Rand Paul: Dueling is as precious a white man's right as the ability to own negroes. http://t.co/OkW4fCj5Yk 19th century libertarianism.
— billmon (@billmon1) November 3, 2013
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Bill E Pilgrim says:
November 3, 2013 at 8:21 pm (Edit)@gogol’s wife: It’s even funnier because it turns out his statement about wishing he could duel her was lifted verbatim from a John Wayne movie.
In other GOP idiocy, Dubya’s Skeletor Michael Chertoff, co-author of the PATRIOT Act, is shocked and offended that we groundlings dare to tattle about — even mock! — Our Betters:
…[I]t is striking that two recent news stories illustrate a less-debated threat to privacy that we as a society are inflicting on ourselves. Last week, a passenger on an Acela train decided to tweet in real time his summary of an overheard phone conversation by Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA (and my current business partner). The same day, a photo was published of Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler at a summer party where he was surrounded by underage youths who apparently were drinking…
The ubiquitousness of recording devices — coupled with the ability everyone has to broadcast indiscriminately through Twitter, YouTube and other online platforms — means that virtually every act or utterance outside one’s own home (or, in Gansler’s case, inside a private home) is subject to being massively publicized. And because these outlets bypass any editorial review, there is no assurance that what is disseminated has context or news value…
There has been exaggerated talk about whether the government intelligence community could create a police state. But the true horror of the East German Stasi or the Maoist Red Guard was the encouragement of informants — private citizens reporting on other private citizens and even family members. No police agency could be omniscient. The oppressiveness of those police states came from the fear every citizen had that another citizen would disclose deviations from the party line…
Yes, Homeland Security’s own former “See something, say something” czar wants us non-intelligence-community citzens to sit down, shut up, and pretend we don’t see the authorized informants at work. You’d think that even if he’d never read any history, he’d at least have watched Downton Abbey!
J
Hilarious to see a present day Republican pretending that his sacred honor impugned. To know what honor is it’s necessary to be capable of feeling shame–the utterly shameless need not apply
Spaghetti Lee
We really need to get cracking on that time machine so we can send Rand and his ilk back to the 1820’s, where they’d be much happier. Hopefully one of those alternate-stream-creating time machines so they don’t fuck up our present once they get there.
hildebrand
Maddow really gets under the skin of the Paul clan, does she not? She obviously represents every last thing that frightens Paul the younger.
David Koch
Ironically, it was Dude-Bro Maddow who was one of his biggest defenders. Now he wants to shoot her.
Hate to say, I told you so: “Dude-Bro that lieth down with glibertarian dogs shall rise up with fleas”.
lamh36
Have not read an article on HuffPo is forever, but only one person has been able to get me to read a whole one.
Huff Po has a “new blogger”. Someone ya’ll might know, his tagline says “President of The United States”
Congress Needs to Pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — Barack Obama
Spaghetti Lee
And hey, Rand, no one’s stopping you from dueling anyone. You’d just have to be willing to stand trial for murder/attempted murder, and I don’t think “My honor has been impugned and I must respond” will hold up in court. But hey, civil disobedience! Right, my little Galtian friend?
Hunter Gathers
Pistols at dawn?
Bitch slaps after lunch?
Rock, paper, scissors before bed?
Southern Beale
Wow. Here’s some good news:
That’s just … .amazing!
Hill Dweller
Another “tough guy” Republican who would get the shit kicked out of him in any sort of altercation.
Redshirt
I don’t really want this, but it would be rich of Obama milked the TERROR ALERT system like the W. Gang used to.
Oh, bad political news? TERROR ALERT MAUVE! BUY DUCK TAPE AND GO SHOPPING!
Chris
*snerk
It’s Tagg Romney all over again. “Oh YEAH? Well I could TOTALLY take you OUT. I won’t, because reasons. But I COULD. Fear me, peon!”
Bill E Pilgrim
Definitely all talk. He knows that if he ever got involved in something that physical, there’d be the devil toupee.
David Koch
I know some people here think Aqua Buddha can get the nomination, but if he’s this thin skinned and incompetent regarding minor problems (Confederate Avenger, Gattica-Gate, Open-mic Gate), then he’ll never withstand the pressure of high stakes primary politics.
Spaghetti Lee
@Bill E Pilgrim:
It would indeed be a very hairy situation. But then Paul always has been a bald-faced self-promoter.
Chris
@Hill Dweller:
Obligatory reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjE2sxCQ_rU
Spaghetti Lee
@David Koch:
That lesbian sure is mannish! Har har!
Chris
@David Koch:
Word.
I don’t believe for a second he’ll get the nomination. I could see him making Vice-President, maybe, as a bone thrown to the rubes in the Paul Ryan/Sarah Palin tradition.
Hawes
I personally thought the real horror of the Stasi and the Red Guards were all the dead people.
Southern Beale
@David Koch:
Aqua Buddha will not get the nomination. Not as long as Chris Christie is running, and it looks like he is. Aqua Buddha’s, er, ship has sailed.
sharl
There’s actually a Stasi museum in Berlin.
[FYI, the author’s overall strongly negative viewpoint on the NSA is evident in the post, although IMO she didn’t dwell on it.]
David Koch
Ever notice how rare it is to find a female libertarian
David Koch
President Worst-Then-Bush packs them in at Virginia rally
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYK6VtxCMAA69ED.jpg
There is such a disconnect btwn rank and file Democrats and the wine-rack blogosphere.
Yatsuno
@David Koch: Why do you make teh Blenderella cry?
Anya
So, when we turned our clock back one hour, do the republicans turn the clock back to the 18th or 19th century?
Chris
@Southern Beale:
Oh MAN, I would love to see the Chris Christie/Rand Paul battle. Not because it would be a fair fight. It totally wouldn’t. That’s why it would rock.
David Koch
PPP final VA Poll:
1. McAuliffe 50, Cuccinelli 43, Sarvis 4
2. (AG) Herring (D) 47, Obenshain (R) 45
3. (LT Gov) Ralph Northam 52, E.W. Jackson 39
Linnaeus
I know that this isn’t a personal therapy thread, but I just need to get this out: I don’t think I’m a good fit for my job anymore (and vice versa) and I really feel like quitting. I can’t from a financial standpoint, as I don’t have another job lined up and I don’t have much in the way of savings. Quitting also feels like running away, but I’m pretty stressed out now and it’s hard not to think of it.
Just needed to vent a bit.
Hal
20 more minutes and I’m off for two days. I hate daylight savings because for the past two tears I’ve been on the overnight shift when the change happens, which means the clock hits 2am and then goes back to 1am, which in turn makes it feel like groundhog day and I just started work.
So nice of the NY Times to take it upon themselves to announce hey, it’s probably just him joking. Why not ask directly instead of running interference. It’s not like a guy whose staff once included a white supremacist could have any bad thoughts.
Sly
Yeah, I remember when Chertoff actively encouraged people to spy on others, rather than do simple things like report unattended bags in public spaces.
Oh wait, I don’t remember that.
Anoniminous
This kid is amazing: Nine-Year-Old Girl Sings Opera on Holland’s Got Talent.
Suffern ACE
@Hawes: and the selfies.
Scotius
So the guy who brought us the rapiscan full body scanning systems is now concerned about loss of privacy. There aren’t enough bags of salted dicks in the world for people like him.
Yatsuno
@Hal:
IOKIYAR is Village standard, even if they have to bend over backwards to make it so.
sharl
@David Koch:
According to this 1996 article in a libertarian publication, a trio of women were the inspiration for the original American libertarian movement. Dunno what happened after that; I guess it wouldn’t be the first time that dudebros moved in and took something over from the wimmenz.
Rose Wilder Lane was one of that trio (Ayn Rand was another), and I find RWL utterly fascinating, even though I don’t sign on to her viewpoints. I would have thought that Lane would have been a much more respectable face for the domestic libertarian movement than the troubled and hypocritical Ayn Rand. Then again, since I’ve never been a fan of the infantile thinking of that bunch, I guess I don’t know what constitutes “respectable” for them.
[fyi, RWL was the daughter of Laura Ingalls, and is widely believed to have played a greater role in authorship of her mom’s Little House on the Prairie than the latter’s sole authorship would indicate.]
Suzanne
@Linnaeus: Ugh. Stuck in a job you can’t stand is one of the worst feelings. Can you get on a job search? I don’t know about all fields, but hiring has really picked up in mine in the past few months and we’re starting to see a lot of people shifting around. Might be a good time to make a move…..
srv
@Hordack FP’er above, you clearly missed the He-Man/She-Ra Christmas Special. Skeletor was actually a really nice guy and liked puppies.
SarahT
@David Koch: Notice how it’s even more rare to find a woman willing to have sex with a Libertarian (for free, I mean…).
Keith P.
Thanks, Rand, for reminding me about the Zell Miller duel segment on Chris Matthews’ show ages ago. Quite a laugh riot. Either one of those guys would piss their pants if faced with another gun-toting person willing to fight to the death with no legal ramifications. Sorta like the shootout in Unforgiven where half the guys’ hands were shaking too much to get a good shot in at William Muney; it’s just a hard thing to do once you get past the shooting-your-mouth stage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Scotius: It is even funnier that he is doing it over things in which the law has never recognized a right to privacy. Conversations in a public place with others close enough to hear – no expectation of privacy ever.
@Keith P.: Both sides do it!
gwangung
Yeah, that disconnect doesn’t affect just the Beltway.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Ah, the Oscar Wilde school of journamalisming.
Spaghetti Lee
@sharl:
Thing is, it’s not that hard to imagine a theoretical feminism-meets-libertarianism argument: the government and government-reliant corporations are full of patriarchal old boy networks, so break them up and give women the chance to compete on a more level field. Of course, actual libertarians are just so often feudalists in disguise, and the position on women as a group seems to be that they’re the most likely to betray us independent free-thinking individuals (men) into a welfare state, because they’re all soft and mushy and just want to help people instead of being logical. Peter Thiel has literally said that America started going downhill when women got the right to vote. And the MRA-libertarian intersection makes things creepier still.
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
I’m working on my Ph.D. while on academic leave of sorts, but I don’t currently work in an academic job (and I probably won’t end up in one long term anyway). So I can see why you might have been confused.
Linnaeus
@Suzanne:
I’ve stepped up my job search. No bites yet, but I’m still trying.
Cervantes
@Linnaeus: Sorry to hear of your difficulty. Venting helps. Finding ways to relax helps. At all costs, illegitimi non carborundum.
amk
@David Koch: Isn’t the rethug ag candie supposed to be as crazy as cuckoonelli? And he does better than him?
NotMax
Rand Paul’s site has removed the transcripts of his speeches.
Totally coincidental, no doubt.
Spaghetti Lee
@amk:
Less publicity. And yes, I’ve heard he’s just as kooky, hard as that may be to believe.
Spaghetti Lee
@David Koch:
Wine-rack? When I’ve got fancy guests coming over, I buy regular Pepsi instead of diet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: Surely that will put an end to all this. With the obviously crack advisers he has to complement his own canny political instincts, this is the Republican I most fear. There’s no way in hell that, within three years, Rand Paul will be Sarah Palin’s opening act at Oral Roberts U and Yakov Smirnov’s Russian Christmas in Branson.
Actually, I think AquaBhudda will be Kentucky Senator as long as he wants, which will be until a cash offer comes along when he finishes fifth in a three way tie for first in the 2020 campaign to take on Hillary’s re-election bid. “I’m not just a member….”
sharl
@Spaghetti Lee: Yeah, there may be something to that. Looking into historical accounts of what might have made Lane and Isabel Patterson who they became (politically) is one of those many things I hope to read more about (though probably won’t happen any time soon).
Suzanne
@Spaghetti Lee: the thing that I wish libertarians would understand about liberals is that liberals generally only want a social function under governmental management/control if that function is not adequately provided by another societal sphere. The government wouldn’t need to give out welfare if, for example, churches and non-profit social services were meeting the need. So if they genuinely want less governmental involvement, the logical thing to do would be to encourage their fellow citizens to be charitable. But since most of them don’t do that, I have to conclude that they aren’t good people.
BruinKid
@David Koch: Oh there are some. Like someone I actually know from UCLA, who’s now dating Adam Kokesh, the insanely pro-gun libertarian who’s now in jail. She has her own YouTube channel where she spreads her libertarian message.
fuckwit
@Suzanne: I disagree. This liberal absolutely positively does NOT want to leave taking care of the poor to religious fundamentalists, so they can use it for extortion and brainwashing. I don’t care how adequately they might do it, giving them the sole or main power to take care of the poor is a horrible idea: they’ll just use it for recruiting. “You want bread? Great, listen to this sermon first.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I would rather that government provide services than churches and charities. Government can provide services without the strings that private orgs attach. Lose you job and need money, get unemployment without being degraded or being put through religious lectures. Etc.
gwangung
Generally, charitable giving runs 2% of GDP. And has for the last 40 years.
Non profits and churches WANT more government giving, because they, as the experts on the ground, know they can’t meet the need.
But when did Republicans ever listen to experts?
TG Chicago
While it’s amusing to poke at Rand Paul for plagiarizing wikipedia, to me the question this raises is:
Why on earth is Rand Paul using his speeches to describe the plots of movies? At length!
I mean, making a reference to a movie is all well and good, but if you have to explain the entire plot, you’re doing it wrong. It just comes off like “Guys, guys… you gotta check out this great movie! It was so awesome! Captain Kirk would totally be a libertarian, you guys.”
David Koch
He says this while the stock market has doubled and hit an all-time-high under a community organizer, after it had collapsed under the country’s first MBA prezdent.
Spaghetti Lee
I just took a close look at that Chertoff piece. Man, what a marvel of blithe idiocy. Yeah, Maoist China and East Germany loved it when people spied and reported on government officials. It was, in fact, treated exactly the same as reporting on ordinary people! Watta maroon.
Petorado
I wonder if the NRA will get on this issue of Kentucky abridging the 2nd Amendment rights of its citizens? No true Libertarian would countenance such government overreach as a ban on dueling. I’m disappointed in you Rand.
BruinKid
@David Koch: Chris Christie seems rather thin-skinned as well too, given how unhinged he gets when confronted by even a regular ol’ teacher. And yet if Cruz and Paul and a teabagger to be named later all run in 2016, Christie may very well get the “sane” vote while the Tea Partiers divide their vote among the other three, thus securing the nomination anyway.
Spaghetti Lee
@Petorado:
Not that I support legalized dueling (mostly because a lot of it would go like “I didn’t kill him, Your Honor, he asked to duel me, and I was just accepting his offer!”) but I think of it the same way as people who protest helmet laws or testing food for poison. It’s your funeral, guys. Literally.
Heliopause
Good lord, if he was that bad then obviously there must have been a good deal of resistance from Dem legislators to any important post that he was nominated for.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spaghetti Lee:
That is one of the reasons for seconds. They served as witnesses. Also, fwiw, there were some prosecutions where a duel between to stunningly unmatched people ended in the death of the less skilled person.
NotMax
Now wondering if Rand Paul has a poster of Aaron Burr hanging above his bed.
Suzanne
@fuckwit: Doesn’t have to be churches. Could be churches. Could be charities. Could just be neighbors doing nice things for neighbors. The point is that there are countless ways to meet the needs of people and all of them failed. So the government has to do it. If libertarians don’t want to spend their tax dollars on social services, they’re more than welcome to spend their free time and money at the nonprofit food bank. But they don’t. Because they aren’t good people.
Ruckus
@Linnaeus:
Sorry about that. Having a bad job sucks donkey balls. Or worse.
My last job turned into one of those “I just can’t stay here any longer”. But I was in the same boat as you, nothing lined up, not old enough to retire, etc. I spent 2 years lining up something else, getting certs and all that. If you want to change, work on it. It can make the time a little easier, knowing you have an exit strategy. And while you are doing that you may fall upon something completely different that you end up liking a lot.
Chris
@fuckwit:
Yeah. The problem with them being encouraged to be charitable is that too many of them would only be charitable on their own terms, which would involve making the poor jump through whatever fucking hoops they’d come up with (be it “come to my church and follow all its teachings,” or “vote for my platform,” or “someday, I’ll call on you to do a favor for me”). Hell with that noise. I want a safety net that’s going to be there for people because they need it, period, not just for the people the fortunate think are worthy of their charity, and not just as a bartering arrangement where the poor are expected to perform on command for their entertainment.
The basic point is true – I only want government involved in a function if the private sector isn’t adequately doing it – but I can’t imagine any circumstance in which government would stop being necessary in the welfare business, simply because I can’t foresee human nature changing enough to eliminate all the assholes. (And the point is that there are a hell of a lot more functions that “the other societal spheres” do not provide adequately and probably never will, than any libertarians realize).
Cassidy
Heh, this reminds me of some wisdom passed on to me. There are three things all men believe they can do, but most can’t: drink, fuck, and fight.
Ruckus
@fuckwit:
So you’ve been to a Salvation army food line.
TG Chicago
@Southern Beale: Thank you for sharing the story, and it’s quite interesting. But I was dismayed by this part:
Damn it, Germany. You had the chance to do the right thing and immediately begin the process of getting the art back to its owners. Delaying the process is tantamount to extending the crime of the Nazis. Why would they do that?
Not only stupid, but evil.
Linnaeus
@Cervantes: @Ruckus:
Thanks to both of you. Working on qualifying for something else and not getting ground down at the same time.
Spaghetti Lee
@Suzanne:
I think it’s important to point out that for (most) of the charitable givers, it’s not for lack of good will, but just the sheer amount of need: there is just too much poverty out there to ask people to paper it over in their spare time with whatever they can afford to donate. You need people doing it full time. Ergo, a social welfare program.
I’m only pointing this out because a lot of libertarians pull out the “So, you don’t believe in the goodness of your fellow Americans? You don’t think they’re capable of solving these problems? I’m shocked!” All the while with a smug grin on their face that says they know it’s all bullshit, but they also know it’s a hard argument to fight back against: it’s stupid to denounce “charity” without putting it in the proper context.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: National security, law enforcement, and social welfare should be governmental functions. Public and private can coexist in some areas. And the purely private areas should still be subject to regulation.
trollhattan
@Spaghetti Lee:
If he catches you saying that, li’l Randy will flip his wig.
The Sailor
Gebus, it was close but the Colts pulled it out.
Spaghetti Lee
@Chris:
For whatever my opinion is worth, I’ve been involved in several church-based charities, and I never got a sense of “We’re only giving donations to the worthy!” People needed food and other people were giving them food. Even if the desire was there, the logistics sure weren’t. Like hell the little local parish has the money and manpower to knock on every door and ask them to recite the Apostle’s Creed before they get those boxes of pasta.
In general, I go Occam’s razor on any idea that large groups of mostly regular people are involved in massive incentivized social-engineering schemes, simply because most people aren’t ideological enough to be hellbent on forcing their ideology on people in every possible way. In the blogosphere, you tend to run into a lot more of those people than there are in reality.
Ruckus
@Linnaeus:
It can be a high wire act, no doubt about it. As I said in my case it took 2 years which seemed like a long time. There was one day when 2 others told the CEO they were quitting without knowing about each others plans. I almost walked into his office and made it 3. I wanted to in the worse way. But I did the adult thing and waited 7 more months till I was ready to go on my terms. I will say the wait made the day I told him all the sweeter.
Eric U.
I’m impressed you guys can spot a toupee that easily. I know someone that doesn’t have a hair on his body, and I didn’t spot the wig until someone told me. This person has no eyebrows. I would think that should make it fairly obvious, but not for me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spaghetti Lee: The groups may not do it, but the potential is there. I don’t want someone’s eligibility for help to be subject to someone’s moral or religious biases.
Suzanne
@Chris: FWIW, the church that I sporadically attend spent over $100K building restrooms and ADA-accessible showers for the homeless population in the neighborhood, and doesn’t expect anything in return. So some churches are doing their best to do good works without being assholes.
But the point is valid. Too many people won’t give charity without getting something in return, which, to me, rather invalidates the point of charity and proves to me that they rather missed the point of all that church.
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
The problem is, as you see with politics generally, the people who do care will work like hell to corner any market that can serve their purpose.
There’s places where the Catholic Church is gobbling up or merging with non-Catholic hospitals like crazy. Why? Because then they get to say “whoops, sorry, but no abortions, no contraception, no birth control, nothing we don’t approve of in the Church is performed here – sorry! Better luck elsewhere” (only the mergers are leaving less and less “elsewheres” for patients to go). I don’t think the people who work in these hospitals are any different from your average hospital workers, I certainly don’t picture them getting up in the morning and going to work thinking “good… gooooood… More and more patients to be crowded out of more and more hospitals!” But the process is happening anyway, or at least the people in charge are doing everything they can to see that it does.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Exactly.
CarolDuhart2
@Omnes Omnibus: But what keeps them humble is that they aren’t the only show in town. And recipients know it. Things change when it’s the only choice.
One more thing: when government gives aid, it’s consistent. Other groups can go away and frequently do, more frequently than we want to admit.
It isn’t based on cuteness, or popularity or anything. The ugly duckling who’s shy will get her foodstamps regardless, based on need.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
rand wasn’t the first
PurpleGirl
Re the business of the tweet of the overheard conversation: This is why you do not talk about certain things in public. Not walking with someone someplace, not in a restaurant, not in an elevator, not anywhere but your office. This was explained rather strongly to me when I was a paralegal. And you don’t use specific names or exact details if you do; you talk in fact patterns. The general should have known not to talk about sensitive matters in public.
J R in WV
Dueling to defend his honor! Amazing. Like the dude that beat a sitting Senator to death to defend his Uncle’s honor!?! As if a brutal murderous thug slave holder could even recognize honorable behaviour?!
Rand is too dumb to be successful as an eye doctor, which is probably why he founded his own society to license himself, and them had to get a job as a politician.
Most real opthalmologists make a ton more money than a politician, at least more than honest politicians! And with the job satisfaction of saving people’s eyesight and lives.
Quaker in a Basement
NPR reported on Rand’s remark this morning and pointed out that it is customarily the right of the person challenged to choose the weapons. Thus: “Withering sarcasm at five paces, suh!”
Bjacques
I love Zell Miller. He sounds like the Cambodian Refugee prank caller’s victim. “What’re you trying to do…blackmail me!?”