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Rand Paul represents the return of the Old Right.
Archive for May, 2010
May 23rd, 2010
Category: Income distribution
The deal was more pressure to work in return for more help – especially day care – for working families. Now the help is falling victim to state-level budget-cutting.
May 23rd, 2010
De-regulating airfares wasn’t a far-out libertarian idea; it was a mainstream liberal idea with Ted Kennedy as its key sponsor. A real libertarian would have wanted to eliminate airline safety rules.
May 23rd, 2010
Category: Watching Conservatives
The first rule of politics is: When your opponent is down, don’t stop kicking. Now is the time (if you’ll allow me to mix a metaphor) to drive a stake through the heart of Teabaggerism, and Rand Paul’s candidacy is the perfect place to do it. Buy now that Paul has backed off on the [...]
May 22nd, 2010
Category: Watching Conservatives
The United States is not “democratic;” Obama is a threat comparable to Hitler or Stalin; it’s “un-American” to criticize British Petroleum for fouling the Gulf Coast. This calls for diagnosis, not refutation.
May 22nd, 2010
Category: Uncategorized
David Leonhardt points out what shouldn’t need pointing out: just on the first sixteen months’ record. this is already the most successful Democratic President since LBJ. Elections have consequences. We have one coming up. Any sane progressive should want the Democrats to do as well as possible.
May 22nd, 2010
Category: Journalism (Online and Otherwise)
Just back from a house-party campaign event for Mickey Kaus’s Quixotic campaign against Barbara Boxer. I’m still not sure how Mickey figures that Democrats are supposed to win elections by annoying Latinos, union members, and Social Security recipients, but on several points he did manage to put the “Democrat” back in “contrarian Democrat” more than [...]
May 21st, 2010
Category: Drug Policy
And law enforcement officials have too much power when serving search warrants and making arrests. No surprise if some of them use it badly.
May 21st, 2010
Category: Libertarianism, Watching Conservatives
If Rand Paul can’t stand up to David Gregory, how can he stand up to the terrorists?
May 21st, 2010
Category: Elections 2010 and 2012, Libertarianism
With due respect to Mark (here and here), I think that Rand Paul’s real problems in 90-percent-white Kentucky will stem from the implications of his radical libertarianism for working-class whites, not African-Americans. Jonathan Singer at mydd.com asks four questions that Paul couldn’t answer in a way that would make him both truthful and electable: Do [...]