Let's Call Him Rand

Let me admit up front that I have not followed the life or career of Ron Paul closely. In fact, I know virtually nothing of his personal life. My knowledge is limited to listening to him, to a respectable degree, during the Republican Presidential nominating process in 2008, and reading some commentary about his ideas. I found him, or really his rhetoric, compelling when contrasted to the other politicians vying for the nomination. I think it was the clarity of his arguments and his commitment to them that set him apart from the rest, who engaged in the usual political pragmatism of jockeying back and forth to maximize appeal. Paul’s semi-Libertarian position reminded me of my youth; the way an odd change in weather will make one recall a place in the past.

As I said, I know nothing of Ron Paul’s history, but I strongly suspect that he named his son “Rand” (born 1963) because to name him “Ayn” (pronounced Anne) wouldn’t work (for obvious reasons).

During the last two years of college I was an energetic adherent of something called Objectivism, sticking to me for a brief period. It was coined by author/philosopher Ayn Rand (O’Connor), 1905-1982, a successful novelist who became in the 1960s the guru of an intellectual form of Individualism. She applied basic principles of philosophy (defining human behavior) to explain both the reasons for prosperity within a Capitalist society and other reasons why a broader success for Capitalism has remained elusive. Her use of logic, as with Ron Paul to a degree, was a major part of what made her writings so persuasive. She attracted a large, college age baby boomer crowd and some heavy hitters (Alan Greenspan, for example, was one of her co-writers on essay compilations).

Her thoughts and writings, however, never went main stream…not really. Although her near worship of the “individual” certainly resonated with the American patriotic psyche (Ronald Reagan was a confessed admirer), I would suggest that she failed to appeal to the general American populous primarily because of the only commonality she had with Karl Marx – that religion was the opiate of the People (Marx’s words). Ayn Rand was hard on established religion, especially Christianity, and afforded no compromises, as I recall. She exalted reason as the only valid epistemology (the acquisition of knowledge) and that egoism (self-interest) was the sole course for human salvation. I’m afraid that just wasn’t going to cut it with your basic Christian Conservative. Oh but what strange bedfellows the clouds of dissent create, especially when they perceive a common enemy.

Rand Paul is, by any reasonable gauge, the first bona fide (Republican) Tea Party candidate. Like his father he is an articulate, thoughtful, and accomplished overachiever. Apart from his father, however, he now carries with his candidacy a new level of Libertarianism that is more closely allied with his (I assume) namesake. That’s not to say that even a decent sub-set of Tea Partiers have any knowledge of Objectivism, let alone an understanding of it. It does suggest that the anti “collective”, anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-controls, throw the bums out movement has at least some of its roots in a philosophy which would make a Baptist congregation howl to the rafters. Such a violation of intrinsic spirituality would have little meaning to the Tea Party crowd however, no matter how it was explained, as long as their leaders remain focused on the devil before them – Obama.

Rand Paul was recently interviewed by George Stephanopoulos and asked questions regarding (Paul’s) statements relating to Civil Rights laws. Paul did not answer the question. Like a good politician he evaded the question by simply stating he’s never advocated any change to existing law. He chose not to defend his published line of reasoning to a wider audience (you sometimes wonder why politicians even bother to accept interviews).

I understand his line of reasoning, of which he would not comment. It is Objectivist 101; if you allow people the freedom to make individual choices with private funds, ultimately and eventually practical self-interest will have them do what is most beneficial for the society as a whole. For example: if the owner of a private restaurant doesn’t want to serve African-Americans…no, let’s say blue-eyed people, then his loss of business will ultimately force him to change as he would realize he was acting against his own best interest. The stupid anti-blue-eyed restaurants would eventually go out of business. It’s logical, makes sense…sort of. It did to me in 1972. However, if you substitute African-American for blue-eyed, something doesn’t pass the sniff test.

There were legitimate concerns with the new year of 2009. The Bush Administration with the support of a Democratic Congress had completed the first TARP spending bill, but without adequate restriction on how the Bush Administration was going to spend it, and began work on a second bill at the end of 2008. The addition of massive debt to the out of control spending and revenue reductions in the Bush years was breath taking. There was every justification for overt protest, if nothing else but to provide adequate explanation and accountability.

The Tea Party protests, however, specifically focused on President Obama as, supposedly, the agent for what they saw happening. They began in earnest February 2009, less than a month after Obama’s inauguration, obviously in the works earlier. President Obama hadn’t even completed his cabinet let alone instituted policy or signed major legislation at that point. He was nearly a year away from presenting his first budget. It was the election itself that sparked the organizing that led to the first “protest”. Nothing would have defused it; not instant prosperity, not cheap health care, not budget surpluses, not the Taliban converting to Christianity, not the second coming of Christ…nothing - except the election of John McCain. The real reason for the movement was the fear of lost identity, that the external identity of being “independent”, white, Christian, and American was perceived as being gravely threatened. The awareness of their own humanity was and is currently not on the radar.

Rand Paul has found himself a leader in a movement for which logic holds little weight. His leadership is nearly an oxymoron. It is a movement which exemplifies the very reason why Objectivism lost much of its appeal to its early, now aging, educated followers. People just aren’t the chemical, cause and effect androids that compliment the logic one finds in such variant philosophies as Ayn Rand’s or Karl Marx. Without regard to positive ideas that exist in both viewpoints, people are vulnerable to the weakness of their own egos. It is the reason we have laws. As Rand Paul runs for Congress and tries, as his father, to articulate some logical Libertarian viewpoint, he’ll discover that it will hardly garner the support of those not at the Tea Party, nor those swimming in orange-pekoe. Ultimately, if he thinks he can win with a right-wing plurality, he’ll have to do just one thing – bash Obama. No logic necessary.