Time is not on my side, so let's get right to it! Tuesday's Morning Roar! Washington Post Tries To Classify Rand Paul's Positions; Says He's Ditching Libertarian PrinciplesIn what is actually a pretty fair article, the WaPo took a good long look at Rand Paul and his transforming political stances on a variety of topics including social issues, foreign policy, etc. Here's a short transcript, as the article itself is quite in-depth.

This was not the first time Paul made a public reversal on a matter of foreign policy. In 2011, in his early, fire-breathing days as a senator, he proposed eliminating all U.S. foreign aid — even aid to Israel, considered sacrosanct in the Republican Party.But after an outcry, he soon altered his proposal; he wanted instead to cut all foreign aid,  except for $5 billion a year.Why $5 billion? A Paul aide said that amount would give Israel its full share — more than $3 billion per year — and still have money left over.“We didn’t necessarily want it to seem like it was just for Israel,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking. “We should have enough for more flexibility. Maybe Israel needs more aid. Or maybe we come across another part of the world where it does make sense.”Last month, though, Paul seemed to deny that he’d ever tried to get rid of aid to Israel. “I haven’t really proposed that in the past,”  he told Yahoo News. Aides said he meant that he’d never actually submitted legislation to cut Israel’s aid — the idea had been floated in a budget proposal that was never formally introduced as a bill. Still, the fact-checking Web site PolitiFact gave Paul’s denial a rating of “ Pants on Fire.”

There are multiple examples of this, and they are correct on calling Paul out on these shifts in position. We ourselves have pointed to the shift away from libertarian thought or alterations in his policies over the course of the past couple years, and it's a concern to us. Some believe that Rand is simply lying in wait, and when the Presidency is his, he'll put his true libertarian core on display for the world to see, and follow that up with policies that fall in line. Rand himself tries to debunk this theory (though of course he would, were it actually true).

But his policy vision is, in fact, a work in progress. While he has maintained his core support for cutting spending and  protecting Americans’ privacy rights, Paul has shaded, changed or dropped some of the ideas that he espoused as a tea party candidate and in his confrontational early days as a senator.As the prospect of a 2016 presidential bid looms larger, Paul is making it clear that he did not come to Washington to be a purist like his father, former congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.).He came to be a politician, like everybody else.

The WaPo article also acknowledges a fact that I myself have used when defending Rand (something I rarely do these days), and that is simply that it's hard to change Washington and hard to cease the expanding girth of the beast that is the federal government.

Paul’s aides said he knows he may not achieve all these cutbacks. He has been in Washington long enough to understand that even small cuts in federal spending can be difficult to make.“Rand’s a pragmatist. He realizes we’ve got a really large federal government,” said one of Paul’s longtime friends and advisers, who spoke frankly on the condition of anonymity.“I think that Rand has a picture of what a utopia would look like,” the friend added. “And he’s very realistic about how long it would take to get there.”

We can prattle on and on about Rand's true motivations and whether he deserves the votes of libertarians (and speaking of, please listen to next week's Lions of Liberty Podcast where your favorite lions of liberty and friends discuss this exact topic, among other things), but we won't know until the man actually takes on enough political weight to initiate policy changes on a federal level. Will that be in 2016? We'll see.In the meantime, articles like this are actually very encouraging, as they both clarify the difference between Rand Paul and true libertarianism, while also lending credence to his run for President. He is being taken quite seriously, and what libertarian principles he does take with him (privacy concerns being the foremost untainted issue at this point) will be taken seriously as well.USA Ranks #32 Out of 34 Countries For Business Tax Code Competitiveness I have discussed before how the U.S. puts itself at a horrible disadvantage from a global business perspective with its corporate tax code (and of course with the constant and idiotic calls for higher minimum wage), and another recent report confirms the dire situation.

On Monday the Tax Foundation, which manages the widely followed State Business Tax Climate Index, will launch a new global benchmark, the International Tax Competitiveness Index. According to the foundation, the new index measures "the extent to which a country's tax system adheres to two important principles of tax policy: competitiveness and neutrality."A competitive tax code is one that limits the taxation of businesses and investment. Since capital is mobile and businesses can choose where to invest, tax rates that are too high "drive investment elsewhere, leading to slower economic growth," as the Tax Foundation puts it.With the developed world's highest corporate tax rate at over 39% including state levies, plus a rare demand that money earned overseas should be taxed as if it were earned domestically, the U.S. is almost in a class by itself. It ranks just behind Spain and Italy, of all economic humiliations. America did beat Portugal and France, which is currently run by an avowed socialist.

At least we're better than France.Child Services Tells Mother "Don't let your kids play outside" After Investigating Her In a story that may make your blood boil over the intrusive nanny state we live in, Kari Anne Roy, a mother of 3, had let her 6 year old son play in the park at the end of the street by himself. The child was in plain view from their house, in a friendly residential neighborhood. However, that isn't allowed in today's America, as a "kind" woman brought the child to her door, condescendingly told the mother that her child was playing alone unsupervised and then called the police on her. "See something, say something!" Thanks, Obama!A policewoman came to her door shortly after, took Roy's I.D. down and other information and then left. And then the story really gets fun. Says Roy (via Reason):

That night Isaac cried when he went to bed and couldn't immediately fall asleep. "He thought someone was going to call the police because it was past bedtime and he was still awake."As it turns out, he was almost right. About a week later, an investigator from Child Protective Services came to the house and interrogated each of Roy's three children separately, without their parents, about their upbringing."She asked my 12 year old if he had ever done drugs or alcohol. She asked my 8-year-old daughter if she had ever seen movies with people's private parts, so my daughter, who didn't know that things like that exist, does now," says Roy. "Thank you, CPS."It was only last week, about a month after it all began, that the case was officially closed. That's when Roy felt safe enough to write about it. But safe is a relative term. In her last conversation with the CPS investigator, who actually seemed to be on her side, Roy asked, "What do I do now?"Replied the investigator, "You just don't let them play outside."

Parenting (and the liberal definition of what is or isn't acceptable parenting) has come under fire in this country and it honestly disgusts me. The current crop of kids hitting college age have been coddled from birth, and this nanny state approach, where parents must attend to their children at all times, can't give them what they want to eat for school lunches, and are under constant threat of investigation for virtually anything, is pathetic.If the strength of a nation is its youth, we are in one hell of a heap of trouble. Let parents be parents and raise their children how they like. There is a stark contrast between abuse or true neglect of a child and this state-inspired insanity.Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!