print“Rand Paul: Action Hero, Or Political Performance Artist?” is the current column, now on WND. Here’s an excerpt:
“Rand Paul is front-and-center in mainstream media, showing what some call ‘leadership.’ Not a week goes by when the son of Ron Paul—the legendary libertarian legislator from Texas—is not introducing one Act or another, ostensibly to lighten the incubus of government.
This week it’s the REINS Act (‘Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2013’). Last week it was the ‘Sequester Alternative Plan.’
I like the Senator from Kentucky’s energy. The question is: Is this political Brownian motion—the case of activity substituting for achievement—or real Randian energy in furtherance of liberty? …
… Rand Paul’s latest political song and dance saw the senator return $600,000 in savings, accrued in the course of running a cost-efficient office, to the US Treasury, where it does not belong.
The savings belong to taxpayers. Stolen goods stuffed down the maw of the federal beast will disappear without trace. For all we know, and given the fact of fungibility, these savings could be diverted into the domestic drone program.
Yes, Sen. Paul followed legal protocol in returning taxpayer property to the Treasury. However, the positive man-made law is not a libertarian loadstar. From the son of Ron more is expected.
But should this be the case? Perhaps Rand Paul deserves a break.
All too familiar is the libertarian type that has nothing to say about policy and politics for fear of compromising theoretical purity. Suspended as he is in the arid arena of pure thought, this specimen has opted to live in perpetual sin: the sin of abstraction.
The ‘ideal of liberty,’ philosopher-pundit Jack Kerwick has urged, must be ‘brought down from the clouds to the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged.’
But should the command to lead an earthbound existence push us into political compromises? …”
The complete column is “Rand Paul: Action Hero, Or Political Performance Artist?” Read it on WND.
If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION, AND DO BATTLE FOR LIBERTY BY:
• Using the content-sharing icons on Barely a Blog posts.
• At the WND and RT Comments Sections, and on Facebook.
• By clicking to “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” WND’s “Return To Reason” , and RT’s “Paleolibertarian Column.”
UPDATE (Marc 1): “On the heels of Barack Obama’s Las Vegas run-on ramble on the necessity of immigration ‘reform,’ this week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced that he too had ‘evolved’ overnight on the issue. “I’m … open-minded enough to say that it is an issue that we do need to evolve on,” the senator vaporized.”
The Republicans found religion on immigration, and so did Rand Paul “evolve” along with them.