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View Full Version : Justin Raimondo: The Libertarian Moment has arrived-thanks to Rand Paul




supermario21
03-07-2013, 11:02 PM
What a good piece, he deserves the visits and it's too long to post!


http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/03/07/standwithrand/



I started writing this as Rand Paul entered the 9th hour of his historic filibuster against the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director, but I had to stop. As I listened and watched, real tears clouded my vision, raining down on the keyboard – tears of pure joy.

cajuncocoa
03-07-2013, 11:15 PM
I like this paragraph...it describes exactly how I feel about Rand today:


I have been one of Rand’s harshest critics precisely because I saw his enormous potential as a force for liberty – and feared it was going to waste. As it turns out, it looks like my fears were not justified, and that is a great relief......If and when Sen. Paul veers off on some unwelcome tangent, we’ll be the first to let him – and you – know. What’s encouraging is that I have much less expectation of that occurring.

supermario21
03-07-2013, 11:22 PM
I think Rand discovered that the best way to make an impact is to be Rand and not some political tight-rope walker. Last night was a speech you'd hear Ron give. And it worked.

RockEnds
03-07-2013, 11:37 PM
Great article.

itshappening
03-07-2013, 11:44 PM
FU Justin, freaking out over Hagel and telling us not to support Rand 2 weeks ago.

You lost credibility and won't get it back so get lost dummy.

Inkblots
03-08-2013, 12:01 AM
You know, as annoying as Raimondo can be when he's spitting acid at people within the liberty movement, when he turns that fire-hose on hypocritical progressives it's priceless entertainment. Seeing him take apart the editor of Mother Jones on Twitter yesterday was a hoot and a half.

He also has easily the best nickname for Lindsey Graham I've ever seen.

ican'tvote
03-08-2013, 12:15 AM
FU Justin, freaking out over Hagel and telling us not to support Rand 2 weeks ago.

You lost credibility and won't get it back so get lost dummy.
Justin forgave Rand for the perceived missteps. I can forgive him for holding Rand's feet to the fire. It shows me that he was actually serious about it.

MaxPower
03-08-2013, 12:29 AM
On the one hand, it is true that Raimondo (whose writings I usually enjoy) performs a worthwhile service by holding Rand accountable and not blindly following wherever he goes (the mistake the left liberal movement recently made with Obama). On the other, I do think he has been too quick to burst into outright histrionics at most every one of Rand's perceived missteps-- I remember back during the Senate election, Raimondo wrote a vicious article calling Rand "the Hollow Man," a traitor determined to tear down all of his father's work, and suggesting he was another George W. Bush, and even within the last couple weeks, insultingly called him "Ted Cruz in a toupee." He has repeatedly gone so far as to declare Rand a contemptible traitor. There is legitimate criticism, and then there is going wildly overboard and spewing rash personal attacks.

itshappening
03-08-2013, 12:35 AM
Justin forgave Rand for the perceived missteps. I can forgive him for holding Rand's feet to the fire. It shows me that he was actually serious about it.

Excuse me? He was calling him a traitor and saying no one should send Rand Paul money or support him because he supported his parties filibuster of a CFR, iraq war, patriot act voting STOOGE in Chuck Hagel.

The man is absurd and should be ignored.

Don't post anything he writes here. He's f**king annoying.

Sola_Fide
03-08-2013, 12:59 AM
This is very perceptive:


Most importantly, it shows him that the impulse to rein in his libertarian instincts acts as a brake on his success. It shows him that opposition to foreign wars and endless international meddling isn’t an aspect of libertarianism that has to be kept in the closet, so to speak, and downplayed like some sort of affliction. With the twin disasters of the Iraq and Afghan wars all too readily apparent to everyone but John McCain and Lindsey Graham, anti-interventionism is an asset to be emphasized and articulated in just the way Sen. Paul did with such eloquence the other night. If there was an overarching theme of the filbuster, it was the unbreakable connection between peace abroad and liberty at home – and Sen. Paul brought that message home to both the right and the left.

What Rand needs to understand is: the worldwide outpouring of support he received yesterday was a result of his libertarianism, not anything else. Rand, your libertarianism is not something you need to hide or downplay...in fact, your success depends on your libertarianism. Your ability to bring together the array of groups needed to win the presidency depends on your libertarianism alone.

Feeding the Abscess
03-08-2013, 01:46 AM
It's great that Rand got so much attention for this, and it really did need to be done, but now we need to take this debate further. We need to ask why the government assassinates anyone for anything. Ever.

If Rand isn't comfortable going further (he's still supportive of the assassination of Al-Awlaki, provided he had been tried in absentia, per his interview with Erin Burnett), that's fine, but we can't stop here. We need to expand the range of acceptable discussion.

unknown
03-08-2013, 01:50 AM
What a good piece, he deserves the visits and it's too long to post!

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/03/07/standwithrand/

This is real cool. I like Raimondo. The tears part is crazy but it was epic.

MaxPower
03-08-2013, 02:58 AM
It's great that Rand got so much attention for this, and it really did need to be done, but now we need to take this debate further. We need to ask why the government assassinates anyone for anything. Ever.

If Rand isn't comfortable going further (he's still supportive of the assassination of Al-Awlaki, provided he had been tried in absentia, per his interview with Erin Burnett), that's fine, but we can't stop here. We need to expand the range of acceptable discussion.
Rand supportive of the Al-Awlaki killing? He openly expressed misgivings at the time (not as straightforward or strong as his father's denunciation, mind you), and said this during his filibuster:

"There was a man named [Anwar] al-Awlaki. He was a bad guy, by all evidence available to the public that I’ve read, he was treasonous. I have no sympathy for his death. I still would have tried him in a federal court for treason and I think you could have been executed."

anaconda
03-08-2013, 03:05 AM
I'm thoroughly enjoying how many people in the media are lumping McCain and Graham together and demonizing them. This is a great unexpected side-effect of the filibuster. Frankly, I'm scratching my head as to why McCain and Graham spoke out against the filibuster on the day after. I guess they are intending to fall on their swords for the last scraps from the rotting corpse of the dinosaur GOP. They appear to have drawn a battle line in the sand to maintain the warfare party and continue to their last dying breath as errand boys for the military contractors and the security state.

anaconda
03-08-2013, 03:15 AM
the worldwide outpouring of support he received yesterday was a result of his libertarianism, not anything else.

I support what you say, but I don't think most who cheered him on think of it as "libertarianism." I think they just saw it as a guy standing up for civil rights and the constitution against the corrupt elite. I think the L word throws some people off.

anaconda
03-08-2013, 03:27 AM
It's great that Rand got so much attention for this, and it really did need to be done, but now we need to take this debate further. We need to ask why the government assassinates anyone for anything. Ever.

If Rand isn't comfortable going further (he's still supportive of the assassination of Al-Awlaki, provided he had been tried in absentia, per his interview with Erin Burnett), that's fine, but we can't stop here. We need to expand the range of acceptable discussion.

Well said. The discussion boundaries are badly in need of expansion!

acptulsa
03-08-2013, 07:37 AM
This is very perceptive:

What Rand needs to understand is: the worldwide outpouring of support he received yesterday was a result of his libertarianism, not anything else. Rand, your libertarianism is not something you need to hide or downplay...in fact, your success depends on your libertarianism. Your ability to bring together the array of groups needed to win the presidency depends on your libertarianism alone.

You know, I see the Dana Bash crowd embarassing the hell out of themselves by opposing calling out Obama and Holder and forcing them to say the right things, and I see Limbaugh and others jumping on the Rand bandwagon because it embarasses an increasingly hypocritical Democratic party. I see Graham and McCain getting flamed without seemingly any counter-argument from any quarter for simply saying that Rand filibustered over a non-issue (and glorifying war as an aside, like they always do). And I see Durbin on the verge of destroying himself because he was the first to stand up and do what Graham and McCain are doing, even though he was stupid to do it (being a Democrat) and he didn't do it well. And I love it all.

But I still feel unsure that all of this is going to help with the Republican nomination. Rand Paul has, if anything, single-handedly stopped the slide of people away from the GOP and made the Democratic Party the Official Party of Hypocricy. But at the same time, I'm not completely convinced that this will be enough to smooth his road to the nomination. Indeed, I think this has flipped what I thought the scenario would be on its head. Before I thought they'd give him the nomination, secure in the knowledge that he was playing to the base too much to win the general election. Now I foresee a repeat of what we went through with his dad--knowing we have the general election in the bag if only we can convince Republicans not to throw the election away and lose on purpose by nominating some scumbag instead.

We'd do well to capitalize on this moment and get as many Blue Republicans registered as possible, at least in states where you have to be registered with the party in question to participate in its primary. We need to make the 'D' the scarlet letter, not the 'R'. The establishment tools of both sides have outed themselves, Durbin and Graham have given us all the footage we need to hang them both in a thoroughly bipartisan manner, and we need to get all the disaffected Americans to help us win one party over. And regardless of what you think of it, the party that is weaker and easier to storm is the GOP. Hell, we've already won over many, many counties.

Ditch the hypocrites and join our Revolution!

ican'tvote
03-08-2013, 01:05 PM
Excuse me? He was calling him a traitor and saying no one should send Rand Paul money or support him because he supported his parties filibuster of a CFR, iraq war, patriot act voting STOOGE in Chuck Hagel.
And now all is apparently forgiven. I'm more than willing to let bygones be bygones. Someone comes around to Rand Paul and you want to punish them for taking a while to do it? For goodness' sake.



Don't post anything he writes here. He's f**king annoying.
This is rich coming from the guy who posts Levin stuff.

FSP-Rebel
03-08-2013, 01:37 PM
I support what you say, but I don't think most who cheered him on think of it as "libertarianism." I think they just saw it as a guy standing up for civil rights and the constitution against the corrupt elite. I think the L word throws some people off.
I think his "realist" approach to foreign affairs and civil liberties is a libertarian approach that can't be dismissed as isolationist and furthermore it's very attractive to rank and file conservatives. That said, he's had decent and positive reviews for everything he's done economically to cut things but his profile exploded like a time bomb when people felt he was protecting them from the man. Perceiving someone saving you from a potential drone strike makes them a hero of yours of biblical proportions.