I have and will continue to support Dr. Rand's decision to run for the Senate because he is so much better than what we have up there right now. Dr. Rand is to much of a "Republican" from my personal perspective. Myself being a Libertarian.

I have and will continue to support Dr. Rand's decision to run for the Senate because he is so much better than what we have up there right now. Dr. Rand is to much of a "Republican" from my personal perspective. Myself being a Libertarian.

He's just pandering to the Republican base, doesn't necessarily mean he actually feels this way.

Although I support Rand for his views on limited government and fiscal conservatism, I am growing concerned with his stances on civil liberties.  He is against abortion (which I can understand despite personally being pro-choice), he is against gay marriage and now he is joining the GOP on politicizing the trial of terrorist suspects and trying them in military courts.  I still hope he gets elected, but as the campaign goes on, Rand is (sadly) showing he is bit more cut from the Republican Party cloth than most of us expected.

Unfortunately, his stance on not prosecuting people for torture doesn't seem to be just playing to the Republican base. I heard him on Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton and he talked about that very issue. It is a little disturbing to hear these things about him. For somebody to be as effective for liberty as Ron Paul has been, you have to have pure principles. I hope he wins, but he should watch his step. He could fall victim to the republican propaganda once he gets to Washington. 

Not sure if you all noticed, but the Rand Paul campaign has been trying very hard to portray Dr. Paul as a pro-military pro-defense guy.  I think the picture in the National Defense section of the Issues part speaks to that very clearly. 

Whether he believes it or not is another story, but I personally think Dr. Paul is truthful in all his espoused opinions, including this one. 

In his defense, the terrorists (KSM in particular) being held at Guantanamo were captured in the battlefield, and not apprehended by police on American soil.  Although this 'war' was never properly declared, and therefore the terrorists might not be "prisoners of war", Dr. Paul is right to say there is nothing in the Constitution offering guidance for the situation.  His belief is as valid as anyone's. 

And let us not forget that these are the people who conducted the attacks on 9/11 - these are the guys we went to Afghanistan for in the first place!  Let's bring them to justice.

Rand Paul 2010.

I think it's a little more complicated than we realize. Rand calls very specifically for a declaration of war to be made against Afghanistan and Iraq, and he strongly believes that we should get out if we won't do that. At the same time, it doesn't make much practical sense to capture soldiers on foreign battlefields (whether we should be there in the first place or not) and try them in civil courts. It doesn't make a lot of sense. So, I don't think he's compromised his stance on foreign policy, or civil liberties in this way.

Not to be pedantic, but he does say he's a Constitutional Conservative, not a libertarian. That's why he has the stance he does on abortion. I haven't seen anything to confirm that he's anti-gay marriage.  I'd say let's not jump to conclusions and throw him under the bus just yet.

yeah he's anti-gay marriage but that's fine cuz gay government marriage is unlibertarian.  So is straight government marriage.  

get gov. out of marriage.

I don't think Rand's a fan of these wars, detainment policies, the construction of gitmo, etc. so if it was up to him, this whole situation wouldn't have happened.

And if he's just pandering, that's cool, I have no problem with people pandering to get elected then voting libertarian.

The trials for the terrorists are complicated, but technically the choice to bring them back to American soil was a policy decision. The fact that we haven't declared war is what makes it controversial, but that actually puts this situation in contradiction to Geneva. On abortion, are we still debating this? I say give it back to the states, but protection of life is priority. We never had this problem till the courts made it an issue.  On marriage, I agree that marriage should never be an institution of the state and when it is, it is a matter of financials purposes and taxes.  But if we have marriage as an institution of the state it should be an issue on the local level.

Rand Paul is playing the game. I hope it works.

We need to remember Rand is running in a closed Republican primary in Kentucky. This is a pro-war state with a ton of veterans. If he is perceived weak on defense, or says something like he wants to close GITMO, his campaign will be OVER. Unfortunately, political purism will just lead to loss after loss after loss. Let's let him win first.

I've been a Libertarian for over/only a decade and while I'm uncertain whether a mind can be changed over a blog comment, I feel it's worth a try.

This article changed my mind:

http://mail.google.com/mail/#label/Politics/124ff12160c8b4b1

(Full disclosure: I subscribe to Stratfor's free email and find some articles more interesting than others, but am not an employee.)

For liberty, 

JP

You probably won't be able to read it in my gmail, eh?

Try this instead:

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091116_postsept_11_legal_dilemma?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=091116&utm_content=readmore