Sure, they may think the entire world is about to declare war on America but don't call them paranoid
by digby
Reading this piece by the usually mild-mannered John Feehery felt as if I had accidentally fallen asleep at my computer and was having a scary Bizarroworld nightmare:
It’s a dangerous world out there.
Vladimir Putin is on the march in Eastern Europe. Syria is a complete mess. North Korea’s butcher has systematically liquated potential rivals as he threatens our allies in South Korea and Japan with nuclear annihilation.
The Chinese are expanding their power and reach, building up their armed forces and intimidating their neighbors. Afghanistan is about to be overrun by the Taliban as we get ready to depart, and the Iranians are building up their nuclear capabilities and are moving to dominate Iraq.
In Venezuela, Nicaragua and Argentina, political instability could lead to opportunities for mischief by our global rivals, with the most likely suspects being the Russians and the Chinese.
In the face of this more dangerous world, President Obama offers weakness. He admits that America won’t back our allies in Ukraine with any hope of military assistance, can’t get Congress to back him in Syria, and doesn’t do anything to counter the little dictator in Pyongyang.
Instead, Obama’s new budget cuts the Army to a size not seen since before the Second World War. According to USA Today, he proposed cuts to military assistance to Ukraine by more than 25 percent. He even proposed to cut military pay.
Where Ronald Reagan offered peace through strength, Barack Obama offers to dismantle the Pentagon piece by piece.
About the only thing the Obama has done right is to keep much of his predecessor’s spy capabilities in place.
Runferyerlives!
That's John Feehrey saying that. This guy:
He's one of the normal ones. And he's just written the most paranoid screed I've seen since Michael Ledeen was whipping up the neocons to bomb Paris back in 2003.
But self-awareness isn't his strong suit, apparently. He certainly doesn't seem to see anything ironic about writing that hysterical tale of global dystopian horror and then saying this about Rand Paul's complaints about the NSA:
Paul is practicing the politics of paranoia, aimed directly at the American government. It’s a form of populist libertarianism that posits that the biggest threat to our liberty comes not from foreign powers but from our own government.
That kind of paranoia is not grounded in reality, but it unquestionably has a following in this country. Edward Snowden, for example, enjoyed a warm welcome at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, despite being the houseguest of Putin.
So, those who think the government shouldn't be spying on its own people are paranoid. But the guy who says that the entire world is on the verge of imploding into an epic conflagration unless we start being "strong" is a realist. Hookay ...
This little disagreement does illustrate one thing --- the uphill battle old Rand is going to have with the GOP faithful. I don't believe for a minute that there are more than a handful of young libertarians out there who agree with Paul and think Feehery is full of it. In fact, it appears to me that whomever gets the GOP nomination in 2016 is going to have to be a hardcore hawk. That's where the sweet spot in the Republican Party has always been and nothing has changed that.
It's vaguely interesting that Paul is making an early bid for the nomination using the network built up by his daddy, but it won't work. What would be interesting is if the Democratic nominee decided that instead of chasing a bunch of non-existent swing voters who will never vote for a Democrat, he or she would try to persuade the young Rand Paul followers who care about a sane foreign policy and civil liberties to join with their brethren on the left side of the dial instead of the war-mongering authoritarians of the right.
Yeah, I know. Fat chance that a Democratic presidential nominee would actually try such a strategy --- or that the young libertarians would take them up on it. But it makes as much sense as a bunch of isolationist, civil libertarians voting for the party of war, spying and fetus worship. But then, I guess I just don't understand libertarians ...
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