It's no secret that I loathe Ron Paul. And as you might guess, I'm not thrilled with his son Rand, the fraudulent ophthalmologist who thinks that the state should enforce the "right" of business owners to kick out whatever minorities they dislike.
But as they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Some progressive folks, including In These Times's Zaid Jilani, support Rand's recent filibuster over drone strikes: This Progressive Stands With Rand
I’ve spent my entire political life working with the Democratic Party and the progressive movement. I’ve worked for the Democratic Party-aligned think tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP). I’ve raised money and organized campaign volunteers to elect progressive Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, and Alan Grayson. I’ve never voted for a Republican.
Yet when right-libertarian Republican Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) took to the floor yesterday to filibuster John Brennan's nomination as CIA director, I was joining staffers at the Koch Brothers organization FreedomWorks and writers at RedState.com by tweeting out the hashtag #StandWithRand. I did so with the full realization that this would put me at odds with much of the progressive movement and partisan Democrats.
...
During an emotional moment last year following the killing of African American teen Trayvon Martin, President Obama said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” As a Pakistani Muslim American, if I had a brother, he would likely look like Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. As a Pakistani Muslim American, if I had a brother, he would likely look like Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. Like his father Anwar al-Awlaki, Abdhulrahman was an American citizen. Unlike his father, who preached support for terrorism, he was not known to be or accused to be engaged in anything like terrorist activity. Yet a drone strike ended his life two weeks after his father was killed. President Obama has never explained why, but Rand Paul explained last night before a worldwide audience what former administration flack Robert Gibbs told an activist about the attack.
Over the past few years I've noticed some interesting alliances forming between right-libertarians and progressives. One of the most notable examples was the Senate campaign of Kevin Zeese, who ran on a Green-Libertarian ticket. (An idea so powerful that the Maryland legislature passed a law especially to stop it.) It may be more that more and more people are entering the political space I've been in for the past twenty years or so, realizing how utterly horrid both the Republican and Democratic parties are and seeing either the Libertarians or the Greens as being significantly less bad.
(One of these days I'm going to write a libertarian progressive manifesto and make people's heads explode.)