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In an article titled “Rand Paul Sounds Like the Worst Guy to Have as a Neighbor” published by men’s magazine GQ on Tuesday, they essentially claimed that the senator’s assault was justified as he is a Libertarian.
Paul was attacked by his neighbor, 59-year-old retired doctor Rene Boucher, Friday giving the senator five broken ribs and lacerations on his lungs. It turned out that the altercation was due to the senator’s neighbor being upset about landscaping.
The incident is being investigated by both the Capitol Police and the FBI. Assaulting a member of Congress is a federal crime, so it is unlikely to stay a local charge. The assailant is likely to face felony assault or federal assault on a member — both of which carry significant penalties.
Though the nature of the incident was serious, GQ columnist Jack Moore came in with a hot take about how Libertarians are a problem for homeowners.
Moore wrote:
“So, let’s read between the lines a bit here. Rand Paul is an asshole neighbor. He bought a house in a neighborhood that has certain rules with regard to lawns, and he decided that he doesn’t need to follow those rules because of his belief in ‘property rights’ that don’t actually exist. This is, at its core, the problem with libertarianism. Libertarians don’t want to follow the rules that we as a society have agreed upon, because they feel those rules step on their freedoms. And sometimes they might even be right, but that doesn’t mean that they are above those rules and can do whatever they want.”
To his credit, at least Moore went on to admit that “one of the problems with Democrats is we’ve never met government oversight that we didn’t like.”
The senator is not a member of the Libertarian Party, but the leader of the Republican Party’s Liberty Conservative wing.
It seems unlikely that Moore and his fellow Democrats would take kindly to the right victim blaming if it had been one of their own that was assaulted.
Yet, less than one year later it seems that the “it’s okay to punch a Nazi” meme is now even extending to Libertarians.
It looks like that “slippery slope” everyone warned about may be coming true faster than anyone expected.