Rand Paul: Dr. Maybe

Following Rand Paul's election to Senator for Kentucky I have seen libertarians and anarcho-capitalists alike rejoice over the fact that someone who is devoted to true liberty gets elected. I can not join the celebration, since I don't see Dr. Paul in that light. I fear that he not only lacks the ideological backbone that has made his father, congressman Dr. Ron Paul, such a beacon of hope in these dark times, but also that in many ways his views are impossible to reconcile with a true love of liberty.

Take his views on abortion. A controversial issue, and I can understand the position of those who are opposed to abortion in general. Paul, however, is opposed to abortion in all cases, including when the woman – or child – is the victim of rape or incest. He has stated that he will support “any and all legislation that would end abortion or lead us in the direction of ending abortion,” including “a Human Life Amendment and a Life at Conception Act as federal solutions to the abortion issue.”

This would make abortion murder under federal law and no state could pass legislation saying that abortion is legal in that particular state. Not only is this a tremendous expansion of the federal government's power over the states but it also says that a woman's body is the property of the federal government from the point of fertilization until she gives birth.

If this legislation would be passed, a woman saying that she is going to abort the fetus growing inside her would be guilty of threatening murder just as much as she would be if she told someone she was going to shoot them in the head, and the police would be forced to arrest her and keep her locked up and either restrained or drugged until she gives birth.

Paul's position becomes even more illogical when he says that he supports the use of the morning-after pill – a pill that irritates the lining of the uterus so the fertilized egg is rejected after passing through the fallopian tube to the uterus. If Paul truly believes that life begins at conception, and that the termination of any human life is murder, then he advocates murder.

But Paul's views are incompatible with the libertarian or anarcho-capitalist view on many more issues.

Paul supports the indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" on the Guantanamo military base and thinks that “terrorists” should be prosecuted in military tribunals instead of regular courts. He doesn't want to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. He claims to be against the PATRIOT Act, but also says he won't do anything to repeal it, and he is against gay marriage.

Believing that the federal government has the right to reward or punish someone with tax or other benefits depending on the gender of the person they have chosen to spend their life with is not compatible with a love for liberty. Rand Paul is a deeply religious Conservative, not a libertarian.

Even more disturbing is Rand's flip-flopping. In 2009 he pledged not to accept contributions from any politician who voted for a federal bailout of the banking industry. He said this in response to Secretary of State Trey Grayson attending a fund-raiser hosted by a senator who voted to save bankrupt banks with the taxpayers' money. Yet in June 2010 Paul himself attended a $1,000-a-person fundraiser hosted by the very same senator, attended by senators who voted for the federal bailout.

If he can so easily flip-flop on an issue that he claims was the one issue that made him decide to run for senate, then how can we expect him to be principled on any other issue? How long will it take before the lure of power becomes stronger than his principles on other issues as well?