Rand Paul: I'm Not A Crook

I'm not really surprised at this at all. This is the same guy who is 'Board Certified' by the 'Board' that he created.
 
Rare Truth said:
So I guess he believes in socialism after all.
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Too true. All he did was take the work of others before him, pool them all together with his own effort, and present them to the world. And by doing this, he made the work stronger, and helped boost the signal of the message.



Which is that everyone is on their own like Howard Roarke and Second Handers are a blight and won't have a nice house in Galt's Gulch.
 
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Although he STILL doesn't get it. It's not about the footnotes, chump, it's about taking other's work and using it as your own.
 
Not seeing the scandal here. Does plagiarism make one unfit for high public office?
 
ravdin said:
Not seeing the scandal here. Does plagiarism make one unfit for high public office?
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His whole philosophy is that the very idea community and society is tantamount to theft at the point of a gun. That "you didn't build that" was the biggest lie ever told. That there are makers and takers and Second Handers. That pitching in and helping out is only for losers. That if you're poor, it's because you're lazy and haven't contributed your original genius to the world or else you'd be rich.

I mean, can you imagine if John Galt's interminable speech from the end of Atlas Shrugged was actually lifted from someone else?


Anyway, yes, serial plagiarism is a problem for anyone.
 
Donal said:
Ya, but aren't Rand, his dad, and all the other Tea Partiers constantly telling us how they aren't just like all the other politicians? That they are just down home, regular, honest folks?

Shouldn't the hold themselves to higher standards than "well, they did it first!"
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I don't think what he did with the Wikipedia article was bad. This could be because I don't know the extent of how much he did. I thought it was a few lines describing the plot in a speech.
 
Unabogie said:
His whole philosophy is that the very idea community and society is tantamount to theft at the point of a gun. That "you didn't build that" was the biggest lie ever told. That there are makers and takers and Second Handers. That pitching in and helping out is only for losers. That if you're poor, it's because you're lazy and haven't contributed your original genius to the world or else you'd be rich.

I mean, can you imagine if John Galt's interminable speech from the end of Atlas Shrugged was actually lifted from someone else?


Anyway, yes, serial plagiarism is a problem for anyone.
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I'm not talking about your interpretation of Atlas Shrugged (if Paul really believed it, he'd be in the private sector and he'd also be an atheist). I'm all for busting him for plagiarism if he's been caught, too. But if he stops doing it, surely we can forgive him and move on?
 
Myron Proudfoot said:
But he's kind of libertarian. Aren't libertarians all about property rights!? Or are they just about their own personal property rights, and not that of others....
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Libertarians tend to reject the entire notion of intellectual property. Objectivism, to which Rand subscribes, tends to ignore the contributions of others. It’s no surprise to me that Rand would think “I Googled it, therefore it’s mine”
 
ravdin said:
I'm not talking about your interpretation of Atlas Shrugged (if Paul really believed it, he'd be in the private sector and he'd also be an atheist). I'm all for busting him for plagiarism if he's been caught, too. But if he stops doing it, surely we can forgive him and move on?
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I can move on.

It's not like he threatened a country over chemical weapons, then agreed to them being dismantled. That one's got legs :)
 
ravdin said:
I'm not talking about your interpretation of Atlas Shrugged (if Paul really believed it, he'd be in the private sector and he'd also be an atheist). I'm all for busting him for plagiarism if he's been caught, too. But if he stops doing it, surely we can forgive him and move on?
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Not only was this an ongoing, persistent pattern with him, but when he was caught he lashed out at the people who busted him and even challenged Rachel Maddow to a friggin' duel.

So yeah, an act of plagiarism doesn't make one unfit for office. But this kind of asshattery? Come on.

And as for Atlas Shrugged, these people's entire world view is predicated upon the idea that the individual rules, and that singular genius is the only valuable thing in the world. They even say things like "taxation is theft". So in light of that, you can't go lifting other people's work. That's exactly the charge against people like Michael Moore who have money. If he's not walking the walk, he's a fraud. Well Rand Paul ain't walking the walk, and when he got busted, he cried like a baby.

And THAT'S what makes him unfit for office.
 
Unabogie said:
Not only was this an ongoing, persistent pattern with him, but when he was caught he lashed out at the people who busted him and even challenged Rachel Maddow to a friggin' duel.

So yeah, an act of plagiarism doesn't make one unfit for office. But this kind of asshattery? Come on.

And as for Atlas Shrugged, these people's entire world view is predicated upon the idea that the individual rules, and that singular genius is the only valuable thing in the world. They even say things like "taxation is theft". So in light of that, you can't go lifting other people's work. That's exactly the charge against people like Michael Moore who have money. If he's not walking the walk, he's a fraud. Well Rand Paul ain't walking the walk, and when he got busted, he cried like a baby.

And THAT'S what makes him unfit for office.
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Beango!
 
Unabogie said:
Not only was this an ongoing, persistent pattern with him, but when he was caught he lashed out at the people who busted him and even challenged Rachel Maddow to a friggin' duel.

So yeah, an act of plagiarism doesn't make one unfit for office. But this kind of asshattery? Come on.

And as for Atlas Shrugged, these people's entire world view is predicated upon the idea that the individual rules, and that singular genius is the only valuable thing in the world. They even say things like "taxation is theft". So in light of that, you can't go lifting other people's work. That's exactly the charge against people like Michael Moore who have money. If he's not walking the walk, he's a fraud. Well Rand Paul ain't walking the walk, and when he got busted, he cried like a baby.

And THAT'S what makes him unfit for office.
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Personally, I find the way that Paul has handled being busted to be as unimpressive as the plagiarism. I'll even add to your list of ironies that I think Ayn Rand would have been mystified by Wikipedia. I don't think she would have believed that something so useful could come about by the bottom up efforts of thousands of volunteers who were motivated by something other than selfish profit, and not as the result of the micromanagement of a solitary genius who named the site after himself to gratify his own ego.

But I digress. I just think that in the grand scheme of things that it's not that important if a politician has been caught plagiarizing.
 
ravdin said:
Personally, I find the way that Paul has handled being busted to be as unimpressive as the plagiarism. I'll even add to your list of ironies that I think Ayn Rand would have been mystified by Wikipedia. I don't think she would have believed that something so useful could come about by the bottom up efforts of thousands of volunteers who were motivated by something other than selfish profit, and not as the result of the micromanagement of a solitary genius who named the site after himself to gratify his own ego.
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It's not the creation of Stanislaw Wiki?

And I suppose you're going to tell me that WikiLeaks is not a site dedicated to Stanislaw urinating? Yeah, right!
 
Unabogie said:
Not only was this an ongoing, persistent pattern with him, but when he was caught he lashed out at the people who busted him and even challenged Rachel Maddow to a friggin' duel.

So yeah, an act of plagiarism doesn't make one unfit for office. But this kind of asshattery? Come on.

And as for Atlas Shrugged, these people's entire world view is predicated upon the idea that the individual rules, and that singular genius is the only valuable thing in the world. They even say things like "taxation is theft". So in light of that, you can't go lifting other people's work. That's exactly the charge against people like Michael Moore who have money. If he's not walking the walk, he's a fraud. Well Rand Paul ain't walking the walk, and when he got busted, he cried like a baby.

And THAT'S what makes him unfit for office.
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I was only half joking with “I Googled it therefore it’s mine”. The fundamental flaw with Objectivism is that it refuses to acknowledge any real accomplishment requires the contribution of a really large number of people. They want to believe the often trivial act of individuals based on the contribution of others is somehow individual genius. The fact that Rand Paul is plagiarising Wikipedia is really just a microcosm for the whole Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Atlas Shrugged school of though. IMO he keeps doing it because he doesn’t even recognise that plagiarising others isn’t his own “genius” at work.
 
Foolmewunz said:
(OP: that's out, not ought)
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I should have said, "he now OUGHT to expect," yes. So I messed up; SHUT UP!!

That last line is from Eddie Murphy. See how easy it is to credit a source?

There are a lot of things about this "scandal" that are more troubling than a non-attributed quotation. For one thing, I have yet to read a Wikipedia article that I'd WANT to pass off as my own. Most are badly written and flow poorly. It would be like plagiarizing a "joke" from Will Ferrell.

But the thing that is so puzzling is that people caught red-handed actually DENY it or blame someone who had no connection to the offense. This is what Rand Paul did, and I deem it a serious flaw in his character and personal integrity.
 
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