Rand Paul is Hilariously Trolling Republicans Now

[65fastback2+2]

Fox Business’s Tuesday night Republican debate was equal parts thuddingly dull and thoroughly truth-averse, save for one interesting moment when Rand Paul took a moment to troll Marco Rubio about defense spending, and not just because Paul managed to unnerve the usually slick as a snail Rubio. Admitting that we spend a lot of money and that’s not very “fiscally conservative” is a third rail in Republican politics and yet there Paul was, looking alive, hollering, “We need a safe country, but did you know, we spend more on our military than the next ten countries combined. I want a strong national defense, but I don’t want us to be bankrupt.”

It wasn’t like he declared himself an atheist or anything, but in a debate format geared towards maximum tedium, it was pretty entertaining. Indeed, for people who don’t live in the conservative bubble, it helped make Rand Paul seem like the sanest person on the stage last night, though that’s like a 2-year-old beating a bunch of newborns in a foot race. But the audience wasn’t really having it. Paul got a smattering of applause, but it’s not clear if it’s because anyone agreed with him or that they just liked that someone was bothering to entertain them for a moment.

At this point, the only reasonable cause Paul has to run for president is that he hates Republicans and enjoys exposing, every chance he gets, how they are a bunch of lying hypocrites with this entire “small government” talking point. It can’t be that he wants to win, since trolling people about their delusions is not known as a way to win friends.

To hear conservatives talk, this principle of “small government” is sacred, inviolable and the supposed Democratic opposition to it stems no doubt from their ideological commitment to evil. Why we are supposed to love “small government” is rarely explained. Like daylight savings time or that rule about not taking the Lord’s name in vain, it just is, and not for we mere mortals to question.

If you do start to question it, it becomes immediately apparent that finding a Republican who legitimately wants to shrink the size of the government, on principle, is harder than finding a Republican who has warm things to say about Planned Parenthood. On the contrary, one strong consistent trend over the past century isthat Republican presidential administrations contribute more to the federal debtthan Democratic ones. Even though almost no one knows it, deficit spending under President Obama has been consistently dropping, now shrunk by a $1 trillioncompared to what the federal government had to spend to recover from the Bush recession. Principled adherence to “small government” would simply not lead to voting Republican, if only out of fear that all that war-mongering rhetoric would lead to more expensive adventure wars like the previous President Bush gave us.

And, as Paul compulsively points out, this is partially because Republicans love the military. Watching Tuesday’s debate, you would get the strong impression that cutting even one dollar of military spending is the equivalent of sending a cruise ship full of free weapons to ISIS and bringing them over to the United States to be let loose in Miami. When you actually start to prod conservatives, you will quickly discover that “small government” isn’t a principle at all, and doesn’t even touch the truly sacred principles like profligate defense spending.

That’s because “small government” is and always will be a cover story for the real principle at stake, which is halting government activities aimed at ameliorating injustice and inequality. If you listen carefully to any Republican who is not Rand Paul, you’ll see that the concept of “big government” only encompasses two ideas: Regulations on business that protect workers or the environment and social spending.

To be clear, even the category of “social spending” that qualifies as “big government” is exceedingly limited. Anything spent on middle class or wealthy people is not “big government,” but if the money goes to help lower income people—especially if they are perceived as disproportionately people of color—then all hell breaks loose. In practice, this means that Republican voters don’t treat Medicare and Social Security or other social safety net programs for the middle class as “big government”. In numbers, that means that only about 10% of federal welfare spending is considered “big government” by your average Republican politician.

Consider: The term “big government” doesn’t cover Social Security, which is a quarter of the federal budget. But it is used frequently to slur “Obamaphones”—a program that provides low cost cell phones to low income people—which costs our federal government $0, because it’s paid for directly by telecom companies and not through federal taxes.

And, of course, “big government” is rarely, if ever, used by conservatives to slur unnecessary regulations passed on abortion clinics for the sole purpose of reducing abortion access, or to raise the alarm about police overreach, such as “stop and frisk”.

“Big” and “small” government are never defined by expenditures or by levels of government intrusiveness. The terms instead reflect whose interests are being served. Are wealthy people being served at the expense of working people, or is white privilege being protected? Then it’s “small” government. Are underprivileged people getting a leg up or are workers being protected? Then it’s “big” government. In conservative parlance, it’s “big” government to tell Hobby Lobby they can’t interfere with their employee’s reproductive choices, but it’s “small” government if legislators pass a bunch of laws interfering with women’s reproductive choices. The consistent theme here is not the actual size of the government, but whether the goal—interfering with women’s reproductive choices—is being advanced.


None of this is new or particularly hard to figure out. Which is why it remains such a mystery that Rand Paul is running for president. Surely he must know that “small government” is a code term for “squash the little guy” and not an actual declaration of principles about government spending and overreach. You can’t spend more than five minutes around Republicans without seeing that quite clearly. Nor does he really articulate why you should want a literal small government if it’s not to advance the “squash the little guy” principle. There is no converting people to his point of view, since “small government” doesn’t appeal as a principle without this overarching need to reassert unjust power systems. Hell, even Paul doesn’t really believe his own nonsense, since Mr. Small Government still wants to use government power to force unwilling women to give birth.

The only explanation that makes sense is that Paul’s a troll and that his campaign is a very expensive way to get some lulz at the expense of other Republicans. In an election cycle featuring Donald Trump, it’s not even the oddest motivation there is to run for president.

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/12/rand_paul_is_just_hilariously_trolling_republicans_now_and_inadvertently_revealing_the_two_words_behind_the_gops_biggest_lie/


I bolded my favorite line in the article

 

[ds21089]

Regulations on business that protect workers

“small government” is a code term for “squash the little guy” and not an actual declaration of principles about government spending and overreach.

The liberalism..it burns my eyes. On a serious note, while this article is VERY slightly in favor of Rand (as opposed to other Republicans), calling it trolling makes it seem more like he's just doing it for the sake of "the lulz" instead of to educate people on the reality of the situation.

 

[Liberty74]

Salon is progressive propaganda BS. I couldn't even finish the article I wanted to puke as all the article did was push violent left wing fascist talking points wrapped around a troll call Rand.

Barf!

 

[CPUd]

I kinda liked it. The partisans on here need to know what the other side thinks about them every once in a while.

 

[65fastback2+2]

The liberalism..it burns my eyes. On a serious note, while this article is VERY slightly in favor of Rand (as opposed to other Republicans), calling it trolling makes it seem more like he's just doing it for the sake of "the lulz" instead of to educate people on the reality of the situation.

The full statement of the first one you outlined isnt really liberalism

If you listen carefully to any Republican who is not Rand Paul, you’ll see that the concept of “big government” only encompasses two ideas: Regulations on business that protect workers or the environment and social spending.

This statement is pretty accurate.

 

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

Why on Earth would you quote this empty, insipid article from Salon of all places?

 

[MaxPower]

Much of the article is irksome and fallacious leftism-- such as characterizing failing to provide your employees free birth control as "interfering with their reproductive choices"-- written from the perspective of someone who has never actually read any serious defense of the (genuine) concept of limited government. Whether the author *actually doesn't* know any of the arguments for true limited government or is simply playing dumb, I will not speculate.

However, the article's description of the fake limited government advocated by standard Republicans is actually fairly accurate, and the bolded-and-underlined sentence is a true gem that could have come from the likes of Justin Raimondo.

 

[hells_unicorn]

Salon is an ass-wipe, please refrain from quoting their garbage again, even if it seems partially pro-Rand.

 

[timosman]

C'mon guys, where is your sense of humor? You are almost like SJWs, nothing less than 100% compliance will satisfy you.
Would you like to retract to your safe space?

 

[klamath]

Basically it was a put down of Rand. A two year that was just saying stuff to create a reaction. They don't want their readers to think Rand might be serious about what he said.

 

[Jeffster]

This "author" sounds pretty delusional, but is correct that there have been way too many big-government Republicans.

 

[timosman]

This is salon, what do you expect? At least they declared him the leader in the GOP field. I'd take that. Baby steps.

 

[fisharmor]

Why on Earth would you quote this empty, insipid article from Salon of all places?

For the benefit of those of us who actually can learn something from it.

To wit:

-Nominal Republicans only care about reducing size of government when it takes away freebies for poor and minorities
-No rank-and-file Republican is going to vote for Rand if he advocates cutting anything other than those freebies
-Liberals think an anti-abortion position must be rooted in a desire to shackle women... and can't tell how Rand is distinct from that idea
-Rand isn't gaining anything by using the "small government" code word, and can't see that Rand has any particular "small government" principles

I can't see that any of that is empty, insipid, or even false.

But the biggest thing you should all take from this is here's a guy who seems to be willing to exert even a small amount of brainpower to understand Rand's position, and he's failing. Whether the failure is on him for misunderstanding, or on Rand for not communicating properly, is up in the air. But the fact that he's willing to listen - why not work with that? If I was Rand I'd be calling this guy and asking if he would be interested in doing an interview piece.

 

[65fastback2+2]

its pro paul and hated on big government republicans...i dont care if obama wrote it, its still mostly accurate.

 

[puppetmaster]

From the comments....I posted this on the wrong thread earlier. The only semi sane comment.

Ryan Hansen 1 hour ago
Really, both political parties are guilty of the exact same crimes in their insane drive to force their moral code upon the citizenry of this nation. You have a large number of people on both sides of the political spectrum whom cannot help but perch themselves upon a high-horse and cast judgment down on those that do not fit their vision of a "good person." Above all else, neither is at all willing to take their grubby little hands out of the daily lives of the general public and allow society to evolve organically as it has naturally done for thousands of years without the need to be codified by some blowhole with a degree in political science.

The Republicans are obvious - the devout evangelical Christians that make up the vast majority of this group of people are insistent upon forcing the gospel down the throats of every person on the planet. They talk a whole lot about charity, humility, honesty, integrity, and forgiveness yet very few in their ranks (especially among leadership) actually exemplify these virtues. Rather than follow their own code; which states that they have no right to pass judgment upon anyone for any reason, they go about their day looking for the next group of people to vilify and degrade. There really isn't much else to say about them as that pretty much sums it up.

The Democrats; on the other hand, are a little more backhanded and insidious in the way they go about their nonsense. Namely, they have an absurdly strong drive to control and manage human thought and emotion - namely those that are generally considered to be hateful in nature. While I refuse to sit here and justify the ridiculous notions that hateful and bigoted people expound, I will say that the government has absolutely no right to interject itself into those discussions.

Any compassionate human being is going to be upset at a private business owner who refuses to serve a customer for embarrassingly superficial reasons, but it takes a self-righteous and petty individual to address that injustice by committing another. By using the courts of this country as a club to smack over the head of the financial well-being of these people, you are doing little more than exacting a pound of flesh and denying that person of their right to a pursuit of happiness - which for some involves disassociating themselves from various members of society for whatever moronic reason. It is the antithesis of what it means to "rise above" and only serves to ensure that the cycle of hate will continue for generations within that family. No one ever became tolerant of another through any form of coercion and attempting to do so only exacerbates the problem.

Rather than approach the problem with a rational mind and attempt to bring people back from the "dark side" with education and discussion, the liberal camp allows their emotions to get the best of them and has made a bad situation worse as a result. Those issues may not be as overt as they once were, but they most definitely were not destroyed. They were simply pushed into a dark closet and became those things of which we will not speak - lest you be required to fork over a massive wad of cash to whomever you offended when you do. Instead of healing the wound, you simply covered it up and allowed it to quietly fester. The discussion doesn't need to change, because one was never occurring in the first place as participating in one often spells financial disaster for anyone who finds themselves on the wrong side of the argument.

You want to see hypocrisy? The talking point of a vast majority of liberals these days in relation to how criminal justice is administered in America is that punishment has been proven to be an ineffective deterrent, yet they choose to address civil rights issues by punishing the offenders. Government levied fines and sanctions have taken the place of the democratic process - which is to allow for members of society to handle those problems in the form of peaceful assembly and boycott of those individuals in order to open a dialogue with our wayward countrymen.

In all honesty, I find myself on the left side of the spectrum on many domestic issues. However; I stop short at the urge to write a law that enforces any of those notions. I am with many of you in spirit while vehemently opposed to the solutions that are often implemented. To take that farther, I am also opposed to laws that allow for anyone to be discriminated against by the government. Laws such as those passed during the Jim Crow era, as well as the special protections that are afforded to women in today's society – some of which allow women to charge a man with assault even if he is only retaliating against an attack made by her; unless she was wielding a deadly weapon at the time. "After all, they're just girls!" (barf...)

Your inability to see your own hypocrisy or to blindly justify the double standards that are acknowledged, along with your tendency to write new laws in a knee-jerk reaction to some perceived social ill are precisely why you people scare the living hell out of me. At the end of the day, extremists are a threat to any free society - it does not matter which end of the spectrum they hail from.