Ta-Nehisi Coates on Rand Paul

I just discovered Ta-Nehisi Coates, a writer for the Atlantic.  While perusing his articles I found one about Rand Paul.  He first quotes Douthat's piece for the NYT.

No ideology survives the collision with real-world politics perfectly intact. General principles have to bend to accommodate the complexities of history, and justice is sometimes better served by compromise than by zealous intellectual consistency.

  I'm really drawn to that statement for some reason.  I guess it's remnants of my political theory class I took.  I hated that we always had to pick one side and run with it way off the edge because anything else would be hypocritical.  I want consistency and I want to be able to have one ideology that fits everything but there's always issues with it that force you to compromise.  According to Douthat's piece it's not hypocritical to concede on certain issues.  But Coates' other article points out that Rand is already inconsistent with libertarianism on drug laws, abortion, and national security.  And yet he's unwilling to do the same with segregation?  Makes ya think.