I thanked Rand Paul for his Internet Rights efforts lately. He replied.

A couple of counterpoints:

The Pauls aren't against civil liberties, they're against abuses of government power. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 extended the federal government's authority to legislating morality through a stretched-to-the-max definition of the Commerce Clause. It is that same Commerce Clause the government has since abused to all ends, and is why medical marijuana grow-houses and dispensaries are raided by the federal government in California, even though California has deemed it legal. Given that there is no Constitutional provision for marijuana either way, that should de facto remain within the purview of the state. The Civil Rights Act, and the New Deal before it began the malevolent precedent that was set.

My opinion is mixed on the matter. Yes, I believe that it is an overreach of federal authority, but I also believe that it needed to be done to uphold the Constitution. That said, there would have been many smaller ways to implement its tenets without allowing the federal government so much power to abuse, especially knowing that they have done so to much woe.

The Paul's are against a woman's right to choose, however, that should be tempered with the knowledge that they also believe that the federal government has no authority on the matter. Even Ron Paul's "Sanctity of Life Act" would simply grant the states the authority to disallow abortion (or allow it, however they chose). This is, I think, how we expect our federal government to run, wherein it meddles less with the lives of American citizens and prefers to leave those choices to the states, as the Constitution allows for.

On Health Care, I personally find their beliefs to be the right one. In today's economic system, it would be hard to do, but considering the steps that got us to our inflated health care system, and how cheap and efficient it was before those steps were taken, I think it's the right way to go. In short, the federal government, once upon a time, wrongly capped salaries for employees of all sorts. Companies, looking for ways to entice workers, found a loophole - I can pay you the agreed upon max allowed, but I can augment that pay by taking care of your health care, life ensurance, etc., as perks. Now that health care was being paid out of 'big pockets', costs rose because of the additional abstraction between the actual costs and those paying for the care. Since then, the federal government has repealed salary limitations, but companies still provide perks, and health care is still ridiculous. The bar on competition is set so arbitrarily high that it persists. If individuals were to pay for health care out of their own pockets, I have little doubt (though no proof, except history) that costs would baseline back to affordable.

I think that Obamacare worsens the situation by adding yet another layer of abstraction to even deeper pockets, FYI, but that is my own personal belief.

Regarding immigration, I think you exaggerate. Yes, they want to tighten the borders. Yes, they want to regulate immigration more. The United States currently has some of the most permissive immigration laws in the first world, and those laws are routinely exploited to benefit the exploiters. If we didn't have the social safety net that we had, it would be a non-issue, but as the social safety net that exists is taxpayer funded, it is unfair. That is an opinion, naturally, but it is a generally accepted truth by both major parties, which is why immigration reform is such a hot-button issue. Sadly, it has devolved into an election issue, as whoever can grant amnesty first will likely win the largest number of new voters to their party.

All that said, I do agree that your rationale isn't "contrarian bullshit", and I appreciate you taking the time to educate others to your opinion. Obviously, these are complicated issues, with a myriad of possible solutions, some of which likely haven't even been considered (or even thought up) yet. Regardless, neither your opinion nor mine are certain to be 'right'. At best, they're both varying degrees of both right and wrong.

You show you give the issues no real thought, or more likely, choose to coldly ignore the harsh realities.

REGULATION = GOOD REGULATION + BAD REGULATION

Arguing against "regulation" means arguing against the good and the bad. Which is the height of stupidity since you're effectively arguing for companies to do whatever they want, whenever they want with zero consideration of anybody else.