"Bluffed, Baffled and Bewildered: How Rand Paul Bilked Berkeley"

[applegrove]

Bluffed, Baffled and Bewildered: How Rand Paul Bilked Berkeley
by Peter Watts at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-watts/bluffed-baffled-rand-paul-berkeley_b_5000062.html

"SNIP....................


Lions on Leashes

First of all, the audience was tightly controlled. Paul set a clear title for his Berkeley appearance and it was calibrated to the interests of the audience: privacy. He could pretty much guarantee that so long as he kept to the prepared script, the audience would keep a respectful silence. The problems were always going to come with the Q&A.

When we got to the questions however, what did we get? Pre-selected (for which read "heavily vetted&quot questions. There was nothing there to open up any embarrassing civil-liberties type areas. Indeed, several of the questions were directly chosen to enable the speaker to polish-up his credentials.

Millennial Momentum

Millennials are deeply suspicious of state authority. Paul's chosen topic offered perfect synchronization. Throw in frequent references to cellphones, the web and the threat posed by a snooping government, and rapt attention was guaranteed. Rand Paul is a clever and thoughtful speaker. His isolation of this one particular aspect of Libertarian belief was where he and his audience would overlap. The audience were enthralled. So much so that they didn't notice the giant logical chasm -- and opportunity -- that Paul was delicately tip-toeing around.

"What you do on your cellphone is none of their damned business"

This line was used twice, and to applause each time. Rand Paul passionately believes that nobody, just nobody, has the right to interfere with you and your phone.




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[okaawhatever]

1. I hope these voters are paying attention. Maybe they should have asked why we pay more for our

phone/internet in this country and have much slower service than other countries.

[Jamaal510]

2. All I got from this was:

"What you do on your cellphone is none of the government's damned business...but reproductive rights is a different story."