Friday, March 15, 2013

Rand Paul Has Peaked: He Speaks at CPAC

Sorry, Rand Paul fans, I'm calling it here. Rand Paul does not have what it takes to become president. He doesn't have what it takes to the lead the libertarian movement. He doesn't have what it takes to lead an elephant out of quick sand.

Most assuredly though, he is no hardcore libertarian.

Within one minute and forty seconds, he quoted the evil Abraham Lincoln. In just over five minutes into his speech, he glorified military warriors, who have fought in battles that did nothing but support the Empire. Within nine minutes, he called for ending foreign aid---but only mentioned Egypt. Within ten minutes, he called out the most absurd government spending, but said nothing about most government spending. Then he called for a 17% flat tax! A flat tax is just shuffling the tax burden on another line of the tax form. What we need is lower taxes, not taxes on different lines of tax forms.

Most of his speech was met with polite applause. That's all. It bombed. The stage was set for him and he failed.

Bottom Line: He has a terrible speech writer and delivers a terrible speech. He delivers a speech as though he is talking to an eye patient about different options for the treatment of cataracts, which is as exciting, as, well, cataract surgery.

Rand has peaked.

Here's his speech:

25 comments:

  1. But, but, TIME says he stole the show?

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  2. Saved locally to my hard drive for later proof that Wenzel is wrong.

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  3. Rand Paul's liberty is rhetorical, designed to consolidate a base in support of a possible presidential run. With Ron Paul never did it feel like he had an agenda other than liberty. If Ron Paul were talking about drones pointed at Americans and any other human being, you would hear the outrage, you would feel the sickening and appalling nature of a policy that grants one man such power. But Rand Paul's tone is mild. He starts off "it's not just about killing Americans on American soil...but whether presidential power has limits." That's not so much a critique of power as much as it is introducing his brand. That's a reference to himself: "I am your limited-power (not limited-government) president." He foregoes the outrage of drones (or missile delivery systems pointed at Americans and everybody else) and plants the limited-power theme. That message is tepid, flat. stale to libertarians who find power and lethal aggression appalling. And if this stage is the platform to launch a restoration of the GOP, even my conservative Republican friends would yawn. Republicans like a good argument, enjoy having their positions challenged. This speech sounded more like a lukewarm endorsement of power, through a make-believe Republican dialogue with a conjured Obama. Ron Paul doesn't have cutsie pretend talks. Ron Paul challenged, and continuees to do so, moral and economic convictions and reminds Americans and perhaps millions around the world that the old right of limited gov't and liberty were the truest principles of the country. This is what scared the GOP. Rand lacks idealogical principles, and that's coming through loud and clear. He's of the party of Lindsey Graham and John McCain, not of Ron Paul.

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  4. Although I understand and agree with the sentiment about lower taxes, there is one thing a flat tax does that is beneficial over the current system; it spreads the load to the bottom-feeders. If everyone has to pay taxes, then those who call for higher taxes would have to share the burden instead of pawning the expenses off on other people. We have a system now where very nearly 50% of the people can vote to tax the other 50% for their "benefits."

    Hopefully, in the long run, spreading the burden would lead to lower taxes.

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  5. Sometimes I think people lose sight of reality in these discussions.

    A single mother making $7.25 an hour who can barely make ends meet would have her taxes go up 17% under Rand Paul's plan.

    As politely as I can say it, there is NOTHING libertarian about that.

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    1. The reality is that this single mother's payroll taxes alone already add up to 15% of her wages. Some will argue that her taxes are only half that and the employer pays the other half, but that still makes the 7.25 an hour the employee is paid cost 7.79 an hour to the employer, possibly inhibiting him from paying her more or hiring more workers. Those taxes are part of the total labor costs that get added into the retail price of whatever she produces, so she's effectively taxed double for buying the very thing she makes at a retail outlet.

      For example, say she makes 1 coffee pot in an 8 hour day @ 7.25 an hour. She gets paid $58 gross minus $4.35 (7.5%) deducted for payroll taxes for a total of $53.65 That total $58 she made before taxes were taken out is part of the retail price of that coffee pot at the store as well as the $4.35 the employer paid to match her payroll taxes. So just for her part of the production chain, it would cost her $62.35 for what she only received $53.65, meaning she will have to pay that $8.70 a second time for an "effective" tax rate of 30%.

      That makes US made products that much more prohibitively expensive that these taxes can often exceed transportation costs of importing similar products made halfway around the world with cheaper labor.

      Those problems are not alleviated by Paul's proposal for most income/payroll taxes hit you 2x, when you get it and when you spend it. It gets even worse when sales taxes are added on top, adding insult to injury that you're now paying a tax on a (hidden) tax. That's why I do believe a single consumption or sales tax on all goods and services and getting rid of all income taxes, while certainly not perfect, may be a much better solution for it makes it that much harder for them to hide real tax rates and it would add the same imposed cost of our bloated government to the price of competing foreign products. It will also help shift some of the burden to the underground markets when untaxed income of such activities as prostitution or drugs is used to purchase goods and services in the regulated markets.

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    2. His plan exempts everyone making under 50K.

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    3. The plan exempts everyone making under 50K. So that single mom's taxes would go down!

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  6. "A flat tax is just shuffling the tax burden on another line of the tax form."

    Huh? You lost me there. Wouldn't a flat tax would make all the other lines on the tax form go away?

    The current system is the most insidious evil ever devised in that all those other lines are designed to collect information that is specifically used to influence behavior and curtail individual liberty, forcing you to supply the information that they will use against you. The only thing worse is excise taxes, like those on smokers which are given to anti-smoking orgs, forcing them to fund those prohibitionists who churn out propaganda calling for higher such taxes.

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  7. What a horrible speech. No mention of the Fed, no mention of the empire, no mention of the IRS, no mention of the drug war, no mention of specific cuts (except the Dept. of Education and a flat tax? WTF). Instead, he complains about a 3 million dollar study of monkeys on meth. Yet, the members of the libertarian peanut gallery are wetting their panties over 2016.

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  8. I personally think Rand is a logical step for the movement, a libertarian isn't going to win an election yet. Why not move closer to the goals then stay with the status quo? I'm all for a libertarian/anarchist president, but the reality is most people aren't. So until the movement reaches a broader appeal, I'd take Rand over any other clowns that are so called favorites.

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    1. "Why not move closer to the goals then stay with the status quo?"

      I believe you meant "than" (meaning, as opposed to) rather than "then" (meaning, what happens next) because otherwise, you're agreeing with the criticism. Rand Paul is to "move closer to the goals" with patronizing, empty rhetoric, then we still get stuck with the status quo, but now a bunch of gullible "liberty movement" people are even more entrenched into the state.

      I don't think a libertarian/anarchist president 1) makes sense 2) would be a good thing. The smart people knew the only option was to destroy the ring, not make sure the right person had it to wield it for the "right" purposes (LOTR ref). "Power corrupts" is still a rule I'm not sure has ever been convincingly contradicted in history. Ron Paul is not an exception to that rule. Ron Paul never had power. I know he's uniquely principled in the history of American politics, so I'd like to think he'd stay true with power, but that was never put to the test, and the entirity of human history puts the odds pretty bad against him.

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    2. Should we resign ourselves to waiting for collapse? I think collapse brings on more despotic government. So I'm not sure what ideals we should apply our efforts to, if its not at least working toward the goals we seek, which if I read you correctly, is a free society ala Ron Paul.

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    3. I don't think collapse is necessarily the only way out. But I do believe that trying to reform the State is pointless. Rather, I think our way out is through technology. Eventually, people will be able to trade anonymously, thereby starving the State until it falls off humanity like a starved tumor. So let's promote the emerging liberating technologies like 3D printing, BitCoin, large scale ad hoc networks, DYI drones, etc. Also important is the food freedom movement and small-scale farming. And don't forget seasteading.

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  10. First of all, thanks to Robert Wenzel for constantly holdly Rand Paul accountable. My sentiments exactly.

    Secondly, Rand Paul is the likely GOP nominee for president in 2016; he has not peaked. In fact he will balloon up much, much bigger.

    If just a few more neocons die in retirement communities in South Carolina, Iowa, and New Hampshire, Rand Paul will be on the way to the 2016 GOP nomination.

    And not only that, besides Chris Christie who thankfully can never get nominated, Rand Paul is the most electable Republican in the race and he is even money or better to beat Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat.

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  11. Rand Paul speaks at CAPC - in training to roll over and play dead...

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  12. I don't think Rand will be the nominee simply because people will be sick of him by then. He's peaking too early, just like Rudy G going into '08. It's also true that he's not good at public speaking. One of Ron Paul's biggest self-criticisms was that he didn't do a good enough job delivering the message of liberty. If that's even a little bit true for Ron, it's 10x more-so for Rand. His speeches are always flat, boring, and uninspiring.

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    1. What kind of a public speaker was Eisenhower, US president from 1953-1961?

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  13. Rand Paul says he's not a libertarian. Let's stop calling him one.

    http://www.dailypaul.com/136246/rand-paul-im-not-a-libertarian

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  14. I agree the speech wasn't that great. It could have been better. But he certainly has not peaked. Republican constituents, especially the young, are extremely excited about him.

    Here is the full result of the CPAC straw poll:
    http://media.washtimes.com/media/misc/2013/03/16/cpac-straw-poll-2013-results.pdf

    Pay particular attention to:
    1) [pg. 5]: 52% of people that showed up this year were ages 18-24
    2) [pg. 7]: 77% say their most important goal is to "promote individual freedom by reducing the size and scope of government and its intrusion into the lives of citizens" over the other options of promoting traditional values (i.e. marriage, right to life) and keeping America safe no matter how big government gets.
    3) [pg. 11]: 50% agree with being less interventionist overseas and giving a bigger role to our allies
    4) [pg. 12]: 86% oppose drones killing US citizens and 70% oppose them spying on US citizens
    5) [pg. 13]: The most important - Rand Paul is #1 as the favored nominee, with 25% of the vote.

    -Bharat

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  15. Ran Paul is not a libertarian but does have some libertarian leanings. That said he is not as libertarian as his father, but he seems to be more minded to taking smaller steps to moving the country to liberty. He's not an anarcho capitalist. But when you look at the grand scheme of things he is trying to change the direction of the Republican party which has essentially been a military minded Democrat.

    Over all he is trying to change the direction even if it is not as much as I would like. He is at least someone I think libertarians can talk to and work with.

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