by Dr. David M. Duncan

In my lifetime I have witnessed the transformation of Kentucky politics from cigar smoke filled courthouse backrooms, ...

    ... filled with hip flask toting politicians currying favors, to an Internet based Rand Paul/Ron Paul schizophrenic Senate campaign of amazing distortions.

A skilled forensic psychiatrist knows how to enter the delusional scheme of a psychotic patient in order to effectively analyze the patient’s underlying pathology. Likewise, an effective evaluation of religious belief systems requires the ability to enter into other’s  belief systems in such a manner that does not require believing the actual religious world view, only to believe that the believer believes his beliefs. So, too, is the successful cultural understanding of a society predicated on the ability to assume the cultural norms and practices of the culture under examination. Once again, one need not believe those norms and practices but only to believe that the specific population believes them.

In each circumstance, the ability to enter delusional schemes of a psychotic patient, the belief systems of religious practitioners, or the cultural norms of populations comes with certain foreseeable risks. It is critical to compartmentalize your own emotional feelings and thoughts,, your own religious beliefs, and your own cultural world view in order to prevent serious personal internal conflicts. One example of this phenomena is known as culture shock which can lead to severe psychological distress and breakdown. Another example is the formation of religious cult followings. A third is known as shared delusional scheme.

One month ago I attended a Tea Party in Lexington. My gut reaction was that the Kentucky Chapter of the 9.12, We Surround Them, Project had been hijacked by the Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign and by fundamentalist Christianity. Fortunately, the 9.12 Project State Director responded effectively to my concerns and took immediate steps towards rectifying the matter. 

Armed with extensive psychiatric training, Cross-cultural Communication skills, and substantial field experience in comparative religion studies I embarked on a fact finding foray into the Rand Paul/Ron Paul Schizophrenic Senate Campaign in Kentucky.  

Keep in mind that I had previously been asked by the Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign manager to help run the Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign last July, after attending the Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign’s exploratory meeting last spring I declined for several specific reasons.                                            

I decided that the best way to accomplish my objective was an overt  insertion into the Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign’s Internet based communication network. I defined three clear objectives. First, I was interested in gaining a clear understand of the current Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign platform. Secondly, I wanted to evaluate Rand Paul/Ron Paul supporters’ interpretation of the Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign platform. Thirdly, I wanted to evaluate the psychiatric milieu of the Rand Paul/Ron Paul cyber-world.

My initial entry to the shared delusional world of the Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign was achieved by registering with the Kentucky Chapter of the 9.12 We Surround Them Group and the Rand Paul/Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty Group, on Meetup.com. Then I registered with several Meetup.com liberty, freedom, and libertarian groups. I always identified myself and stipulated that I supported Senate candidate Bill Johnson www.kentuckybill.com .

A few days ago I registered with LibertyTree.com and perused both Ron Paul and Rand Paul campaign blogs. I posted a thread on Rand Paul’s blog, advising Rand Paul/Ron Paul supporters to keep an open mind and study all declared Senate primary candidates, including Bill Johnson, prior to the primary election.

Next, I entered the proverbial Belly of the Beast, the Rand Paul/Ron Paul chat room. At first, it appeared to have nothing to do with politics. There were social exchanges, obscenities, degradations of different sub-populations, and general crap talk like so many other chat rooms. I engaged the 18 – 30 chat room participants about Rand Paul/Ron Paul for nearly two hours, inquiring specifically about his Pro-choice and soft anti-illegal immigration stands.

Unable to coherently respond or agree on any one Rand Paul/Ron Paul position, the chatters unleashed a hail of personal attacks usually seen by those on the extreme left when unable to argue or debate the issues. I persisted in my efforts to steer the discussion back to the issues. Additionally, I related personal knowledge that Rand Paul didn't “know illegal immigration was a problem” before entering the Senate race. 

The venomous barrage and assaults escalated when challenged with facts until a surprising development occurred. A chat room/website webmaster monitor entered the discussion. He/she’s sole job appeared to be monitoring for negatives and criticism of Rand Paul/Ron Paul and immediately censor any and all infractions. He/she had been actually tracking my LibertyTree.com perusing! At a late hour my posted thread was deleted and I was banned from LibertyTree.com “forever”! That explains several years of Rand Paul/Ron Paul threads without one single voice of dissention or negative on the LibertyTree.com website, I guess. They just employ First Amendment freedom loving monitoring webmaster censors 24/7/365!     

I moved on to the Rand Paul/Ron Paul email distribution list. While there are about 167 Rand Paul/Ron Paul Meetup.com members, half of whom are still supporting Ron Paul for President (or had moved on?), there are as many as 475 email recipients from sea to shining sea, Washington to Frankfort, private groups and individuals, and including members of the Rand Paul/Ron Paul supportive media.

My group distribution emails occurred on Veterans Day, lasting 15 hours. Would someone please explain several of Rand Paul/Ron Paul’s political positions? What made Rand Paul/Ron Paul qualified to legislate national defense matters? Could they explain the multiple inconsistencies between his public and personal statements? Why doesn't he actually write and approve his website information? Who was actually controlling Rand Paul? Ron Paul?  Is Rand Paul/Ron Paul a Reagan Republican or a Libertarian.

My M. O. was the same. I provided full disclosure of my identity and the basis of my inquiries. Whoa, Katie, bar the door! In accelerated crescendo fashion the personal attacks were unleashed by several dozen members throughout the day. Their looseness of associations were pungent, their vitriol seethed in response to being questioned or called on the carpet.

My own career accomplishments were targeted by vicious assaults consisting of repetitive volleys of eviscerating pejoratives. So did my prior enlisted military service and the entire United States Navy Hospital Corps. They overreached there, requiring me to thrash them soundly on the distinguished history of the Hospital Corpsmen. I was called “Troll” and other demeaning names or obscenities, all the while trying to get the discussion back to topic. 

Of course, they went after Bill Johnson with a vengeance despite having not one bit of information about him personally, politically, or of his decorated and honorable military service!  Their shared delusional scheme expanded.  Some called Reagan conservatives a political anachronism. Some declared the Rand Paul/Ron Paul concept of Republican conservatism meant dismantling the GOP both in Kentucky and in the RNC, then reconstructing the party as Libertarian. Many could not state Rand Paul/Ron Paul’s official published and taped political positions. They were clueless of his claim to be a Reagan conservative, his Pro-choice/Pro-life dual claim, or of Rand Paul/Ron Paul’s absolutely penetrating campaign dependence on his father influence in his campaign.                                                                           

Would that be the same “ iconoclastic” Republican thorn-in-side, Libertarian, marginalized, perennial candidate, extremist Sen. Ron Paul who may very much desire to leave a legacy in the Senate, his cookie cutter groomed millionaire son?                                               

Likewise, would it be the same “I'm a Libertarian at heart but, since third party candidates in Kentucky don't have a strong chance of winning, I'm going to run as a Republican” Rand Paul/Ron Paul who decided that running as a Republican would avail him the greatest opportunity of taking the Hon. Jim Bunning’s Senate seat.? Upon winning could he then leave his GOP Trojan Horse in order to advance his Libertarian causes?  Don't you think this to be a bit disingenuous and dishonest?  

So, what is the real Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign for Senate in Kentucky? In my opinion it consists of schizophrenic campaign issues, grossly detached and delusional supporters who eschew their own psychotic delusions which go unchallenged by fellow Rand Paul/Ron Paul colleagues. It’s a conglomeration of disenfranchised voters from across the political spectrum from counter-culturalists to political zoophytes!

Need an example or two?  How about a Rand Paul/Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty Group organizer who lists himself on the Internet as a Quaker peace activist? His screen name is “Nazi Hunter.”  He’s a Quaker Nazi Hunter?! 2 + 2 = 3 there, right?  Then there’s BC, who gave an excellent scripted line by line comparison of the Rand Paul/Ron Paul campaign supporters to the garden characters in Alice in Wonderland, also on the Internet.  I “wonder” if she has any idea that Lewis Carroll based his Through The Looking Glass on his own hallucinogenic drug experiences? On the other hand, I must say she might have hit on something there!

Whether or not these individuals were speaking for Rand Paul/Ron Paul, I'm unsure. The fact is they were putting out their collective representations of Rand Paul/Ron Paul over the Internet on approved Rand Paul/Ron Paul endorsed sites and with no campaign oversight or control. One must assume that the campaign allows this to go on unchecked, unsupervised, and untreated. Who is the real Rand Paul/Ron Paul? 

I rest my case. Either Rand Paul/Ron Paul is constructing the shared delusions of his campaign supporters or his delusional supporters are constructing his candidacy in their own multiple images. Regardless, one AP columnist’s assessment is clearly on point. Rand Paul/Ron Paul “stands the chance to self-destruct.” If my own observations of Rand Paul/Ron Paul’s signs of physical stress and emotional lability combined with the uncontrolled rages and rants of Rand Paul/Ron Paul fanatics, suggests pending campaign destruction from within, it may well occur sooner rather than later. Under increasing stress, all schizophrenic campaigns melt down. Some do insidiously. Some do precipitously.

In any event, my own opinion is that Rand Paul/Ron Paul lacks the character, integrity, and experience to follow Kentucky’s great Senator and Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, the Hon. Jim Bunning, in representing Kentucky in the United States Senate. This Senate race is far too important to the Commonwealth of Kentucky and The United States of America to lend the Rand Paul/Ron Paul Schizophrenic Senate Campaign any further legitimacy by the Republican Party of Kentucky.

Dr. David M. Duncan
Lexington, KY

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