Last night Rachel Maddow and newly elected Tea Party icon Rand Paul son of Congressman Ron Paul square off over the Civil Rights Act..
This should give you some keen insight into the political mindset of the Pauls and what they are ultimately about..
Here’s a brief summary from Mediaite
Since last Tuesday, it’s been morning after week for Kentucky Senate Republican candidate Rand Paul. While he recorded interviews at NPR and The O’Reilly Factor today, he didn’t waste any time booking himself for the toughest interview he could find. Tonight, that interview was on The Rachel Maddow Show. Don’t be deceived by the lack of shouting– this was by far the most heated exchange of the night across cable news.
It wasn’t the first time Paul was on the program– in fact, he had announced his candidate for Kentucky Senate on The Rachel Maddow Show months before. But last night’s interview was almost like a science experiment: put two of the most ideologically pure people in the politi-media world together to challenge each other on one of the issues they each care about the most. For Paul, that issue is the rights of the individual and the danger of the federal government stepping over them. For Rachel Maddow, the issue is institutional discrimination and the moral obligation to abolish it. That, at least, is how each one of them saw the respective problems and successes of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which Paul had been coming under attack for allegedly opposing.
While, as he has before, Paul reiterated that he personally hates racism and, for the most part, likes the Civil Rights Act, he is definitely giving people the space to assume that he would be ok with segregated businesses, because he expects the practice to negatively affect a business so much that the market wold take care of eliminating racism without the government getting in the way. It’s a consistent application of his ideology, but Maddow counters that, in practice, the market just hasn’t proven enough of a detractor to ensure that racism will not be institutionalized.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3O2rBz9gwo
Like father, like son…
He danced around the questions. Here’s a thought: Does making a business owner serve everybody stop them from being racist? Or does it just make racists money, seeing as how you could not know they were prejudiced. What’s then to stop them from serving you, but trying to get over on you in some way? Can the law regulate people into righteousness?
One legitimate argument for the downside of the civil rights act, mars, but it doesn’t come close to matching the upside of it.
two white people discussing racism…what’s missing from this picture?
^^ a person of color lol
I wish they would of gotten down to the “abstract philisophical” ideas. That’s what the argument is really over, ideologies. He talked himself in a hole, he should of just answered flat out. I liked the question about “legal remedies for persistant discrimination. what if a private business wanted to not serve blacks, or gays or anyone else based on a characteristic that the business owner didn’t like?
The gun owner answer was interesting. If the law protects equal rights regarding race, religion and sexuality in all public places, should it extend to other areas of the bill of rights? If a person went into a black owned business w/ a kkk t-shirt should they be kicked out b/c it offends the owner? Should someone allow a religion onto their property that they do not agree with? As we can see, prejudices haven’t gone anywhere. Rachel Maddow asked “what if we de-segregated?” But it’s not like we’re all mixed together. People still separate themselves based on, not just color, but hobbies, pay grade, etc. So if the law can not stop these negativities, why should the owner of a property, who has invested their time and money into the property, be forced to patronize those they do not like simply based on the feelings of the offended party? I fully understand Civil Rights and it’s legacy. I agree w/ the statutes on public funded institutions, but on money that is given freely, on choice, that area is sticky. How did Civil Rights come about in the first place? Through grass roots organizing, the market spoke up and boycotted. What would stop that today? Why can’t one simply choose not to patronize an establishment? A violent act against person and property is a more intolerable act than simply denying access to a commodity. Should the law just protect these acts?
Here’s an interesting argument: We should limit the spread of racism institutionally and it’s economic justification for it. I agree but what are the economic justifications?
Rand Paul comes across as a jerk, who basically wants to uplift Jim-Crow era nostalgia, without acknowledging that people of color were oppressed tremendously. Too bad he’s apparently got mainstream political momentum, here. I hope progressives can strike back and organize.