GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul still wages war against civil rights. And we really shouldn't be surprised since Paul has repeatedly gotten into hot water nearly every time he opens his mouth about anything that remotely touches on race. But this time Paul sailed past the outer limits with his defiant boast that he would not have voted for the landmark 1964 civil rights bill. That's right the 1964 bill; a bill that's been the law of the land for nearly six decades, and Paul still opposes.
Paul's rap against the bill is just as absurd and tortured as the rap that Southern Democrats and Northern GOP conservatives who bottled the bill up for more than a year in Congress used to pretty up their opposition to it. It violated property rights. Paul, nearly six decades after their efforts failed, tells Chris Matthews, "...I'm for property rights and for state's rights, and therefore I'm a racist, that's just outlandish."
But what else would you call it? The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment wiped away the bogus claim that property rights trumps racial discrimination a century before Paul and Jim Crow maintenance proponents used this ploy to torpedo the civil rights bill. There's method, though, to Paul's silly and repeated knock of the law. He's now a declared 2012 GOP presidential candidate. And he knows full well that there are legions of frustrated, disgusted, even enraged defrocked GOP backers and purported libertarians that are desperate to have an alternative to the drab, lackluster, and downright zany cast of would be GOP presidential contenders.
Paul gives those desperate for an alternative exactly what they want. That's a candidate who will say anything to tweak the establishment. Paul actually garnered a 49 percent approval rating in the recent AP-GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. That high an approval rating put him far ahead of Minnesota representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, and former Utah Gov. and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman in the GOP favorability derby.
The cornerstone of his appeal is his view of government and what it should or should not do about civil rights. Paul holds that government should have minimal, or better still, no role in civil rights laws and enforcement. The government passed and enforced civil rights laws, did nothing to solve the country's racial ills, and worse, fueled even more racial polarization, he says. That old, worn, and thoroughly discredited view warms the hearts of the packs of closet bigots that pine for the old days when racial and gender discrimination was the American norm and government did little to protect black and gay rights.
On his campaign website ronpaul2008.com, Paul highlighted this as "Issue: Racism." "Government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combat bigotry." In other words, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of education school desegregation decision, the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and legions of court decisions and state laws that bar discrimination are worthless. Worse, said Paul, they actually promoted bigotry by dividing Americans into race and class.
Paul was outraged during his short lived presidential bid in 2008 when he was dinged as a racist when the above, as well as embarrassing newsletters that were either written by Paul or authorized by Paul on his sites in the 1990s (along with racially front loaded inflammatory quips that bashed blacks), was cited. The Paul-attributed digs and insults called blacks chronic welfare grifters, thugs, lousy parents, and said they are inherently racist toward whites. Paul vehemently denied that he said any of those things.
The quips appeared in his officially approved newsletters. There is no evidence that he wrote a correction, or issued a clarification. The jury then and now is still out on whether those views truly represent his feelings or not. He loudly protests that he's not a racist now because he has to if he is to have any credibility as a serious presidential contender.
But an anti-civil rights position linked directly to the old property rights canard is another matter. It fits neatly into the stock libertarian argument that the best thing that government can do is stay out of the affairs of private citizens and private business. That the root of America's woes -- bloated spending, soaring deficits, congressional gridlock, crippling energy dependence, massive tax disparities, the drug plague, and even America's wars are the result of top heavy government interference and intrusion in the lives of Americans. Paul also knows that spicing up the horribly distorted Jeffersonian principle of limited government with race is always a good catch all.
It is a surefire way to get the media and public attention, and to get back in the political hunt. Fallen media curiosity Donald Trump used the race tact to masterful effectiveness by recycling the birther craziness about President Obama's birth certificate. It didn't last, but he got his 15 minutes.
Paul will get more than that. Unlike Trump he's a politician who knows how to get and sustain attention. And knocking civil rights when all else fails is always good for that.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com. Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Why doesn't anybody ever talk about the black sheep in the family, Ru?
but seriously, we are just arguing over 2nd place
These he can do and no other candidate or sitting President or representive will do it without being urged strongly by the people. Sending Ron Paul to the Presidency will be that strong urging. Lets drop all our differences and concentrate on getting this man elected to get the job done. There should be no fear of this man (founded or unfounded), and any fears should be dispelled by the fact that he can not change most things on his own. A checks & balances government!
Personally, I think he's perfect for the job and the times are saying he is the only man for the job.
I truly believe our government is out of control and will be the death of us.
Also, liberty.
“If the framers of the Constitution were somehow to come back, Ron Paul is one of possibly only three people in Congress that they’d even talk to...â€
Walter E. Williams, Washington Times
February 8, 2007
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/05/cnn-poll-still-no-front-runner-in-the-battle-for-the-gop-nomination/
The question must be asked: If human beings have Unalienable God given rights why do they need Civil Rights, considering that Unalienable Rights, by there very nature, supersede all others?
So I suspect that it's all about control. "Let us deny people their Unalienable Rights so that we can substitute Civil Rights for them instead. For Civil Rights are ours to grant and revoke as we see fit, control those who would speak or act not as we desire, but Unalienable Rights are only the province of our Creator and make other men our equal in freedom and liberty."
That's a big 'if'.
They're also rights that have gone unexercised for most of human history and even today in most of the world.
Disagree on the issues, but don't offer lies and smears.
If you and the neocons destroy him, then who will fight these causes? Obama? ROFLMAO.
Smart man this professor of yours.
Prior to the 14th Amendment there was no such thing as a US Citizen. There were only natural born state citizens with protected natural or unalienable rights who, only by virtue of their states participation in the Union, where they citizens of the united States of America.
Not all freed slaves were granted citizenship in their States where thy lived, which would guarantee them Natural Rights. So Congress granted them the Civil Rights through the 14th amendment the domicile of which is the District of Columbia.
Thus two classes of citizenship were born:
1) the State citizen would continue to be a member of "We the People," the sovereign lawmakers of the Constitution for the united States of America who possessed Unalienable Rights as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, and
2) a second class of citizen who did not. A 14th Amendment Citizen. For the Constitution is only valid within the geographical limits of the Union. D.C. is not part of that union and thus Citizens who reside there are not protected by it. D.C. is governed unlike any other geographic area in North America and does not posses a republican for of government as the Constitution requires of Sates in the Union.
1.) You haven't read anything by him, you don't really know what he stands for. You can't rely on the media, they are all liars and h@te Ron Paul.
2.) You just don't UNDERSTAND what he's saying, because anyone who understands him agrees with him.
3.) You must be asleep. (That's my favorite!)
Okay, so hear this....I have read his book, I am fully awake, I understand him perfectly well and I still do not agree with the man. In fact, a large majority of the country doesn't agree with this man on very critical issues.
This is not to say that ALL of the man's ideas are terrible, but even the sun shines on a dog's @ss once and awhile.
Or, you can just be like everyone else and disagree with his opinion on something that has no bearing on current events.
So please, I'd love to hear.
2.) His position on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and government assistance to begin with. Let's just say that the government is not exactly the bastion of foresight and planning and those programs were put in place in response to a crisis
3.) His position that medical treatment is not basic human right. That one I SO soundly disagree with, it's plenty enough for it to trump everything else.
4.) His position that abortion is something that should be left up to the states, thereby putting an undue burden on people who live in states that would outlaw it to exercise the most basic tenant of freedom and liberty, which is control over your own body.
Are those specific enough for you?
Until we start respecting each other as individuals with individual and differing views on issues, we aren't going anywhere. This applies to EVERYONE here, yes, even you dbishop76.
These were people that I believed were my friends, but when I started disagreeing with them on these very basic fundamental issues, they quickly turned into enemies- and it was certainly not by my doing. So, yeah, in general I got turned off by the whole lot.