I Hate to Keep Harping on This Guy, But…
… why do many libertarians appear to think that the invitation
extended to Rand Paul to speak at Neoconfest 2012 (a.k.a. the Republican
National Convention) will translate into some sort of benefit for his father’s
cause? Why would any rational, thinking person
believe that a guy who clearly has no guiding principles at all, a guy who has
made it clear that he’s a rank opportunist like most of the rest of his
political colleagues, a guy who betrayed his own father at one of the most
crucial junctures of his father’s (and his) political life is someone who has anything to say that would benefit liberty's cause?
It simply staggers the mind that, after he endorsed the Establishment
candidate for the office of Puppet-in-Chief, anyone would believe that anything
spewing forth from Rand Paul’s mouth at this convocation of war worship and
statism will have anything to do with liberty, other than perhaps to ridicule
it. Am I missing something here?
Maybe this is yet another case of libertarian wishful thinking. This sad and deleterious condition does
incalculable damage to the cause of liberty by causing its victims to focus on
unrealistic and unattainable goals at the expense of productive endeavors that
could otherwise bear much nutritious fruit.
The energy wasted on the Ron Paul presidential campaign, it saddens me
to say, was the most prominent of such exercises in wishful thinking in recent
history. Common sense told all of us
that the Establishment was not going to allow Ron to get anywhere near the levers
of power – ever. Knowing what we have
always known (but probably only reluctantly admit to ourselves), was it really
any surprise that the GOP “leadership” donned its gangster mantle and pulled
out all stops to lock Ron and his followers out of almost every state caucus
and primary? Given that almost all of us
recognize that the State is nothing but institutionalized violence and
coercion, concerned above all else with maintaining its power, did we seriously
think that it would allow as its head someone who would take away that
power? I hope and pray that most of us
have better sense than that.
Whether or not Rand Paul, or anyone who genuinely represents
liberty speaks at Neoconfest 2012 is completely irrelevant. The entire process is as criminal, corrupt,
and fraudulent as the political system of which it is a part. Any message of liberty delivered at this
event would be, at best, equivalent to dousing Superman in a kryptonite bath,
or, at worst, to singing an aria in front of a crowd of deaf people. Those (very few) within the Republican Party
who are followers of Ron Paul already know the score and are giving the
convention itself a very wide birth, focusing instead on the Ron Paul rallies
and other events in Tampa coinciding with the convention at which they are more
likely to reach the people who really matter: ordinary American citizens.
So, to those who think that Rand Paul is really going to
deliver a ringing endorsement of his father’s cause to the insiders who’ve
purchased his soul, I offer you, at an absolute giveaway of a price, my
beachfront condo in Cheyenne, Wyoming. No
doubt it will offer you a view as stunning as the promises to defend freedom
and the free market that will pollute the air inside the Tampa convention
center are substantive.
Labels: Rand Paul, Republican National Convention, Tampa
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