Truth be told, if Dr. Rand Paul had not won his race for the United States Senate against all odds, I probably wouldn’t have read his book or written this column about it.
But he is a leader in one of the most fascinating political dramas of the last decade, and when I saw “The Tea Party Goes to Washington” at Barnes & Noble two weeks ago, I couldn’t resist buying a copy and devouring it.
One has to respect the abilities of a man who launched a campaign for the Senate with little money, name recognition or political experience, and his party’s establishment aligned against him, yet annihilated his primary and general election opponents.
And he did so while waving a red flag in the faces of the old bulls of his Republican Party and promising that he would “not bring home the bacon.”
As one of his Clark County supporters told me at a party last summer, if you think Rand Paul is a regular Republican, you’re “missing the point.”
Two years ago, while running for president, his father, Texas congressman Ron Paul, penned a book called “The Revolution: A Manifesto.”
After reading the younger Paul’s book about his 2010 Senate race, it’s clear that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
“It is time for a second American revolution,” he boldly declares at the outset.
Indeed, the tea party derives its name and some of its symbolism from the Boston Tea Party and the Revolution of 1776. But unlike that first revolution in which American patriots pledged to one another their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, the 2010 revolution was all about self. For Paul, the only thing that is more highly exalted than individual liberty is the free market.
In Rand Paul’s American utopia (or nightmare, depending on your point of view), adapting the Constitution’s Commerce Clause to the current era, saving our largest banks from collapse, spending federal money or lowering interest rates to stimulate a depressed economy, preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, guaranteeing equality in public schools, giving foreign aid to alleviate suffering in places like Haiti, supporting loyal allies like Israel and “making the world safe for democracy” are not responsibilities our national government should assume.
That’s a far cry from the agenda of Republican leaders such as Bob Dole, John McCain and George W. Bush. In fact, Paul dismisses Bush by saying “Any self-described conservative who ‘misses’ the last president and his version of the Republican Party should probably quit subscribing to that label.”
The tea party, he proclaims, will not be co-opted by Congress or the Republican Party, but will “co-opt them.”
“We’ve come to take our government back,” he writes, quoting the most memorable line from his victory night speech last November.
But take it back to what? And from whom? Those are the questions I sought answers to in reading his book.
Paul appreciates history, but he misinterprets it. He believes the Revolution was an anti-government movement rather than a war of independence. He describes the Boston Tea Party of 1773 as a rebellion “over a 3-cent tax,” when it was actually about “taxation without representation.”
He says “The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit the power the federal government had over the states and the people.” But the current Constitution was intended to strengthen the role of the central government, which was considered too weak under the Articles of Confederation.
Paul calls himself a “constitutional conservative” rather than a libertarian like his father, but he admits that his philosophy “values the importance of the individual over the collective,” whereas true conservatism balances the interests of the person and society and puts its emphasis on traditional moral values, not on self.
Next: What Rand Paul believes and his agenda for Congress.
But he is a leader in one of the most fascinating political dramas of the last decade, and when I saw “The Tea Party Goes to Washington” at Barnes & Noble two weeks ago, I couldn’t resist buying a copy and devouring it.
One has to respect the abilities of a man who launched a campaign for the Senate with little money, name recognition or political experience, and his party’s establishment aligned against him, yet annihilated his primary and general election opponents.
And he did so while waving a red flag in the faces of the old bulls of his Republican Party and promising that he would “not bring home the bacon.”
As one of his Clark County supporters told me at a party last summer, if you think Rand Paul is a regular Republican, you’re “missing the point.”
Two years ago, while running for president, his father, Texas congressman Ron Paul, penned a book called “The Revolution: A Manifesto.”
After reading the younger Paul’s book about his 2010 Senate race, it’s clear that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
“It is time for a second American revolution,” he boldly declares at the outset.
Indeed, the tea party derives its name and some of its symbolism from the Boston Tea Party and the Revolution of 1776. But unlike that first revolution in which American patriots pledged to one another their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, the 2010 revolution was all about self. For Paul, the only thing that is more highly exalted than individual liberty is the free market.
In Rand Paul’s American utopia (or nightmare, depending on your point of view), adapting the Constitution’s Commerce Clause to the current era, saving our largest banks from collapse, spending federal money or lowering interest rates to stimulate a depressed economy, preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, guaranteeing equality in public schools, giving foreign aid to alleviate suffering in places like Haiti, supporting loyal allies like Israel and “making the world safe for democracy” are not responsibilities our national government should assume.
That’s a far cry from the agenda of Republican leaders such as Bob Dole, John McCain and George W. Bush. In fact, Paul dismisses Bush by saying “Any self-described conservative who ‘misses’ the last president and his version of the Republican Party should probably quit subscribing to that label.”
The tea party, he proclaims, will not be co-opted by Congress or the Republican Party, but will “co-opt them.”
“We’ve come to take our government back,” he writes, quoting the most memorable line from his victory night speech last November.
But take it back to what? And from whom? Those are the questions I sought answers to in reading his book.
Paul appreciates history, but he misinterprets it. He believes the Revolution was an anti-government movement rather than a war of independence. He describes the Boston Tea Party of 1773 as a rebellion “over a 3-cent tax,” when it was actually about “taxation without representation.”
He says “The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit the power the federal government had over the states and the people.” But the current Constitution was intended to strengthen the role of the central government, which was considered too weak under the Articles of Confederation.
Paul calls himself a “constitutional conservative” rather than a libertarian like his father, but he admits that his philosophy “values the importance of the individual over the collective,” whereas true conservatism balances the interests of the person and society and puts its emphasis on traditional moral values, not on self.
Next: What Rand Paul believes and his agenda for Congress.
