Wednesday, March 26, 2008

"A Party Anxious to Read Our Email"

The ominous quote in the subject line came from an interesting Paul article on Time. My favorite part, of course:

"Paul's leave-us-alone libertarianism hasn't fit in with a party anxious to read our e-mail, improve our values, assert American power abroad and subsidize friendly industries at home. The party's recent mix of "national greatness" neoconservatives, evangelical theoconservatives and K Street careerists has had many goals, but leaving people alone hasn't been one of them. That's why Paul was the one getting booed at G.O.P. debates. And that's one reason why Paul's fervent followers were banned from the activist Republican website RedState."

2 comments:

Squid said...

That's as may be, but how does he feel about China? Would he set his zealots loose on the Chinese propaganda apparatus, or would that be too interventionist?

Thomas Paine Jr. said...

This is where "logical consistency in morality" and "results of policy" conflict. I'm more than fine with an army of zealots descending upon said Chinese propaganda apparatus, though I suspect (Paul supporters, correct me if I'm wrong) that President Paul would view that as foreign entanglement. The problem is that there are always countries that want to entangle yours for less than benevolent reasons, regardless of your degree of isolationism. Even the Dalai Lama recently conceded that his forebears centuries-long policy of being cut off from the outside world was maybe not a great idea and probably didn't help when Mao showed up in '50.