Rand Paul’s Isolationist Paranoia
By I wonder how the defenders of Rand Paul’s paranoia about drone strikes attacking U.S. citizens feel about his bill to withdraw the United States from the United Nations?
Paul appears to be following in the footsteps of his father — former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) — in advancing the call to have the U.S. completely pull out of the United Nations. The elder Paul was the primary sponsor of the “American Sovereignty Restoration Act,” a bill introduced periodically from 1999 to 2009 that would ban the U.S. from membership in the U.N. Despite this antipathy towards the United Nations, Ron Paul recently turned to the U.N. system to help him gain control of a website bearing his name.
But the Republican senator from Kentucky is no stranger to using U.N. paranoia to burnish his right-wing credentials. In 2011, he sent a conspiratorial email to his supporters, warning of a supposed U.N. plot to confiscate and destroy U.S. citizens’ guns via a “Small Arms Treaty.” In reality, the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty is only just now being developed and in no way will effect civilian ownership of firearms.
Of course, the two issues are connected in Paul’s black helicopter addled mind. Those defending his ridiculous filibuster need to be cognizant of this, not to mention the fact that Paul is in fact clearly to the right of Obama on drones and civil liberties.