Rand Paul: I’m MLK and Frederick Douglass
I really think Sarah Palin has previewed the strategy for Republican candidates in the future. Here are the new media rules for Republican candidates:
1) If you have a bad interview, blame the media and “gotcha” questions. You know, questions like “What do you read?” are so unfair. Also, questions about things you previously said are extremely unfair, especially if people pay attention to them and find them appalling.
2) Avoid hard questions, only take question from fawning Fox party operatives
3) Issue statements through Facebook
Rand Paul’s already at the avoid hard questions phase and now he’s issuing his own defense, this time through the Bowling Green Daily News. After accusing the media of lying for reporting what he actually said Rand Paul gives us this defense:
I am unlike many folks who run for office. I am an idealist. When I read history I side with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas who fought for 30 years to end slavery and to integrate public transportation in the free North in the 1840s. I see our failure to end slavery for decade after decade as a failure of weak-kneed politicians.
I cheer the abolitionist Lysander Spooner, who argued that slavery was unconstitutional 20 years before the Civil War. I cheer Lerone Bennet when he argues that the right of habeas corpus guaranteed in the Constitution should have derailed slavery long before the Civil War.
Only when the brave idealists, the abolitionists, finally provoked the weak-kneed politicians into action, did the emancipation proclamation come about. Our body politic has enough pragmatists, we need a few idealists.
Segregation ended only after a great and momentous uprising by idealists like Martin Luther King Jr., who provoked weak-kneed politicians to action.
…
For example, I am opposed to the government telling restaurant owners that they cannot allow smoking in their establishments. I believe we as consumers can choose whether to patronize a smoke-filled restaurant or do business with a smoke-free option.
Smoking – it’s just like Civil Rights! I totally see that parallel. Paul is just like MLK, except he supports legal segregation. I’m sure the King family is preparing their endorsement announcement as we speak.
What depressing to me is that Rand Paul is still the favorite to win that Kentucky Senate seat.
Additional: Ph.D. Octopus explains how Paul gets the history wrong on William Lloyd Garrison.
Tags: Freedom Clowns, KY-Sen, Rand Paul
Rand Paul is incapable of seeing shades of gray. It’s the free market or nothing … and while I have no qualms with the free marketing in general, it’s not a corporal entity that deserves the freedoms he’d like to give it.
Well, here’s a lighter look at Rand Paul – hope you enjoy:
http://bit.ly/asYks5
Rand Paul doesn’t see shades of gray. He also doesn’t see reality. We tried things his way. Segregation last 100 years until the government legislated it away. I don’t want strong-kneed idealists who don’t understand the real world.
Wrong U. I. Segregation existed until we repealed the legislation that mandated it. Segregation did not occur because of the market place. It occurred because Democrats imposed it by law.
Wrong, Delusional David. Legislation that mandated Jim Crow and the like did not exist everywhere in the US. Habits and traditions that kept brown and black people separate were,indeed, everywhere.
Did government have a duty to ban it? Yes, the system was poisoned by state imposed racism. It could only be remedied by affirmatively standing for people’s rights. Now what is interesting is only the left is talking about it as some issue. No one ever proposed interfering with Civil Rights regime and everyone involved always said they stand by it and against weakening it. Save your outrage for the real issues.
Did anyone notice that in his rush to try to claim the mantle of civil rights leaders, that he can’t spell some of them?
And this:
Only when the brave idealists, the abolitionists, finally provoked the weak-kneed politicians into action, did the emancipation proclamation come about.
Is *way* too simplistic.
The free market did not solve segregation. The court cases in the 1870s basically took the federal government out (like Rand Paul wants to do) and left it to local government. They didn’t hesitate to impose Jim Crow by force of their law, and expected the government to uphold it. It certainly didn’t disappear. It went away because the federal government mandated it away.
No one ever proposed interfering with Civil Rights regime
Except Rand Paul, of course.
Did anyone notice that in his rush to try to claim the mantle of civil rights leaders, that he can’t spell some of them?
Yep. Obviously he’s not a scholar of the civil rights movement.
Count how many times Paul uses “weak-kneed” in that short excerpt.
Cass–interestingly segregation did not exist everywhere either. You had a few outposts in different places, but it was a factor where it was imposed by law. Understand that even places like OH and CT segregated schools at one point. The reason they had to pass a law is because the power of the dollar was greater than that of Antebellum culture. Blacks and whites were mingling and making business deals–how horrible to the KKK crowd that dominated the Democrat party. There had to be a law to stop it.
Seriously was there not a difference between going to Philly and Virginia. My father was born and raised in Delaware lived for a time in Philly and then moved to Virginia. There was a huge difference between Philly and Wilmington and a difference between Wilmington and Arlington. What was the fact that distinguished between them? The law
Laws matter. I am just saying don’t blame the market for the law imposed upon it.