Rand Paul's Tax Plan

I just read where Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has proposed eliminating the income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax. I could live with that.

He would exempt necessary items from the tax, things such as food and clothing. Very nice. The tax would be 23% on all else. Yes, that sounds like a lot. At almost one dollar in four it should sound huge. But what percentage of your paycheck is held back each week anyway?

A sales tax is automatically graduated, meaning the rich will naturally pay more. They're not going to hide money in a hole in the ground like misers, after all. Not the vast majority of them anyways. And it rids us of the income tax which, and I will insist on this point, is immoral anyway. It's none of the government's business how much money you make. With an income tax it becomes their business. That's. Just. Wrong.

So there's my mini-rant for today. Oh, Paul's plan will fail, because the government doesn't really care about the people after all. But that's another mini-rant for another mini-day.

Government and Right and Wrong

Over at the Daily Beast, they're ranting about libertarian conservative Rand Paul's seeming tilt to the traditionally conservative side on social issues. He has introduced, along with Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), a bill which defines life as beginning at conception. It is their plan to sidestep the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling of 1973.

The fear seems to be that the newly elected Republicans are more intent on addressing social issues than what the Tea Party as a whole appears to be. But why not address them? What we stand for as a nation is important, and there's no reason conservatives should take the flak they do over standing up for the moral points they believe in. Liberals social issues activists certainly aren't subject to the general disdain which is heaped on the GOP.

The fact of the matter is that things such as health care, education, and aid to the poor and unemployed, even questions of the exact nature of the state in our lives, are just as much social questions, are themselves as fully moral issues, as abortion and gay rights. Why should conservatives be expected to check their morals at the door when what is important to them is at stake? No one asks the pro-death crowd (those in favor of abortion) to leave their creed private.

Governments can, do, and indeed must address the critical social issues which face humanity day in and day out. It is time that people learned to accept that the sum of good government is in truth government which does only what it should, even, or, perhaps, especially, where important moral rights and wrongs are at stake.

Rand Paul on Immigration

U.S. Senate hopeful Rand Paul is at it again, only this time on more firm ground. He has said that the babies born here of illegal immigrants should not be granted citizenship. The point has merit and needs to be discussed.

The most immediate and glaring problem with the issue is no less than Paul's own vaunted United States Constitution. The 14th Amendment gives citizenship to everyone born in the United States, so it appears that it would take a Constitutional Amendment to alter that. Yet there are exceptions to that: people must be 'within the jurisdiction' of the United States for the 14th Amendment to apply. This exempts the children of foreign diplomats who may be born on US soil.

That may be the football which Mr. Paul and his associates are willing to run with, seeing as the parents are here wrongly and, at least arguably, not under the pure or complete jurisdiction of Washington. It certainly is not a matter which isolates Rand Paul from the pack. Ninety co-sponsors signed on to the proposed Birthright Citizenship Act introduced into the House last year, which would have exempted the babies of illegals from citizenship.

We're going to throw a little traditionally liberal constitutional argument out there for further consideration. How often do our liberal friends argue that the Constitution is a 'living document' subject to different interpretations through history? Quite often, they tell us that we should not see the Supreme Law of the Land as literal but fluid. Perhaps the amendment makers could not have anticipated the modern situation and would expect us to overlay our current view of what the 14th Amendment means over what they in fact meant. It may be chutzpah for libertarian conservatives to use this approach. But it would be, in this case anyway, delicious.

However the issue is addressed, there is a very real moral point at stake here: do people merit citizenship solely and completely on the basis of being born here? The answer is no. If the Constitution is unclear on the matter, then it must be cleared up. If it is clear but wrong, it must be changed. Rand Paul and his allies are no racists here, either. He was very clear that he doesn't mind people coming here to work and be part of the United States. If they come through the front door.

If there is a more rational and unbiased approach to immigration, we cannot fathom it. If you don't deserve to be here then you don't deserve to be here. It is time we stopped burning our resources on those who do not meet the legitimate standards of citizenship.

The Sins of the Father

It seems as though the acorn does in fact fall close to the tree. Rand Paul, fresh off a victory in the Kentucky Republican Senate Primary race, has put his foot squarely in his mouth by addressing an issue which should not be an issue in the 2010 elections. He suggested in an interview with National Public Radio that he does not agree with at least part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Bad move, and poor judgment, which are exactly the reasons why the more libertarian among us cannot make greater electoral gains in the United States.

While a systematic and rational philosophy are important, indeed paramount, for the formation of good people and good law, libertarians tend to be far too unyielding when it comes to compromise. This does little more than keep them on the periphery, dismissed by conservative and liberal alike as marginal.

Mr. Paul had to know that the interviewer was attempting to paint him into a corner; he's surely intelligent to realize that. So why let it happen? Because he felt very strongly that the issue needed to be addressed, even as he conceded that it was an intellectual rather than political argument and would be used against him.

He could have and should have side-stepped it. He might have pointed out that such laws help business owners open their doors to everyone without any fear of private sanction against them: "Sorry, folks, the law is the law and I have to serve everyone." Instead he finds no concession on the matter, and rips open the proverbial worm can.

The whole incident is reminiscent of the diatribe his father Ron went on during the 2008 election season, about the North provoking the South into the Civil War. Not only was the elder Paul wrong in fact, but he allowed the creation of an issue centered on him which reduced his effectiveness as a counterweight to the status quo. It served no purpose to his candidacy, and could have been easily avoided.

Rand Paul is doing the same thing. He is letting a weak strand of his philosophy potentially torpedo his fledgling Senate campaign. He needs to remember that there is nothing wrong with small concessions, even if they taste bad (hint: they're going to). He needs to realize that concession is part of political life, and there's no point fighting battles you cannot win.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. So long as Rand Paul and his libertarian allies stick to such axioms, they cannot become the majority among the electorate. That's truly a shame, because so much of what they espouse is right. They merely need to learn to adapt, or at least shut up about what can only harm them. Especially when it's not all that wrong to begin with.

More Politics as Usual?

Today is Super Tuesday. Sort of. It isn't expected to be anything like the Super Tuesdays which appear every four years in American presidential races, but merely as, perhaps, a portend of things to come.

Blanche Lincoln may lose her Senate seat in Arkansas if a predicted anti-incumbent furor continues to spread, and longtime Pennsylvania Senator and late coming Democrat Arlen Specter is on the bubble. Rand Paul, son of libertarian activist and longtime Republican Congressman Ron Paul, is looking good to win the GOP primary for a shot at the Senate seat in Kentucky made available by Jim Bunning's retirement.

The results will surely be overplayed and overanalyzed. Still, if all works out as anticipated, we will soon be in an even better position to see what November may bring. Will the tea partiers actually put something new on the table, or are they just attempting to rule by screams and threats, to paraphrase ousted Utah Senator Bob Bennett?

As if their screams are worse than the dictatorial style employed by President Obama and his lapdogs in Congress. But setting strident editorial comment (we include Bennett's sour grapes rant within that) aside, today will see either another stone set in the rebuilding of America, or leave a very muddled political landscape indeed.

How things look at 11PM this evening will be quite interesting.