foreign policy positions rather than to make them clear.

Here's one excerpt that Wyler publishes:
What the United States needs now is a policy that finds a middle path. A policy that is not rash or reckless. A foreign policy that is reluctant, restrained by Constitutional checks and balances but does not appease. A foreign policy that recognizes the danger of radical Islam but also the inherent weaknesses of radical Islam. A foreign policy that recognizes the danger of bombing countries on what they might someday do...A policy that understands the 'distinction between vital and peripheral interests.
A middle path? What the hell is a middle path, we are either interfering in the affairs of other countries or not. Note, Rand is not saying that such a path should be limited to diplomacy,

He says the US should be "reluctant and restrained," but that we should "not appease." Sounds like the meddling is on, especially in favor of Rand's new favorite concern, America's 51st state. Here's the real kicker that will seal the deal for neocons. He is calling for:
A policy that understands the 'distinction between vital and peripheral interests.'
Wyler does note:

Paul will stop short of going full neocon, calling instead for a "middle path"[...]What that "middle path" would look like, however, remains unclear. Paul will stop short of offering any specific foreign policy proposals, and avoid answering questions about his own vision for the U.S. role in the world.
Got that? A foreign policy speech that does not, as Wyler puts it, offer "any specific foreign policy proposals." Outside, of course, protecting "vital interests."


Somewhere in some back room, Bill Kristol is smiling.

Rand calls all this
"restoring the Founders' vision of foreign policy." 

7 comments:

  1. If you want to get elected in the short-run and you can't win by stating your position, obfuscating is the right thing to do.

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  2. I have to be honest, I have believed that the American people were completely ignorant, and dumb as dirt for 45 years. People want to believe in someone, then with their desperate need to live in denial, we end up with the likes of Obama, G. W. Bush, Clinton, Bush Senior, and Ronald Reagan. Each one doing their best to march us left, right, left, right into a corporate authoritarian police state.

    Rand Paul's followers want to believe he is going to march in the giant footsteps of Ronald Reagan, God Help Us All.

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  3. You must walk before you can run. First, we must get the public deprogrammed and willing to discuss a sensible foreign policy. I like Rand, he is his father's son, but understands that change starts in the mind.

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    1. God, does the gullibility with you people never end?

      You would be able to find an excuse if Rand Paul came out selling his children.

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  4. I'm torn on Rand. It's clear he's not as radical as his father, but at Anon@10:33am points out, we must walk before we run. The masses still support rampant interventionism in principle, if not always in practice. If we can get enough of them half way to our side, the rest of the way to the liberty position is a pretty easy sell.

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  5. its neither fish nor fowl but it will go down very well with assorted merchants of death, likudniks, eastern establishment types, etc.

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