About Rand Paul
Several months ago TIME had him on the cover as "The Most Interesting Man in Politics."
Thus with windchill around -20 I decided to read it.
First, his name is Randal Howard. Thus one wonders whether this name was given with a plan to shorten it to (Ayn) Rand..
The article is a collection of quotes with which many DUers would agree.
- If you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you.
- If judgement is based on spending and the budget, then Bill Clinton should be considered preferable to Bush.
- The Republican Party will adapt, evolve, or die.
- If I told you that 1 out of 3 African American males is forbidden by law from voting, you might think I was talking about Jim Crow.
- We should not have drug laws or a court system that disproportionately punished the black community.
- Your rights, especially your rights to privacy, are under assault.
- You wonder why the Republican Party is so small. Why don't we be the people who are for voting and voting rights.
- I am honestly worried- concerned about who is truly in charge of our government.
- I will end with my dad's best quote: freedom is popular, bring it on.
- The Bill of Rights is for those who are unpopular.
In his speeches, he mentioned slavery, Japanese-American internment and America's history of anti-Semitism. He even mentioned Richard Jewell, who was falsely accused of the Atlanta bombing during the Olympics because he lived "introverted life."
He wants "freaks and geeks" in the Republican party. The party has to look like the rest of America.
After Ferguson shooting, he called for demilitarizing police and said race clearly skews the application of criminal justice.
He supports giving legal work status (and eventually citizenship) to undocumented immigrants as long as the border is secured.
(Mis)quoted Samuel Adams: It does not take a majority to prevail; it takes an irate, tireless minority keen on setting brush fires of the mind.
Opposing training foreign ground troops in Syria: What we need is someone to shout: war, war what are we fighting for.
He came to Washington as a teabagger, wanting major cuts of the budget, effectively shutting down departments of Education, Energy and and Housing. Now he says: We should not cut one penny from the safety net until we eliminate every penny of corporate welfare.
And he traveled to Ferguson to meet with leaders of NAACP and the Urban League. (I think that this was before the grand jury verdict).
All these are nice quotes. However, when asked to expand, he has hard time about explaining what he really thinks. I don't think that he has an idea of what it takes to govern, what it takes to coordinate the works of all the departments.
As the says goes: "talk is cheap." I suspect that if he does decide to run, pundits and rivals will shred him to pieces.
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