Elections
What will would-be Senator Rand Paul say when they ask how he feels about being named after an avowed atheist? Not that I trust the NY Times account of Republican reticence on what to argue for, but, as one Republican pollster put it, "we have to answer the question, Why us?" Well, what is really wrong with Obamacare and the means used and contemplated to pass it, Democrat legislators cheering a foreign dictator leader of a chaotic state who denounces an American State, Washington DC owning auto companies...?
American instincts are sound, but passions and opinions need to be refined. (Palin graps these instincts remarkably well, but she needs to cultivate them, not just cheer them on.) To feel gloom and betray confusion because the Republican didn't prevail in an overwhelmingly Democratic district shows an utter lack of judgment. (As much as the media now implies Paul is a racist, why aren't they saying the same about Pennsylvania-12--why it didn't vote for Obama and was thus considered by some to be a "swing" district?)
Between the nihilism of the left and the nihilism of the right lies the constitutionalism, rule of law, and natural rights of the American political tradition. Applying these truths to the current crisis is the challenge.
Rand Paul wasn't named after Ayn Rand: https://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-05-23/news/chi-100523-page-column_1_libertarian-rachel-maddow-show-law-school-class
But the principle behind the question remains: Why does he name himself after an atheist?
I rather doubt that he chose this name because he identifies with the materialism and atheism of Ayn Rand. As thinkers like Whittaker Chambers and Russell Kirk noted over a half century ago, Rand's appeal translates for many because of its strident opposition to government thugs and exaltation of individual creativity and the role of the entrepreneur. The less than worthy philosophical elements she works from aren't as apparent in her popular novels. Rand Paul is pro-life, married, the father of young sons, and has demonstrated no small amount of courage thus far. We'll see what he does under pressure.
As the column I linked to explains, his name has nothing to do with Ayn Rand--his given name is Randall (not uncommon), and his wife started calling him Rand for short. True, he claims to like her novels, and to have been to some extent influenced by them, but there's nothing particularly unusual about this.
I should also add that the sort of non-interventionist foreign policy that Paul advocates is not one that hard-core Ayn Rand fans tend to support.
Might be atheist: BURN HIM!!!! or at least throw him the river to see if he is a witch.
It is incredible to me that in a group who lives to grandstand for founding principles can be so intolerent of freedom of religion. That they would sacrifice all politics and moral values just to have someone who pays lipservice to their religious beleifs. The establishment really does not want another Paul in there asking where the money is going to all the Goldman Sachs people. This should be enough campaign material to get elected ten times over.
I hope there's more to him than his name! It appears there is--I wish him well, more than a lot of his fellow party members.
Mexico is a constitutional republic with dysfunctional labor markets and wretched trouble with crime, organized and unorganized.
https://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2010&country=7876
The political order in Mexico is of long duration and there has been no extra-legal regime change since 1920.
There is no reason that Mr. Calderon, that country's elected President, should be subject to insults and falsehoods. There are enough autocrats in this world without erroneously adding him to that category.
Art Deco, did you happen to notice that the US fell behind Canada according to the latests Heritage/Wall Street Journal analysis?
Also Mexico did improve 2.5 points in the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. So I do second your comments about Mr. Calderon. North America is ahead of the rest of the world for the most part.
While this index doesn't really point directly to the tyrants North Korea is at the very bottom, and Cuba, Zimbabwe, Lybia, the democratic republic of Congo and Iran aren't far.
Now I really like the 2010 index of economic freedom, but I have serious problems with the way the weights are determined in regards Labor. I want an explanation as to how Mexico ends up getting a 61.9....(it is interesting that Mexican unemployment is only 4%) While Germany gets a 39.9 (unemployment a higher 7.3, but inflation is lower)
In fact Germany has less inflation and a lower unemployment rate than than the US and to top it off this is what they say about Germany: "Wages and fringe benefits remain among the world’s highest." Meanwhile Bahrain gets an 89.4 on labor, but Bahrain has a 15% unemployment rate and worse inflation! Germany trails China in labor freedom....I guess in germany if you want to be a prostitute you can join a union, while in Bahrain you would be killed under islamic law, in the US you would be arrested for prostitution, In mexico you might be a slave of a cartel that pimps you, and in China you are probably a cambodian sex slave.
Technically I would count wages and fringe benefits positively and also factor in unemployment and inflation negatively, that is low unemployment that is bellow NAIRU is negative, but all things considered higher wages and fringe benefits with lower unemployment and lower inflation is better...
The index would almost be an index of liberty and good government from the perspective of the citizen if the labor component wasn't so tilted in favor of what is good for business.
Brutus says:
"It is incredible to me that in a group who lives to grandstand for founding principles can be so intolerent of freedom of religion."
Since when? In no way is one's criticizing a candidate's atheism -- even vehemently -- a measure of intolerance of freedom of religion. Freedom of religion would imply that one's religious concerns over a potential public servant out to be heard loud and clear. You act as if NLT is an appendage of the government, and that is your mistake.
Fox's election (despite his ensuing policies) was an important turning point in Mexico's political history, its transition from a one-party state. And only since 1992 have major restrictions against religious freedom (anti-Catholic laws) been abolished. See State Dept. report: https://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/24499.htm
Whether it would be appropriate to have had a more robust Stephen Douglas policy to achieve Abe Lincoln's aims for civil society is a reasonable question.
The Mexican anti-clerical stance (which included the death penalty) raises the issue of August Comte's influence on Latin American politics. The 19th-century positivist had his influence on France and through it numerous other countries (I assume modern Turkey being one of them). Hayek, to bring us back to earlier themes of this thread, brilliantly portrayed positivism's influence in is Counter-Revolution of Science.
poor word choice on my part. I don't know it Rand Paul, Ron Paul or any of the Paul clan are athiests christians or luciferian mystery cultists. My point is that a guy comes along and says a lot of great things from a politics standpoint and is running for a political office and the first thing that happens is he gets called racist by the left and athiest by the right. I was simply trying to point out the mass propoganda not make some sort of stump speech about all religions coming to together in harmony and washed up celeberties holding hands.
It does not matter anymore what the mainstream on either side does because you all have no credibility. Both sides tried to slam this guy and he gained points in the polls, so keep doing it. I hope that by the end the mainstream right says he wants to burn all the bibles in the country and outlaw prayer and the left can say he wants to start up slavery again because people are just going to laugh at the absurd grasping at straws by a pathetic few trying maintain their little bit of power and influence.
Brutus: I think that the right, while not uncritical of Rand, has been more willing to cover for him in the instances that they clash, whether over religion or 'political principle.' Whatever you make of his remarks on the 1964 bill, I find it more appalling than his atheism. There is just no way to uphold his opinion on the matter re: private association without being arbitrary. One would hope that such an opinion as Rand's would be practicable, and manifest itself in a decent way. But I fear it would not.
https://beforeitsnews.com/news/49/103/MSNBC_defends_fraudulent_Rand_Paul_transcript_as_technically_correct_,_makes_no_apologies.html
It was a gotcha set up and its not going to work. I really think with guys like this we have a chance to really change the paradigm in this country and get some real good things done. This was not even part of his platform. Now there are thousands of news articles on this and the few I have sampled don't even provide quotes to what was said. It really is sad that people will continue to fight for this right left paradigm when it continues to crap on them for generations. It's like a Reds fan still saying Pete Rose never bet on baseball. The heartening thing is, that they won't be able to stop him from getting elected and with every outrageous statement they make more people wake up to the lies. Even people on the right are now saying that we can't trust the free market in the context of bashing his stance on the ADA, lol wut? How about we can't trust the "free market" in regards to regulating and deflating our currency.