It's been percolating from a place deep within me over the past few days. Josh Marshall pretty well summed up the questions I have about Rand Paul's affinity for Ayn Rand. The issue isn't that Paul is a bad Christian. It's that he's a hypocritical, self-absorbed, narcissistic prig. You can't claim Christ and deny basic values like altruism, or "care for the least of these" charity.
But that still doesn't get at my concern. My concern about Rand Paul goes down to something fundamental about our democratic republic, and the Founding Fathers' intent in establishing a Constitution and Bill of Rights like they did. It gets to the concerns I have about our American legacy of "some are more equal than others" on issues like slavery, womens rights, etc.
So when I saw this blog post from Jim Wallis today, it finally clicked for me.
On Wednesday, I wore purple. I was speaking at North Park University, an evangelical Christian college, with Tim King, my colleague and a former student there. I was pleased to see them passing out purple ribbons and announcing why just before chapel.
So I joined thousands of others across the country who believe that bullying should never be tolerated at any time, at any place, or for any reason. I wore purple to commemorate "Spirit Day," in memory of the many young people who have taken their own lives as a result of harassment and bullying inflicted on them because they are gay. I wore purple because I am a follower of Christ.
A bully is a person who habitually intimidates, harasses, or commits violence against those who are smaller, weaker, or more vulnerable because of their "outsider" status. A bully stands in opposition to all of what Christ taught and lived. There is broad opposition within the Christian community to bullying, especially the sort that leads to the deaths we have seen as of late. This sort of harassment is indefensible. And the stories of young kids being so bullied that they take their own lives has been heartbreaking to hear.
This is a matter of justice. It's a matter of justice that Jack Conway, as a Democrat and as attorney general of the commonwealth of Kentucky, understands and fights for on a daily basis.
Rand Paul knows that his approach to government continues the heinous and unequal legacy of white male Protestant privilege in the United States. Rand Paul is not a dummy. He knows history, and he knows politics. Rand Paul, like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity and a host of others, is fully aware of how to appeal to "freedom" and "American values" and "Judeo-Christian heritage" as a way of winking and nodding to those who use privilege to bully those who are smaller, weaker, or more vulnerable.
Proverbs 22:7 - a Jewish proverb in the Bible - says that, "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender." Christians like Jack Conway and Jim Wallis understand that this should drive us to fight for the underdog, to use white male privilege to protect those who are bullied by financial titans and big banks and corporate lobbyists. Christians like Jack Conway and Jim Wallis understand that equal protection under the law doesn't mean that everyone gets treated exactly the same, but rather that we seek to provide equal access to justice by ending systemic injustices and providing ladders of opportunity to the oppressed.
Rand Paul wants to propose that the way to end poverty is through some combination of Christian charity and Randian objectivism - that if we just allowed the free market to work, poor people would be lifted out of oppression through some miracle of self-actualization.
Fundamentally, this is the Tea Party Gospel: if you just get government out of the way and stop trying to use welfare programs to help people, things will automatically get better. If you just let the churches step up, compassionate conservatism will reign supreme and our great American Christian capitalist system will prevail over disease and poverty.
That's the bargain.
But it doesn't work.
I know it doesn't work because we tried it already under George W. Bush. I know it doesn't work because I know that human nature drives us to be predictably irrational, to use the term coined by behavioral economist Dan Ariely. I know it doesn't work because I know how addiction works to ensnare human freedom and corrupt our economic system. And I know we're addicted to oil, to debt, to a media that lies to us, and to all kinds of substances.
That isn't freedom. It's tyranny.
And even if Rand Paul was right, and we just need the free market to bring us economic freedom, that neglects the fact that under Republican presidents and Congresses for the past 30 years, our national debt has skyrocketed while jobs have been shipped overseas and opportunity has evaporated for the American middle class.
Rand Paul won't stand up to bullies.
Rand Paul tied up a woman, took her down to the river, and forced her to bow down to his idol.
And it may have been a joke, but what he's doing in reality in 2010 is eerily similar to his college prank at Baylor University.
There is no middle ground here. You cannot serve both God and money. You cannot support both charity and objectivism. You cannot claim to love justice and turn a blind eye to injustice. And you cannot claim to support freedom while you encourage tyranny.
Rand Paul is not naive. He is not foolish. He is not ignorant.
Rand Paul is a bully.