What a Rand Paul World Would Look Like: 6 Things You Should Know About the War-Mongering, Faux Libertarian
3. Rand Paul voted against reforming the NSA. One of Paul’s supposed differences with the Washington establishment is his stated opposition to the surveillance state and his support for privacy rights. Rand Paul is indeed vocal in his opposition to the renewal of the Patriot Act, but the devil is in the details. When Paul had a real opportunity to curtail the NSA’s power in November of last year, he infuriated civil liberties advocates by voting against a bill that would have dramatically scaled back NSA operations on the grounds that the reforms would be part of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act might be modified when it comes up for renewable, but it’s very unlikely to be scrapped entirely. So civil liberties advocates know that the best chance at reforming the NSA will come by making alterations to the law. Which means that when Rand Paul opposes NSA reform on a hardline stance against renewing the Patriot Act, he gets to have his cake and eat it, too: he wins support from privacy-minded voters while ensuring that the establishment knows he’s not a real threat to make even minor changes to how the security state does business.
Meanwhile, despite her reputation as an establishment friend of the security state, Hillary Clinton herself joined with NSA critic Mark Udall in voicing support for the need to makes changes to surveillance law to defend privacy. If Ms. Clinton were to accept restrictions to the NSA as part of a Patriot Act renewal or other related vote, she would do far more to defend privacy than Rand Paul has ever done.
4. Rand Paul opposes marriage quality and reproductive choice.Despite styling himself as a libertarian who favors privacy rights, Rand Paul stridently opposes both abortion rights and gay marriage, sticking the government in your womb and in your bedroom. On abortion Rand Paul goes further than even many of his Republican colleagues, opposing abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Using the federal government’s power to force a 13-year-old to carry her father’s baby to term is hardly the portrait of freedom. When challenged, he tried to dodge the question by saying the issue wasn’t worth talking about. As if that weren’t bad enough, Rand Paul also took the extraordinary step of voting against the Violence Against Women Act.