The ignorant attacks on Rand Paul

Rand Paul, loathed by the left because he has
an R next to his name, disliked by the right
because he is too much to the left,
and a disappointment to libertarians because
he's not nearly as libertarian as his
father // public domain

Recently, as Rand Paul and his wife were leaving the Republican National Convention, they were surrounded by an angry mob of protesters, one of whom attempted to throw a bike at them.

The mob of protesters shouted at him: "Say her name!" referring to Breonna Taylor.

This mob clearly did not know that Rand had personally met with Taylor's parents and later drafted a bill titled Justice for Breonna Taylor Act, a bill to end no-knock raids like the one that killed Breonna.

I've had my disagreements with Rand Paul, particularly during his presidential run in 2016, but Rand is definitely the best senator in Congress to libertarians right now (ever?), and the best Republican senator by any principled metric of the left. Find another GOP senator better on criminal justice reform than he is. You're not going to find one. Find another senator, regardless of party, that would win a criminal justice reform debate against Rand. You're not going to find one. He has known the issues and solutions of abusive police force before it has even crossed the minds of most people in Washington DC. How many senators cosponsored his Justice for Breonna Taylor Act? Two Republicans. How many senators cosponsored his Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act? Four Democrats. The desire of other senators to effect meaningful change in this area has been absolutely pathetic.

This anti-Rand sentiment is not an isolated incident. Ice Cube, a few months ago, tweeted in response to a KKK hood photograph, that it was Rand Paul's favorite outfit. No serious person thinks Ice Cube is a Mensa candidate, but if he's going to talk about politics, he could at least take a cursory look over Rand's record as being one of the only serious senators in trying to end a forever war against people living in the Middle East (despite acquiescing to some of the drone strikes which is one of his positions I objected to) and ending long-time efforts against the drug war that has been used to disproportionately target minorities.

A few years ago, Rand was attacked by his neighbor, tackling him from behind, fracturing his ribs. The courts revealed that it was not political but was rather because Paul had stacked brush near (but not on) his neighbor's property. His opponents subsequently praised the neighbor because...physically harming someone for stacking brush on their own property is totally the rational side to take.

After the recent incident, some of these advocates for violence tweeted:

I am still team Rand Paul’s neighbor. ~@tonyposnanski

and

Rand Paul is so annoying his own neighbor broke Rand’s ribs in a lawn dispute about leaf piles.

Nobody has to convince people to bully Rand Paul, Rand Paul is simply eminently bullyable. ~@RealKHiveQueenB

The second tweet is from someone who proudly announces on their page that they have helped raise $32k for the Biden/Harris ticket, the dynamic duo in DC that has probably destroyed more black families than any other duo in DC with tough on crime bills and its overzealous enforcement. She probably feels pretty good about supporting those politicians, and advocating for violence on politicians that aim to protect black lives from being destroyed by the police. 

These are the people that probably also simultaneously attack people that don't agree with them for "inciting violence" while turning a blind eye to the shooter who was a Bernie Sanders supporter at a GOP baseball game a few years back. The shooting, of course, was not Sanders's fault, and anyone who says this should be roundly criticized. However, I have to think that this toxic tribalist culture that actually cheers on violence probably does incite violence and harbors feelings of violence in unstable individuals. What do people think happens when they live in a political bubble where upvotes are given to people who say things like the tweets above? Maybe something like the murder of Aaron "Jay" Danielson at the hands of Michael Forest Reinoehl.

So why do people hate Rand Paul to the point of cheering on violence against him? Frequently cited seems to be Rand's opposition to the original version of the Emmit Till Antilynching Act. But in Rand's own words, he supported the act, but with an amendment to make sure the original bill's absurdly low threshold of lynching which would greatly increase incarceration lengths for crimes far less violent than what Rand himself had endured in the past few years. Rand, in those amendments, was fighting against the types of laws that give law enforcement a ton of rope in enforcement, which they use to hang us all with increased police violence. These are things the left should be in favor of, but I don't know if they just read the title of the bill and stopped thinking, or what.

Still, I know that the hate predates this act. I had to roll my eyes several times immediately following Rand's neighbor's attack, at several on the left that made fun of Rand for getting injured, even from people I've met personally. Perhaps it had to do with his comments against the Civil Rights Act, but it was strictly an argument concerning freedom of association with no disagreement that the government should not be able to discriminate. This is in stark contrast to certain Democrats the same people have no problem with, who actually want entities to discriminate on race.

These people could actually pose rational objections to Rand's positions like libertarians have. Instead, they opt for abject criminal ignorance of Rand and politics in a display of binary thinking, further stoking the fires that represent everything wrong with political discourse today.