Rand Paul's fake libertarianism

Rand Paul likes to claim that he is a libertarian. He's all for the rights of the in-duh-vid-uals. Protect peoples' rights and let people prosper without interference from big gub'mint! People are smart! They hate anyone trying to tell them what to do. So government? Stay out of it! Fair enough. If that's what you believe, it's a bit socially Darwinistic for my liking, but if you're truly against government, so be it. If you think government shouldn't be sticking its nose in anything and should be small, well, we'd disagree, but I can respect that.

Exxxxxxcept, sometimes he's not for freedom. For instance, while he's supported a bill preventing the feds from prosecuting people for medical marijuana in states where it was legal, he's also played to the social conservatives by claiming he doesn't think marijuana should be legalized. C'mon Rand, either you're for freedom or you're not.

Gay people getting married? If you're for freedom, surely you're in favor of that? Right? Not in the case of Rand Paul. To him it's icky. Doesn't sound very live-and-let-live. That's not the worst of it though. In this case, the hypocrisy goes even deeper. He's willing to allow states to regulate marriage. But that is only because he believes it's the best way to ensure that marriage is defined as one-man-one-woman. So rather than allowing people to marry freely, Rand would actually use government as a weapon to enact his legislative agenda. Again, how is this man considered a libertarian? Maybe there were some asterisks in the Bill of Rights that I didn't catch? (Everyone had the right to free speech except for black people? Maybe that was in small print?)

Abortion. Allowing women self-determination over their bodies seems like it would make Paul's libertarian views on this pretty clear, right? Certainly he would want women to be able to control what they did to their bodies. Nope. Wrong again. He authored the "Fetal Personhood Bill" which defines life as beginning at conception. It would outlaw all abortions. Kind of the Anti-Libertarianism. Planned Parenthood gives him a 0 percent rating and the National Right to Life Committee gives him a perfect score. Hmmm...I'm sensing a pattern in unprincipled libertarianism.

He's also in favor of a massive increase in military spending. Again, doesn't seem like that would be the position of someone who wants a smaller government. But our Rand is a libertarian because...uh.....FREEEDOM!!!!!!

Drones? You wouldn't think that someone in favor of less government would like them. But again, Rand defies expectations. It's pretty clear that Rand likes the mavericky-impression generated by the term libertarian, but not so much its implications in real life. I'm not a fan of knuckle draggers whose unapologetic Christian conservatism would make the United States an analog of Iran, but on the other hand, at least I know where those legislators stand. That's what they want. Rand Paul likes pretend he's one of a new breed of Republicans, but he doesn't even have the courage of his convictions, as well as having icky Republican convictions.