Will Rand Paul Eclipse Michael Steele?

I have for some time referred to Michael Steele as “the gift that keeps on giving”.  But compared to some of the groups with which Rand Paul associates himself, Michael Steele seems quite sane by comparison.

Bruce Wilson writes:

…So it isn’t altogether surprising that Rand Paul could be found, in April 2009, at a rally held by a political party that’s been heavily influenced by a movement whose founder, Rousas Rushdoony, advocated executing homosexuals by stoning, wanted to reimpose the institution of slavery, and maintained that the Sun rotated around the Earth.

On April 25, 2009, Rand Paul was the featured guest speaker at The Constitution Party of Minnesota’s "event of the year." I’ve found video of Rand Paul at an afternoon Minneapolis rally, so he was without a doubt in the vicinity.

Just to make sure I talked to Tammy Houle, whose phone number is the Minnesota Constitution Party [Wing-nuts delinked] listed contact number, and she confirmed to me that Rand Paul had indeed spoken at the April 25th evening event.

The odd thing about Rand and Ron Paul’s political tendency is that it offers liberals and progressives a number of points of agreement, probably more than with more ‘mainstream’ conservative GOP politicians. For example, Ron Paul has been a principled opponent of the invasion of Iraq and US military adventurism in the Mideast generally, and Rand Paul espouses the same position.

But it’s hard to get much more extreme than Christian Reconstructionism, whose founder Rushdoony was a Holocaust denier, a racist, a creationist, and an advocate for slavery who claimed that African-American slaves were lucky.

Weigh it for yourself — Howard Phillips, who founded the Constitution Party, has, according to journalist Frederick Clarkson, described Rousas J. Rushdoony as "my wise counseler."

As Rushdoony wrote in Politics of Guilt and Pity:

The white man is being systematically indoctrinated into believing that he is guilty of enslaving and abusing the Negro. Granted that some Negroes were mistreated as slaves, the fact still remains that nowhere in all history or in the world today has the Negro been better off. The life expectancy of the Negro increased when he was transported to America. He was not taken from freedom into slavery, but from a vicious slavery to degenerate chiefs to a generally benevolent slavery in the United States. There is not the slightest evidence that any American Negro had ever lived in a "free society" in Africa; even the idea did not exist in Africa. The move from Africa to America was a vast increase of freedom for the Negro…

None of this, of course, is Rand Paul’s direct responsibility. But it certainly is suggestive… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

If that is not enough, according to the same author, Christian Reconstructionism also wants to expand capital punishment.

…Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea of Biblical "warfare" is the centrality of capital punishment under Biblical Law. Doctrinal leaders (notably Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen) call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, "sodomy or homosexuality," incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case of women, "unchastity before marriage… [emphasis added]

No doubt, Paul and his GOP Supporters will deny that Paul holds these views.  If that is true, why was he keynoting their event?  If they do not represent his views, he should not be associating himself with them.  This is even worse that the GOP dominated Indiana legislature.  They just want to keep ladies Barefoot and Pregnant, but Paul’s associates want most ladies and other folks dead.

Rand ‘Son of Tin Foil Hat’ Paul may be just one wing-nut in a very red state, but he is still very important as the new face of the GOP.  He has come right out with things that most Republican leaders keep barely hidden beneath their sheets and hoods.