A note on Daily Kos University:
I am going to suspend DKU until at least after the elections. If you would like to write them, please let me know, and I can send some tips on how to do it. I've been doing it a long while, having taken over from rserven who did it for a long while before I did.
Now - Rand Paul!
[Update [2010-9-25 8:0:3 by plf515]:] I've added a poll
Recently, Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for Senate from Kentucky, said the following
The bottom line is: I'm not an expert, so don't give me the power in Washington to be making rules," Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April's deadly mining explosion in West
Virginia..."You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You'd try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don't, I'm thinking that no one will apply for those jobs."
Source http://climateprogress.org/...
There are only four conclusions you can come to from this:
- Rand Paul is an ignoramus
- Rand Paul is an idiot
- Rand Paul is insane
or
- Rand Paul is inimical
Coal mining is hard, dirty, dangerous work, and always has been. There is no way, probably, to make it completely safe. Eventually, in my view, we should all stop using coal altogether, but for now, we still mine coal. Why do people work in coal mines? Usually, it's because that's what their parents did, or that's the only thing they've ever done, or that's the only thing they know how to do. And they don't usually have a lot of choice about where they mine coal. It's not like (say) working in a restaurant in a big city, where there are many other restaurants you could work at. Mines are big operations. And when mines weren't regulated, they were much more dangerous then they are now.
Rand Paul might be ignorant of this. That would be appalling in a candidate from Kentucky, but at least it could be cured. Make him see, say, Harlan County USA; make him read histories of mining. Give him tables of statistics of deaths in mines.
Rand Paul might be an idiot. Perhaps he has read some of this, but been unable to comprehend it. This seems unlikely, as he is a college graduate and an MD, but I've known doctors who were pretty stupid, and he might be one of them. That's worse than being ignorant. Idiocy can't be cured.
Rand Paul might be insane. Perhaps the man is just so completely out of touch with reality that he qualifies as psychotic. I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, and I haven't examined him, so I can't diagnose Rand Paul, but it's at least a possibility.
Finally, if Rand Paul is none of these things, then he is evil. If he knows the facts, understands them, and can deal with them, but still says what he said, then he is evil. He shows a wanton disregard for human
life.
Whichever of these is the case, one thing is clear. Rand Paul is not qualified to be in the US Senate.
(Oh, and yes, he could be more than one of the four).