Representative Peter King of New York had this to say about Rand Paul:
The New York Republican accused Rand Paul of “lies” and “misperception” :
“So Rand Paul does not know what he’s talking about. And, Rand Paul is really spreading fear among the American people. And, he also today, I understand on the show, he was also was comparing General Clapper to Snowden. To me, he’s either totally uninformed or he’s part of that hate America crowd that I thought left us in the 1960s. In any event, he doesn’t deserve to be in the United States senate for spreading that type of misperception and absolute lies to be honest with you.“ [Gateway Pundit]
What he was referring to was a comment by Rand on the Sunday shows discussing his lawsuit against the NSA over illegal snooping. In some of those comments he had this to say:
"I don't think Edward Snowden deserves the death penalty or life in prison; I think that's inappropriate, I think that's why he fled, is that's what he faced," Paul, a possible 2016 contender for the Republican presidential nomination, said on ABC's "This Week." "Do I think it's OK to leak secrets and give up national security [information] that endangers lives? I don't think that's OK, either. But I think the courts are now saying he revealed something the government was doing that was illegal."
Paul, who's pushing a class-action suit against the National Security Agency over its data collection tactics, has said that Snowden and Clapper should "share a prison cell," charging that Clapper lied to Congress.
"It is a grand tradition," he said. "Part of that tradition is, you pay the consequences. If you break the law because your conscience says you have to, you stand trial." [POLITICO]
So the question I have for readers today is this: Does some part of Rand Paul's support come from the "hate America" crowd that Congressman King mentioned?
Let's take a look.
Clearly there is a portion of the Obama support group that one could argue hates many things about America. Dinesh D'Souza has made the argument that Obama is out for revenge over what his father hated which is "colonialism", the kind of attitude he attributed to the United States participation in "raping" third world countries of their riches to make Americans rich.
In addition Obama has aligned himself with radicals and domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers who clearly hate many things about America.
So, is Rand Paul courting those folks? I think not, but on the other hand he might find some support among the less militant among the remaining sixties liberals who like his stance on personal freedom and pot and the kind of things Richie Havens and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were singing about.
But who among the GOP crowd might be pegged as part of the modern day "hate America" crowd? Well, that depends upon which America you are talking about.
The "big business" America which has become the controlling interest in most legislation and regulations over the past thirty years has its share of supporters. They don't hate America.
But the small business, ultra conservative TEA party crowd does have its share of "hate America" folks. At least they seem to hate the incumbent elected officials who they view as ruining America. They see America headed in the wrong direction. And some of them even hate many of the institutions of America such as party politics, checks and balances and the orderly interpretation of the Constitution through the court system.
Some of the more militant among this last bunch seethe with contempt for the "mainstream", which of course is the American mainstream and tend to lean very far toward the very liberal philosophies of Libertarianism and even anarchy. They hate that America won't let them steer the ship of state, are angry about it and do in fact pose some threat to our national security.
And then out there on the real fringes are those who are systematically plotting against America, the true enemies of our way of life, whether driven by religious extremism or a desire to consume our resources even if it means war. They are the ones who stir up civil unrest, engage in acts of terrorism to disrupt society and take advantage of every opportunity to destroy America because they truly, to their core, hate us.
Obviously Rand Paul is not courting the support of any of the fringe or the near fringe. But, and I say this with obvious respect for Senator Paul, the razor's edge he walks in order to build his own constituency on his way to a 2016 run for the White House is a topic of frequent discussion in the media. Clearly any divergence from the hard line of the TEA party gets him nailed by its members. Any time he leans toward a more moderate position his TEA party friends try to pull him back. And then he goes and tries to win them over again by standing firm on issue after issue of greatest concern with them, like his lawsuit against the NSA.
I'd like you to weigh in on this, but in my humble opinion, Rand Paul does in fact get some of his support from those who hate the way America has been run, who hate the excesses of our government and hate the fact that they seem to be fighting the very people they entrusted with the reins of power. Is this what Peter King was referring to?
Those of us who have been standing up for civil liberty, freedom from government overreach, demanding accountability and honesty from our elected officials for as long as I have don't consider ourselves as hating America, but rather loving all that is good about America and hating that those are the very, most precious things about the America we love which we seem to be losing.
Rand has the chance to stand very tall in this fight, but he needs to be very careful not to give in to the other forces at work on the fringes and in the shadows. The closer he becomes with what can be labeled "extreme" positions the more frequently he will have to face accusations like those of Peter King and though his TEA party friends might rush to his defense he will have to work that much harder, and spend that much more money to discredit people like King than he needs to.