Rand Paul

Rand Paul:

Thank you Jonathan. I met Jonathan a few months ago at a tea party over in Frankfort. The Tea Party Movement seems to be everywhere. In fact, the biggest crowds and meetings that I’ve been to in Kentucky have all been Tea Parties. I had to promise my family one thing when I went out on the road to campaign. I had to promise them that I would never sing. As you can tell, my voice is kind of raspy, so I’m not going to sing. But I do have the lyrics to a song I’d like to tell you. This is a song called Trees, by Rush.

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
“The oaks are just too greedy;
And are grabbing up all the light. (sic)
Now there’s no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.

Nothing like being lectured about class mobility and being rewarded for your ability from the son of a US congressman.

That ability to be mobile within a society is what characterizes capitalism and freedom. Of course in the olden days in Europe where there was the landed gentry and the aristocracy endowed by birth not by ability or skill. So in our country we’ve always had that ability. But if you allow people to have self-interest and to strive for the best for them and their family what you do is you redistribute goods. Because if I want to become wealthy and I own Microsoft I can only do so by pleasing U.S. consumers. And so that’s what you want. You want to allow capitalism to work.