RAND PAUL:EMINENTLY LOGICAL, CHALLENGED BY THE FACTS

Most people, one may expect, talk politics without being conscious of being logical (when they are) or illogical (when they are not logical). If our current politics are any guide, moreover, they are not prepared to deal with thinking in which logic thrusts to the fore -- as it does in the public position expressed by Rand Paul. In this position, libertarian principles drive straightforwardly to logical conclusions that challenge conventional opinions about the tasks of government. The logic is fine, however; and there are no grounds for suggesting, as one TV pundit did, that Paul is lacking in a sense of morality. On the contrary, he has clear moral convictions perfectly consistent with his principles. What opens him to attack, as discussants should keep steadily in mind, is not anything wrong with the logic of his principles or the logical use that he makes of them. What is wrong with his views is the radical lack of fit between the principles and the populous industrial society to which Paul seeks to apply them. They might suit a society composed of independent subsistence farmers, hunters, and fishermen, in which self-reliance could figure as a principal virtue. They do not suit at all a society in which almost everybody is an employee and lacks the means for an independent livelihood. Unfortunately, it is not just Paul's views that are lacking in this respect. The received conception of "American values" does not take the distinction between one society (now mythical) and the other into account.

STEREOTYPES UNFAVORABLE TO DEMOCRATS IN MEDIA TREATMENT OF RECENT ELECTIONS

Recent election results have been more favorable to the Democrats than the stereotypes invoked by pundits and the press have allowed. Who could reasonably have expected that an endorsement by President Obama would offset the discrepancy between the fading and inconsistent Arlen Specter and his vigorous rival Joe Sestak? The upshot in Pennsylvania is a strong progressive candidate that the Democratic side can rally around. If Blanche Lincoln is squeezed out in the Arkansas run-off, another strong progressive Democratic candidate will emerge. The media, fascinated by Rand Paul's victory in the Republican primary, have ignored the heavy turnout in Kentucky in the Democratic primary, but it suggests that in the general election Paul will face a winning opposition. So all these elections have had results so far favorable to the Democrats. That cannot be said of Scott Brown's election earlier, with "tea party" support, in Massachusetts, but there little has been made after the first shock of the lack of vigor of his Democratic opponent. Too much, moreover, has been made of the tea party support. Brown, once installed in the Senate, has been acting and voting, in line with Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, as a traditional New England Republican, perhaps another Saltonstall. Democrats should not write him off as unpersuadable.