In the wake of the ghastly events in Ferguson, Missouri, Rand Paul, almost alone among politicians of national prominence, called for the demilitarization of the police.  It was a more courageous response than we got from Barack Obama, who called for calm, or Hillary Clinton, who said nothing.

Instantly liberal pundits started trying to discount Rand’s statements, reminding us that he once had doubts, on ideological libertarian grounds, about provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and calling his current position opportunistic.  In fact, Rand has been speaking out about the disproportionate persecution of blacks by the police for months.

Liberal pundits are deeply threatened by acts of political courage by conservatives, probably because they know how appealing they are to the public at large in this age of liberal pusillanimity and downright cowardice.  In the latest poll about possible match-ups in the 2016 Presidential race, Hillary now leads Rand by only 6 points.  Not long ago she led him by 12 points.

That trend will continue.  Hillary is playing not to lose — a losing strategy, as any poker player will tell you.  Rand is putting his chips in play.  He’s driving the game — Hillary is just trying to run out the clock and stay in it.  She’s the fish at the table.

Rand is not doing as well against his Republican rivals for the nomination, but the debates could change that.  In debates between the principled Paul and the mealymouthed Clinton, it would be no contest.

When I was 17, working a summer job at the track in Saratoga Springs, New York, some co-workers and I managed one night to illegally purchase a case of beer.  We took it out back of the local high school, into a dark area where we thought we’d be hidden, and started drinking.

A police cruiser, on a routine patrol or perhaps alerted by people living near the school, pulled up into the parking lot by the side of the school and spotted us.  We ran, climbing an 8-foot chain-link fence behind the school.

When I got to the top of the fence I heard the police firing shots into the air and commanding us to stop.  I didn’t stop — I vaulted the rest of the way over the fence and ran though a succession of backyards until I’d put the school far behind me, eventually making my way to where I was living without further incident.

I was breaking the law in several ways that night — I’d helped buy beer while under age, I was consuming it in a semi-public place while under age, and I was trespassing on city property.  If this had all happened in a black section of town, if I had been a young black male, I wonder if the police might have felt empowered to shoot at me instead of into the air as I was failing to abide by a lawful police order.

Michael Brown had apparently broken the law in several ways on the day he was shot in Ferguson, Missouri — swiping some cigars from a convenience store, walking down the middle of a street, perhaps failing to abide by the lawful order of a police officer.

You could say he was acting like a thug on that day, just as you could say I was acting like a thug that night in Saratoga Springs — except that no one would have said it of me.  Because I was white, I was just a teenager doing something stupid and irresponsible.  It never occurred to me that I might get shot for running away from the police, for acquiring and consuming beer illegally.

It was a youthful indiscretion, which probably amused the police more than it outraged them — a youthful indiscretion that I was proud, at the age of 17, to have gotten away with.  I knew it was wrong, but at 17 I didn’t care.

Michael Brown paid for his youthful indiscretion with his life — because he was seen and treated as a thug . . . and it’s hard to doubt that he was seen and treated that way primarily because he was black.

In the wake of events in Ferguson, Missouri:

Barack Obama has called for calm and reflection.

Hillary Clinton, clearly still huddling with her handlers to find the the most politically advantageous position to take, has said NOTHING.

Meanwhile, Rand Paul has called for the demilitarization of the police — the only response that might actually help black Americans in a practical way.

Nanny State, Surveillance State, Police State — ultimately they’re all connected. When government feels empowered to push you around “for your own good”, there is no rational limit to its tyranny.

Normally I can keep in check my rage against modern American Puritans, but that’s mostly because I live in Las Vegas, where vestiges of social freedom remain.  When I venture out into Saudi America, I lose it.

America has become a land of moral pygmies — able to coolly tolerate the Surveillance State, the Nanny State, the epidemic of obesity, the murder and mass incarceration of blacks at the hands of the Police State, the fraud of corporate “democracy”, the subversion of The Constitution, but outraged like a ravished virgin if someone smokes a cigarette within 20 feet of the entrance to a non-smoking establishment in, say, Arizona.

To all of you Americans who support laws restricting smoking, just because you don’t happen to like the smell of tobacco smoke, among whom are many people I consider friends, I say — “Fuck you, fuck you where you breathe.”  You are pathetic moral zeros who need to get a life.  Now.

I love you — but you are pathetic moral zeros who need to get a life.  Now.