Rand Paul: typical Libertarian

Oh, what can it mean to a daydream believer and a home-coming queen?

Well, well, well...  It didn't take very long for über-Libertarian Senator Rand Paul to change his stripes, did it?

I’m not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they’ve been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they’ve been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn’t be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.  --Senator Rand Paul (KY). June 1, 2011

Got that?  The recently-elected Honorable Senator from Kentucky, named for Objectivist diva Ayn Rand, advocates that people who attend rallies where speakers indulge in "radical" speech should be taken into custody to be exiled or imprisoned.

Apparently, the Senator's love of the United States Constitution is less imperative than his wish to appeal to the right-wing fringe of the GOP political base.  Although he was careful to couch his words in fair-sounding sentiments about disregard of skin color or religion, this is clearly a sop to the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant wing of the Republican party.

But there's a problem.  You see, according to the standard that Senator Paul puts forth, many of his fellow Republicans are some of the worst offenders.

The most obvious example is Texas Governor Rick Perry who, in the spring of 2009, hinted that his state might choose to secede from the Union if Washington "continues to thumb its nose at the American people."  (Whatever that means.)

Then, of course, there is Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, who once belonged to an extremist state's rights group  that advocated seizing all federal holdings in Alaska for the state.

And there's Representative Allen West (FL), whose campaign aide, Joyce Kaufman, warned "If ballots don't work [to further right-wing goals], bullets will."

Senator Paul's father, Ron, is running for President.  Perhaps Rand is sending a shot across the bow for these other folks.  "Don't run against my dad, or else..."  It seems far-fetched but, then again, that's how Republicans do each other.  Just ask Newt Gingrich.

But seriously, Paul's statement reveals a lack of conviction that I have found all too common with Libertarians.  The freedom-loving facade that Libertarians present as evidence of their deeply-held convictions is skin deep.  Every Libertarian tenet that I've ever heard can be boiled down to a single, short-sighted philosophy:

I've got mine; you get yours.  And let tomorrow take care of itself.