In May of 2010 the Republican endorsed candidate for senate in a Southern state was compelled through his own rigid ideology and incompetence to issue a press release declaring that under no circumstances would he vote to repeal the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 or 1965 should he win elected office. Welcome to the loony, paranoid and cultish world of Ron (pere) and Rand (fils) Paul. This is what one gets when one plays at politics; when one would rather lose being pure than win by compromising; when one's politics is simply not serious. MC has had all it can stand.Let's remember that the infiltration of the Paulites into the Republican Party started long before the advent of the Tea Party movement. The forward guard of the Paulites were thus well positioned to exploit the genuine grievances that undergird the Tea Party movement. The two, however, are by no means congruent.
Do most Tea Partiers support legalized prostitution and drugs? Do most of them believe the Federal Reserve was involved in Watergate? Do most of them believe that all US military forces around the world should be withdrawn at once? Do most of them see Jewish cabals ("banksters" and the ever available term of opprobrium "neocons") at every turn?
To ask such questions is to have your answer. Try imagining asking those questions to any type of Republican. Again, one has their answer.
So who are these people and why are they making a hash of the Republican Party? Many of them in Minnesota came into the party over the Iraq war. They opposed it. Fine. Sorry that the surge worked and all that but, still, MC has always thought the GOP much more diverse, tolerant and inclusive than our fraudulent (but not Communist!) Democratic friends.
That said, and the Iraq issue largely moot due to its relatively good outcome, the Paulites are left with the fetid entrails of "libertarianism." This is politics for unserious people. Local candidates here could not get the endorsement of one group unless they supported legalized drugs, free trade with Iran (!) and legalized prostitution. These faux markers of freedom and individual autonomy are positions most people grew out of if, indeed, they ever held them. MC understands this but we are not 17 anymore, as Annie Lennox might put it. We are not oppressed when we can't buy heroin at Walgreens, when we stop at red lights or when we obey validly passed laws.
Lately, as everyone knows by now, Rand Paul could not help himself when asked to give a straight answer about legislation that made this country racially fairer. Instead, as purists do, he had to hem and haw to such a degree that he looked like a racist, which most assuredly he is not. His father, however, is most assuredly anti-semitic and don't try talking MC out this belief.
At any rate, the result of the "Randslide" has been a landslide of hideous, negative and unfounded accusations against the Tea Party movement and, more generally, the Republican Party. Thank you for that, Paulites. The adults will now have to clean up your mess while you sulk about being held accountable for your loonacy. And no, the media isn't fair but if you're just learning that now you're even less serious than we thought.
The Republican Party will survive this disfiguring infestation but only if we insist that our core principles are not amenable to cults and purists. We represent a genuine and desperately needed alternative to the horror show the Democratic party has become in office. The stakes are too high to let those who think getting high is the point of politics to prevail. It is time to put the Paulite children back into the playpen of the Libertarian Party from whence they originally came.
Let the purge begin.
