The Honeymooner

Politically speaking, I have always considered myself a Liberal, mainly because of how Conservatives have tried to defame this ideology. Turns out, I may be a Libertarian. Yep, same ideology as Rand and Ron Paul. At least according to a test I took on facebook. Now you know why I am constantly bringing up Rep. Ron Paul and H R 1866, the proposed amendment to the 1939 Controlled Substances Act. If adopted by Congress, this would stop identifying hemp as marijuana.

Ron Paul is the quintessential Libertarian. His son, Rand Paul, has played on his father’s reputation and landed the gig as the Republican nominee for U. S. Senate, shredding, in the process, the reputation of Mitch McConnell as a king maker. Mitch, if you will recall, bet the farm on Trey Greyson, the refugee from the Democratic Party.

I had some high hopes for Rand Paul. I saw in Rand a potential sponsor in the Senate for H R 1866, and the possibility that common sense would once again reign in this country. Turns out those hopes may have been somewhat misplaced.

Rand Paul and I must be different breeds of Libertarian. I would like to see the people of this country given power, at the expense of both government AND big business. Big business was responsible for defining hemp as marijuana, keeping ordinary Americans from cashing in on this crop.

Rand sees things somewhat differently. Take the dustup about the provision in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that forbids businesses to practice discrimination based on race. Rand is on record as saying that while he is personally opposed to racial discrimination (I believe him), private business should be able to exclude any potential customer, for whatever reason, including the color of one’s skin.

In defending this belief, Rand cites the right of a business to exclude armed customers, even in states that allow you to possess a weapon. Except that in this instance, an armed customer can leave that weapon in the car, and get service. Those excluded because of their race have no such recourse. They can do nothing that will get them into a business that won’t serve, say, African Americans.

Rand goes further than that. He has said that the Obama administration has its “boot heel on the neck of B P.” That little oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? He says that sometimes these things are “accidents”. He then cites the death of those 29 miners in Montcoal, WV, as “an accident.” Accidents, says Rand, happen.

And sometimes these scenarios aren’t accidents. Sometimes they are the result of a corporation pushing the envelope. A business might, for example, forgo the little things that will ensure that a blowout in an oil well 5000 feet under the sea won’t result in an oil spill the likes of which have never been seen. Or a business might decide that its miners time is better spent producing coal than rock dusting and seeing to the ventilation system.

We can only hope that Rand will seek out his inner Libertarian, and conclude that, when the interests of the individual clash with the interests of big business, the correct side to take would be that of the individual. This should be uppermost in any Libertarian’s heart.