Rand Paul, tea parties, and where Obama went wrong

[Anarchist420]

Im not sure how he can be so libertarian that he thinks weed should be legal but at the same time think abortion should not be. Its obvious he is pandering to his conservative teabagger base.

Abortion is taking a life, smoking and selling weed is not taking a life.

 

[PJABBER]

I don't want to jump from thread to thread in defense of Dr. Paul, who's personal ideology I am not all that familiar with, but criticisms of his libertarianism seem to be a knee jerk response rather than a thoughtful examination as to what distinguishes his positions and outlook from other politicians more professional, "safe" and "politically correct" in their responses.

This commentary addresses the differences a post-racial Dr. Paul represents versus, let's say, a professional, postmodern politician like B. Obama.

Rand Paul and Civil Rights

By JAMES TARANTO

Wall Street Journal
May 20, 2010

Rand Paul was 1 when Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now 47, he is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Kentucky, his first ever foray into politics. To his evident surprise, the hypothetical question of how he would have voted in 1964 has been drawing a lot of attention.

Politico's Ben Smith characterizes as "evasive" this response Paul gave when asked the question by National Public Radio (we've corrected Smith's transcription errors):

"What I've always said is, I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would have--if I was alive at the time, I think--had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism," he said in response to a first question about the act.​

"You would have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater?" asked an interviewer.​

"I think it's confusing in a lot of cases in what's actually in the Civil Rights Case (sic)," Paul replied. "A lot of things that were actually in the bill I'm actually in favor of. I'm in favor of--everything with regards to ending institutional racism. So I think there's a lot to be desired in the Civil Rights--and indeed the truth is, I haven't read all through it, because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue on the campaign on whether I'm going to vote for the Civil Rights Act."​

In an update to his post, Smith notes that it wasn't the first time Paul was asked the question:

Paul articulated his view on the Civil Rights Act in an interview with the editorial board of the Louisville Courier-Journal. . . .​

Paul explained that he backed the portion of the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination in public places and institutions, but that he thinks private businesses should be permitted to discriminate by race.​

"I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I'm all in favor of that," he said. "I don't like the idea of telling private business owners. . . ."​

Smith is not the only commentator to accuse Paul of being "evasive" or refusing to give a "straight answer."

This criticism is absurd. The politically wise answer would have been "yes"--a straight answer in form, but an evasive one in substance. Answering the way he did was a rookie mistake--or, to put it more charitably, a demonstration that Paul is not a professional politician.
Taken at face value, the question itself--How would you have voted if you had been in the Senate as an infant?--is silly. It is a reasonable question only if it is understood more broadly, as an inquiry into Paul's political philosophy. The question within the question is: How uncompromising are you in your adherence to small-government principles?

Paul gave his answer: Pretty darn uncompromising--uncompromising enough to take a position that is not only politically embarrassing but morally dubious by his own lights, as evidenced by this transcript from the Courier-Journal interview, provided by the left-wing site ThinkProgress.org:

Interviewer: But under your philosophy, it would be OK for Dr. King not to be served at the counter at Woolworths?​

Paul: I would not go to that Woolworths, and I would stand up in my community and say that it is abhorrent, um, but, the hard part--and this is the hard part about believing in freedom--is, if you believe in the First Amendment, for example--you have too, for example, most good defenders of the First Amendment will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things. . . . It's the same way with other behaviors. In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior.​

Again, Paul could have given a "straight" answer to the question--a flat "no"--that made clear his personal disapproval of discrimination while evading what was really a question about his political philosophy. Far from being evasive, Paul has shown himself to be both candid and principled to a fault.

We do mean to a fault. In this matter, Paul seems to us to be overly ideological and insufficiently mindful of the contingencies of history. Although we are in accord with his general view that government involvement in private business should be kept to a minimum, in our view the Civil Rights Act's restrictions on private discrimination were necessary in order to break down a culture of inequality that was only partly a matter of oppressive state laws. On the other hand, he seeks merely to be one vote of 100 in the Senate. An ideologically hardheaded libertarian in the Senate surely would do the country more good than harm.

It's possible, though, that Paul's eccentric views on civil rights will harm the Republican Party by feeding the left's claims that America is a racist country and the GOP is a racist party. Certainly that's what Salon's Joan Walsh is hoping. Here are her comments on a Rand interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow:

You've got to watch the whole interview. At the end, Paul seemed to understand that he's going to be explaining his benighted civil rights views for a long, long time--but he seemed to blame Maddow. "You bring up something that is really not an issue . . . a red herring, it's a political ploy . . . and that's the way it will be used," he complained at the end of the interview. Whether the Civil Rights Act should have applied to private businesses--"not really an issue," says Tea Party hero Rand Paul.​

It's going to become increasingly clear that the Tea Party movement wants to revoke the Great Society, the New Deal and the laws that were the result of the civil rights movement. Paul may be right that his views are "not really an issue" with his Tea Party supporters, although I have to think some of them won't enjoy watching him look like a slippery politician as he fails, over and over, to answer Maddow's questions directly.​

When Paul says this "is really not an issue," he is speaking in the present tense. It is quite clear that he means that the Civil Rights Act, which has been the law for nearly 46 years, is politically settled; there is no movement to revoke it. In this, he is correct. Walsh's assertion that this is what the tea-party movement seeks is either a fantasy or a lie.

It's a curious role reversal: Rand Paul is a politician; Joan Walsh is a journalist. He is honest, perhaps too honest for his own good. She is playing the part of the dishonest demagogue.

 

[JSt0rm]

I think you guys are counting your chickens before they hatch. If Rand wins in KY then yap on but to think because rand beat a republican it somehow means he beats obama is crazy. It just shows the republicans are fragmented

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I think you guys are counting your chickens before they hatch. If Rand wins in KY then yap on but to think because rand beat a republican it somehow means he beats obama is crazy. It just shows the republicans are fragmented

There's a lot of things I wonder about with Paul, however it isn't the Republicans that Dems need to think about, it's we independents, and a lot of us are thinking "Anybody but Obama".

You'll never convince the Rep voters to pick Obama and the Reps will not be able to bring anyone to the table the Dems would cross the lines for.

That means we decide.

 

[PJABBER]

I think you guys are counting your chickens before they hatch. If Rand wins in KY then yap on but to think because rand beat a republican it somehow means he beats obama is crazy. It just shows the republicans are fragmented

He will not be President any time soon. Libertarianism is not appealing to too many when it becomes defined strictly.

It is enough that if he gets elected he will be one of a hundred voices in the U.S. Senate and THAT is going to be one voice of a type that has not been heard from much in the past 70 years.

 

[werepossum]

There's a lot of things I wonder about with Paul, however it isn't the Republicans that Dems need to think about, it's we independents, and a lot of us are thinking "Anybody but Obama".

You'll never convince the Rep voters to pick Obama and the Reps will not be able to bring anyone to the table the Dems would cross the lines for.

That means we decide.

That's true. It would take a very scary Republican indeed to make me vote for Obama, although there's a good chance I'll return to voting Libertarian or some other third party. A lot of folks in the middle are more easily swayed and will probably decide the 2012 election, and right now droves of them are thinking "Anybody but Obama". But a lot of that is because the President is commonly given credit for much more power over the economy than he actually has and thus he reaps the rewards and punishments of good and bad economies. If the economy really turns around probably a lot of those people will hold their nose and vote "O", if only because the devil you know is sometimes less frightening than the devil you don't know. If the economy is still tanking then those people will vote Republican. And if, heaven forbid, it's worse, then he doesn't have a prayer.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Considering your propensity for self-ownage, I'll defer to your expert opinion.

You have the choice of continuing to be one of my obsessive-compulsive internet stalkers; or putting me on 'ignore'.

Seldom do nattering jackal-dolts such as yourself singularly travel outside your pack of ignorants and circles-of-doom, so if you have a point to make to me, spill it, Chuckles.

I'm not a candidate for the US Senate from Kentucky, and neither have I opined that " ... private businesses should be permitted to discriminate by race ..."

So. What's your point?





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[CrackRabbit]

There's a lot of things I wonder about with Paul, however it isn't the Republicans that Dems need to think about, it's we independents, and a lot of us are thinking "Anybody but Obama".

You'll never convince the Rep voters to pick Obama and the Reps will not be able to bring anyone to the table the Dems would cross the lines for.

That means we decide.

The rest of us hope the GOP doesn't trot out another lame loser like Sarah Palin.
They are in a real rock-in-a-hard place situation, if they pander to their base they alienate the middle as happened in 2008.
If they pander to the middle you have a very very vocal minority of the party screaming they aren't "Conservative" enough and split the vote between the GOP and a more "Tea Party"ish third party.
Either way you end up with another 4 years of Democrat rule, like it or not. :hmm:

 

[spittledip]

I'm still shaky on the outcome but I think he can be defeated.

I did my boredom at work routine a minute ago and just went to the google new page. 2 of the 3 US news articles were about Rand.

New hero of Tea Party Rand Paul is so conservative he scares Dick Cheney

"The 47-year-old Paul - who trounced establishment candidate Trey Grayson in Kentucky's GOP Senate primary Tuesday - wants to abolish the federal departments of education, commerce and energy, as well as the income tax."

Rand Paul Under Fire for Comments on Race


I think half of the job is already done for the Dems, now they just need to get their people out to vote, which is a task whose difficulty will probably be pegged to Obama's popularity. I think the race will really heat up in August, till then I will enjoy my summer.

I am not quite sure I see any racism in his remarks. Someone point out what exactly is racist about what he said..?

 

[Turin39789]

I am not quite sure I see any racism in his remarks. Someone point out what exactly is racist about what he said..?

I am not quite sure I see where I said there was racism in his remarks.