The Fascism and the Furious

Today's column over at the Daily Banter focuses on Ron Paul.

That's really all that needs to be said.

Here's an excerpt:

"Thankfully, Ron Paul has zero impact on the actual U.S. lawmaking process these days given that he left Congress in a giant poof of indignation and self-pity last November, leaving us all with one final 48-minute-long rant about fascism, fiat money, the erosion of our civil liberties, 'psychopathic authoritarians,' and, of course, liberty! But despite his official departure from the hallowed halls of the institution he claimed to despise, it should have been abundantly clear that he wasn’t simply going to stroll off into the sunset to dodder away his twilight years ranting at telephone poles about the dangers of functional government. Freed from the shackles of decorum, you just knew he was going to rip the gloves off and begin spouting whatever kind of insane horseshit popped into his brain in whichever direction he could. That’s the attitude that led to his first post-office op-ed, subtly titled 'You’re Not Free If You Can’t Secede from an Oppressive Government.' And that’s the attitude that no doubt led to the diatribe he threw together for his friend Lew Rockwell’s website, a piece published yesterday called 'Liberty Was Also Attacked in Boston.' (LIBERTY!)"

Read the Rest Here

By the way, every time I think of Ron Paul -- this comes to mind:

Quote of the Day

"Is it treasonous to want to secede from the United States? Many think the question of secession was settled by our Civil War. On the contrary, the principles of self-government and voluntary association are at the core of our founding... Secession is a deeply American principle. This country was born through secession. Some thought it was treasonous to secede from England, but those “traitors” became our country’s greatest patriots. There is nothing treasonous or unpatriotic about wanting a federal government that is more responsive to the people it represents. That is what our revolutionary war was all about and today, our own federal government is vastly overstepping its constitutional bounds with no signs of reform. In fact, the recent election only further entrenched the status quo... At what point should a people dissolve the political bands which have connected them with an increasingly tyrannical and oppressive federal government? And if people or states are not free to leave the United States as a last resort, can they really think of themselves as free? If a people cannot secede from an oppressive government they cannot truly be considered free."

-- Ron Paul, in an op-ed titled "You're Not Free If You Can't Secede from an Oppressive Government"

I swear, part of me is really gonna miss Ron Paul now that he's left his thoroughly ineffectual role in Congress to literally dodder away into his twilight years ranting at telephone poles about the dangers of functional government. I give it about a month before his face shows up on a local news station somewhere alongside a story that begins with the words, "Authorities need your help tonight in finding an elderly man who may have wandered off from home," while highway signs warn drivers to be on the lookout as part of a "Silver Alert."

I didn't watch all of Paul's pissy, 48-minute-long "goodbye cruel world" speech to the House last week because I have a life, but Salon put together a quickie Cliff's Notes of it and what was most amusing is that in just the clips they made available Paul managed to say the word "liberty" nine times. He used "freedom" six times, five of those in just one short paragraph. This is important because as you know, a vote for Ron Paul was always a vote for LIBERTY. Never mind that Paul's a lunatic or that his goals for a national government, basically that there would be no government at all, is laughably impractical bordering on impossible. He even came right out and admitted that he didn't really do anything while in Congress because he believes that the role of government should be to essentially contribute to people's lives in no meaningful way -- and in that respect, he was the perfect representative.

I'm really enjoying, though, watching the gloves come off completely now that Paul's safely out of office and can say whatever crazy horseshit he wants without worrying about having to be held accountable for it. I look forward to many more op-eds on secession, unicorns, public water fountains that are too tall, his anger that it's so hard to find Sanka these days, liberty! liberty! liberty! etc.

The Libertarium of Doctor Parnasshole

The Onion: Showing Ron Paul the respect he deserves.

Just brilliant.

(via Cesca)

Paul Maul 2: The Reckoning

Since my very minor tear against Ron Paul once again generated some decent feedback -- I say once again because every time anyone brings up "Dr." Paul in a negative light, his cult-like followers come out of the woodwork to bombard the heretic with e-mails -- I figured I'd bring something related back to the main page. This quickie diatribe from August of last year generated more Facebook "likes" than anything that's ever been published at DXM -- 348.

It was the first time I really bothered to bring up Ron Paul and his fawning, deluded worshipers.

"If there's one thing I'm absolutely through abiding in this country it's these idiots who embrace Ron Paul as some sort of messianic figure come to save our great nation from itself. The draconian brand of libertarianism that Paul and his monkey son espouse is intrinsically anti-American because it reduces the notion of a "United States of America" -- particularly as a world leader -- to an afterthought, one that can and should be sacrificed in the name of each person doing whatever the hell he or she feels like with no sense of a collective responsibility to each other or the country as a whole. If Paul's vision for America had been in place since our nation's inception, America never could have accomplished the myriad astonishing things that made us a superpower.

The free market is not America. It couldn't fucking care less about America; it exists simply in the service of itself. It has no loyalty to anything but its own perpetuation and notions like patriotism don't even enter into the picture. Say what you will, but a government of duly-elected officials is the only system beholden to no one but the people. In theory, anyway. While I'm not sure our current model is working -- precisely because so many of our leaders are on the take in one way or another -- I hold tightly to the belief that the citizenry can actually change that situation for the better. We have the power, but only if we act in concert as Americans -- not strictly as individuals who don't give a crap about the other people who make this country great.

Ron Paul and his neo-libertarian acolytes want an America with no sense of cohesion; one that's at the mercy of a system of government that's no real government; one that doesn't care much what happens to you because it's either none of its business or it simply isn't cost-effective to give a damn; one that in many ways resembles a Third-World country.

Fuck that."

I feel as strongly about this today as I did when I wrote it a year ago -- if not more.

Cesca brilliantly calls Ron Paul "a shibboleth for nihilistic hipsters." It's a perfect description of him and the inexplicable pull he has with the profoundly gullible.

Paul Maul

The Quote of the Day is actually an entire conversation. Behold, just a small part of a larger exchange between the Huffington Post's Sam Stein and anti-federalism, anti-entitlement, Godfather of modern hardcore libertarian purity Ron Paul.

"STEIN: A bit of a personal question then, are you on Social Security? Do you get Social Security checks?

PAUL: I do.

STEIN: Well, I mean, is there -- you just told younger generations that they should ween themselves off this social contract.

PAUL: That is true.

STEIN: But you haven’t done it yourself... Don’t you think you chould have set a good example for the future generations. You’re not the wealthiest man in congress, I know that, but you have enough means to take care of yourself in retirement... Couldn’t you have set an example?

PAUL: No. I think the programs are so designed, just as I use the post office too, I use government highways, I do that too, I use the banks, the federal reserve system, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t work to remove this in the same way on Social Security."

It would be easy to just write this off as a case of "Do as I Say, Not as I Do" hypocrisy, but really there's something much deeper at work here. The fact is that libertarian ideaologues like Paul -- as with objectivist clowns like Ayn Rand before them -- secretly realize that their belief system is impossible to put into practice. It all looks great on paper, but it's unfeasible to run a unified country or a moral society without realizing that everyone within it will have to at least partially accept responsibility for his or her fellow man. What's more, Paul's cop out that the system is in place so therefore he falls back on it -- that the temptation is just too much to take and apparently robs him of his burning desire to live truly independently -- is almost impossible to listen to without laughing out loud. For the record, Rand herself, talented grifter that she was, did the same thing, only she tried to hide it; unlike Paul, who comes right out and admits he's full of shit, Rand received both Social Security and Medicare as she became old and infirm, only she collected it under her husband's last name.

This is why the modern right, bolstered by a neo-Randian philosophy of which most conservatives understand pretty much nothing other than a few bumper sticker slogans, hates the notion of, say, single-payer healthcare: they're afraid of it; afraid that the temptation will be too much and that people will want to use it; even people who normally breathe fire at the mere mention of government assistance. The difference, of course, is that some of those people -- people like Ron Paul -- can afford to not be a "parasitic burden" on the system while others actually need the help just to eke out an existence.

But I guess when you get old you earn the luxury of being able to issue loud, ex cathedra rulings declaring that no one else is entitled to federal assistance -- while sucking as much as you can get from the government teat.

(via Cesca)

Paul Buried Newt

There's nothing in the world that could make me want to see Ron Paul become President of the United States. That said, his people get massive credit for taking apart the cynical and ego-driven campaign of Newt Gingrich better than anybody this election season. This just about nails it -- and does so ferociously.

Quote(s) of the Day

"The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the office of the Presidency and flies in the face of that office’s history and dignity."

-- Ron Paul's official statement on his decision not to get anywhere near the upcoming Donald Trump-moderated Newsmax Republican presidential debate

"I don’t quite understand the marching to his office. I didn't realize he had the ability to lay on hands and anoint people."

-- Ron Paul on Donald Trump, yesterday on CNN

"Few people take Ron Paul seriously and many of his views and presentation make him a clown-like candidate. I am glad he and Jon Huntsman, who has inconsequential poll numbers or a chance of winning, will not be attending the debate and wasting the time of the viewers who are trying very hard to make a very important decision."

-- Donald Trump, responding to Paul's snub exactly the way you knew he would

Make no mistake: I don't care one bit about either of these people. While Paul is certainly the more intelligent of the two -- to say nothing of his not being a cheap grifter -- I wouldn't want to listen to him or Trump for any length of time at all. I'm also reluctant to even bother mentioning Trump's name again, since that's exactly what he's looking for: press, from anywhere he can get it. Still, it's fun to watch him refer to anyone as a "clown-like candidate." Joan Walsh was right: Even the GOP deserves better than this kind of two-bit con artistry. God knows the country does.

"Hoo-Ha, Cherry Soda!"

As with Herman Cain, the words the BLR team put into Ron Paul's mouth don't really sound any crazier than the crap he actually says. And besides, he could release an ad just like this one and not lose a single one of his supporters -- they'd keep right on praising Dr. Paul as the savior come to rescue us all.

Still, that'd make such a great campaign slogan:

Ron Paul 2012: He'll Haunt Your Prostate

Beyond Thunderdome

You're probably going to hear quite a few iterations of the word "ghoulish" tossed around today. That's pretty much the best way to describe the response by Tea Party sociopaths in Tampa last night to the idea of letting someone die if he or she doesn't have insurance and can't afford to pay medical bills.

Chances are by now you've seen what I'm talking about, but in case you haven't yet, here it is: a hypothetical question posed by Wolf Blitzer, moderator of CNN's Tea Party debate among the GOP candidates for president, to crazy old man Ron Paul. Listen for the audience reaction; that's the gold.



Now it's worth pointing out that Blitzer -- who proved throughout the debate why you shouldn't listen to him while driving or operating heavy machinery -- predictably telegraphed his punch by making the hypothetical patient in question a guy who chose not to pay for health insurance rather than, you know, one of the millions across the country who can't afford insurance. Regardless, this is the second time in as many weeks that we've seen a crowd full of presumably fiercely pro-life Republicans unable to contain their orgiastic bloodlust at the idea of killing somebody. You'll remember that the audience at the Reagan library last week -- Simi Valley suburbanites, all of them -- just about had the largest non-gangbang porn-related mass climax in history when Texas shit-kicker action figure Rick Perry bragged about executing 234 people, at least one of whom was very likely innocent.

Here's the important thing to keep in mind, though -- the basic message of the Tea Party jackasses like the ones that grow up out of the ground in a place like Tampa: They get to decide who lives and who dies. Who's worthy to live or die.

Are you a fetus, even one that's the product of rape or incest, or who's almost doomed from the start to be unloved and to eventually choke the state system -- child protection or penal -- that many on the right believes is the only legitimate recourse? Congratulations, you live -- no matter what. Are you somebody who, ironically, committed a vicious crime as an adult or who was at least convicted of doing so, or maybe even just some poor idiot who made a really bad decision about his or her life and who now stands to pay for that mistake with that very life? Sorry, fuck you, parasite -- you die.

That's really what it comes down to: The sickening Randian "producers vs. parasites" horseshit ethos that can be distilled down to a battle-cry-ready slogan with almost no effort, one that fits really nicely on a bumper-sticker. The problem, of course, is -- who decides who's a producer and who's a parasite? I'm terrified of leaving a decision like that to people who diabolically cheer death like Romans at the Coliseum.

My favorite part of last night's monster truck rally in Tampa, though? That Wolf Blitzer actually lauded the whole thing as evidence of a substantive debate on the issues. Unless CNN actually set out to give the Tea Party and its vile philosophy enough rope to hang themselves on national television, what we witnessed was nothing more than the continued elevation of a relatively small, shockingly ignorant group of pretend freedom fighters simply because they make for good TV. They're splashed across your screen, over and over again, precisely because they're guaranteed to do ridiculous shit like shout for the deaths of those who disagree with their view of the world.

In the end, the Tea Party and its ilk amount to nothing more than the ultimate reality TV show.

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"I think he’s an idiot."

-- Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy on Ron Paul

As for what's sure to be the slew of responses to this from Paul's army of loyal myrmidons, there's a pretty easy way to weed them out and quickly disregard them. You know the old joke about how you could always tell who the bad guy was on Barnaby Jones because he was the one who called Barnaby "pops?" Well basically any comment you see on any website that immediately refers to Ron as "Dr. Paul" -- yeah, just pass right over that insanity and move on to the next person in the thread.

Quote of the Day

"We should be like 1900. We should be like 1940, 1950, 1960. I live on the Gulf Coast; we deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district. There's no magic about FEMA. They're a great contribution to deficit financing and quite frankly they don't have a penny in the bank. We should be coordinated but coordinated voluntarily with the states. A state can decide. We don't need somebody in Washington."

-- Ron Paul, speaking yesterday in New Hampshire

I swear, sometimes I actually feel bad holding Ron Paul up to ridicule or even bothering to take anything he says seriously. First of all, he's obviously suffering from dementia; secondly, while he's an entertaining diversion and one that inexplicably inspires cult-like devotion among both the tiny "intellectual" arm of the Tea Party and America's early-20-something stoner community, he doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning a thing beyond his congressional seat. The only way Paul will ever see the inside of the Oval Office is if he's invited there by whoever happens to be president. And that's partially because he can stand up in front of a group of people and honestly say, without a hint of irony, that this country needs to return to the way it was 111 years ago. I get that today's Republicans tend to fetishize the 50s, but at least everyone had electricity by that point.

On the podcast this week, Bob and I talked about the school district in Pennsylvania that's now using sheep to cut the grass at one middle-school because it says they save money that would otherwise be spent on, you know, a guy and a lawnmower. Cesca's comment about the story earlier in the week on his blog was freaking priceless: "We’re seriously a few more sheep and a Thunderdome away from becoming Bartertown."

But that's apparently what guys like Ron Paul want.

I've been over this before so I'm not going to repeat myself at length. Suffice it to say, though, that this Randian asshole, every-man-for-himself brand of libertarianism that Paul and his monkey son espouse -- and which seems to have found an audience among the craziest sliver of the electoral pie -- is exactly as advertised. I'll give Paul this, he makes it perfectly clear what he's all about and doesn't hedge one bit; he wants you to know that he doesn't give a rat's ass about you as an American or about this nation as a world leader or superpower. About to get slammed by a hurricane? Tough shit, pal -- you're on your own. It's your fault for living where the hurricanes are and it's certainly not my problem or responsibility. The rest of the world's gonna laugh at this once-mighty country if we allow ourselves to regress to the point of being, basically, a Third World feudal society peppered with frontier towns and no centralized government to speak of? So be it.

Again, there's a point to be made that it's a waste of time and copy-space to give Paul's ramblings any more credence than those of the recently released Bellevue patient who's now staked out a soapbox in the middle of Central Park. For Christ's sake, in 1977 Jimmy Carter implored this country to make the tiny sacrifice of dropping the thermostat a few degrees and wearing a sweater -- and he was publicly castigated for it. You think Americans are gonna go for the abandonment of entire swaths of the country and its people every time a disaster like a monster hurricane hits? You're even more of a lunatic than Ron Paul -- and that's not easy.

He Buries Paul

Meet the Amazing Atheist, and his epic smackdown of Ron and the Paulbots. It's too bad this kid doesn't believe in a god, because he's pretty close to being one.

Needless to say, though, the slavish Cult of Paul is out in force in the comment section of this clip if you're so inclined to have a look.

(via Matt Osborne)

Who Buried Paul?

A lot of hay has been made during the past couple of days over the amount of coverage Ron Paul has gotten coming out of last weekend's Iowa straw poll -- namely the fact that the mainstream media have all but ignored him, despite his very close second-place finish. While it's true that it's unfair to pretend like Paul doesn't even exist, Steve Kornacki at Salon tries to nail why the media don't feel like once again falling for the idea that the standard mobilization of a rabid but incredibly small group of Paul supporters means a damn thing in the big political picture.

"Think back to the later months of 2007, when Paul stunned the political world by raising more money than any of the other Republican candidates. No one was quite sure what to make of it. Paul was supposed to be a niche candidate with no chance, but he wasn't raising niche candidate money. Was something revolutionary taking place? The answer came when the primary and caucus season began and Paul performed ... like a niche candidate. He grabbed 10 percent in Iowa, good for fifth place, and 8 percent in New Hampshire, another fifth-place showing, and that was pretty much it. The media filed this under lesson learned: Paul's supporters could make a lot of noise -- but it was misleading noise.

This is why his string of straw poll successes in the past few years -- including last weekend's -- hasn't gotten much notice. And this is probably the way it should be, until and unless Paul can demonstrate that these performances are anything but the product of his army mobilizing for relatively low-turnout events and producing deceptively impressive results. So far, there's not much evidence for this."

Granted, there are two contradictory arguments that can be made here. One is that the amount of media attention a candidate gets can often help drive how seriously he or she is taken. In other words, if the press completely ignores someone, so does the general public; its subtle proclamation that a candidate doesn't deserve to be taken seriously becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The second is that if the political media are supposedly so wise to being taken for a ride, why the hell did they once again chomp on the unbelievable line of bullshit fed to them a few months back by perennial con-man Donald Trump? The easy answer is that Trump makes for great TV and a lot of page hits; Ron Paul just comes off, as Jon Stewart alluded to, like some crazy uncle you hope skips the big Thanksgiving dinner.

While I disagree with him on a lot of issues -- as well as on his overarching libertarian belief-system -- and I really can't stand his insanely fanatical army of fawning acolytes, Ron Paul at least deserves not to be completely overlooked. Or if you are going to overlook him, citing the reasons Kornacki gives, you'd better damn well overlook every other one-note joke who pulls your political chain during campaign season.

Quote of the Day

"I'm so disgusted. I mean, no, I don't know what you do in the face of that kind of intransigence. So, my heart does go out to the President. He is dealing with a lot... The wealthy are paying less than they paid at ay time else, certainly in my lifetime, and probably in the last century. I don't know what we were paying in the roaring 20's; it's criminal that so little is asked of people who are getting so much. I don't mind paying more. I really don't mind paying more taxes. I'd rather pay for taxes than cut 'Reading is Fundamental' or Head Start or some of these programs that are really helping kids. This is the greatest country in the world; is it really that much worse if you pay 6% more in taxes? Give me a break. Look at what you get for it: you get to be American."

-- Matt Damon

If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at Damon's populist tear during an appearance at a Save Our Schools rally over the weekend. Not only did he give voice to the frustration a lot of Americans are feeling in the wake of the shameful debt ceiling fight and equally shameful deal, but he verbally smacked down a reporter and photographer from Reason TV. The two took the typical neo-libertarian asshole position that only the traditional free-market drivers -- like the fear of being out of work -- would lead someone to want to excel at his or her job, whether that job is as an actor or a teacher. That letting the free-market Sword of Damocles be a constant threat over your head makes you try harder and that that's what matters most. Damon wasn't having any of it, and let them know in no uncertain terms.



Do not fuck with Jason Bourne.

My favorite thing about that exchange: I promise you, you have no idea how much the guy with the camera hated being called a "cameraman." In the world of broadcast journalism, it's like calling a flight attendant a stewardess. That's why whenever you hear a photographer referenced on a news show it's as a "photojournalist" or some other impressive-sounding, politically correct title aimed at keeping him or her from pitching a hissy.

By the way, while we're on the subject, if there's one thing I'm absolutely through abiding in this country it's these idiots who embrace Ron Paul as some sort of messianic figure come to save our great nation from itself. The draconian brand of libertarianism that Paul and his monkey son espouse is intrinsically anti-American because it reduces the notion of a "United States of America" -- particularly as a world leader -- to an afterthought, one that can and should be sacrificed in the name of each person doing whatever the hell he or she feels like with no sense of a collective responsibility to each other or the country as a whole. If Paul's vision for America had been in place since our nation's inception, America never could have accomplished the myriad astonishing things that made us a superpower.

The free market is not America. It couldn't fucking care less about America; it exists simply in the service of itself. It has no loyalty to anything but its own perpetuation and notions like patriotism don't even enter into the picture. Say what you will, but a government of duly-elected officials is the only system beholden to no one but the people. In theory, anyway. While I'm not sure our current model is working -- precisely because so many of our leaders are on the take in one way or another -- I hold tightly to the belief that the citizenry can actually change that situation for the better. We have the power, but only if we act in concert as Americans -- not strictly as individuals who don't give a crap about the other people who make this country great.

Ron Paul and his neo-libertarian acolytes want an America with no sense of cohesion; one that's at the mercy of a system of government that's no real government; one that doesn't care much what happens to you because it's either none of its business or it simply isn't cost-effective to give a damn; one that in many ways resembles a Third-World country.

Fuck that.

Wind of Change

One of the reasons why the utter devastation caused by, say, the Joplin tornado doesn't often sink in at a visceral level is ironically because these storms do so much damage that it's almost impossible to imagine what the affected areas looked like in the hours leading up to them. It's simply unimaginable that the barren wasteland you're now seeing on TV was once a thriving neighborhood or town; our minds can't comprehend that level of destruction. Maybe that's why the above before-and-after image is so jarring. Any of us could have lived in this comfortable middle-class area -- the one that's now nothing but a memory. As usual, if there's anything you can do to help please give to the Red Cross.

Also, I really do hate to bring politics into this but I was looking for a way to mention a recent series of interviews and the Missouri tornado hands it not just to me but all of us -- because it matters to all of us -- on a silver platter. A couple of weeks ago, during a two- or three-day press tour that came off like a greatest hits of sociopathic Randian objectivism, Doctor Ron Paul spouted a whole litany of predictably terrible ideas cast as nuggets of libertarian wisdom, all of which confirmed his role as the mayor of the fringe right. What struck me the most, though, was this statement -- made during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer -- in which Paul said he'd abolish FEMA because, well, it's big government, and in case you haven't been paying attention, "Big government bad, take away freedoms. Argh! Paul smash!"

"Well, if you want to live in a free society, if you want to pay attention to the constitution, why not (abolish FEMA)? I think it’s bad economics. I think it’s bad morality. And it’s bad constitutional law. Why should people like myself, who had, not too long ago, a house on the Gulf Coast and it’s –- it’s expensive there and it’s risky and it’s dangerous. Why should somebody from the central part of the United States rebuild my house? Why shouldn’t I have to buy my own insurance and protect about the potential dangers? I mean it’s –- it’s a moral hazard to say that government is always going to take care of us when we do dumb things. I’m trying to get people to not to dumb things. Besides, it’s not authorized in the constitution."

The irony is almost too delicious that a couple of days after he made this asinine argument, thousands of people living in the ostensibly safe "central part of the United States" saw their lives wiped-clean and are now in desperate need of help. But hey, screw them, right? They chose to live in an area that can be hit by tornadoes so why should I have to pay for their colossal fuck-up? Suck it, you needy parasites.

It's really staggering when you think that this is the direction in which the center of the Republican party is being forced to move in 2011: toward not caring one bit about the citizens of this country as a mission statement.

(Adding: Oh yeah, then there's this.)

Bonus Quote of the Day

“I have a message. A message from the Tea Party. A message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We have come to take our government back.”

-- Rand Paul, political neophyte and son of Ron Paul, crescendoing his victory speech after winning yesterday's Kentucky primary

First, Paul's win should shock absolutely no one; if ever there was a place where unfocused and largely incoherent white resentment grows up out of the ground like weeds right now, it's Kentucky. The important thing to keep in mind here is this: He won the Republican Senate primary because he's a Republican -- and for some strange reason, I suppose in an effort to be taken more seriously and to deflect accusations of racism, the tea baggers often like to pretend that they eschew political affiliation, which is horseshit. The reality has always been that the "Tea Party" is nothing more than the militant wing of the GOP -- it's what Hamas is to the PLO (minus all the acts of terrorism -- for now). The tea baggers feel like the Republican party just isn't crazy and scary enough on its own these days, so they're pulling a Vince McMahon and creating an XFL to "compete."

Second, I don't want to hear one more supposedly high-minded asshole trying to convince me or anyone else that Ron Paul is someone who should be taken seriously -- at least as far as his ideas are concerned. Anyone who names his child after Ayn Rand -- and does it ostensibly as an adult and not some pissy, arrogant teenager who stalks the halls of his high school trying to convince himself that the world is beneath him and he's secretly more evolved than the kids who are regularly flushing his pack of cloves down the toilet and stuffing him into lockers -- doesn't deserve even an ounce of credibility.

Finally, how chilling is it getting to hear this "take our government back" crap?