Thursday, April 18, 2013

Do You Still Stand With Rand? Ctd.



Well the Pureblood Patron Saint of Independent Civil Libertarians has spoken. And the question -- the only question -- is whether or not you still stand with him.

And of course, the the only admissible answer is either an unreserved, dog-loyal "Yes, I agree completely with everything Rand Paul says and does." or an eternal, condemnatory "No, Rand Paul is an asshole who has never been on the right side of any issue in his life.".

No middle-ground will be accepted.  No conditional statements will be admitted.  Because as we all know, "Yes, if..."'s and "No, but..."'s are for pussies and nuance-drunk O-bots only.

Here is the Pureblood Patron Saint of Independent Civil Libertarians from CNN:
Rand Paul: Obama used Newtown families as 'props'

Washington (CNN) - Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky argued Wednesday morning President Obama is using the families of victims from the Newtown elementary school shooting for political purposes and compared them to "props" in the ongoing gun control debate.
...
And here is what the Pureblood Patron Saint of Independent Civil Libertarians helped to accomplish today:
Senate bill to extend background checks killed by filibuster

Posted by Brad Plumer on April 17, 2013 at 5:09 pm
So much for significant new gun-control legislation. The bipartisan Manchin-Toomey bill to extend background checks to gun shows and Internet sales has died in the Senate. It got 54 votes, but that wasn’t enough to overcome what was essentially a Republican filibuster. 
The Manchin-Toomey compromise bill was a scaled-back version of earlier proposals to extend background checks to unregulated private gun sales. Many gun experts argued that the slimmed-down proposal would have only marginal effects on gun violence. But even that small step couldn’t get through the Senate.
...
Charles Pierce summarizes:

Well, cut off my legs and call me a Democrat. The famous watered-down Manchin-Toomey "bipartisan compromise" on this country's preposterous infatuation with its firearms has gone down to an ignominious defeat in the United States Senate. So much for Newtown. So much for" tipping points." So much for the changing climate of the country. And so much, for good and all, for the absurd Beltway notion that "bipartisan compromise" is the golden key to Happyland. I can't imagine how all the members of the courtier press are feeling right now. I think my man Chuck Todd may be weeping. 
"Bipartisan compromise," as it turns out, is hopelessly vulnerable to empowered paranoids like Ted Cruz, and to abject bipartisan political cowardice as represented by Mmes. Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, and Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota. I have no hope for Ayotte who, between this fiasco and her performance piece on the Benghazi attacks, is plainly casting herself as Sarah Palin With Verbs...

So are you still Standing With Rand?

(Bonus points will be awarded for Rand Standers who also still feels the need to mansplain why there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the America's two major political parties.)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

And the 44 other corporate cocksuckers.

D. said...

I'm standing as far away as I can.

It is well known that I do not support or trust libertarians (civil libertarians excepted). Not even if they support legalization of marijuana and peace.

kfreed said...

Let's see... Do I #StandWithRand?

Hell no. If I thought for half a second that Rand Paul's manufactured concern for the war dead (drones) was genuine and not hatched by Libertarian right-wing extremists for the purpose of manipulating lefties into voting for a tea bagging religious fundamentalist (who intends to run for President in 2016) bent on the destruction of all that 90 % of Americans hold dear (or voting third party in order to hand the Tea Party more wins) I might, I don't know, not go out of my way to spit on him? That's about as gung-ho as I'd be willing to get in commiting to any philosophical attachment whatsoever to anyone associated with the Koch-bred Tea Party.

Anyone could, in theory, be right about a thing, including the KKK. So ask me do I #StandWithTheKKK because they may once have mouthed words with which I should theoretically agree.(NO.)

Hell, even Hitler was right about a thing once or twice, but you wouldn't catch too many people making arguments for a #StandWithHitler Twitter bomb, except maybe a certain type of Ron/Rand Paul supporter.

Rand fully endorsed Mittens, who made it a point to campaign on the probability of invading Iran all the way up to the televised debates, so pardon me if I don't mistake Rand's political theatre for sincerely held anti-war convictions.

Sorry, I'm just not that easily led around by the nose no matter how much smoke you blow up my ass or how many pretend progressives foam at the mouth (I'm not one to cave to peer pressure either, so when they show me red, I don't care show many people say it's blue). In order for me to support anyone's supposed "principled stance" I have to be convinced that said "conviction" is, in fact, coming from an honest place.

Too harsh?

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I believe most Glibertarians only support pot legalization as far as it takes for them to be able to buy and smoke it personally, without going into "those" parts of town. Otherwise, they pretty much support the War On (Certain Types of) drugs, as long as it continues to target mostly Certain Types of People.

Anonymous said...

"(Bonus points will be awarded for Rand Standers who also still feels the need to mansplain why there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the America's two major political parties.)"

Ooh! Ooh! I'll try!

Ahem...

~~~

The Democrats want to hand the country over to Labor Thugs and Militant Homosexuals, all of whom support the establishment of Sharia Law. Meanwhile, Republicans want to hand the country over to the Christian Taliban who want Christian Sharia. Both of which are valuable only in so far as they establish that a woman's ownership of body extends up to, but not including, the area around and within her vajayjay (Driftglass, you did say "mansplain"), but otherwise let religious types take over who will try to tax the Good and Holy Wealth Producing Job Creators, and give the money to churches who will just give it to lazy Latinos (Catholic), blacks (Baptist), or Muslims (Sharia-Islam), with any wayward brown people being taken up by the Jehovah's Witnesses. (If the Asians ever fall from whiteness, they have the Moonie church to tax the Job Creators.)

Real Libertarians bow not to brown people or vajayjays, which means they will create such a de-regulated free-market prosperity paradise that the magic of Supply Side Freedomz will coax Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand to leave the celestial paradise of Kolob and reign over the earth, for ever and ever, Amen.

~~~

Let's see... racism, misogyny, superstitious views of "market magic", utter bullshit... how did I do? Did I win? What's my fabulous prize?

Mike.K.

Pinkamena Panic said...

Why bother asking? They'll just attack you for asking and scream that YUO SUPPORT EVERYTHING DEER LEEDUR OBOMBER DOES!!!1 Never mind the towering irony of one of them saying that...

prof_fate said...

... for the purpose of manipulating lefties into voting for a tea bagging religious fundamentalist

You must have a very low opinion of leftists, if you think all it takes to get their vote is a politician saying one thing they sort-of agree with -- out of a gazillion things with which they vehemently disagree.

The only response I could give to hearing of anyone who could do something like that is: "Small loss!" They're either invincibly, deliberately ignorant about the person they're voting for, or dumber than a wad of dryer lint.

Of course, it would also be nice if the people who seem so deeply concerned about this possibility that they crank out reams and reams of prose warning us all about this pressing danger, would produce one actual fecking case of someone who did so. Isn't that straw man getting a bit dilapidated by now?

Still, it's a great way to obscure the real issue, which is that the principled Democratic politicians -- who, as I recall, spent much of the Bush II years making ringing declarations about Constitutional rights and executive overreach -- aren't pushing back against this administration's assaults on those same rights, and Obama's executive overreach. (Or if they are pushing back, they've been singularly unsuccessful at making people aware of it.)

Anonymous said...

"Libertarian" and "civil libertarian" are antonyms, not synonyms. someone should back Rand or Ron into a corner and ask him why property rights always trump civil rights in his philosophy.