Through The Looking Glass With Rand Paul

Posted by | February 20, 2015 16:00 | Filed under: Contributors News Behaving Badly Opinion Politics Tengrain Top Stories

Republish
Reprint


It behooves us once again to see what is the state of Schrödinger’s favorite candidate for 2016, Senator Rand Paul. Open the Box!

It was only last week that the Washington Post Fact Checker gave him three of the much-coveted Pinocchios for his twice-stated misstatement that he has a biology degree awarded from Baylor University. His office tried to explain it away as an off-the-cuff remark, banter if you will, that because he is a medical doctor it is the same as having an undergraduate biology degree. And I am the Tsar of all the Russians.

And of course, we recall other people being shown to the door when they, um, embellish their resumes. But it’s a different standard, I guess, for the self-certified ophthalmologist from Kentucky.

So his words mean just whatever Sen. Paul wants them to mean when he wants them to mean it, just like when he talked about the Social Security Disability Program:

“The thing is that all of these programs, there’s always somebody who’s deserving, everybody in this room knows somebody who’s gaming the system. I tell people that if you look like me and you hop out of your truck, you shouldn’t be getting a disability check. Over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts. Join the club. Who doesn’t get up a little anxious for work every day and their back hurts? Everyone over 40 has a back pain.”

Social Security considers post-traumatic stress syndrome to be in the category of Anxiety. But let’s not split words, but instead let’s see where Senator-Doctor Paul stands on vaccinations:

“We sometimes give five or six vaccines all at one time,” he said of immunizations of newborns for Hepatitis B. “I chose to have mine delayed….Do I think it’s ultimately a good idea? Yeah. So I had mine staggered over several months. I’ve heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children, who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines. I’m not arguing that vaccines are a bad idea, I think they’re a good thing. But I think parents should have some input. The state doesn’t own your children, parents own their children, and it is an issue of freedom. “

 Oops. Maybe he should have finished his undergraduate work. Anyway, it’s all cool because he walked it back:
 “I did not say vaccines caused disorders, just that they were temporally related — I did not allege causation. I support vaccines, I receive them myself and I had all of my children vaccinated. In fact today, I received the booster shot for the vaccines I got when I went to Guatemala last year,” he said.

Temporally related? Like that week I watched season five of Buffy The Vampire Slayer when I had the flu? So Buffy either cures/causes colds?

Let’s move on to another subject where Senator Paul seems to define his own terms, you know, like when he says—in the key of dog whistle—that he was never against the Civil Rights Act:

“I’ve never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever,” Paul told a questioner, following what was the first speech by a Republican legislator at the historically black university in decades.

Whoops, you know except for that part about, you know,  forcing business owners to serve their kind:

I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.

So you see, it is totally true that he was never against the Civil Rights Act, just the part about public accommodations.

So, life continues on for 2016 Goat Rodeo Contender Senator Rand Paul. His words mean just what he chooses them to mean.

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Click here for reuse options!
Copyright 2015 Liberaland
By: Tengrain

Fully caffeinated with twice the sugar, unabashedly liberal. Award-winning Americans United blogger, blogs at Mock Paper Scissors, and sometimes at Crooks and Liars.

You can follow @Tengrain on Twitter, or you might see him enjoying coffee somewhere in Seattle at any given moment of the day.

8 responses to Through The Looking Glass With Rand Paul

  1. raypc800 February 20th, 2015 at 16:30

    Ah Paul Ryan still one of the hardest working people I know. Yes indeed he is always working hard to keep the title of (LYING RYAN)!!!

    • jasperjava February 20th, 2015 at 17:22

      Interesting that you would comment about Paul Ryan in a post about Rand Paul. Easy to get them confused, they are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee (riffing on the Alice in Wonderland theme).

      I think they would make a great losing ticket for the Republicans in 2016. Think of the campaign signs: Rand PAUL Ryan. Saves space.

  2. raypc800 February 20th, 2015 at 17:30

    Ah Paul Ryan still one of the hardest working people I know. Yes indeed he is always working hard to keep the title of (LYING RYAN)!!!

    • jasperjava February 20th, 2015 at 18:22

      Interesting that you would comment about Paul Ryan in a post about Rand Paul. Easy to get them confused, they are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee (riffing on the Alice in Wonderland theme).

      I think they would make a great losing ticket for the Republicans in 2016. Think of the campaign signs: Rand PAUL Ryan. Saves space.

  3. fancypants February 20th, 2015 at 20:58

    Kentucky elected paul so he can tell us about humpty dumpty
    Really ???

  4. fancypants February 20th, 2015 at 21:58

    Kentucky elected paul so he can tell us about humpty dumpty
    Really ???

  5. William February 21st, 2015 at 11:18

    “everybody in this room knows somebody who’s gaming the system”
    Yeah.
    Around here we call that the State of Kentucky.

  6. William February 21st, 2015 at 12:18

    “everybody in this room knows somebody who’s gaming the system”
    Yeah.
    Around here we call that the State of Kentucky.

Leave a Reply