Rand Paul threatens to take his toys and go home

[marmar]

from the NY Times:



At a news conference on Thursday, Rand Paul was asked whether he planned to attend a debate Monday with Jack Conway, his Democratic challenger in this increasingly nasty Senate campaign.

Mr. Paul had been so livid over a Conway television commercial, which he says “questions my faith,” that he threatened to boycott the debate. And before answering the debate question, he spent several minutes criticizing the commercial itself.

Finally, he said he was still mulling whether to attend the debate and would announce his decision on Friday. On Friday, he said that he would indeed attend, but opened his announcement by saying, “I continue to be astounded that Jack Conway thinks it is appropriate to attack my pro-life Christian faith and by inference my family.”

Even as Mr. Paul denounces the commercial, he is extending its life. He may be distorting its words — it does not mention abortion or Mr. Paul’s religion or his family — but he has in effect hijacked it to defend himself, raise money and fire up his base. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/us/politics/23kentucky.html?_r=1&hp

[mwb970]

1. Like most right-wingers, Paul reminds me of a squalling child.

Today's conservatives act exactly like third-graders squabbling on the playground ("Waaaa! It's not fair!"), except when they act like infants. Combined with their child's-eye view of such matters as religion, science, and foreign policy, this makes dealing with republicans remarkably similar to running a day-care center for children with personality disorders.

[Flubadubya]

2. It all relates back to their inglorious sense of entitlement...

How dare anyone question anything I do or say? Everyone should already know what a righteous pillar of society I am and have no right to question anything about me!

They act as if they are insulted to the core that anyone would want to know where they stand on an issue or anything about their personal lives. All their BS is to be accepted without question because they are soooo much better than you. :puke:

[mwb970]

3. My niece acted like a conservative when she was 5.

Now she's 17 and has become a mature, considerate person. Why can't republicans grow up like she did? Is it a case of arrested development? Has something stunted their emotional growth?

:shrug:

[barbtries]

15. good questions

i vote yes to the latter.

[Liberal Insights]

6. Libertarians are anti-Christian BY DEFINITION !

Any "Libertarian" who takes the teaching of the guru of American libertarianism, Ayn Rand, seriously, and Ron and Rand Paul certainly do is diametrically opposed to the heart and soul of the teaching of Jesus Christ, as I show at great length at my new web page
http://atheistic-conservatism.com

Ask any true believing Libertarian who isn't a politician who needs to fool Christians in order to get their votes, and he will tell you that Ayn Rand was right to dissuade the billions of people of identify with the teaching of Jesus and the rest of the bible. Jesus summed up that teaching in the two precepts:
"Love God above all else, and Love your fellow man as much as you love yourself".

and Ayn Rand took on both those principles head on, as when she said for example:
"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that
I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for me."
"I have come here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life,
it had to be said. the world is perishing from an orgy of self sacrifice."
I can respect anybody who chooses to believe as Arn Rand does, and to live accordingly. But I DON'T have such respect for politicians like Rand who ask for the votes of people who believe in the teaching of Jesus Christ by telling them that they, like them, are a "Christians".

If you would like to help expose Paul and people like Pat Toomey in PA, then send a note with the link above to the campaigns of their opponents, i.e.
[e-mail] & [e-mail] & to media people like Rachel Maddow [e-mail].

[surrealAmerican]

8. This just means that their libertarian faith is no more "pure" ...

... than their christian faith. They pick and choose what they agree with from both sources, and ignore the rest.

Welcome to DU.

[Liberal Insights]

11. You can mix and match at a salad bar, but

how do you mix and match fire and water?

If what you mean is that libertarian politicians want to mix the NAME Christians use, with their anti-Christian PHILOSOPHY, then I agree with you.

But don't you agree that this game of theirs needs to be recognized and EXPOSED, so that Christian voters know what they are voting for?

[surrealAmerican]

12. They are no more serious about being libertarians ...

... than they are about being christians. All they want is more money and power for themselves. Any "philosophy" they claim to subscribe to is only a convenient cover for their greed.

They look quite as despicable to non-christian voters as they do to christian voters.

[Liberal Insights]

13. There's no comparison between the two.

So, surrealAmerican, you think Rand is trying to win over all of Kentucky's 13 or so Libertarian voters by only PRETENDING to believe what they believe, the same way he is trying to deceive the millions Kentucky's conservative Christian voters by only PRETENDING to believe what they believe?

Far from Rand "claiming to subscribe to (Libertarianism as) a convenient cover for their greed". Libertarians proudly proclaim their belief as JUSTIFICATION for their greed.
As ñ John Kenneth Galbraith said so well many years ago

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. "

[surrealAmerican]

19. Just because Rand Paul thinks he's a "good" libertarian ...

... doesn't mean he is (not that it would be a good thing if he were - libertarianism is a completely unworkable system). I don't see how anybody who really was a libertarian could want to ban same-sex marriage, for example.

There are also far more people who identify with libertarians than you assume. If you've been listening to those who call themselves the tea party, you'd see that it is a predominantly libertarian group.

[femrap]

16. Ron Paul....papa....

who was an ob/gyn is vehemently anti-choice. And he has seen what happens when abortion is illegal. Libertarian males want women under their thumbs.

Freedom is only for the males. Libertarians are selfish.

[JohnnyLib2]

4. From KY -- I'm really glad to see this article.

He definitely has taken this and run with it.
Beyond that, we've received two dark, grim, photo heavy anti-Conway mailers this week from Crossroads. One distorts the record on Conway's efforts with drug law enforcement. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

[LonePirate]

5. Oh the hypocrisy of a right-wing nut job being outraged when someone questions his religion

Someone needs to ask Paul if he thinks our President is a Muslim. That should put his "outrage" into perspective.

[pinboy3niner]

17. It's poutrage--just an excuse to attack Conway as anti-Christian

And Paul's milking this for all it's worth.

[gratuitous]

7. Oh noes! Will Rand "go Galt"? How will we survive?

I note that the self-certified ophthalmologist, for all his high dudgeon, still hasn't quite gotten around to denying that the incident ever took place. I'm sure he's a busy guy and everything, but in all his blathering, you'd think he would get to the point of saying that the incident is a complete fabrication. The average voter can be forgiven, I think, for drawing the conclusion that maybe it did happen.

[Marr]

9. Bless his heart.© I'll pray for him.©

[tjwash]

10. Yeah whatever...he's served his purpose, I'm sure he'll be rewarded handsomely.

I'm sure he is getting nice fat check direct-deposited in his bank account from the Coen brothers.

Just when the dems were sweating about how they explain away to their base about their blatent boosting of the status-quo, blatant pandering to the military-industrial complex, and feeding at the megacorp trough just like the repugs are, Rand Paul and the rest of the corporate sponsored teabaggers show up just in the nick of time to out crazy everyone.

The corporate sponsored teabag party is the dems wet dream...Conway was on NPR a couple of days ago touting his platform of extending the Bush-era tax cuts, and "supporting the troops" (code for keep them in the middle east securing the oil fields indefinitely). Pretty fucking sad that what is a neo-con platform, is now being run loudly and proudly by a supposed dem, and the teabaggers have successfully made this Joe Lieberman style regressive crap seem sane by comparison.

We are being jobbed...not given jobs.

[glinda]

14. Don't forget the silly putty.

[bluestateguy]

18. I do not normally endorse making a thing out of someone's religion

But I have also had to sit through 3 years of President Obama's enemies accusing him of being an atheist, a Muslim, the anti-Christ and persistent barbs about Rev. Wright.

At what point is it OK to respond in kind?

[intaglio]

20. But surely a self certified opthalmologist would be

immune to such things