Rand Paul tells same-sex married couples: Keep your relationships out of the workplace

[helmuth_hubener]

I'm not saying you're completely wrong with your assessment, but to say that anybody who does any type of 'drug' is short sighted or handicapping their intellect is just totally wrong.

Oh, I agree with you completely, dannno. I certainly came off too absolutist there. Look, I personally don't do any of it, including alcohol. But many people do, I get that, and that doesn't make them bad, non-respectable people. Many a marijuana smoker is also a perfectly sane, responsible person. But there's a spectrum -- the father working hard, providing for his children, happily married, has done some drugs in the past, or maybe even does a little now, is very different than the guy totally off the deep end living in the woods at the hippie commune, consorting with a different woman every night, trying different drug cocktails every night, no job, no relationships, no semblance of normalcy. The libertarian movement used to be full of this latter type of fringe person, and still tends to attract them in numbers far out of proportion to their numbers in the general population, but they are not the type of person to have as leaders, in my opinion. They are not someone who can command great respect and admiration and loyalty as a leader and role model. Ron Paul, by contrast, is. And Rand Paul is in that same line. Tom Woods would be another example.

I think the winning strategy is to do our level best to appeal to traditional conservatives. These people are overwhelmingly in favor of smaller government, and overwhelmingly positive towards capitalism. That's precisely what we want! They are our natural allies.

You are very right that they are not nearly as open-minded and willing to entertain unfamiliar ideas as others. That just means we have to work harder and be smarter.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

When Ron Paul doubled down on distancing himself from truthers, even though in a way he is one, I had to accept that and move on. (It's funny how Donald is playing 9/11 as a Trump card.) Rand has boxed himself into a particular corner on the CRA. He might can back out, but if he tries to jump out he will get his clock cleaned.

I don't know that he has to bring up the CRA at all. Conservatives aren't actively upset about CRA currently. It's not like they are chomping on the bit wanting to be able to fire black people. What they want is to be able to stand up for their beliefs and not completely capitulate to the militant gay movement. That is the thing to talk about.

Total absolute private property rights for Christians to tell gays to go take a hike. You side with the Christians against the militant gays. Now to be consistent, sure, I guess you would have to be in favor of total absolute private property rights for whites to tell blacks to go take a hike. But nobody cares about that and nobody wants that. Christians vs. gays. That's the battle that's actually actively going on. And the side to ally with -- and strongly ally with -- is clear. Throw the gays under the bus.

That said....I know a way out.

I would be interested to hear your idea!