Sunday Morning Comin' Down: A is A

Here's a very odd thing for a United States senator to say -- especially a United States senator who is an out-and-proud member of the heartless Cult of Ayn Rand.  According to Senator Rand Paul (and, presumably, the evil, Mirror/Mirror Universe tribble that sits on his head and does his thinking for him) this --

-- is most emphatically not a bottle of ketchup.

It's true.  Despite the fact that it is marketed as ketchup, people buy it as ketchup, it is clearly and helpfully labeled as ketchup and ketchup comes pouring out of it when people squeeze it, according to the junior senator from the state of Kentucky, that does not necessarily mean that it is ketchup.  In fact, the junior senator from the state of Kentucky (and the living hairball escapee from the Phantom Zone that is clamped to his head at all times) goes even further, stating outright that calling this ketchup --

-- is, in fact, very unhelpful and, darn it, just plain wrong.

From Meet the Press:

SEN. RAND PAUL: You know, I don't think the comments about ketchup were constructive at all. But I also think that to be fair, we shouldn't draw conclusions about ketchup that the plastic bottle of condiment sauce with the tomato on it didn't intend. I know personally about the plastic bottle of condiment sauce with the tomato on it...

SEN. RAND PAUL: ... So I think it's unfair to sort of draw any ketchupy conclusions from a remark by the plastic bottle of condiment sauce with the tomato on it that I think wasn’t constructive...

SEN. RAND PAUL:  And I think it's unfair then to sort of all of a sudden paint the plastic bottle of condiment sauce with the tomato on it as "ketchup" when I know, for a fact...

SEN. RAND PAUL:  Right. But I think people jumped a little bit to a conclusion. Let's take the whole scenario and put different words in there and let's say, "What if the plastic bottle of condiment sauce with the tomato contained delicious chocolate sauce instead? And what if it had a label on it that said "Chocolate Sauce"?" Huh?  Huh?  What then?  Check, and mate baby!

SEN. RAND PAUL:  ... So there are a lot of questions that this ultimately intersects with condiment policy. And the only thing I regret from all of this, other than I think some people in the media have gone completely bonkers with, you know, just ad hominem on the who "ketchup" thing...  

In fact, the junior senator from the state of Kentucky (and the extraterrestrial hirsute macroscopic single-cell hive-mind organism that is continuously skull-fucking him) is so deeply committed to his creepy "this is not ketchup" fetish that he is willing to deploy the Beltway media's most potent weapon in defense of his indefensible position.  See if you can spot it!

SEN. RAND PAUL:  And you can't have a condiment compromise if everybody's out there calling this --

-- "ketchup"  They're actually destroying the setting. And he's a little bit of it, but both sides now are destroying the setting in which anything meaningful can happen.

Wowers.  That is commitment.

Oh, wait.  Did I say "a bottle of ketchup"?

Sorry.

I meant to say that, according to Senator Rand Paul, this asshole --

-- is most emphatically not a racist.

It's true.  Despite the fact that President Stupid marketed himself as a racist, the meathead Republican base voted for him and still support him because he is a racist, that Trump spent years clearly and helpfully labeled himself as a racist, and seemingly every time he opens his gob, racism comes pouring out of him, according to the junior senator from the state of Kentucky, that does not mean that President Stupid is racist.  

In fact, the junior senator from the state of Kentucky goes even further, stating outright that calling President Stupid a racist is the real problem.

From Meet the Press, for real this time:

SEN. RAND PAUL:  You know, I don't think the comments were constructive at all. But I also think that to be fair, we shouldn't draw conclusions that he didn't intend. I know personally about his feelings towards Haiti and towards Central America...

SEN. RAND PAUL:  So I think it's unfair to sort of draw conclusions from a remark that I think wasn’t constructive, is the least we can say.

SEN. RAND PAUL:  And I think it's unfair then to sort of all of a sudden paint him, "Oh well, he's a racist," when I know, for a fact, that he cares very deeply about the people in Haiti...

And here's a a fun idea!  Instead of judging President Stupid by what he actually said, let's just pretend that he said something completely other than what he actually said!  Then he never would have said it!

SEN. RAND PAUL:  Right. But I think people jumped a little bit to a conclusion. Let's take the whole scenario and put different words in there and let's say, "We'd rather have people from economically-prosperous countries than economically-deprived countries." Or, "We realize that there are more problems in economically-deprived countries, therefore there's a bigger impetus for them to want to come." Then it wouldn't have been so controversial.

Check and mate again bitches!

And then comes the inevitable Both Siderism because if there is one Beltway Perfume that can magically take the reek off of any Republican shitpile...

SEN. RAND PAUL:  ... So there are a lot of questions that this ultimately intersects with policy. And the only thing I regret from all of this, other than I think some people in the media have gone completely bonkers with, you know, just ad hominem on the president, but what I regret is I do want to see an immigration compromise. And you can't have an immigration compromise if everybody's out there calling the president a racist. They're actually destroying the setting. And he's a little bit of it, but both sides now are destroying the setting in which anything meaningful can happen on immigration.

Over the past 75 years, we here at the driftglass blog have had a lot of fun watching the Junior Senator from Kentucky run away from many things including Ayn Rand, his own father, history, science, civil rights and voting rights:

And now we can "The meaning of words" to our award-ready series of things away from which Rand Paul runs.

But what makes this particular act of sniveling cowardice stand out from Senator Paul's long and storied history of cravenness is how unhesitatingly he guts the most fundamental tenet of his own, core philosophy -- the heartless Cult of Ayn Rand.

Attend. This is from the "This is John Galt Speaking" portion of what one wag once called that "vast, steaming heap of bad science fiction called Atlas Shrugged" 

To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes. Centuries ago, the man who was—no matter what his errors—the greatest of your philosophers, has stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. A thing is itself.

A is A, Senator Paul.

And ketchup is ketchup.

And a racist is a racist.

And a pusillanimous, lick-spittle fraud is most definitely a pusillanimous, lick-spittle fraud.

Behold, a Tip Jar!