Saturday, May 11, 2019

Rand Paul sees return of congressional gridlock

Rand Paul on How Libertarian Philosophy Can Connect Divided Partisans | Duke Today:

November 9, 2018 - "What should we expect from Congress between January and the presidential election in 2020, now that Democrats have won back the House? Not much, according to one U.S. senator.

"'I think very little will happen,' said U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky who spoke Friday at the Sanford School. 'I think Democrats will bring forth initiatives in the House and they will die in the Senate.'

"Paul, who earned his medical degree from Duke in 1988 and has a son who’s a sophomore here, also talked about how his fellow Republicans can work more productively with Democrats.... Paul said he agrees with liberals on a number of issues, including: war ('I’m as anti-war as you can get'); relaxed criminalization for drug offenses ('There is a racial disparity in drug policy and we should do something about it'); less government eavesdropping on Americans in the name of fighting terrorism; and not allowing a U.S. citizen to be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant without a trial....

"Most of the compromising in Washington involves too much shared back-scratching: the left gets its welfare spending so the right can get its military spending, he said.  He believes the main role of government is to protect liberty.... 'I think we should really self-examine what government is.'

"Asked how he reconciles smaller government with economic disparity, Paul said, “There is no world in which there is no inequality'.... He said there’s 'more mobility than you think,' and that while not perfect, the United States’ and other nations’ embrace of capitalism has helped reduce extreme poverty from around 85 percent worldwide in the 1800s to around 9 percent of the world today.... He disagrees with Trump on immigration, which he said is an asset, especially in today’s hot economy where workers can be hard to find.

"Asked about gun control in the wake of recent mass killings ... Paul said he doesn’t believe that’s the answer since '99 percent of gun owners aren’t killing people'.... Better law enforcement work would help, especially investigating potential threats to the fullest extent, he said....

"Asked how he can be against government intrusion into private lives yet oppose a woman’s right to an abortion, Paul said it’s a question that divides Libertarians, but noted their political philosophy typically opposes aggression. 'If you think the baby is not a person, do what you want,' he said. 'If you think it’s a person then Libertarians say the government has a role to stop it.'

"The event was hosted by the Young Americans for Liberty student organization and POLIS: Duke's Center for Political Leadership, Innovation, and Service."


Read more: https://today.duke.edu/2018/11/rand-paul-how-libertarian-philosophy-can-connect-divided-partisans

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