INTERVIEWER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
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.
INTERVIEWER: But?
PAUL: You had to ask me the “but.” I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.To recap, Kentucky's "Next Senator" thinks racism is bad, and thinks racism in publicly funded institutions is bad...but defends the rights of private citizens and private businesses to be able to discriminate if they so choose. You know, private businesses like ophthalmologists.
Now I know I say the following a lot, but this time I really do mean it: it gets worse, kids.
INTERVIEWER: But under your philosophy, it would be okay for Dr. King not to be served at the counter at Woolworths?Indeed. Sometimes those boorish people with abhorrent behavior run for the United States Senate, too. Voters like myself sometimes get the opportunity to make sure they do everything they can to make sure such behavior is not rewarded with a Senate seat, too.
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.
And that's exercising my constitutional rights to free speech.
Bye, Rand. Taylor Marsh has more on this at HuffPo.
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16 comments:
So now you're criminalizing Rand Paul based on his opinion. There's your liberal open-mindedness in action...
What did he say that was wrong?
Honestly, if a business doesn't want you to buy from them because you're *insert reason here* they should have that right. In the end its their loss, screw them, they lost money and regardless of skin color, race, or religion money spends the same in America.
Also it's true that these same people are protected under first amendment rights. Hey if a church can protest at a soldiers funeral than people can say racist things.
It's completely asinine, but still protected.
We've come a long way from the days of the KKK, etc (which btw Robert Byrd was in) but there will always be people hating one another for whatever reason, and in America they have the right to speak about it.
Plus who doesn't enjoy a good old Priest and a Rabbi joke
"It's completely asinine, but still protected."
100% true. Whatever happened to "I may disagree with your opinion but I will fight for your right to have that opinion" there, Zandar?
Why are you advocating this position as a thought crime just because it's unpopular? And both Rand Paul and Waffles are correct. You absolutely should have the right not to patronize establishments who discriminate, and people who agree with that discrimination also have the right to free association and to patronize those private establishments that have that policy.
Let the free markets decide, not the government.
The argument breaks down because no business is truly 100% private. Unless you produce your own power, have property outside a city zoning ordnance, have your own firefighting and policing of the property, have your own water and sanitation system and all of the merchandise you sell is from private business, you're using the benefits of public money in there somewhere.
And actually your arguments are at least consistent, unlike Paul. Paul backtracks on his argument a number of times in that LCJ interview and just looks like somebody who's not smart enough to defend racism as "freedom of association".
Besides, he's running for the United States Senate, which last time I checked is not a private enterprise. Ergo, advocating discrimination (the action, not racism the opinion, the former is criminalized in our society but his opinion is not, get the facts straight please Arc) should in fact immediately disqualify him as a United States Senator by his own argument.
Have a nice day.
Isn't their job to uphold the constitution?
Let me re-read that first amendment...
I'm not in disagreement with you about the fact that it's quite frankly dumb and people do abuse the hell out of the 1st Amendment, however unless there are actions beyond speech being a racist isn't illegal.
Granted I personally think Rand Paul is an idiot for his views on terrorism and the like.
Now if he himself is a racist then yes he shouldn't be allowed in the Senate however I go back to Robert Byrd who has show us in the past his belief's and he's still allowed in as well. Let's be fair across the board.
I continue to be amazed at how far technology has come in my lifetime.
The ability to pre-schedule comments to other peoples comments is an amazing feat, rivaling that of the car in this mans opinion.
Simply fascinating.
By that logic Robert Byrd should have been kicked long ago, and yet he's been a Senator for decades.
Which party is advocating and tolerating discrimination here? It's not the Republicans with the KKK background, Zandar.
You're losing this one quite badly, and so will Jack Conway come November...
Holy hell, you know you're wrong when Strom Thurmond comes back from the grave to tell you you're wrong!
And since you've broken your own rules here's a Rasmussen poll from last night showing Rand Paul up by twenty-five points in KY.
I suppose everyone in Kentucky other than yourself is just a mean old horrible racist, or are you finally going to admit that A) Rand Paul will win easily and B) there's serious merit to his argument and that as a Senator he should perhaps look at changing some of these anti-discrimination laws which are not working in the least?
Also RCP
Paul is ahead in all polls
Alright.
To recap, both of you are arguing that there should be the right for private citizens to be able to discriminate based on race.
That's an interesting hypothetical, but we had this fight 45 years ago, and that viewpoint lost. And from a strictly cynical political view, running on a platform of repealing parts of the Civil Rights Act or the ADA is not exactly a winner in 2010.
I do not see Paul holding that 25 point lead for long, even in a Rasmussen poll.
If you're trying to avoid the association in the mind of the voter of "Tea Party = Racism" then even you have to admit this not the way to accomplish it.
Even Rand Paul himself is now completely backtracking on his statements from yesterday.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding, normally even you are not so dense. The argument is you can say racist things, not discriminate.
Dictionary.com definite "Racist" as a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
Dictionary.com defines "Discriminate" to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality
Discriminating is wrong and against the law.
OK.
I concede the point. Rand Paul is not a racist. I still believe he is advocating the right to discriminate, but I cannot prove through his statements that he is a racist.
He is however a complete idiot and he's made a really moronic political mistake that will most likely end up costing him this election.
For the record, I put my right to be free of discrimination ahead of the rights of business owners to be able to discriminate against me. I believe a whole lot of people would do that same thing, including Kentucky voters.
So we agree to disagree on Rand Paul.
I'm still not convinced this will cost him the election though. I'm sure he'll say something else dumb along the way, but this one instance will be forgotten about in a month or so by the majority.
If Jack Conway's campaign people let the Kentucky voters forget about this after a month, then actually Paul deserves to win because Conway's an even bigger idiot.
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