I just got off the phone with one of Rand Paul's campaign staffers. Rand Paul is a vile, degenerate sociopath. But I had a few things to get off my chest.
So disgusted am I at Paul's supporters and their violent, Gestapo-like, and completely misogynistic behavior, I just called Paul's campaign headquarters to express my disapproval. I recommend others do so.
The number is 859-817-1462
A guy with a Southern accent picked up, and I said, immediately, my name is Tom and I am calling because I was physically sickened by what I saw on the news.
Immediately, the staffer tried to (a.) downplay the incident and (b.) blame the victim.
Basically, he referred to Lauren Valle, the victim of Rand Paul supporter mob violence as a "convicted felon" who has been showing up at (i.e., "stalking") Paul events. I replied that that is irrelevant and that that is her right.
He said that she can "take a punch," and aghast at such a comment, I said that that is itself a sickening comment.
And then, this loon, amazingly, started comparing her to Squeaky Fromme, the former Manson Family member and would be political assassin.
I was flabbergasted by such a comparison!
In trying to get the Paul people to fully own up to what happened, I kept getting lies and excuses by this pathetic Paul supporter.
The conversation got much more heated. I wound up telling the guy that I thought that he was full of shit and that Rand Paul is vile.
We then sort of went back and forth for about 20-30 seconds, where we were both trying to grab the floor so as to say what we each wanted to say.
When I finally moved to saying that it was not just one assaulter but a whole group of them, and that Rand Paul is doing a disservice to the truth with his false equivalencies, the guy cut me off, saying something like "get over it Pal" and then hung up.
Rand Paul is despicable. However, I think that I did learn a thing or two from this call. Hearing a non-violent political activist being compared to a psychotic member of the Manson Family tells me just how far removed from reality Rand Paul and his hardcore supporters really are. And hearing a male staffer referring to a 24 year old woman who deserves to "take a punch" (not to mention a concussion inducing headstomp) ought, in a saner society, to delegitimize the political campaign that allows for such references to be made.
Anyway, I encourage people to call this number and speak out against political thuggery.
UPDATE:
Because some might claim that referring to Rand Paul as a "sociopath" is perhaps a stretch (though my poll says otherwise). I offer the following indicators
*Glibness/Superficial Charm
*Manipulative and Conning
*Grandiose Sense of Self
*Pathological Lying
*Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
*Shallow Emotions
*Incapacity for Love
*Need for Stimulation
*Callousness/Lack of Empathy
*Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
*Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
*Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
*Authoritarian
*Secretive
*Paranoid
*Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
*Conventional appearance
It seems to me that a lot of these apply to Rand Paul's behavior as a candidate for elected office.
UPDATE II: as some have suggested, it needs to be pointed out that - in spite of the Paul campaign's manipulative spin - that Lauren Valle was never a convicted felon, merely someone who has, in the past, been, like ML King or the Mahatma Gandhi, arrested for non-violent civil resistance. The Paul campaign continues to victimize her through such misrepresentation of her biography.
UPDATE III: It seems that some here are still taking taking objection to my referring to Rand Paul as a "sociopath" andf think that I am exaggerating. I don't know if Paul is literally a sociopath, but that said, I do think that he is lacking in compassion, as, for example, in his completely heartless, compassionless reference to the trapped Chilean miners. heartless, compassionless reference to the trapped Chilean miners. I don't believe that strong moral opposition and using strong language to condemn him for his compassionless, victim-blaming response to the actions of his supporters, a kind of further victim-blaming that I discovered in my call, is necessarily inapproppriate, just as I don't think it was necessarily inappropriate to refer to Bush as a totalitarian. if the shoe fits...
Also, very glad to asee here trhat others made calls, even if you didn't necessarily get very far with the answerers.