Candidate for Aqua Buddha 2016
Okay, the title is a bit misleading. Rand Paul did manage to launch his campaign today. But his speech was a failure on many levels. Laura Clawson wrote "
Rand Paul tries to be soaring and inspirational, while barely containing a sneer" today and covered some of the higher low points and the more I read of it, the more irritated I became. Being the shy, demure type, I of course clicked the comment link and started lambasting just about every line of Rand's speech.
I gave up halfway through as my bile level was rapidly approaching the exploding-head point. But due to popular demand (i.e., a grand total of 2 Kossacks), I decided to continue and put both my original (edited) comments and the new material here in a diary.
My commentary is based on the transcript found in Time magazine online. I apologize in advance to all the Randians or Randheads or Aqua Buddhists or whatever he calls his supporters if I criticize something based on any errors in the transcript.
And away we go.
Is the linked transcript correct? Is the GOP running yet another candidate incapable of using the English language correctly?
a true economic boom that lists all Americans
Who uses the verb "to list" that way? Does he think it means "to include?" Or is he referring to the NSA and putting every American on lists of suspects?
I worry, though, that the opportunity and hope are slipping away for our sons and daughters.
The opportunity for what? Or does he mean opportunity in general, which shouldn't include the definite article?
In order to restore America, one thing is for certain, though: We cannot, we must not dilute our message or give up on our principles.
Okay, it's relatively common to assume that everyone understands what our American principles are (although it's also obvious that many people disagree about what they are). But what is this "message" that we must not dilute? Is it "We're number 1!" or "Who is John Galt?" or "Supersize my order, please" or what?
We need to boldly proclaim our vision for America.
I suppose that would be nice to do; pity he didn't bother. There's really nothing substantive in the rest of speech that would approach a well defined vision for America.
Washington is horribly broken. I fear it can’t be fixed from within. We the people must rise up and demand action.
If the people are rising up and demanding action yet government can't be fixed from within, isn't that pretty much inciting rebellion? So he wants to be elected President so he can be overthrown during a revolution? I don't understand.
I ran for office because we have too many career politicians.
So Rand will run for yet another office but somehow in Libertarian fantasy land that will make him a non-career politician.
The bills are 1,000 pages long and no one reads them. They are often plopped on our desk with only a few hours before a vote, so I propose something truly extraordinary. Let’s read the bills every day.
Yes, because congresspeople are too productive already, passing all that legislation and stuff. So instead of having professional staff who can wade through "
subsection 18, paragraph 37, clause B of U.S. Title 17, Code 36 is amended to read 'where appropriate' instead of 'as appropriate.'" for them, congresspeople should be reading a thousand pages aloud in Congress every day; that should get things really moving.
Freedom nurtured our country from a rebellious group of colonies into the world’s greatest nation.
Yep, because the freedom of those Articles of Confederation was so constraining to federal power that we chose to adopt the Constitution which gives vastly more power to the federal government. Wait, wut?
The freedom we have fostered in America have unleashed genius and advancement like never before.
Apparently freedom has unleashed so much genius that we are no longer required to have a single subject use the singular form "has."
Work is not punishment; work is the reward.
And work will make you free! Or as Molly Ivins said, it probably sounded better in the original German.
I have a vision for America where everyone who wants to work will have a job.
Progressives have that vision also. Unlike Rand, we actually have policies to make that vision become reality. And our plans include people making a living wage in those jobs, you Ayn-hole.
[The original ending of my comment in Laura's diary. The new material will pick up in the paragraph after.]
Oh hell, I just can't do any more. He blathers on and on and if I keep going, this comment will be as annoying in length as one of the interminable self-serving speeches of the narcissistic windbags so-called heroes of an Ayn Rand novel.
As I watch our once-great economy collapse under mounting spending and debt, I think, “What kind of America will our grandchildren see”?
Your grandchildren will be fine. Other people's grandchildren probably will be scrabbling for moldy food in garbage bins behind restaurants because your party is doing its best to create a Dickensian future of debtors prisons, plutocracy and selfishness.
And where were you in the mid 2000's? Did you skip out on society to playact at being John Galt? Spending and debt didn't cause the economy to crash and burn, it was caused by untrammeled greed and reckless speculation by Wall Street, compounded by negligent supervision by the administration of the last President from your party.
We need to go boldly forth under the banner of liberty that clutches the Constitution in one hand and the Bill of Rights in the other.
Hey, dumbass. You are running for President of the United States. You probably should know that the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution. And a lot of your supporters are going to be telling you that won't leave a hand free for them to clutch their Bibles or guns.
Our great nation was founded upon the extraordinary notion that government should be restrained and freedom should be maximized.
That doesn't even square with the popular mythical reasons for founding our country. Remember "No taxation without representation!"? We won't even get into the whole mess of how we maximized freedom for all of those extra-melanin folks down on the Southern plantations, will we?
My plan includes economic freedom zones to allow impoverished areas like Detroit, West Louisville, Eastern Kentucky to prosper by leaving more money in the pockets of the people who live there.
Oh yes, those economic freedom zones. Funny how things like that usually end up allowing big corporations to rack up sales while avoiding taxes. You know another way to put money in people's pockets? Raise the minimum wage! But the ghost of Ayn Rand would come back and haunt you if you supported having the evil government do anything to actually help people, right?
In my vision for America, we’ll bring back manufacturing jobs that pay well. How? We’ll dramatically lower the tax on American companies that wish to bring their profits home.
First, you complained that the government is spending too much and we need a balanced budget. Now you say the government receives too much income, so I assume we would need to cut spending even more than in your first halfwitted idea. I'm guessing you'd like to slash federal spending about 50% in total, right? That pretty much means funding the war machine and not much else.
Moreover, do you really fucking believe that corporate taxes are the reason companies ship jobs overseas? If you slashed them to zero, it would still be cheaper to use foreign labor: they work for literally a few pennies per every dollar that an American worker is paid.
We need to stop limiting kids in poor neighborhoods to failing public schools and offer them school choice.
Yes, because properly funding public schools would be morally wrong. Your deep philosophical analysis of
Atlas Shrugged has proven to you that the proper role of government is to shove more money into the gaping voracious jaws of private education corporations, where they can spend it on executive jet-skis and corporate junkets to procure underage Dominican hookers instead of, you know, useless crap like text books, desks, chalk, and Bunsen burners.
At home, conservatives understand that government is the problem, not the solution.
Well, finally, we can agree on something. When conservatives control the government, they use it to create problems instead of solutions.
I believe in applying Reagan’s approach to foreign policy to the Iran issue. Successful negotiations with untrustworthy adversaries are only achieved from a position of strength.
The difference between President Obama and myself, he seems to think you can negotiate from a position of weakness.
The big question for all of us here in reality land is how much stronger do we need to be? Having a defense budget that is equal to pretty much all of industrialized nations put together isn't enough? The Pentagon and its profiteering partners will screw you every time, dude. Your balanced budget plans will collapse faster than a Hoosier hate-for-Jeebus law when the war machine cranks it up for more funding.
It angers me to see mobs burning our flag and chanting “Death to America” in countries that receive millions of dollars in our foreign aid.
I say it must end. I say not one penny more to these haters of America.
Right. Crazy mob = no soup for you! Ever think that maybe the right kind of foreign aid, the kind that actually builds schools and hospitals and sewage systems, might make a difference in the way our country is perceived? We did this thing called the Marshall Plan after World War II and, tell me if you already heard this one, we ended up having the countries involved as friends and allies for the next 70 years. Weird, huh?
Warrantless searches of Americans’ phones and computer records are un-American and a threat to our civil liberties.
You prove the stopped-clock theory there. I'm big enough to admit it, you score a good point. Of course, a PCP-crazed monkey every now and then could manage to fling its poop in a perfect trajectory to land on somebody's head, so don't get too full of yourself.
We must never diminish the Bill of Rights as we fight this long war against evil.
You know, that's exactly what got us into trouble last time. Instead of fighting a war with an actual enemy, we decided to fight a concept, evil. We would have been better off lighting up a fat one and thinking that whole thing through instead of jumping right in.
We are still exceptional and we are still a beacon for the world. We will thrive when we believe in ourselves again.
Yes, it's a real problem. All those "USA! USA! USA!" and "We're number 1!" patriots clearly believe America is a 90-lb. weakling getting sand kicked in its face. Our problem isn't lack of belief in ourselves, it's arrogance. We go around kicking sand and then are shocked when others call us a bully.
I see an America with a restrained IRS that cannot target, cannot harass American citizens for their political or religious beliefs.
The Tea Party people are still getting their authentic 18th century homespun calico knickers in a twist over that old canard, enough that you had to dog-whistle it for them in your speech? I thought their new thing was "No shoes, no shirt, no standard-missionary-position-breeding, no service"?
With your help, this message will ring from coast to coast, a message of liberty, justice and personal responsibility.
I assume that "personal responsibility" will cover corporate responsibility as well? Corporations would need to cover the costs of their polluting, wage theft, safety and labor violations, discriminatory practices and the like? Oh, I see, you just meant people should buckle down and take responsibility for their bad choices like getting cancer, being fired when a factory moves to Indonesia, or letting their house get washed away in a flood. Never mind.
Today I announce with God’s help, with the help of liberty lovers everywhere, that I am putting myself forward as a candidate for president of the United States of America.
God called just after your speech and she told me she did absolutely nothing to help announce your campaign. And BTW, she said to tell you she's really pissed.