Rand Paul and the Xerox Machine
I suspect that most of you have heard that Rand Paul got caught red handed plagiarizing Wikipedia. Rachel Maddow took him to the woodshed over it and Rand responded by challenging her to a duel. Or some damn thing.
I guess it never occurred to him to challenge her to fact finding mission.
If I were not a lady and Momma was not watching, I say, “You know that hair on his head? Plagiarized from his butt.”
Well, it does not stop there. Now that people are looking, it appears that he plagiarized damn near entire chapters in his book.
An entire section of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s 2013 book Government Bullies was copied wholesale from a 2003 case study by the Heritage Foundation, BuzzFeed has learned. The copied section, 1,318 words, is by far the most significant instance reported so far of Paul borrowing language from other published material.
Now either you’re a libertarian and believe in standing on your own two feet with help from no one or you’re not. Plagiarism is simply a form of intellectual welfare.
And since his book made money, isn’t that taking from the rich to give to the richer?
Thanks to Rick and Craig for the heads up.
You have to have intellect to have intellectual property, Rand.
1Precisely, Corinne. If you can’t take the time to write what you, yourself believe (or pay a speech writer) you have no business parading around as if you have the smarts to be president of anything.
2Americans don’t like “plagiarists” as presidential candidates either.
3Plagiarizing is theft of intellectual property. But in this case, the Heritage Foundation will probably give him a pass. But theft is theft, and giving Lil Paul a bye makes Heritage lose a lot of the little credibility they have left. DeMint ought to sue, if he had any balls.
4It just shows that he didn’t learn about how to do footnotes in college. Or high school. Or wherever. I’m curious. What is the limit on the amount of copied material in a book or other document, assuming you give credit to the author and all that?
5This just gets funnier. Gotta agree with Corinne.*
*See #1 above.
6Apparently he has used the words of someone from Cato as well. I’m sure they will find many more instances of Rand Paul’s plagiarizing; it’s not something people do once or twice.
What’s really stupid is his unusual, self-serving reaction to people pointing it out. He calls them “Haters”.
I really would like to know what weapon Rachel would have chosen for them to use in a duel.
7Rachel’s weapon of choice should be: brains.
8June: I’d say she would challenge him to a duel of wits, but he would be unarmed then. No matter what weapon she would choose for the duel, I’d still bet on Rachel to win pretty commandingly.
9Thank you for making me smile. You know he does it, but now you KNOW he does it.
10Paintball duel. While we are turning Texas blue, Rachel could do the same for Rand.
11Copyright law is just another intrusive government program. True libertarians allow the free market to resolve this issue. (/snark)
Ever notice how the super-libertarian software billionaires believe in keeping the laws against copyright infringement?
12I wonder if Ayn Rand would consider plagiarism the action of a maker, or a taker?
13So where is our cartoon of Rand Paul as a puppet with the Heritage Foundation’s hand up his butt making his mouth move?
14Marge–You asked how much copyrighted material could be quoted if attribution is given. That depends on the length of the original (should be a very small fraction)’ the purpose of your quote ( a reviewer or someone writing a scholarly paper about the subject will be allowed to quote more than someone who appears to be writing his own article on the subject, but one mostly composed of quotes from other people’s work.) Parody is an allowable use of quotation, but still the amount of quotation has limits. But attribution will not save you from a challenge if you did not ask permission of the copyright owner. That challenge will come from either the publisher or the writer or both.
There is a difference between plagiarism and copyright violation. Presenting as your own work someone else’s is plagiarism. It may not be a copyright violation if the work you plagiarize is to protected by copyright. I could use a chunk of a an early 19th c, novel that has no current printing…those copyrights have all expired…but it would be plagiarism, a literary sin. Like doing things under a false identity.
15Little Paul insisted to George Stephanopoulus (sp) that this was all about footnotes. Paul kept using the word ‘footnote’ and scoffing at the charges, trying to frame the argument against him as a silly kind of intellectual fluffery. Then he claimed that he’d written many heavily researched scholarly articles. He scoffs at academia, but wants to use his own academic writing as credentials? I’d love to know how much of that “academic” work was stolen from other writers without attribution. He’s all puffed up trying to appear righteously indignant, but he’s missing the righteous part. It doesn’t work that way, kid.
16False identity? Hell, check out his board certification which is supposed to be something within the province of state powers. (My son had to get actual legitimate board certifican just to be an optician.) It was a board he created himself cuz he actually did not complete all the education required for his profession. This guy is simply a libertarian liar and cheat.
17Anyone who supports a guy with so few original thoughts has even fewer of their own.
18@ Elizabeth Moon, exactly. Plagiarism and copyright violation are separate issues, although they often go together.
@ Sweet Crabby, I’m very doubtful Paul’s done any peer-reviewed writing, at least as first- or corresponding author.
19“BuzzFeed reported Monday night sections of an op-ed the Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wrote on mandatory minimums in The Washington Times in September appeared nearly identical to an article by Dan Stewart of The Week that ran a week earlier.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/rand-pauls-office-to-implement-new-process-to-ensure-proper?bftw=
“The worst case yet. Paul’s office says the book notes Paul didn’t individually report out each case.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/entire-section-of-rand-pauls-book-copied-verbatim-from-case
20Rand Paul’s picture reminds me of shag carpet that we happily ripped up and dragged to the curb.
21It took some time but now Rand Paul is throwing is staff under the bus by placing blame on unnamed staff members for poor sourcing http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rand-paul-blames-plagiarism-on-staff-implements-new-citation-policy
Sen. Rand Paul’s office on Tuesday admitted in a statement that some of the Kentucky senator’s speeches were poorly sourced and not properly vetted, after several news reports accused him of plagiarism.
Doug Stafford, Paul’s senior advisor, said that the senator always uses his own ideas, but relies on staff to provide support.
“Sen. Paul also relies on a large number of staff and advisers to provide supporting facts and anecdotes – some of which were not clearly sourced or vetted properly,” Stafford said in the statement.
22The Moonie Times fired Rand Paul from doing a weekly editorial.
23