Rand Fan on BBC

[Guyau]

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I'm a Rand Fan (Scroll down their screen.)

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Edited May 16, 2010 by Stephen Boydstun

[9thdoctor]

Here he talks about his name, denying that he's named after AR, but clearly eager to have her fans vote for him.

[Guyau]

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Scotch – same old, same old. Obscene use of Rand’s name.

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Re #4 (below)

Dennis, I was simply disappointed. That he changed his name from Randall to Rand to attract attention to his alignments with her politics and that he then uses the campaign sticker "I'm a Rand Fan" was no problem. But when I saw what was his position on abortion law, which was diametrically opposite that of Rand’s, my hope that he really was a fresh turn in the Republican Party, a turn towards the concept of individual rights held by Rand, was dashed. The issue of a woman’s legal right to an elective abortion is not some sort of peripheral issue. It is a critical issue, like the military draft, in which, if a candidate is on the wrong side of the issue, he is off the table in Rand’s book and in mine. If Mr. Paul wins this primary, I hope he will be defeated by a Pro-Choice candidate in the November election.

Couple of notes: A, B

Edited May 18, 2010 by Stephen Boydstun

[9thdoctor]

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Scotch – same old, same old. Obscene use of Rand’s name.

What’s “scotch”? I don’t understand the reference. He denies being named after Ayn Rand, so it’s not like some nasty case of bait and switch that he’s anti-abortion.

[9thdoctor]

That he changed his name from Randall to Rand to attract attention to his alignments with her politics and that he then uses the campaign sticker "I'm a Rand Fan" was no problem. But when I saw what was his position on abortion law, which was diametrically opposite that of Rand’s, my hope that he really was a fresh turn in the Republican Party, a turn towards the concept of individual rights held by Rand, was dashed.

In the video clip he denies that he changed his name because of AR.

I agree with everything else you say, but my attitude/perception is that the issue of abortion is off the table. The pro-lifers may manage to get through some incremental restrictions, but abortion rights are here to stay. In the early 80’s, when AR spoke about it re Reagan, it was still a “new” right, threats to it were more credible then. The backlash against an outright ban now would unbelievable. Even the incremental steps usually inspire fervent opposition.

I don’t live in KY, so I won’t be able to vote for or against Rand Paul. There’s a lot of German Catholics there, however, so his position will help him get votes. My family comes from there, and I guarantee my grandmother will be voting for him, that’s true no matter what I say.

[Guyau]

Thanks for your comment, Dennis.

The elected politicians give the abortion issue salience in their election campaigns according to how much they think it will affect the voters' decision for their election. The long, strategic struggle between the pro-choice side and the anti-abortionists has been over who is in the White House and whether he (or she) will be appointing justices to the Supreme Court willing to overturn Roe v. Wade. Both sides know that today’s Governor or Senator may become tomorrow’s President.

The hour of greatest danger so far to the pro-choice side of the issue did not arrive during the Reagan era. The anti-abortionists’ war against Roe v. Wade has been sustained through decades, and the term of G. W. Bush ending in 2008 was the darkest hour on this issue, because of the number of anti-abortionists that had been accumulated on the Court. They needed only one more. Because a pro-choice candidate won the Presidency in 2008, we are getting some of the older justices who were the wall against the overturn of Roe v. Wade replaced with younger ones to maintain that defense. If an anti-abortionist President had been elected in that year and had succeeded in getting another anti-abortionist on the Court, Roe v. Wade would be soon be out, however outraged millions might be. For now we are able to fortify the wall.

Note from Sept. 2008

[9thdoctor]

What we really need is a constitutional amendment, to get this issue truly off the table, but there’s not enough support. It may take Roe v. Wade being reversed to finally make that happen. I’m not much of a political junkie, but would you argue that abortion rights should be a federal issue? If so, shouldn’t it become so as a result of an amendment, rather than a Supreme Court decision? I’m not sure, but the status quo is too unstable, and it’s poisonous to our political discourse.

[Guyau]

Would you argue that abortion rights should be a federal issue? If so, shouldn’t it become so as a result of an amendment, rather than a Supreme Court decision? I’m not sure . . . .

Dennis, I’m sorry I don’t have time to give the federal-jurisdiction question the research it deserves. From 3. of the Roe v. Wade majority opinion, we see that State laws against abortion were seen as violating an individual right protected by the U.S. Constitution.

The idea that the constitution protects an individual right of privacy against the state was a fairly new development. As I recall, Justice Black always objected to such a right, constructed under the shadow, or penumbra, of the constitution, such as the constitutional right of privacy had been constructed. The value protected by liberals advocating a constitutional right of privacy was individual autonomy over the intimacies of personal identity. Some conservatives in the minority on the Court tried to remake a constitutional right to privacy into, not an individual right, but a family right. That was before the time of the conservatives on the Court today. From the more recent case legalizing sexual relations between persons of the same sex (striking down State criminal statutes criminalizing acts typical of same-sex relations), I gather that talk of individual liberty rights is more fashionable that talk of individual privacy rights. But as the point of liberty rights is protection of individual autonomy—a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

A couple of important cases carving a constitutional right of privacy, leading up to Roe v. Wade, were Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which struck down State laws against the use of contraceptives, and Loving v. Virginia (1967), which struck down State laws against interracial marriage. As you might expect, I certainly do think that the US constitution, in its protection of individual rights, is protecting the autonomy of individuals over their private lives against state intrusions, whether by the States or by the US government. Were no States to pass laws abrogating such rights, there would come no case before the US Supreme Court to quash them. But that was not and is not the society we have. The Roman Catholic Church has for a long time insinuated a number of its moral doctrines on personal conduct into our secular legal system and was very effective in getting States to outlaw abortion.

There was a night that has stood still for me. It was in the 70’s. Word had gotten out in the gay community in Chicago that Anita Bryant, a prominent anti-gay activist, was going to be coming to town in a few days to sing the National Anthem at a Shriners’ convention. We quickly organized a rather large demonstration to march round and round the Medinah Temple protesting her anti-gay ideas and campaigns. (In those days, the hot front was for gay activists to get anti-discrimination ordinances and laws into referendum initiatives around the country; back then the voters rejected them pretty uniformly by votes of 2-to-1.) We then marched over to what used to be called Pioneer Court, a plaza on the south side of the Tribune building. A modest platform had been built for speakers. I never forgot one speaker. She was an attorney, a generation older than Jerry and I. (Jerry was in law school.) She spoke of there being a long, hard tradition of finding ways in the legal system of defending individual rights against the votes of majorities.

I am pleased to have lived so long as to have witnessed some of her truth in our own struggle for personal liberty and equal protection under the law. Jerry went on to finish his law degree and become a civil rights attorney for eleven years. In a few weeks, I will return for the twentieth year to the place at the lake where I spread his ashes. Near the close of my eulogy for him at his memorial service, those twenty years ago, I spoke a bit about the AIDS calamity that had hit our community and included echo of words whose original would be known in that audience: “So many have died. More will follow. As a people, though, we are going to survive. And we will be free.” In the long slow line that spontaneously formed at the end of the service, one who came to shake my hand was that woman attorney who had spoken on that platform.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Stephen Boydstun

[9thdoctor]

Anita Bryant, a prominent anti-gay activist, was going to be coming to town

Anita Bryant, ick, she was particularly active here in South Florida. A holier than thou busybody.

But anyway, back to Rand Paul, his rhetoric on economic matters is an order of magnitude better than that of other Republicans, and he’s replacing another anti-abortion Senator. So the Delta is seemingly all to the good. Would a pro-choice Republican get elected in KY? I don’t know, but I doubt it. Rudy Giuliani is the best known pro-choice Republican I can think of, and I have a much more positive view of Rand Paul at this point in time.