Rand Paul’s Hate Speech at Value Voters Summit Sounded Just Like Al Qaeda

[Emit]

by Dean Obeidallah Oct 14, 2013

Was Rand Paul’s most recent, big set-piece speech about A. The government shutdown; B. The debt limit; or C. The dreaded Obamacare? Nope, it was none of them. Instead, Paul spent his 19-minute speech at the Value Voters summit on Friday talking about Muslims.

~snip~

( ... ) Paul opened his speech with an attention grabbing line: “From Boston to Zanzibar, there is a worldwide war on Christianity.”

Now, I thought he would be talking the typical fare: “war on Christmas,” Obama wants you to take birth control, gay people have the audacity to want to get married, etc.

But nope. Paul quickly made it clear that the war on Christians is being waged by Muslims. ( ... )

~snip~

Now in fairness, Paul did use about a minute of his speech to acknowledge that many Muslims are peaceful. He even stated that he hoped that the faith could one day return to a time where Muslims valued, “the scientific method over fanaticism.”

But then Paul’s rhetoric truly became alarming. He warned the audience that while we wait for Muslims to return to being peaceful: “Christians should be prepared for war…” He did also add that they should, “pray for peace,” but that seemed secondary to his literal call to arms.

Paul’s speech is likely a mirror image of one that would be given by an al Qaeda recruiter. ( ...)

Let’s be brutally honest: If Rand Paul had given a 19 minute speech listing every bad act committed by Jews anywhere in the world under the guise of “warning” people about Jews, he would rightfully be dubbed an Anti-Semite. Or if Paul had given a similar speech setting forth a litany of crimes committed by African-Americans in the US as defining that race, he would be deemed a racist.

But when a speech is given like this about Muslims- it’s somehow seen as simply being “politically incorrect.” No, it's not. It’s hate-just as if it would be if it was directed at Jews, Blacks, gays or any minority group.

~snip~

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/14/rand-paul-s-hate-speech-sounded-just-like-al-qaeda.html

[Blue_Tires]

1. In before the usual suspects remind us he's antiwar, anti-NSA, pro-cannabis

and he's the kind of guy we need on our side...

[Ikonoklast]

5. Lots of libertarians here in sheep's clothing.

They are repulsive, like their heroes, the racist Paul clan.

[arcane1]

2. That's the classic method for fleecing money out of those particular sheep.

They don't respond to ANYTHING except fear. Make it religious fear, and they'll empty their pockets faster than you can count it.

[Scuba]

9. Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

[Cha]

3. Slimey slithering crawley thing.

[Z_California]

4. Libertarians are waking up

Their secular isolationist philosophy doesn't move their racist Bible thumping voting base. Gotta shake it up with some Holy War talk...

Scary scary fucking people in this country

[Initech]

6. Values Voters = American Taliban

And Rand Paul is such a fucking idiot, even more so that he sides with the Values Voters crowd.

[MisterP]

7. "the Taiping Rebellion, Ungern-Sternberg, the Pacific Theater, Tibet, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia,

Sri Lanka, Assam, Aum Shinrikyo, burning Rohingya alive in Burma—why won’t anyone stand up to Buddhism?!"

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. I know it is unpopular to say this here on DU - but I had a certain amount of respect for his father

not that I could ever vote for him. Not that I didn't find many of his view completely unacceptable. Of course. But I was convinced and am convinced that his anti-imperialism was genuine and sincere, Rand Paul has no more in common with his father than Evan Bayh had with his father Sen. Birch Bayh or Mitt Romney had with his father the late Gov. George Romney. In these cases the apple did fall far from the tree and these public figures who at least had some principles bore sons who are simply banal careerist - without any principles beyond their selfish careerism.

This brief moment during the primary debates show just how different he is than his father

[Blue_Tires]

11. There's "national TV" Ron Paul, and "speaking to the base" Ron Paul...

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. he seemed to be arguing that slavery could have been eliminated without the civil war

I don't know if there is a valid point to that or not. But yes, he has a lot of wacky ideas - to put it mildly. When he addressed the national conference of the John Birch Society he received an absolutely thunderous standing ovation. That certainly speaks for itself. But in contrast to his son, whether his anti-imperialism or even his wacky beliefs - he did believe in things. I get the impression his son is a pure careerist who prepared to mitigate away any principled libertarian idealism that stands in the way of his career - but is willing to use familial association with principled libertarianism when it suites his career needs.

[Blue_Tires]

13. That's an extension of the classic birch arguement

used against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, i.e., sooner or later white Southerners would have just "woken up" and seen the error of their ways in Jim Crow and lynching...

[Scuba]

10. An odiferous gas bubble escapes a quivering blob of santorum.