Take This Country Back - But How Far?

In the, apparently, much hyped 'Mini-Super Tuesday' elections Rand Paul, son of Republican Representative and Libertarian Presidential candidate Ron Paul won his Republican primary bid for the US Senate in Kentucky.

That the election was in Kentucky was really all I needed to hear to believe that this had to be a race between the really conservative and the really, really conservative.

I was right.

Rand has the backing of the so-called Tea Baggers who believe they are a political party, The Tea Bag Party. Well actually they call themselves the Tea Party but I like my version better.

Rand Paul wants to take this country back! I like that; vague but at the same time a bit menacing; forceful sounding yet bordering on the meaningless since those who say that never give any further explanation of what they intend to take exactly.

Rand said in his victory speech at a country club where the Tea Bag Partiers have their headquarters that he wants to take the country back from special interests who use the government as a personal ATM machine.

Just who the heck was he talking about? Since he was giving his speech from a COUNTRY CLUB do you think he could have been talking about the wealthy special interests?

I bet not.

I bet he was talking about you and me; if we collect unemployment when we've been forced out of work by a predatory Capitalist system, or receive our social security when we retire from a life of wage-slavery. Or maybe he is concerned about us using the government ATM to insure we have clean water and air or safer foods and automobiles.

He criticized politicians who come to us, he said with fake checks.

Huh?

I bet he means when a company like Goldman Sachs creates the biggest economic mess ever, the American people are forced to bail them out and save this rotting, stinking economy from the disintegration it deserves.

Or maybe not.

Chances are, if he's a Tea Bagger supporter, he's more concerned about the needy getting help: food, clothing, shelter, that sort of thing. He's probably more worried that politicians are signing checks to help out of work Americans find jobs and job training.

After all, it's the country club member's money those politicians are playing fast-and-loose with, Can't have that.

He says Washington is broken.

You think?

Does he mean that the Capitalist, Republican form of government we are subjects to is irredeemably corrupt and beyond reform?

Does he think that the politicians who are ensnared or enamoured of the system are themselves hopelessly corrupt and beyond help?

If not, what exactly does he mean then by Washington?

He says America is great. Well that's nice; I bet most people around the world think their country is great too. Is America really as great as Rand imagines? Have we as a people really done anything to be proud of since 911?

We have tortured, maimed, murdered, invaded, savaged peoples around the globe. We have spied on, lied to, deceived, and disappeared our own citizens.

Rand doesn't believe we need to apologize for the Industrial Revolution. If we shouldn't, who should? Has the Industrial Revolution really been that great for the trees, tigers, rivers or whales, or people? Who should be responsible for the decimated and scarred landscapes, the poverty, the fouled air and water, the dead soils and seas, the devastation? Is it really American to have no sense of responsibility for the evil one has done?

Can there really be any moral defense of Capitalism left? It - I should say the privileged elite- have proved that Capitalism is a vile, predatory system of greed and exploitation; a system that feeds on and engenders violence, hate, and corruption.

But I believe Rand Paul when he says he wants to take this country back. Indeed, he and the Neanderthals that call themselves Tea Partiers want to take this country back - back to the 19th Century where all that mattered was that you were White, Wealthy, and not a Woman.