- Begin Excerpt
-
- The establishment pulled out all the stops to make sure
Rand Paul, son of the famous libertarian-Republican Ron Paul, didn't win
his bid for the Republican nomination for Senator in Kentucky. They funneled
millions into out-of-state mainstream organizations who ran Television
ads against this political novice who has never before sought public office.
All that backfired badly as Kentucky Republicans showed they resented outside
influence in their state as much as they disliked establishment Republican
incumbents. Paul not only won, but he won by a huge 59 percent margin over
establishment candidate Trey Grayson, Kentucky's current Secretary of State,
who garnered only 35 percent. Grayson even lost his home county by a landslide.
-
- I think Paul's response to the victory was a bit overstated
when he said, "I have a message -- a message from the Tea Party. We've
come to take our government back...from the special interests who think
that the federal government is their own ATM."
-
- His sentiment is heartfelt but not realistic in light
of the power of the conspiring forces at work in all three branches of
government. It is an encouraging step in the right direction and it will
be nice to have a strong voice in the Senate to join with Sen. Jim Demint
of South Carolina. However, the tea party movement, in general, has failed
to remove but a small percentage of the incumbents they opposed.
-
- As Thomas R. Eddlem wrote in the New American, "On
paper, Paul's Republican primary victory should never have happened. Dr.
Paul is a political novice who had never run for office. But he defeated
Grayson, a two-time winner in statewide election politics who had the political
and financial backing of the GOP Washington establishment. Greyson had
won the endorsement of Kentucky's other Republican Senator, GOP Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as the endorsements of former Vice President
Dick Cheney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Kentucky Congressman
Hal Rogers, and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum."
-
- Long time marketing guru on the Right, Richard Viguerie
added, "The elections results are a massive repudiation of McConnell
and the Republican congressional leadership, which aggressively supported
Grayson. Coming on the heels of Senator Robert Bennett's defeat in Utah
and the Republican Senatorial Committee's previous support for Charlie
Crist in Florida, it is clear that many Washington, D.C. GOP leaders are
enormously out of touch with the base of the Republican Party, grassroots
conservatives. The new conservatives who are being elected this year are
different from the establishment types who went along with the big government
policies of George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and others." True,
but not yet enough to make a difference.
-
- Jack Hunter writing for CharlstonCitypaper.com had some
very cogent comments on why the false conservatives like Rush Limbaugh,
Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly weren't celebrating Rand's victory. "I
have long contended that most supposedly 'conservative' talk radio hosts
are as much a part of the Republican establishment [or worse--closet globalists]
as George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, something evident in how they defended
the last administration with the same frequency and ferocity as they attack
the current one. Their beloved Bush administration can justifiably be called
the first, full blown 'neoconservative' presidency, a label I gave context
in February:
-
- "Neoconservatives care about one thing----war (and
where they can wage it). Says contributing editor to the Weekly Standard,
neocon Max Boot: 'Neoconservatives believe in using American might to promote
American ideals abroad,' a progressive, Wilsonian vision, if there ever
was one. As for traditional conservative concerns like limited government,
fiscal responsibility, and constitutional fidelity, these are ideas neoconservatives
will occasionally pay lip service to, so long as none of these principles
interferes with their more important task of global military domination.
It is no coincidence that George W. Bush----the first full-blown neoconservative
presidential administration----did not limit government, was not fiscally
responsible, and shredded the Constitution, while still implementing the
most radical foreign policy in American history. Writes conservative columnist
George Will [also a closet CFR globalist], 'The most magnificently misnamed
neoconservatives are the most radical people in this town.'
-
- "Most mainstream conservative pundits still possess
the neocon mindset and haven't really learned any lessons from the Bush
years. Rush Limbaugh still praises Donald Rumsfeld. Karl Rove is a permanent
guest on Sean Hannity's radio and TV programs. I listened to Rush, Hannity
and Mark Levin's radio programs today, and while Rand Paul's 'Tea Party'
victory in the Republican primary for US Senate in Kentucky made headlines
across the nation, three of the most prominent conservative talk hosts
barely touched it.
-
- "Why? TheHill.com's John Feehery has nailed it:
'Rand Paul's election may very well mean the beginning of the end of the
neo-conservative movement in the Republican Party. It also might mark the
beginning of the end of the social-conservative wing of the Republican
Party [Even if that did happen, which is unlikely, the PTB have other ways
to kill a party that is too "conservative" for their liking.
Suddenly, you'd see them promote another third party that would be allowed
to rise as no other third party has before--just like they did in Israel,
with the sudden creation of the Kadima "centrist" party]'
-
- "During the nomination process of the presidential
election two years ago, I wrote about the impact of the Ron Paul insurgency
and its potential impact. Paul was a fundraising sensation and he had a
cadre of committed followers who believed profoundly that the federal government
had grown too big, had become too intrusive, had gone to war for all the
wrong reasons and was too involved in the daily lives of the American people.
Paul went after some pretty significant sacred cows in the Republican orthodoxy.
He thought the Iraq war was stupid and that our foreign policy presence
in the Middle East was a big reason why we were attacked on 9/11. He thinks
that the war on drugs is a waste of time, and that if people want to smoke
pot, well, that is up to them. He thinks that the security apparatus of
the United States makes America more of a police state and should be downsized
dramatically.
-
- "Two years ago, those were not popular stances to
take with conservative Republican primary voters who were used to the political
rhetoric of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. But that has all changed,
at least in Kentucky. My suspicion, though, is that this changing sentiment
is spreading around the country [yes, but it is nowhere near a majority,
sadly. Too many people who sympathize with the anti-incumbent sentiment
and current dissatisfaction with government are too unschooled in deception
and conspiracy to understand when they are being presented false solutions----it
happens every time].
-
- "There has always been the myth of the freedom voter.
Those are the voters who want low taxes and government out of their lives.
Grover Norquist calls these voters the 'Leave me alone' caucus. But the
leave-me-aloners are often outvoted in Republican primaries by the neo-cons
[or those who go along with these pseudo-patriotic notions, without understanding
the ulterior motives] ---- who think that big government should have a
role in our daily lives ---- the social conservatives ---- who think that
government needs to have a role in dictating morality in our lives ----
and national-security conservatives ---- who think that it is well worth
it to sacrifice some freedoms so that we can remain safe [Exactly--just
the kind of muddled thinking that the PTB always take advantage of].
-
- "Ron Paul, and now Rand Paul, challenges each and
every one of those assumptions. Ron Paul used to quietly challenge them
from the safety of the House of Representatives, where one vote is rarely
critical to the passage of anything. Rand Paul, should he get elected to
the upper body, will have far more power to fight for Paulism in that chamber."
-
- The establishment isn't about to accept Paul's ascendancy
without a larger fight. This week, Lesbian commentator Rachel Maddow suckered
Rand Paul into a TV interview in order to trap him with some "gotcha"
questions that always get libertarians in trouble. Libertarians believe
in a wide degree of person liberty, including the right to make discriminating
judgments about others--part of the inherent right to associate or not
associate with whoever one chooses--on one's own property. The Civil Rights
act violates that principle, so she set him up to elicit answers critical
of the false Civil Rights as guaranteed in the 1964 Act. He tried to give
a limited defense of private discrimination, when he said, "I'm not
in favor of any [racial] discrimination of any form. ... But I think what's
important about this debate is not written into any specific 'gotcha' on
this, but asking the question: what about freedom of speech? Should we
limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from
speaking?" Even though the doctrine is sound, a libertarian politician
simply cannot win this kind of battle in the arena of dumbed-down public
opinion.
-
- A huge media induced outcry ensued and Paul was pressured
by advisors to issue a formal statement pandering to the Civil Rights act,
and saying he would have voted for it had he been a Senator in 1964. Too
bad. He should have stood by his principles and decried racial discrimination
while defending the right of individuals to make exclusionary choices as
a matter of right. Once we allow government to start dictating with whom
we must associate, there is no limit--as we are now discovering. People
no longer have the right to exclude people from their personal rental or
business associations who live moral lifestyles that we find abhorant.
I suppose he had no choice but to cave if he wanted to avoid being crucified
politically. That's why a really principled person, who is willing to stand
on those principles cannot win an election in this hostile media atmosphere.
-
- End Excerpt
-
-
- World Affairs Brief - Commentary And Insights On
A Troubled World
-
- Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution
permitted.
-
- Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
-
- World Affairs Brief, 290 West 580 South, Orem, Ut 84058,
USA
-
-
|
