Ivan C. Potter, Publisher West Kentucky Journal
Thursday, August 21, 2014 11:02 am
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West Kentucky Journal
The public spirit known as Senator Rand Paul is making both the progressive left mad at him at the same time as the moderate right hates him. Neither political ideology can seem to explain him. Most of his critics seem to miss the fact that Paul speaks in simple terms.
Rand Paul's most powerful weapon in this age of double speak is his ability to speak the truth, clearly and forcibly. He speaks his mind, in simple words to the nation where the most common labor or most senior millionaire can understand his position on political principle.
As an old fashioned Democratic progressive liberal, I stay mad at Rand about 50% of the time. The other 50% I stand with him on issues dear to my heart. Issues like military budget reform, homeland security and National Security Agency spying on Americans reform, review of local police militarization, size and shape of government, foreign policy, and hemp are areas I agree with Rand.
He is a complex soul trapped in the body of a man still evolving in life.
Here is a man that can stand in front of a national media audience at the largest political picnic in America, Fancy Farm, and act foolishly as Mitch McConnell's attack dog against Alison Lundergan Grimes. For those of us who care about him, it was distributing to watch him self destruct into a cartoon character.
Yet, within the space of two weeks Paul set the nation on fire with his thoughts about the incident of police force in Ferguson, Missouri. In proper libertarian thinking, Paul wrote a Time Magazine Opinion that questioned the "militarizing of our local police."
In one swift action, Rand Paul set into motion a national debate over the use of military style force from police toward their community and the citizens who live in those communities. Hard right, hard left, center, all denominations of political factions stood with him on this issue. In his own style, he simply asked the questions and explained his opinions on the subject.
Unlike the recent clown cars driven by weird characters from the hard right wing of the Republican Party seeking to be president, Paul is quickly becoming a voice upon the American 21st Century political landscape, that can overnight shape debate or call into question complex and simple truths about the American Experiment.
Like this nation we call the American Experiment, Rand Paul is very much an experiment in the evolution of one man's journey across a troubled country where simple truth spoken still can move political mountains.
I believe that as each new person touches Rand, he is slowly being transformed into a new breed of political being who can stand tall in this very broken American political landscape and do the right thing.
There must be more to come. Rand is still a very much an Ayn Rand kind of guy.
The reality of the present which Rand Paul must confront is the face of extreme poverty, forever wars, mindless government intrusion into our private lives, stupidity of large government bureaucracy, run-away taxation for the sake of paying for exploding government, corporations becoming robber baron overlords of American culture, and a deepening sense of political depression falling upon the American electorate.
Watching Rand Paul is like watching a young Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or a young Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead, as an idealist in an Ayn Rand movie adaptation. Each character must face ghosts of their past while making right their present and their future. In the films, a simple statement of truth trumps the façade of propaganda by power brokers.
We are only witnessing the first act of the movie "Rand Paul US Senator for President."
The question is "How will the main character confront his future with a broader sense of humanity or wrestle with insider power brokers who will attempt to contain him, in a stricter sense of capitalism for a 21st Century American experiment."
Grab your popcorn.
Stock up the bourbon.
Stay tuned. It will be a wild ride to watch!