Watching the Rand Paul interview with Rachel Maddow was extraordinarily painful to say the least. It was painful on a number of levels, not the least of which is the fact that it is apparent that this gentleman genuinely feels that the government has no role in setting parameters of acceptable behavior within society where private business is concerned. A man's business is his personal province and he has the right to do whatever he feels is right within the confines of his kingdom. Now that is startling enough, coming from a cock-eyed conservative in libertarian's clothing. I sincerely doubt that in Paul-Paul land this extends to the notion of public safety to enforce the laws, say against murder, or robbery, or illegal immigration, and hence the inconsistency lends itself to interpretation which can only be characterized as prejudice. Whether that prejudice is controlled by race, religion, sexual orientation, color or hair or whatever, I suppose it is left to the business tyrant to determine. But his position surely allows for personal prejudice, regardless of his personal views towards the concept.
Saying that you are not a bigot but support the rights of other people to be bigots under the guise of the sanctity of business practices is an odd, contorted, and structurally unbalanced position. Dr. Paul, and I have no idea what he is a doctor of, but obviously must have more than a minimal amount of at least exposure to intellectual thought and teachings unless one can receive a doctorate through home schooling, obviously enjoys listening to himself think out loud. And if his tortured contrivances last evening are any indication that process must be one hell of a mess inside his head. He was simply incapable or unwilling to answer the question which he himself set up with his twisted logic: namely, does the governmental process which you wish to become an integral part of have the duty to allow businessmen or women to discriminate and would you support that position if it came to a vote.
This is not a trick question and by virtue of the fact that he parsed the Civil Rights Act of the one provision which addresses this issue he should be required to let those who have the solemn obligation to cast a vote in the upcoming Senatorial election in Kentucky to know what his views and position on the issue are. Anything less would be a crass political dodge, which I am sure he abhors. Yet, when given the opportunity to answer the question directly he resorted to the very act of obfuscation which I am sure he is running against. Thus, Dr. Paul, you are a bona fide phony. You are a political creature incapable or unable of the kind of honesty and transparency I assume you promote on the campaign trail.
I do not know whether it is to the progressives' manifest good fortune or their disgust that this man's nomination will ultimately play out -- that is for the good people of Kentucky to decide this fall -- but the robust amateurism with which he has exhibited in fumbling this position, a position that he himself has constructed, will hopefully shed light not only on his disingenuousness but his outright dishonesty. He is either an idiot or a calculated political hack, and I will be kind and grant him the latter. What the election on Tuesday did more than anything else, I believe, is reveal that the people's anger is directed at those to whom they feel have not been honest with them. Somehow Dr. Paul has persuaded enough Kentuckians to believe he was more honest than Mitch McConnell's hand-picked candidate, which of course does not speak well of either McConnell or his candidate. But Rand Paul is clearly and simply a confused child on a stage that he is woefully ill equipped to perform on, at a time when the skills of honesty and integrity are yearned for by the electorate and he exhibits no competence in those skills whatsoever.
My initial instincts with his cretinism were anger and disbelief and every fiber in my body wanted to strangle the little twerp, but in reflection the fact that he refused to man up and answer the questions that he himself raised left me feeling disgusted and repulsed. He should be defeated on his phoniness more than anything else and I trust that the voters will punish him for not being honest with them. That is how the anger out there should be directed. If you fail to tell the folks how you really feel, then you are a weasel and should retreat back into the hole from where you came. It is time for Dr. Paul to go underground.