Okay, so this point has nothing to do with Rand Paul per se, but there seems to be a misconception that comes up a lot in harassment/assault cases, so I might as well address it here:

Generally, it’s virtually impossible to know what someone “would have done” in a situation when you weren’t there (and this isn’t a matter of just “having the facts”–even very hard-to-define things like others’ tone of voice, how tired someone is, any vague implications that they might be unsafe can have a role in how people react). People (especially women) get their claims of all kinds of abuse disbelieved because people on the sidelines (who may have never been in any situation even close to the issue) have a lot of folk-wisdom about what people would “really do” and how someone “should have reacted.” People get very unpredictable when they’re uncomfortable.

Actually, with most instances of intimidation/coercion/unexpected or uncomfortable situations, it’s really quite the norm to be rather passive or to make a less-than-effective stand for yourself, and then try to address the issue later when you’ve had a chance to compose yourself.

Again, this really isn’t about Rand Paul (he seems to be doing exactly the grandstanding you describe after the fact, and even during his spokesperson was promoting the event on Twitter), but it’s just a line of reasoning that is damaging to a lot of people, so I want to squash it where I see it.

Anyway LeftSidePositive’s political leanings have no bearing on the validity of his argument.

Sorry to be picky, but it’s her argument. Can we do something about this default-on-the-Internet-is-male thing?

Not that I’m offended at all–it’s just, well, a bit of an out-of-body experience if you know what I mean 😉

Moreover, Rand Paul has been consistently opposed to TSA practices, so it’s entirely reasonable that he was likely opposed to the invasion of privacy. Hypocrisy is something that hypocritical people do when it is in their best interests, but it doesn’t follow that everything they do therefore MUST be hypocritical–if their previous positions actually support them in this case, they will stick to their prior positions.

I’m not telling you what definitely happened–I am telling you what the ethical attitude is toward whatever happened, and that is that unconstitutional searches are wrong and therefore speculating about the victim of an unconstitutional search is wrong. And, I just plain don’t think it’s funny.

Now, Rand Paul making a big deal about the sanctity of his body while trying to make the state violate other people’s bodies? THAT is hypocrisy. Make fun of him for THAT, and it would be funny as hell.

We can fairly conclude that he declined the opportunity presented by the TSA challenge because he didn’t want the nature of the problematic package made public. To keep that secret, he was willing to miss a flight – a non-trivial trade-off for anyone, and especially for a tightly-scheduled US senator.

Good catch to LeftSidePositive @ # 9 for revealing that the Aqua Buddhist was on his way to an anti-privacy-rights event when he chose to assert and prioritize his own privacy.

I recently had to relinquish a corkscrew because I’d forgotten it in my bag, so I can sympathize with the guy, even if more generally I think he’s a tool. I think what LeftSidePositive was saying is that schadenfreude is not appropriate given the common interest we all share with Rand in this situation.

I think you might also apologize to LSP for mischaracterizing him as a Rand or Ron Paul supporter.

To assume that this was most certainly a moral stand over libertarianism and that this is much more likely than anything else seems to require a significant amount of faith that Paul is morals driven and not a hypocritical dick. To lean towards the idea that he was MAYBE carrying something, presumably by accident, that he didn’t want discovered requires no such leaps of faith.

We do not know what happened. I never claimed we knew what happened. I’m being told that we know what happened. I’m sticking to my guns.

Plus, you do realize, do you not, that this post was rather tongue in cheek? Oh, I guess maybe not.

Carry on.

Sorry for all the moderation of comments by the way, I’m not entirely sure why that is happening. People are hitting keywords of some kind, I suspect.

When I first heard the story, I was inclined to think he was actually right about something. Now I’m hearing about these conflicting stories, and I’m starting to think he’s either too stupid or too dishonest to be right about even this.

If he was searched arbitrarily, I’d sympathize. But if he (knowingly or not) carried something that would have raised alarms, then I’m not so sympathetic. The TSA’s actions are not all reasonable, but the threat they’re responding to IS real, and has been long before 9/11.