I’m concerned about the tone:
Earlier in his speech, [Sen. Rand] Paul explained his habit of linking [Sen. Bernie] Sanders to mass exterminations carried out by socialist regimes throughout history.
“People say: ‘Oh, you’re saying that Bernie Sanders is Pol Pot.’ No, I’m saying that he’s embracing the same philosophy of socialism that lead ultimately to the extermination of people,” Paul explained.
“Stalin killed tens of millions of people,” he continued. “They say, ‘Well, Bernie’s not gonna do that.’ Probably not.”
Here’s a little refresher on Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, an organization, like ISIS, that owed its very existence in large part to the disruption caused by a Texan who wanted to prove he had brass balls.
The organization is remembered especially for orchestrating the Cambodian genocide, which resulted from the enforcement of its social engineering policies. Its attempts at agricultural reform led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, even in the supply of medicine, led to the death of thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria. Arbitrary executions and torture carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during purges of its own ranks between 1975 and 1978, are considered to have constituted genocide.
Look, by the standard that Rand Paul set up, I don’t have to be fair or even make much sense, so I’ll just point out that demanding “absolute self-sufficiency” is a libertarian thing that Pol Pot probably borrowed from the Austrian School. You know, if you can’t figure out how to get some quinine, that’s just too goddamned bad. Now you’re dead. Ha ha!
Or maybe it’s a government policy based on some pretty extreme xenophobia, which is kind of like refusing to offer sanctuary for war refugees because they could be super secret terrorists, and that remote prospect makes your head hurt and your bladder weak.
Either way, you most definitely do not have a right to pants, or shoes, or even water. You have a right to wish you were happy, and that’s gonna have to be good enough.
