Posted on 08/31/2015 3:19:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A nice catch by Sam Stein of HuffPo from Rand’s interview with Boston Herald Radio. Skip to around 11:00 for the key bit.
I … did not expect a competition between Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul over who could conjure up a better Nazi allusion for Republicans. Or rather, I didn’t expect it until the election turned to foreign policy.
“There have been a lot of dumb ideas put out,” Paul said, speaking with Boston Herald Radio. “One that the Mexicans will pay for a wall, [which] was probably the dumbest of dumb ideas. But putting a wall up between us and Canada is sort of a ridiculous notion. It is sort of like everybody is now competing to say, ‘Oh no, I’ll put them in camps. Oh no, I’ll throw them out. Oh no, I’ll put everyone in jail. And I’ll have an electric fence, and I’ll do this.’ And it’s like, you know, the biggest thing we need to do is have a functioning immigration system, with a good work program.”
You should know the punchline here already: By libertarian standards, Paul is an extreme border hawk himself. Shikha Dalmia, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation, ripped him apart last month for taking the same sort of law-and-order approach to illegals, replete with a double-layered border fence and “100% incarceration until trial for newly-captured illegal entrants and overstays,” that he routinely decries with respect to the war on drugs. As such, you can view this “camps” wisecrack in one of two ways. One: The race to be hawkier-than-thou between Trump and the rest of the field, Scott Walker most conspicuously, has now reached a point of such absurdity that hyperbole about camps isn’t that outlandish. I mean, we have the governor of Wisconsin, a top-tier presidential candidate despite his polling slide lately, entertaining the idea of a border wall with Canada.
Paul’s goofing on the idea of where this silly one-upsmanship is apt to lead rhetorically. Two: With his campaign in deep trouble among the sort of mainstream conservatives he’s spent the last few years trying to woo, Rand’s decided to embrace his dad’s base and hope that libertarians will carry him back into contention. That’s why Ron’s endorsement was rolled out a few weeks ago. There is no “Rand Paul coalition,” it seems, but there may still be a Ron Paul rEVOLution out there. Coopting it requires some signaling that Rand’s still a true blue libertarian at heart and goofing on the GOP for demanding strong borders is one way to do that. (Interestingly, Ron Paul is himself more of a border hawk than many libertarian ideologues, although not as much as is often alleged.)
Further evidence that Rand’s ready to embrace his inner Randian: This tweet from his campaign on Saturday.
Behind me is the NSA. When I'm President we'll turn it into a Constitutional Center to study the Fourth Amendment! pic.twitter.com/f19A5ZyYEI
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 29, 2015
I thought Rand’s problem with the NSA was that it casts far, far too wide a net, ensnaring millions of innocent American citizens, in gathering metadata to try to find terrorists. Now he’s suggesting that we need to get rid of the NSA and its signals intelligence capability entirely? What?
FURP!!
It would work for me. Work camps all along the border. Chain gangs getting two hots and a cot (literally) working a two year sentence to build the border wall; after which they are expelled across the border with little decorum and no respect given.
Return and the next time it is four years working on wall maintenance.
Exactly, he’s become irrelevant just like:
Bush
Christie
Gilmore
Graham
Huckabee
Jindal
Kasich
Pataki
Perry
Santorum
Walker
Nut job.
No, just the Orwellian, un-Constitutional hyper surveillance being perpetrated on the American populace.
It's not about terrorism, it's about social control.
Allegedly we fought Communism to prevent such things.
Mexico, Guatamala, Honduras, and other south/central American countries, have, contrary to popular belief, electricity, television, nightclubs, flush toilets and other amentities commonly attributed to all but the most civilized nations. Whenever deportation is brought up, you’d think we were loading them up in rockets and sending them to an asteroid.
What a complete dumbass! Doesn’t he understand that if the Dems are allowed to win on immigration, that every other issue precious to him (and us) will be a perpetual loser? The Dems haven’t won a majority of white voters since 1948, so they’ve decided to switch electorates by bringing in a good percentage of the Turd World. Once enough anchor babies are born, amnesty is a sure thing...and once that happens, America is officially OVER.
Wake the F up, Rand!
Hmmmm...
So, for you, the only relevant ones are:
Trump
Carson
Rubio
Cruz
Fiorina
Actually the list of viables is down to that. Rubio is the GOPe’s last great hope.
Thank God for Trump, exposing these traitors.
Rand Paul is an unhealthy little man. He is plain vindictive and jealous.
God heavens Rand, just get lost!
As long as those camps are south of the border.
God heavens is supposed to be Good heavens.
Oh well!
“mocks GOP field for hardline rhetoric towards illegals”
AM i missing something..? The GOP field.. hardline rhetoric?
Rand paul has disqualified himself from any believable credibility.
I agree. That mass Orwellian surveillance has to go.
Would you consider the NSA to be a “rogue” agency? Dos anybody have a grip on their leash?
I would leave Rubio out of that bunch. He doesn’t have much of a fit with the rest.
ohhhh, ________ Rand Paul....
The entire GOP is lost.
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