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The Doctor Is In (Or Near, Anyway)

By on May 14, 2009 21

Rand Paul (Ron Paul’s son – not named after Ayn as far as I know) just announced his – well, not his candidacy, exactly, but his exploratory committee-hood-ness, on Rachel Maddow’s show.

I took a look at his website to see whether there were any issues where he disagreed significantly with his father, but I didn’t notice any. (But the website covers a fairly narrow range of issues; there’s nothing listed, for example, on drugs, immigration, abortion, or gay rights. I reckon he’s trying to avoid alienating either libertarians or conservatives.) My overall reaction to the website was … well, boredom. Still, I wish him well in his combat with modal Republicans.

The Atrocity of Hope, Part 4: No Pictures, Please

By on May 13, 2009 10

ObushmaJust saw Jonathan Turley on Maddow’s show, talking about the latest torture cover-up, and saying “This administration is turning out to be the greatest bait-and-switch in history; Obama is morphing into his predecessor” – with Maddow nodding gloomily.

While I think “greatest bait-and-switch in history” is hyperbole (the Russian Revolution surely edges it out by a bit), I’m glad to see that not all of Obama’s supporters (cough, Olbermann, cough) have signed away all their civil-liberties principles upon the accession of the President Incarnate.

Freedom and Friends

By on May 13, 2009 19

John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord ActonAn interesting observation from Lord Acton:

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success.

This passage by itself doesn’t argue for or against any particular alliance. It makes the point that alliances are advisable (as they must be if it is indeed true that defenders of liberty have never succeeded except by allying with defenders of something else) but also that they are extremely risky and sometimes extremely harmful. All facts worth keeping in mind – though by themselves they don’t offer any concrete guidance.

Haters of Gays versus Lovers of War Propaganda

By on May 12, 2009 23

Carrie Prejean, pageant contestant and anti-equality activist, explains:

On April 19, on that stage, I exercised my freedom of speech, and I was punished for doing so. This should not happen in America. It undermines the constitutional rights for which my grandfather fought for [sic].

Wow! What happened? Was she arrested? Was she fined?

Um … no. All that happened was that she was verbally attacked for her views. Does she really think she has a constitutional right not to be criticised? That she can express whatever bigoted views she wants, but others have no right to call her out for them? Is freedom of speech something that applies only to herself and not to her critics?

Carrie Prejean and Keith Olbermann

On the other hand, some of her critics have been saying inane things too. Olbermann, for example (sorry), tonight said something like “Her grandfather didn’t fight for her right to speak her mind in a beauty contest, he fought for her right not to have her speech interfered with by the government.”

Huh? What did World War II have to do with defending her right not to have her speech interfered with by the government? Didn’t the U.S. government on the contrary use World War II as a pretext to increase such interference? Or does Olbermann mean that Prejean’s grandfather was fighting to prevent Nazi Germany from conquering the U.S. and imposing still harsher censorship? If so, does Olbermann really believe that the U.S. was in serious danger of being conquered during World War II?

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