The Problem With Rand Paul

I just watched Rand Paul on the Daily Show, and he said a lot of very reasonable things. Things like "we ought to cut defense spending as well," or "you don't have the right to pollute your neighbor's property," or "we're a lot better off now than we were thirty or eighty years ago, in part because of an activist government." But the problem is that the lesson he draws from all of this is... being a radical conservative. Why?, one wonders.