{"id":509,"date":"2012-09-03T05:04:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T05:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=509"},"modified":"2012-09-03T05:21:59","modified_gmt":"2012-09-03T05:21:59","slug":"rand-paul-ayn-rand-rothbard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2012\/09\/rand-paul-ayn-rand-rothbard\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand Paul’s Endorsement of Romney versus Ayn Rand’s and Murray Rothbard’s Historical Grudging Endorsements – Post by G. Stolyarov II"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
G. Stolyarov II<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
September 2, 2012<\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Recommend this page<\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
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A September 1 post on the Facebook page of The Capitalism Institute<\/a> reads: \u201cI fully understand the hatred of Romney by libertarians who believe he’s a liberal in sheep’s clothing. That’s perfectly understandable.<\/em> What I don’t understand is the notion that Rand Paul has somehow become an enemy of the liberty movement in the eyes of many because he endorsed Romney. Murray Rothbard once endorsed George Bush, Sr. Ayn Rand once endorsed Nixon<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet I see Rand Paul\u2019s endorsement of Mitt Romney as qualitatively different from the endorsements by either Ayn Rand or Murray Rothbard in previous election cycles. I think Ayn Rand unfortunately fell into the \u201clesser of two evils\u201d trap when endorsing Nixon.<\/p>\n

In particular, the following statement of Ayn Rand\u2019s (quoted from this article<\/a> by ARI Watch) is interesting: \u201cIf there were some campaign organization called \u2018Anti-Nixonites for Nixon,\u2019\u00a0it would name my position.\u00a0The worst thing said about Nixon is that he cannot be trusted, which is true: he cannot be trusted to save this country. But one thing is certain: McGovern <\/em>can destroy it.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Rothbard\u2019s endorsement<\/a> of Bush, Sr., was also grudging. Rothbard wrote this: \u201cYes, gulp, I’m down to the grim, realistic choice: Which of two sets of bozos is going to rule us in 1993-1997? No one has been more critical of George Bush than I, but yes, dammit, I am working my way back to the President.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

If Rand Paul had explicitly stated that he was an \u201cAnti-Romneyite for Romney\u201d or stated that no one has been more critical of Romney than he \u2013 then I would have had more respect for his approach to this matter. At present, though, his comments after his endorsement of Romney have not at all highlighted Romney\u2019s weaknesses or areas where Romney and Rand Paul disagreed. If Rand Paul had merely endorsed Romney to support \u201cthe lesser evil\u201d in his mind, then I would still not share his opinion, but his mistake would be understandable. His actual endorsement of Romney, however, was not so grudging or reserved. Furthermore, he may have seen some (as of yet unrealized) personal political advantage from it, whereas neither Ayn Rand nor Rothbard had any personal political ambitions.<\/p>\n

Additionally, since 1972 and even 1992, the two major political parties have come far closer together, to the point where Obama and Romney are virtually indistinguishable in their policy stances, even though they try to augment minutiae through volatile (and often outright deceptive) campaign rhetoric. Therefore, the contrasts that Ayn Rand drew between Nixon and McGovern \u2013 and those that Rothbard drew between Bush, Sr., and Clinton \u2013 cannot be drawn between Romney and Obama. \u00a0Voting for either party can no longer help \u201csave\u201d the country from the other (if it ever could, which I also doubt), because the same perils would befall us either way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

G. Stolyarov II September 2, 2012 Recommend this page. ****************************** A September 1 post on the Facebook page of The Capitalism Institute reads: \u201cI fully understand the hatred of Romney by libertarians who believe he’s a liberal in sheep’s clothing. That’s perfectly understandable. What I don’t understand is the notion that Rand Paul has somehow become an enemy of the liberty movement in the eyes of many because he endorsed Romney. Murray Rothbard once endorsed George Bush, Sr. Ayn Rand…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[42,76,1241,1243,28,69,705,40,1240,1239,1242,74,338,73,482,702,29,1238,1244,25,843],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-politics","tag-ayn-rand","tag-barack-obama","tag-bill-clinton","tag-capitalism-institute","tag-democrat","tag-election","tag-endorsement","tag-g-stolyarov-ii","tag-george-h-w-bush","tag-george-mcgovern","tag-lesser-of-two-evils","tag-mitt-romney","tag-murray-rothbard","tag-president","tag-principles","tag-rand-paul","tag-republican","tag-richard-nixon","tag-two-party-system","tag-united-states","tag-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}