Here is the part that confuses me. If Rand Paul wants to illustrate how serious a libertarian he is*, he can choose from a broad menu of options. Pretty much every law restricts someone’s freedom in some way. Someone in Paul’s staff must have tried to wave him off of provoking a completely gratuitous argument about race. He could just as easily make an issue out of the Commerce Department regulating monopolies or the Clean Air and Water Acts. Why not the FDA? God forbid he bring up the drug war and highlight a Libertarian mega-issue that has crossover appeal.
Defenders can point out that Paul’s position on the Civil Rights Act (whatever that position might be) fits in an overall ideological framework. That’s fine. Like most politicians Paul’s selling his ideology so that people who agree will elect him to have it represented in Congress. The problem is that starting with the Civil Rights Act is almost the worst possible way to make people find your ideological framework is reasonable and appealing. How about Kelo V. New London? It’s like a car salesman leading with how many baby carriages a sedan can crush before you have to replace the bumper. Presumably the guy wildly misunderstands his audience. More disturbingly, maybe he doesn’t.
(*) In fact Paul is a rather poor excuse for a Libertarian.
arguingwithsignposts
Because Paul believes in the drug war, and is against abortion rights. IOW, he’s no libertarian, just another authoritarian-when-i-wanna-be.
FoxinSocks
Because Rand Paul is using supposedly libertarian ideology to defend his racist views.
This is a guy who believes in outlawing gay marriage and abortion. Why is he OK with that sort of government interference? I’m sure he’d say there’s a very strong government interest in defending people against those things, but there’s not a strong government interest in ending racial discrimination and Jim Crow laws? It shows you exactly where his values lie.
freelancer
That’s some poetry there, Tim.
Joshua
You persist in assuming that Rand Paul is not a racist scumbag. It’s the obvious answer to this question.
“Why harp on the CRA and not the drug war?” Because Rand Paul is a racist scumbag.
Seriously, nothing else makes sense.
I mean, if you’re really super-duper committed to being absolutely as charitable as possible — far more charitable than anything Paul has said actually deserves — the absolute best you could come up with is that Rand Paul thinks that he was going to score enough points with the teabaggers who handed him the primary by pretending to be a racist scumbag that he didn’t have to care about the people he was pissing off. But that raises the follow-up question of “Why pursue that strategy on Maddow’s show, which teabaggers don’t watch?”
Because it’s not some attempt at a political ploy. Because it’s what Rand Paul actually, genuinely believes.
Midnight Marauder
Because this guy is a fucking idiot.
Really, I do not understand where all these lofty expectations and high ambitions for Rand Paul came from.
eldorado
objectivism is just your excuse
J.W. Hamner
Well, he was asked about it… it’s not like he was all “Here’s why I hate the Civil Rights Act”… but it’s an obvious question when you know someone is a libertarian ideologue. I assume in his campaigning he talks more about eminent domain that Woolworth’s lunch counters.
What would be awesome is if we could submit questions for him to answer. Mine would be:
Dr. Paul, how do you feel about the USDA running roughshod over our freedom to have a large amounts of fecal matter in our ground beef?
Steve
Look, to be fair, did he really choose to start with the CRA, or did his questioners choose to start with it?
I’ve read about the letter he wrote in 2002 objecting to the Fair Housing Act, which is definitely an own-goal. But in the context of the current campaign, I thought it started with some questionnaire where the candidates were asked if they would have voted for the CRA, and he chose to give a nuanced answer. Then of course everyone wants to ask him about it.
Maybe it was really stupid of him, but still, it’s not as though he woke up one day and decided “today’s campaign issue will be the Civil Rights Act.” We might say Hillary screwed up by giving a bad answer on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, but we wouldn’t say “how come she chose to make her campaign about driver’s licenses?”
Sentient Puddle
From my understanding of Kentucky, they aren’t particularly hospitable to libertarianism. The Republicans there are, well, Republicans, and the Democrats aren’t typically liberals as we know them (they’re more socially conservative). If he tried to push something like the drug war, it would be political suicide (even if the rest of us didn’t bat an eye).
That doesn’t explain away every other libertarian pet cause he could’ve used, though. I’d imagine something like the EPA could play well enough, for instance.
cleek
did he start with it, or did someone else ask him about it and he accidentally gave his real opinion.
there is a big difference.
if it’s the latter, it seems unfair to accuse him of the former.
Zifnab
@arguingwithsignposts: This. He’s the Joe Lieberman of Libertarianism. “With on everything except what matters.”
The guy is completely useless. I mean, everyone’s got a bit of a libertarian streak in them, but Rand hasn’t appealed to mine in the slightest.
And you know why? Because true libertarians can’t get elected. Who the hell would you appeal to? The thousands of other uninformed misanthropes who – on being approached with a campaign flier – would tell you to fuck off and die? The silent majority of paranoid anti-government loons, too afraid of the spy satellites reading their minds to step out and vote? You can’t win an election on that.
Rand can’t appeal to “true” libertarians, because they’re anti-social wackos. So he calls himself an anti-social wacko to appeal to the much more socially successful bigots and corporate interests. He beat a Republican in a Republican primary by running to the right. Shocker! Meanwhile, he garnered less votes than the Democrat running to the left. In freak’n Kentucky.
This will end hilariously for the Democrats.
MikeJ
Kelo was a victory for state’s rights. It said the feds couldn’t interfere with local law in that case.
Maude
Chris Wallace is having Palin on Sunday to “discuss” Rand Paul.
I can’t even think of the joke that goes with this.
Gregory
You’re right — instead, Paul should keep telling coal-state Kentucky his ideologically principled and consistent position that “accidents just happen” and that safety regulation is government overreach.
Tsulagi
Depends on the audience trying to reach. Probably more than a few in KY and AZ saying “Go
RonRand Paul!”Ana Gama
Two questions:
Where the hell was Trey Greyson during the primary? Did he do no opposition research?
cleek
@Maude:
“Oh that liberal media. There they go again, trying to twist the facts to suit their agenda, yahno. That’s why we need to take back our country and do the constitutional thing.. that is, we gotta follow the constitution and then the libruls will see that the people don’t want what they’re buying. In the words of Ronald Reagan, the government is here to help! Well, real Americans know that the best help is the help you give yourself and you buy yourself and it’s not a handout. That’s why Mr Paul will win.”
Culture of Truth
Are we really confused or are we “confused” — nudge nudge wink wink
xochi
He’s said on many occasions that he doesn’t consider himself a libertarian, so these views come less from being an ideologue and more from poor judgment.
Cat
He’s a racist and he’s running in the south. Do you really think there is any better option for him to show the voters of KY he’s one of them?
Just because everyone else is offended I bet the majority of the KY voters probably are much more at ease with his “libertarianism” because they can easily relate their “conservative” views on race now that he’s said the code words decrying the CRA.
WereBear
How is Rand Paul even a libertarian if he’s anti choice, pro drug war, and anti gay marriage?
Does not compute.
Has libertarian stances so relaxed that just anyone can say they are one?
(So is libertarian the new “I’m ashamed to say I’m Republican”?)
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Maude: Next, she’ll discuss her image in the rest of the house of mirrors.
Lost Left Coaster
I’m assuming that you’re being deliberately myopic here, right? It’s clear that Rand Paul is talking about the Civil Rights Act because he is trying to attract racist voters. The problem for him, of course, is that he is no longer in the primary but rather has to face the general, where his open appeals to racist voters could backfire. But that’s what he is after.
demo woman
@Maude: Wow! That’s some must see TV. Governor Palin do you think that the liberal media is being fair to Rand Paul?
beltane
@Maude: That’s the type of discussion that will cause this country to experience an IQ crash. Seriously, the median IQ of the United States will drop anywhere from 5-10 point as a result of this “discussion”. I don’t know whether to laugh or drown my sorrows in a bottle of Jamaican rum.
wrb
Perhaps.
Or it could be very successful with Kentucky voters and even more successful with Republican donors and he’s made the calculation that this is the case.
Tut-tutting from the MSM is just the icing.
Joey Maloney
Oh good grief, some weasel from Reason is on the BBC World Have You Say talking about Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. You can hear the smug entitlement in his voice as he gloats about all the people he’s gratuitously offended.
What. A. Dick.
Gus
That’s what I worry about: that he’ll be elected not despite his loathsome views but because of them.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Look. I know he’s an extreme anti-choicer and has endorsements from such personal privacy & liberty hating critters as CWA and Dobson. But the man supports the 2nd & 10th amendments!
matoko_chan
hes a teabagger libertarian.
he only supports deregulation of bankstahs and racism.
he supports regulation of uterii, drugs, schools, medicare physician payments, coal mining, the military, sex-education…..im sure theres more.
Brachiator
Every libertarian I’ve ever talked to has staked out a position that was the same as that espoused by Rand Paul, that an individual’s right to practice discrimination trumps any one’s claim to civil rights.
And it is not simply that such a view is racist, but that it posits an infantile vision of the universe in which there is no such thing as a civil society, but instead only a collection of individuals doing whatever they wish, free of governmental “oppression.” In this Randian fantasy land, a person who has been refused service at Libertarian Diner Number One would never complain, protest, boycott or form a sit in, but would simply move on and immediately be able to get a seat at Libertarian Bar and Grill Number Two.
You have tea baggers and others who espouse an insipid historical revisionism in which the Confederacy is seen as the true repository of “real American values.” Paul probably thinks his views are mainstream.
Patriot 3
“(*) In fact Paul is a rather poor excuse for a Libertarian.”
and that’s okay because in real-life he plays the role of a doctor; therefore, he is never wrong on anything…
MBunge
“Where the hell was Trey Greyson during the primary?”
Swimming upstream against a GOP primary electorate that probably wouldn’t have been that bothered by Paul’s views.
Mike
Felonious Wench
@Gregory:
It’s an election. If you’re in Oregon, you talk about legalizing pot. If you’re in Texas, it’s government wants to take your guns and libertarians think you should be able to own and carry whatever massive firepower you want. And in Kentucky, it’s Civil Rights is overreach by the federal government.
My apologies to anyone from Kentucky here, I don’t like generalizing people by state. But, Kentucky is not a bastion of racial diversity.
I consider Rand Paul an idiot, personally. But he’s on message for his electorate.
peach flavored shampoo
/searches Blue Book stats…..
where do I find these numbers?
matoko_chan
@Joey Maloney: i don’t get draw muhammed day a’tall.
All “draw Muhammed day” was…..was a whole day for christians and western culture chauvinists to tediously pat themselves on the back somemore and for the hirgabi to farm vast quantities of angry YOUNG recruits humiliated by western culture mores.
no one learned anything, nothing useful happened…..oh wait….i guess DMD was useful for recruiting and PR forJamaat-i-Islami and every other anti-American outfit in MENA.
LIke, say, Our SuperBest Frenemy Pakistan.
Midnight Marauder
@xochi:
Of course not. You can’t be a libertarian ideologue AND support the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Rand Paul has been forever banished from the Bastion of Libertarianism for saying the following:
Please leave your libertarian card with John Stossel on your way out, Mr. Paul.
MBunge
“it posits an infantile vision of the universe in which there is no such thing as a civil society”
Libertarians never seem to think things through to the point of understanding that in a society with a much smaller government, other institutions like unions, trade associations, churches and fraternal orders would be much, much bigger.
I mean, imagine how much more powerful and prevalent unions would be if they were the only way that workers could get things like overtime pay, paid vacations or workplace safety regulations?
Mike
jake the snake
Sadly enough, in Kentucky, he has many who agree with him at least on some level. Interestingly, I have seen a lot of people who in past appeared to be “reasonable convervatives”, mostly paleo-conservatives and right-libera-properatarians who have gone full out Me Partiers since Obama got elected. They don’t think they are racists, and to some extent they are not, as long as they can define racism.
It is a little different from the days when “some of my best friends are black” meant they knew the names of the maids family, and asked the lockerroom attendant at the Country Club how his Mama was doing.
Now they like that their athletic teams have minority players as long as the team wins, and they know the nice Hispanic family at church, and the Asian guy down the street really keeps his yard up, and his children have such good manners.
The problem is the lazy people who are looking for a hand out, and the Democrats who always oblige them to get votes.
Spaghetti Lee
Kinda weird how people are calling him an idiot, but still saying he dreamed up this master plan to dogwhistle his way into the hearts of the Republican elite (who were against him in the first place) and sweep his way to victory. Either that or we’re all just way too pessimistic. There is a limit to the crazy, people, even when it seems like there isn’t. Check out sue Lowden’s post-Chickengate poll performance. Even Republicans can tell when someone is a direct threat to their way of life, which is what Mr. Accidents Happen is positioning himself to be. Senator Conway. Just say it a few times. Sen-a-tor Con-way.
(This is the first Alex, btw: I got nymjacked by some glibbie in an earlier thread and thought I should use the name I use on S,N!)
Gregory
@Felonious Wench: No, he’s off message. I’m told he apparently used the “accidents happen” phrase this morning.
cat48
@cleek:
Actually about a month ago, he gave a Ky paper an editorial board intv. and he exposed his feeling about it there.
Then day of Rach invt, he went on NPR & they asked about it and he evaded answer. Then on to RMS and the rest is history.
Punchy
It’s one crazy shithead asshole taking over for another older, crazy, shithead asshole who played baseball. The net change is zilch. I could care less if Rand wins this thing or not.
Would be funneh, however, to watch Matthews on election nite tell us how the election was all about a R resurgence, while he then tells us a Dem won in Kentyucky.
Spaghetti Lee
FYWP, what’d I do this time. Basically, why do people think Paul’s an idiot while at the same time thinking he’s a genius with a master plan to dogwhistle everybody, crazy only takes you so far (cf. Lowden) and CONWAY.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Did he? I don’t know, I’m asking. It seems to me I read somewhere that it was more a situation of him being asked how the Civil Rights Act fit into his philosophy and he wasn’t a smart enough politician to deflect the question. I don’t want to come off like a Paul defender because I’m not, but it seems like we’re really hunting for things to hang around his neck, probably turning him into a martyr in the process.
Michael
There’s your first mistake. They didn’t. Undoubtedly, they’re proud wingnut bloggers, constantly reinforcing their own biases by talking with like-minded righties on the internet. They find it impossible to think that anybody disagrees with them, and probably encouraged it.
cleek
@cat48:
but again, did he bring it up himself during the interview, or did he answer a question ?
Midnight Marauder
@Punchy:
Unless, of course, he doesn’t win. Then the net change is substantial.
But there’s no reason to care about that.
MarkJ
@ MidnightMaurauder
The lofty expectations come from being a disciple of Galt! They’re all infallible super geniuses.
Why didn’t he start with the EPA? Well, it’s his second choice. He just said today that Obama’s criticism of British Petroleum was unAmerican. I realize this is not an EPA issue specifically but it does have to do with environmental protection, and clearly he’s opposed, which is probably just as unpopular a position as his stance on Civil Rights right now.
To summarize, he’s OK with a privately funded hospital refusing to treat a person of color, and he’s in favor of foreign corporations poisoning our water.
Calouste
This blog is really going downhill. I mean, we are now at the point where frontpagers put “serious” and “libertarian” in the same sentence without even the slightest trace of sarcasm of sneering.
Sorry, but you can only take libertarians as seriously as you would take a rather petulant thirteen-year old.
jl
“Presumably the guy wildly misunderstands his audience. More disturbingly, maybe he doesn’t.”
That is an interesting issue. If Paul were a typical GOP, the behavior would change as function of whether before or after the GOP primary.
So, Paul is not typical GOP, I guess. Or people are correct that he is none too bright and did not understand how to calibrate the dog whistle race ethnicity wedge issues to the post primary election environment.
I took some time to read up on his positions. Either Paul is not a consistent extreme libertarian, and has just cynically packaged himself that way to appeal to the rabid Paul base, or he can’t think straight.
Or maybe both.
I think the post that compared him to Palin got it right.
batgirl
@FoxinSocks:
That’s not government’s interference, that’s God’s interference. See Rand Paul has a direct line to God. Only two documents can infringe on our rights–the Constitution as interpreted by original intenters (as if the signers all agreed what the original intent was…) and the Protestant Christian Bible.
The only thing scarier than a religious fundamentalist or a libertarian is the idiot who somehow manages to merge the two into religious fundamentalist libertarian. I still haven’t figured out how they do this and mantain logical consistency, but then again logical consistency has never been a feature of the right-wing.
(If you are ever in need of a few laughs go check out the gushing reviews of Ayn Rand’s books on Amazon by conservative Christians. Idiots.)
Zach
Someone needs to ask Paul whether he thinks private companies should be allowed to discriminate in hiring or harass their employees on the basis of their race and gender.
Like, “Mr. Paul, should it be legal for a manager to address his secretary as ‘You slut’ every day as a condition of her employment? Can the manager demand sexual favors from her as a condition of her employment and fire her if she refuses? Could a manager force a black employee to show up to work shirtless and in chains and be called the n-word by all white employees?”
Take his argument to the point of absurdity. He’ll say “well I wouldn’t patronize such a place!” To which you can reply that this is only done in the corporate office, and that employees are also mandated to keep their treatment confidential.
WereBear
Conservative Christians are starving for art. I’m being totally honest. Their church is so restrictive on the types of media they are “supposed” to enjoy that they go whacky overboard when they do find something they are allowed to like.
It’s sad.
Brachiator
@cleek:
RE: Actually about a month ago, he gave a Ky paper an editorial board intv. and he exposed his feeling about it there.
I’m not sure what you are getting at here. An interview is, by definition, a question and answer session, where the subject is asked about his positions on various issues. These things are free-wheeling, especially with new candidates for public office who don’t have a considerable public record. Paul wasn’t giving a speech.
The interview with the editorial board of Louisville’s Courier-Journal can be found here.
Bill Murray
Isn’t Paul more of a state’s rights paleo-conservative with a soupcon of christian reconstructionist included at no extra cost to the voter?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@cleek:
That’s what occurred to me as well when I first read the post. There’s plenty of stuff in Paul’s philosophy to go after, we don’t need to make stuff up and turn him into a martyr.
Asking him how the Civil Rights Act fits into his worldview is a perfectly legitimate question, but if the Civil Rights Act was not a centerpiece of his campaign (or even mentioned until asked about it) we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
Mark S.
Rand is a fucking trainwreck. As Mike Kay pointed out last night, Paul is at least sympathetic to the Truthers. He’s not used to keeping his idiot beliefs on the down low, and it seems he’s lived a sheltered life of mostly hanging out with cranks. I think he’s going to lose.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Brachiator:
Tim said in the original post that the Civil Rights Act is the starting point of Paul’s campaign appeal. That really isn’t true, is it? Was it in any of his stump speeches or on his website? I don’t know, I’m asking, but if not we shouldn’t claim that Paul was “starting” with it.
cleek
@Brachiator:
Tim F’s post says:
if it hasn’t been a specific part of his campaign speeches or commercials or whatever, and just came up in an interview, and subsequent interviewers have decided to probe the question deeper, then Paul didn’t “start with the Civil Rights Act”. it’s just something that i’m sure he’d rather not talk about at all that has ballooned out of his control.
that doesn’t excuse his views about the CRA, but it does mean that he didn’t make those his opening bid. he didn’t choose to become the “I’ll End The Civil Rights Act” candidate. and yet the idea that he did seems to be taking off.
it’s a minor point, but it seems like one that we should get right.
(aka, what Bruce said)
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@cleek:
Agree with all this except I wouldn’t call it a minor point, I think it’s important to get it right.
benjoya
Someone in Paul’s staff must have tried to wave him off of provoking a completely gratuitous argument about race.
this is assuming he will be hurt politically for being against the civil rights act. remains to be seen.
jl
Commenters raise a good point about whether it is fair to say that Paul started it or brought it up.
I think it is a fair question. I think Paul has consistently gone out of his way to only partially support the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He explicitly mentions only the provisions regarding government discrimination as having his support.
Look at the Courier-Journal interview linked to above:
***
Questioner: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
Rand Paul: 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.
Questioner: But…?
Rand Paul: You had to ask me the “but.” um.. I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners – I abhor racism – I think it’s a bad business decision to ever exclude anybody from your restaurant. But at the same time I do believe in private ownership.
***
Given the way the dogwhistle race issue works, I think the “But…?” is a very obvious follow up question.
Given the extreme flexibility of Rand’s libertarianism (which stops well short of anything that would intefere with Medicare payments for the medical service Rand Paul provides), I think it is fair to say that he brought it up by giving only partial support for the Civil Rights act.
Pauls statement of only partial support for the Act may be an unfortunately convenient intersection of of libertarian dogma and racist worldview, or an indication of Rand Paul’s true feelings on race, or a cynical wedge issue dogwhistle that depended on people not really knowing that the provisions of the Civil Rights Act are. Whatever the case, I don’t think Paul was forced into this. He was out there with it.
So, I hear Paul thinks saying that a foreign corporation should be made to pay for the mess it made (that increasingly appears to be due to gross negligence in the quest of hyper profit maximization) is unAmerican. Does that mean he will be forced into discussing his views on corporate liability laws?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@jl:
Yes. Asking him about the Civil Rights Act or corporate liability law is perfectly legitimate, so long as we characterize his responses correctly.
maus
Uh, the Pauls’ are most certainly against the FDA and have spoken out against it and every federal agency, which can be replaced with “certification” industries like Underwriters’ Laboratories.
No, really. Every single federal oversight agency. This is what they have stated, and this is not being hidden or minimized.
cleek
i’m not saying he was forced into it, either. it’s more a question of how he chooses to characterize himself; and do we acknowledge that, or do we keep attacking a strawman ?
the way i’m reading things is that there’s a growing meme around here, and elsewhere: Paul is the End The CRA Now! guy, and that he chose to start his campaign off that way, and he wants to be known for that, and that it’s a silly thing for him to do because the number of people who would vote for such a person isn’t great, etc..
but (it sounds like) he didn’t do that. he just gave his honest opinion when asked about it in a general interview. he’s not out there explicitly campaigning on repealing the CRA. he knows perfectly well that’s an unpopular position to take. and he’s clearly trying to walk it back as fast as he can.
his opinions are fair game, of course. but we shouldn’t pretend he based his campaign or his public image or whatever on something that he didn’t.
liberty60
Libertarians and Tea Partiers are in the same position here- that their absolutist theories collapse in the face of their consequences-
they want to cut spending, but not anything that is difficult, which is to say all of it;
they want limited government, but one that has the power to waive habeas corpus if you are a scary brown terrist;
they want to keep 1,000 military bases around the world, but have a small government to do it with; and so on.
There is a perfectly good reason why we have never had a Libertarian city council or state government.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
Whaddaya mean “new”? Libertarian has been the cover story for pot-smoking Republicans for years now.
There are more of them because of the damage that Bush did to the Republican brand while he was in office, but just like “Tea Party” members are just far-right Republicans under a new name, the vast majority of libertarians are Republicans with one or two objections to the main platform.
Paris
Libertarians are idiots.Rand Paul represents them very well. Every nut case idea he presents just shows that Libertarianism contains infantile beliefs that have no connection to reality.
Elise
He’s already doing those things. He’s already said he wanted to abolish the ADA, the Dept of Commerce, Education, and Agriculture – including the food inspection service.
Paris
From the sillivan link:
The man is clearly insane or a child.
Brachiator
@cleek:
You’re right. It’s a minor point. The major point is that most libertarians are inevitably hoist on their own petards at any number of points on the Libertarian Trail, since their philosophy tends towards the belief that an outrageous social outcome is acceptable as long as it is not coerced by the government.
Paul’s stance has been applauded by a spokesperson for the Libertarian party as being pretty good stuff. These people don’t see that he had any reason at all to avoid this topic of discussion.
What’s more a Cato Institute analysis of the Civil Rights Act sees the attempts by blacks to achieve equality as an attempt to use the state to unfairly assert power.
I guess that this is some kind of Uppity Principle since blacks otherwise only have the “liberty” interest to be kept down by white people, unless the mighty power of the invisible hand of the free market decides to provide uplift instead of a bitchslap.
But this has little to do with dog whistles. It is the inevitable collision of the rigidly juvenile fantasy of libertarian beliefs with history and reality. It doesn’t matter that the issue was Civil Rights.
Ask libertarians if they approve of Wal-Mart pulling a line of Miley Cyrus-brand necklaces and bracelets from its shelves after tests found that the jewelry contained high levels of the toxic metal cadmium, and they would likely answer, “Boy, howdy!”
However, ask if they would approve if either the federal or state government mandated a recall, and watch them wriggle.
sneezy
@cleek:
I don’t really understand why that matters. The guy has repeatedly expressed (and now only sort of retracted) the view that privately-owned businesses should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of whatever they please, presumably including race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, whatever.
That’s his view. What does it matter whether he brought the topic up for discussion in a particular instance or not?
For the record, he expressed similar views regarding housing in a 2002 letter to the editor of the Bowling Green Daily News, and it’s safe to assume that was unsolicited.
cleek
again…
people are saying he is explicitly running on the idea of repealing the CRA when, in fact, he is not.
Tim F said this:
Rand did not “start with the Civil Rights Act”. the issue took off from a comment he made in an interview that was not explicitly about the CRA. it’s perfectly obvious that he doesn’t even want to discuss the issue, at all, with anyone. and he’s canceling high-profile interviews (MTP) to avoid even the chance of discussing it.
ok. that’s new info to me. and it does change things a bit.
Hob
@cleek: If the words “Civil Rights Act” had never come out of Paul’s mouth at all, he certainly would be running as the end-the-CRA candidate – even more than he is now – because that’s the logical consequence of the doctrine he proclaims. Paul has gone to some trouble to explain that despite having some traditional Republican beliefs, he’s actually a hard-core doctrinaire libertarian Tea Partier who wants to do away with pretty much all federal regulation. So if he didn’t bother to make some exception for this extremely well-known piece of federal regulation that affects a lot of people, it’s only logical to either ask him about it or assume the worst.
I mean say there is some other guy, let’s call him Raul Pound, who calls himself a proud Stalinist and runs under the banner of the American Stalinist Party; and he makes speeches about how we have to put the boot of government on the throat of the capitalist oppressor, and stamp out counter-revolutionary sedition; and his platform consists of nationalizing the auto industry, nationalizing the shipyards, nationalizing agriculture, deporting all Jews, and shooting all journalists. But maybe he never specifically took a position on whether to also nationalize the steel mills, deport the Gypsies, and shoot the bloggers. Would it be some kind of misleading “gotcha” if an interviewer asked him for his positions on those things? Maybe so, but steelworkers, Gypsies, and bloggers might be forgiven for being really curious to hear more on that subject.
[edited to add extra Stalinism]
Chris
“Someone in Paul’s staff must have tried to wave him off of provoking a completely gratuitous argument about race.”
I wouldn’t bet on it. I suspect Paul’s staff doesn’t have the standard moderate-liberal awareness of “things you’re just not supposed to do.”
And I wouldn’t assume that he attacked civil rights as a “completely gratuitous argument about race”; we’ve got a black president, much of the conservative antipathy towards Obama focuses on his being black (though it’s ultimately because he’s a *Democrat*; any Democrat would earn their ire and whatever identity or policies they were easily identified with would be the stuff conservatives would bitch about most transparently), and conservatives are getting an awful lot of media traction and policy successes (if not electoral victories) by being the next generation of the John Birch Society, so why wouldn’t they do this?
LibertarianAtheist
This man is a complete disgrace. I was thinking that maybe at least he’d be better than the Democrat, since it’s not like they’re about to stop the war on drugs or the wars in the Mideast or do anything about or investigate any of the Bush/Cheney terror policies, but now he’s just shitting on the term “libertarian.” What a complete fucking disgrace.
mclaren
@Tim F:
Your axiom seems fallacious. Lots ‘n lots of people in America do find the repeal of the Civil Rights Act “reasonable and appealing.”
The U.S. of A. remains an incredibly racist country.
maus
@LibertarianAtheist:
He’s not for stopping the war on drugs. He’s for stopping the FEDERAL war on drugs, just as he’s for stopping the FDA and its stranglehold over food and drug safety.