Our Government
Rand Paul, white heterosexual tea party candidate won his contest last night, and among cheering white heterosexual supporters announced to the world…
I have a message – a message from the people of Kentucky, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We’ve come to take our government back!
Our government. Our government. Our government. This from the man who said it was wrong for government to force businesses to obey civil rights laws because it was a violation of individual liberty, but who also thinks government should be in the business of controlling women’s bodies, dictating what is and what is not marriage and what is and what is not a family. So when speaks of “the people” and utters the phrase “our government” it’s pretty easy to tell that “the people” are not necessarily his neighbors in this life but merely his own kind. White. Heterosexual. Oh…and rich. Very very rich.
Thus, the Louisiana Courier Press reported during the campaign…
Along with college and university students, Paul is courting the libertarian-leaning Republicans who got excited about his father. But to win a Kentucky primary, he’ll need social conservatives, and University of Kentucky political scientist Stephen Voss said he must be careful as he tries to appeal to both.
“This is a difficult tightrope to walk,” said Voss, who nonetheless believes Paul may be the front-runner right now. “When he’s talking economics and money, he is philosophically a libertarian. When he talks about social issues, he’s sending guarantees to the right wing that he’s not libertarian.”
Paul says he opposes abortion without exception, not even in cases of rape, incest or the health of the expectant mother. He also opposes marriages between gay and lesbian couples. At the same time, he voices staunch opposition to government intruding in the private lives of citizens.
A Difficult Tightrope To Walk… No, not a tightrope, a deception. There are two kinds of “libertarian”. There’s the useful tools who really believe that crap. I was one of those back in the late 70s and moved around in Libertarian circles, working on campaigns, getting bored shoppers to sign our petitions, and that was where I saw that I was basically just a useful tool for the other sort of Libertarian. The faux ones. The rich right wingers and hard core John Birchers who saw libertarian rhetoric as a good way to bamboozle voters, especially young voters. I first saw it when a vigorous argument broke out in the ranks after the U.S. supreme court decision in Hardwick v. Bowers upheld the state’s sodomy laws. I was aghast and fully expected my comrades in the movement to be also. But…no. It was all about “state’s rights” many of them said. But, but…says I…surely the states don’t have the right to toss grown adults in jail for simply for having sex either, no matter how strongly others may disapprove. Individual liberty and all that. No, no, I was told over and over. “State’s rights”. “State’s rights”. “State’s rights”.
It was a slogan I had come to know well from the fight over race segregation in America, and I knew perfectly well even at a young age just what it was code for, along with that other famous code phrase of the time. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.
I got your libertarian America right here…
…and here…
…and here…
…and here…
…and here.
And I got your “libertarian” senator right here…
November 3rd, 2010 at 8:32 am
Some people are going to be in for a big surprise. Â The Teabaggers managed to bamboozle an entire section of the American population. Â They’re white, of course, but they’re anything but rich. Â And they were scared by the Teabaggers into believing the lie that the Obama administration wanted to take what little they had. Â So they voted. Â Now when the new brooms come in and start sweeping away into the corners the *little people* who got them in in the first place (remember Leona Helmsley: Â “Only the little people pay taxes”), I hope they remember what they’ve done.
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Scott, the British electorate is in the middle of exactly that right now.
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The Tories’ “reforms” of the public sector involve cutting jobs a rate even neocon think-tanks say is too fast (500,000 over two to three years; that’s equivalent to 5 million in the USA) and which threatens to totally destabilise the country’s economy. Meanwhile their benefits cuts will hit the disabled, single parents and ethnic minorities far harder than any other groups, and are expected to force up to 200,000 people out of their homes in London alone. They’ll massacre the buy-to-let industry and, while I personally have little sympathy for those affected directly by that, I do feel sorry for the many hundreds of thousands of ordinary homeowners who’ll end up in negative equity as a result of the inevitable plunge in prices. Meanwhile they’re forcing up rents on social housing, reducing the expendable income of those on the lowest wages at a time when many are already severely stretched.
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The likelihood of Scottish independence is higher now than it has been at any other time in the last two centuries. I’m currently feeling very glad my gran was Aberdonian!
November 5th, 2010 at 4:01 am
As usual, you cut right to the chase. As one of those John Birchers back in the day, I can tell you that I took the code words as the truth, until I saw the absolute 100% hypocrisy in the way they (and we True Believers) were used. I was bitter for awhile, but now I see that it’s an on-going process.
When we’re in the midst of The Matrix, it’s hard to become conscious of Reality. Those shoved to the margins, the gay folks, the racial minorities, the Jews, even the left-handed — those are the people who see more clearly the con that’s being pulled on the majority. I’m so thankful that I got tapped on the shoulder enough times to open my eyes and see what was really happening, and stop helping the con.
We gotta just keep telling the truth, until the conned people wake up.