Guest Blogger: Doriangrey

The following text and picture were forwarded to me by a liberal friend, which is why I suspect that this is not a Republican pulling a pre-primary havoc seeking operation. It’s a wee bit early for the full on sleaze of the Presidential Campaign Season, but then again, these games have been starting earlier and earlier every cycle. It’s all in there, a wildly slanderous ad hominem, sprinkle in a straw man argument, top it off with our favorite game, senile, crazy, evil, or stupid, and what we have here is the attempt to destroy a non establishment candidate even before he declares himself to be a candidate.

Subject: Complete Ass

His obvious implication is that Jews who died in the Holocaust were more deserving of their
fate than aborted fetuses.

This one bears some discussion, so I’ll preface his actual stated position, which follows in the video below, with some observations. It would seem that in the above mentioned game, the default description for Rand Paul in 2016 will be evil. His dad was labeled crazy, but that clearly will not fit for Rand. Stupid doesn’t work either, he is way too articulate for that. He’s too young for senile, so that leaves evil. One of the many reasons that my suspicions were raised immediately with this one was that this is not even Rand Paul’s position on the great abortion debate. Who ever put this together did not bother with even getting that lead premise correct. They could have easily gone with the whole cutting off of foreign aid stance, and used that to single Israel out as they had done in the past, and that would have made it easier to paint Paul as a Jew hater, but this bit of chicanery is just manifestly moronic right out of the gate. I wish to say here, that once called on it, the friend who forwarded this to me retracted, and sent emails to all concerned that the facts did not support this revelation. Three of us over the weekend attempted to research Rand Paul’s position on the abortion debate, and here was the only video that we could find in which he gives his position. The more astute of you will notice that it is not Fox News, but CNN and more specifically, Wolf Blitzer, not a Paul fan by any stretch of the imagination, where Rand Paul decides to articulate his stance.

After reading Paul’s position on the issue, and seeing this interview with Blitzer, I would characterize Paul’s position as this, and believe me it is that exact level of nuance that usually has many of us heated up.

1) He believes that life begins at conception, and wishes to enact legislation that bans all federal funding for the act. The caveat however is that he feels that any physician should be free to determine if an exception should be granted in each individual case, based upon the physician’s opinion in regards to the health of the mother, and that the decision of each physician should be final. In other words, make abortions illegal, unless a licensed doctor tells the woman she can have one.

2) He believes, and I agree with this by the way, that allowing this to be determined by our court system solely, without any actual way to settle the national debate by the constitutionally proscribed method was a mistake. This fight has been waged for 60 years now, and no resolution is in sight. It is a distraction that has pocked each election for the last half century, and Americans have never been able to voice their own opinions in the manner allowed by our constitutional republic, via the ballot box. The temporary solution administered by the Supreme Court is one that has been inflicted upon the people of this nation, and Paul suggests that the debate be settled in the manner that all such disputes be settled, via that vehicle that was bypassed.

There is no question that Rand Paul is running for President. Like all polished politicos, he realizes that he needs to have a position on every conceivable question that will come up during a national election. Hearkening back to the halcyon days of 2012, and remembering the Republican Debates moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, we were treated to 90 solid minutes, twice, spent solely on the topic of abortion. (If you possess an adult memory, you may recall that there were several dozen other issues of actual import at the time, like Islamic terrorism being completely ignored, a run away deficit, zero fiscal responsibility, unemployment continuing to be nearing depression levels, lack luster GDP growth, our embassies burning around the globe, etc.)

Paul realizes that he needs to at least sound pro life in order to win the GOP nomination, and he has found a way to do that and still hold onto his Libertarian beliefs. For this, I actually give him a lot of credit. My hope is that we won’t allow Gibson or Stephanopoulos to moderate debates in 2016, but you can rest assured that we’ll have at least one 90 minute special in which abortion is the only topic of conversation, to the complete exclusion of anything else that may have actual import for the American voting public.

Now, let’s get to the crux of the matter. Why would someone attempt to pass off this blatant fabrication as actual fact, and do so this early in the game? It is for this reason, and this reason alone. Rand Paul scares the hell out of the establishment, and they are correct to be terrified of him. Rand Paul may or may not win in 2016, I could not tell you at this stage of the game who’s candidacy has traction and who’s does not. I will tell you however, that if Rand Paul does win, he’ll decentralize federal power, and do so on a scale that will cause those institutional reign holders to literally wet their collective pants. Both Drs. Paul realized that the Libertarian Party had zero chance of being elected to national office, but a GOP bereft of leadership, that apparatus was pre-built, and ripe for the picking. Rand Paul has found a way to articulate the concept of individual freedom and liberty again, and do so in a way that attracts younger voters not seen since the days of Reagan. Freedom is cool again, and Rand Paul is passionate about his beliefs. He does have a legitimate shot, and the establishment who does not wish to see their private member’s only party end, will do what ever they feel they need to in order to keep their grip on those levers that our Constitution says should not exist in the first place. In their view, the end will justify the means, which they’ve already given us a glimpse of.

I don’t know at this early stage if Rand Paul is my guy or not, I also like Cruz, Rubio, Perry, Palin, Walker, and others, but I am in favor of decentralizing our federal behemoth. To that end, I say stand with Rand. I am not sure that I’ll agree with how soft he’s going to be on the topic of Islamic Terrorism. I am not for the infliction of the gold standard to alleviate the evils of fiat money by reintroducing the evils of a hard cap on wealth creation by limiting capital to a finite amount. I believe that we should force congress to take up the duties of coin, and while ending the fed would be a net benefit for our nation, tying that to the gold standard is economic folly of the most dangerous variety. Those are real issues that need to be hashed out, and not whether Rand Paul’s stance on abortion is more in line with the Republican or Libertarian brand.

By the way, that quote at the top really did come from someone, and it is not a political candidate, nor even a U.S. citizen. It is a New Zealand born Jewish convert to Christianity who became an evangelical preacher. He runs a church in California called the Living Waters Ministry. His name is Ray Comfort. So much for the assumption of Antisemitism.

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.