Normally, I’d cut this video down from its full 19 minutes, but truly, to appreciate the wonderfulness of Maddow’s approach and the sidestepping Rand Paul attempts to avoid the corner Maddow in which deftly places him, you really must watch the whole thing.
And boy, does Rand Paul squirm under the surgical questioning of Rachel Maddow. He never answers her questions, and how can he? His stance makes no sense. Taylor Marsh:
It’s the nakedness and naïveté of Mr. Paul’s views on civil rights laws, that legislation should not impact businesses, that is not only evidence that he’s unfit for Congress, but that he’s actually dangerous. To think that the United States would no longer require laws to protect minorities is just ignorant and lacking in experience in the real world.
As for his anti-women’s rights views, especially on individual freedoms, it’s absolutely discriminatory against women. It’s appalling in this day and age that a doctor would believe that women should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term against her will. The editorial board found his views “repellent” and they are correct. To say that the unborn has “equal” rights to the woman is simply wrong.
I think Taylor hit it on the head: his naïveté is dangerous. Like many–if not most–“isms”, libertarianism may make sense on an academic level, but only when conceived in vacuum of intellectual exercises. In the gritty friction of the real world, the exercise falls apart. To say that only publicly owned entities should be legislated from discriminating ignores centuries of oppression and injustice. Glibly dismissing any real examples such as the Woolworth’s lunch counter by claiming his “abhorrence of racism” and saying that people would vote with their dollar to not patronize those business is laughably naive.
Obviously, the tea party adulation, in all its authoritarian and uncritical glory, did not prepare Rand Paul for prime time. He’s clearly uncomfortable with follow up questions and being confronted with his own stances. Even though he brought it on himself by telling the Louisville Courier-Journal and NPR that he thought the Civil Rights Act should be done away with, Paul whines about “red herrings” and that the act is forty years old, so why is anyone asking him about it? Joan Walsh:
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.
Methinks Paul better get used to having to answer for his tacit endorsement of racism and oppression of minorities, especially if Tweety’s outrage is any indication of the larger media response. That may play well with the teabaggers, but they’re not going to win Paul the elections. If I was Jack Conway, I’d be smiling right now.
Vodpod videos no longer available.##############################
Rand Paul On ‘Maddow’ Defends Criticism Of Civil Rights Act, Says He Would Have Worked To Change Bill (VIDEO)
Huff Post- First Posted: 05-20-10 02:13 AM | Updated: 05-20-10 02:21 AM
Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul believes that the federal government blurred the lines between public and private property when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and made it illegal for private businesses to discriminate on the basis of race.
Paul explained his views on “The Rachel Maddow Show” Wednesday, just one day after wholloping his opponent in Kentucky’s Republican primary.
Maddow focused on the Tea Party-backed candidate’s civil rights stance after he publicly criticized parts of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Paul told Maddow that he agrees with most parts of the Civil Rights Act, except for one (Title II), that made it a crime for private businesses to discriminate against customers on the basis of race. Paul explained that had he been in office during debate of bill, he would have tried to change the legislation. He said that it stifled first amendment rights:
Maddow: Do you think that a private business has a right to say that ‘We don’t serve black people?’Paul: I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race. But do discriminate.
But I think what’s important in this debate is not getting into any specific “gotcha” on this, but asking the question ‘What about freedom of speech?’ Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent. Should we limit racists from speaking. I don’t want to be associated with those people, but I also don’t want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that’s one of the things that freedom requires is that
we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn’t mean we approve of it…
Leave a comment