Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Rand Quixote

I love the philosophy of Ayn Rand but find her followers too strident and too intellectually arrogant for my sensibilities.  That's why I'm distrustful of Rand Paul, who was named after her, and is her principal acolyte in Congress.

But, I applaud his efforts to stop the NSA invasion of our privacy.  He does not believe you have to surrender the last shred of your privacy to be just a little safer . . . maybe.  On the other hand, he has done a masterful job of minority control of the Senate, which I detest.  Like all adherents of Ayn Rand, he is unbending and intolerant.

While his cause is just, so was the cause of Don Quixote.  Rand Paul is tilting at windmills.  The privacy he so gallantly seeks to protect is already gone.  The NSA doesn't need to violate your privacy to have your privacy violated.  Your privacy is already violated by Google and dozens of other websites. every single day, and that is legal.

Why does business have the right to violate your privacy - because you already clicked "I Agree" to a long, incomprehensible document on your monitor.  Business needs the private personal details of your life to sell to advertisers, who are far more important and more powerful than the NSA.

So, Senator Paul, thank you for your noble but merely theatrical effort to save something already dead and gone!