Rand Paul and I may not see eye-to-eye on things like…well, pretty much everything, but a broken clock is still right twice a day and Rand’s right about two things: not getting involved in unnecessary foreign wars and the drug war.
When Rand was at the last debate before he dropped out of the race–the debate that was most remembered for being the one Trump boycotted than anything that was said on-stage–he gave an honest, thoughtful answer to the War on Drugs, racist policing, and over-incarceration of minorities. It was a gutsy move for a guy running for president in a party that doesn’t want to admit there is an over-incarceration problem. The candidates around him didn’t utter a word and a couple looked visibly uncomfortable, like a student hoping the teacher doesn’t call on him.
In fact, the second he got done the Faux News moderators couldn’t wait to go to a commercial break. They practically ran to one. And when they returned, they moved quickly away from “white justice-system entitlements” to welfare entitlements and what they would cut. You know, safe territory for them.
In that sense I wish Rand Paul had stuck around a little longer than he did. At least, long enough to give a better answer at this most recent debate when the question of drugs came up. [Fun Fact: New Hampshire and neighboring Vermont apparently have a huge heroin problem.] I bet he was somewhere wanting to throw a shoe at the television set while screaming “End the Drug War You Idiots!” Not-so-fun-fact: Not one candidate on stage said anything that led me to believe they would end the War on Drugs.