Rand Paul Agrees That He's a "Torpedo" In "The Revolution"
Bruce Wilson printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Sun May 23, 2010 at 07:33:47 AM EST
Meet Rand Paul, the "human torpedo" in "the revolution."

Here's a partial transcript from KY Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul's appearance, July 23, 2009, on the Alex Jones Show.

Alex Jones - Yeah, a lot of people said, `Oh look - Ron Paul lost - what a waste.' And I said, `wait a minute! - revolutions always take time. The number one movement on campuses, starting to overshadow the phony liberals and phony conservatives, is the libertarian Ron Paul patriot movement. He was just a focal point in that. All this investment and time and energy, uh, is, is, just going to continue to grow and now everybody has seen that and are more heartened than ever and have learned the lesson that this isn't going to be instant gratification.

This is like planting crops. A lot of work comoes into it but before you know you're bringing in that harvest. And it's going to be the same with your senate campaign and I pray, just like we pushed your dad to run for president.

I pray, uh, that you will, uh, after you're done exploring this, do it, uh, because it's so important to just launch more torpedoes at the enemy and I see you as a very important torpedo. Not just because of your father's name but because of your great education, your patriotic stance, your activities in Kentucky, your history of liberty, uh, I think you're the man for the job and you're a weapon I think we need to use against the New World Order.

Rand Paul - Well, the amazing thing about my father's loss, and I was very involved with the campaign, and I heard some of the dissatisfaction from people - but I try to convince people that the amazing thing about the loss is that he is routinely on the mainstream media now.

Our viewpoint finally, probably for the first time in 30 years, we have a spokesman. And they may not be listening to him all the time in Washington. But, we have someone who presents our point of view to a large audience on a national basis and he bcame a national leader. And there's something quirky about the media in the sense that you can be a regional person, a congressional candidate or congressman, but when you take that next step up to the national level all the sudden eveybody wants to know your opinion.




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In the transcript excerpted above, Alex Jones says:

The number one movement on campuses, starting to overshadow the phony liberals and phony conservatives, is the libertarian Ron Paul patriot movement.

Is it really true that "the libertarian Ron Paul patriot movement" is "the number one movement" on many campuses?  Has anyone here investigated this claim?

Alex Jones certainly isn't the most reliable source in the world, but, if the above statement of his is indeed true, that's pretty scary.


by Diane Vera on Sun May 23, 2010 at 06:48:57 PM EST

...I wouldn't want to discount Alex Jones' claims altogether.

by Bruce Wilson on Sun May 23, 2010 at 09:51:40 PM EST
Parent

Do you, or does anyone else here, have plans to research Alex Jones's claim? I think it's pretty important to find out just how popular this stuff is, on campus and elsewhere. Alas, I'm in no good position to do in-depth research on this myself, since I have an unrelated job, which severely limits the time I can spend on research. I hope one of the full-time writers/researchers here will be able to look into this further and document it.

In the meantime, I've put together the following links to news stories and blog posts about the growing popularity of grand conspiracy ideology these days:

I hope someone here will be in a good position to look into this in more depth?



by Diane Vera on Mon May 24, 2010 at 08:05:46 AM EST
Parent

In many states, there is a big push toward "market-driven" education- trying to get students to go into the fields that the business owners want rather than pursuing their own interests.  In certain fields (Business Management, Engineering, and surprisingly Medicine), a very conservative viewpoint is not unusual.  I do know that I ran into a lot of vitriolic conservative students as an undergrad, who I wouldn't be surprised if they followed some of that stuff today.  They usually were from those three areas.

Other disciplines- not so much.  Maybe that's why they frown on the Social Sciences and the Fine Arts.  Some of the louder politicians (at least in this state) have been rather insulting towards the social sciences.

In my discipline, they MIGHT start conservative, but unless they don't listen or  read, they will change their mind rather quickly.

by ArchaeoBob on Mon May 24, 2010 at 03:13:05 PM EST
Parent

Mainstream conservativism in one thing; "the libertarian Ron Paul patriot movement" is quite another.

I would expect many business management students, etc. to be mainstream conservatives.  However, until recently at least, I would have expected relatively few of them to be full-blown Birchites.  Also I would expect relatively few of them to be political activists of any kind.

So the questions still remains:  Is it, indeed, true that "The number one movement on campuses [...] is the libertarian Ron Paul patriot movement," as Alex Jones claims?


by Diane Vera on Mon May 24, 2010 at 05:15:29 PM EST
Parent

I've heard hate towards minorities from both groups.  Resentment that (GLBT people/American Indians/African Americans/Women) "get special treatment". Fear expressed that the US government will force people to treat others (minorities) equally or that the "government" would punish them if they persecuted someone who was minority.  Fear or anger at "foreigners" (and even hostility towards anyone who had been in a foreign country- at least from the more militant ones).   Anger at paying any taxes at all.  I've also heard "America right or wrong" from both groups.  Not to mention the pseudo-history (it's been going on for many generations).

Worst of all, both sides have spouted copious amounts of punitive language towards the very poor/homeless.  In this case, they to a man all said that people were poor/homeless because they're "lazy""have a poor work ethic""made bad choices"/"are drug or alcohol addicts".

I've been hearing the "conservatives" spout this stuff for years- I was programmed to believe it, and only learned how wrong I was after I returned to school.  The "libertarian Ron Paul patriots" that I've encountered also went on and on with that stuff (with maybe one or two exceptions- and I'm not sure if they would agree with Paul or the "patriots"- they were self-identifying libertarians).

If anything, the "libertarian Ron Paul patriots" seem to be a more extreme version of the "conservatives".  At least, from my point of view.

by ArchaeoBob on Mon May 24, 2010 at 07:57:06 PM EST
Parent

Some differences between mainstream conservatives and the "patriots":

  1. The "patriots" tend to believe in much larger quantities of nonsense.  In particular, they are more prone to believing in grand conspiracy ideology.  Also, many of them are into various wacky legal theories, e.g. claims that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified, or claims that the income tax is otherwise unconstitutional or illegal.  And they are big on wanting to get rid of the Federal Reserve.

  2. The "patriots" tend to be isolationist, which means they tend to be anti-war and anti-imperialist, and thus have an appeal to some people who would otherwise be drawn to the Left, even while pushing extreme right wing views on most other issues.

In the past, the "patriots" were a relatively small extreme fringe, encompassing militia groups and tax resistors.  If indeed they are "the biggest group on campus" these days, that would indeed be a noteworthy development.


by Diane Vera on Wed May 26, 2010 at 01:38:42 AM EST
Parent
Maybe there is a big difference between your area and around here.  In this area, they seem to support Bush's war (it supposedly brings us closer to Armageddon), and are very imperialist.  There are a lot of dominionists in the patriot movement from what I've seen (and I think this is nationwide), and they're all about ruling the world "In Christ's name".  Most dominionists are ready and willing to use force to make the rest of us submit to their rule, but I don't know how they view Bush's war in other areas.

Beyond that, I would agree about them being isolationist to an extent.  They don't want Americans experiencing what life is like in other countries (unless said Americans will come back and talk how horrible it is in "those terrible communist/socialist countries!").   They don't want any aspects of foreign thought or influence- forgetting that most of what they know IS foreign thought or influence.  They hate anything that even remotely reminds them of what they think socialism is... including care for the sick, elderly, and poor.  That also goes for education in a lot of cases.

The Liberals I know despise them... and think of them as the worst of the right; so at least for this area, there is little difference.


by ArchaeoBob on Wed May 26, 2010 at 03:49:41 PM EST
Parent




Libertarianism is largely philosophical, and may be a gateway to either progressivism or conservatism. For some people to embrace it for awhile in their youth can be mind expanding, and might awaken in them a tendency toward tolerance. It varies with the person.

The people who scare me are those who adhere to the beliefs of the Constitution Party. They tend to dogmatic and hardcore. Read their platform. They are outright Dominionists.

by offbeatjim on Wed Jun 02, 2010 at 12:43:13 AM EST
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