Is Rand Paul’s Only Skill Pretending that Words Mean the Opposite?

Is Rand Paul’s Only Skill Pretending that Words Mean the Opposite?


First it was “Isolationism”.



Rand Paul tried to defend Obama’s bailout of Castro by claiming that opposing it was “Isolationist”. That’s not what isolationist means.


“I think a policy of isolationism toward Cuba is misplaced and hasn’t worked,” Paul writes in Time Magazine.

Isolationism is a policy that the United States would adopt toward the larger world. An embargo on an enemy state in response to its actions against the United States is not isolationism.

Now Rand Paul appears to be trying to redefine “Judicial Activism”.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/rand-paul/rand-paul-splits-cruz-challenges-conservatives-again-n285406
Sen. Rand Paul, R- Kentucky, is breaking with many in his party by challenging conservatives who call judicial restraint a sacrosanct conservative mantra. At a conservative conference on Tuesday, the potential GOP presidential candidate said that activism – sometimes – isn’t a dirty word.

“It’s is not as simple as we make it sound,” Paul said of the issue at a conservative conference hosted by Heritage Action Tuesday.

At the same conference one day earlier, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Paul’s Senate colleague and potential 2016 challenger, insisted that Republicans must insist on restrained judges.

“I’m looking forward to seeing finally some real scrutiny to prevent judicial activists from being put on the bench who will impose their own radical agenda, including sadly the judicial activism we have seen in recent months with courts effectively striking down the marriage laws in 36 states,” Cruz told the small auditorium of conservative activists.

“My point is not to convert you from judicial restraint to judicial activism but to think about it” Rand Paul said. “I don’t want judges writing laws either, but do I want judges to protect my freedom? Do I want judges to take an activist role to preserve liberty?”

“I think if the states do wrong, we should overturn them,” Paul said, also pointing to Jim Crow-era laws passed by states but eventually overturned by the Supreme Court.

Rand Paul is once again distorting the meaning of a term, in this case by acting as if the alternative to judicial activism is inaction.

Judicial activism doesn’t mean judges taking action. It means judges legislating from the bench in favor of a political position. Cruz is correct. The right position is a Constitutional one in which judges strike down unconstitutional laws, such as ObamaCare.

It’s strange that Rand Paul is going here considering that the “Constitution” was his father’s brand and he’s moved all the way over from questioning the legal basis for striking down Jim  Crow laws to using them in an argument for judicial supremacism at the Federal level.

But that kind of thing is between him and his supporters. The problematic thing is that Rand Paul has gone to a new level of distorting his own views and those of others by unilaterally arguing that things mean the opposite of what they do.

Judicial activism isn’t needed to strike down ObamaCare. Real judicial activists are ObamaCare supporters anyway. You’re not going to uphold the Constitution through judicial activism. All you’re going to do is push through a hard left agenda.

Considering that Rand Paul is now becoming associated with lefty positions on legalizing drugs and freeing drug dealers, not to mention amnesty, it’s not surprising that he might want to redefine what judicial activism means.

So long as he doesn’t start insisting, the way some liberal Republicans did, that opposing ObamaCare is supporting socialized medicine.


by Daniel Greenfield