The problem with Rand Paul isn't that he is a racist. It is that he is a fool.
In speaking with Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show, Paul probably sunk his own Tea Party-Republican candidacy for the Senate. Everything was there. The references to William Lloyd Garrison, the abstruse discussion about the Civil Rights Act, the loopy comments about forcing restaurant owners to accept someone toting guns onto their property -- all testify to the bizarre mental world that Paul inhabits. Why is he even discussing the Civil Rights Act in 2010? Shall we debate the decision to intervene in World War II, while we're at it?
Maddow kept trying to throw Paul lifelines, to drag him back to the shores of reality, but Paul just kept blathering on, blissfully and cheerfully oblivious to his own lunacy. For much of the time, he engaged in self-pity about how the media was distorting his comments, but they don't even require interpretation. They refute themselves.
It's one thing to encounter a verbally incontinent doctor when you're confined in a medical chair, where he can't really do much harm, apart from boring you to tears. But it's quite another to make him your Senator. This garrulous gasbag is so crazy that he makes Kentucky's current Senator Jim Bunning look like the soul of rationality.
Is it something in the bluegrass that produces these kooks in Kentucky? The upside is that Paul's primary victory will ensure that, if nothing else, the Kentucky race will continue to provide ample political fodder for the rest of the year.
It's almost enough to make you think that Democrats helped Paul overcome Trey Grayson by switching party registration for the Kentucky primary. They can only hope for more confessions from Paul and that he continues to party on. This is an opthamologist who can't see straight.
Eddie Glaude, Jr., Ph.D.: The Souls of Some White Folks
Some will argue, as many have, that Rand Paul's comments about Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act were consistent with his libertarian principles. However, freedom-talk without justice-talk is empty and, potentially, dangerous.
I buy into aspects of libertarianism such as their social freedom agenda. I don't buy into the economic libertarianism.
Rand can't be a libertarian either.
He doesn't buy into what I buy into, and buys into what I disagree with.
So, he's just a flavor of flavor of Republican.
Hooray! It was breathtaking to watch reality overwhelm him. Democracy works!
I have a small measure of respect for Paul and his father, both courageously anti-war during the Bush years and to this day.
I think Rand Paul's election is positive in that America (and Republicans among themselves) are going to have to talk about and demystify the whole Ayn Rand B.S. it built the last 30 years of Reaganomics on.
Voltaire
The Story of Philosophy
Will Durant
Karl Marx
For an example of why he is right to talk about the extent of government intervention in private business, look no further than the recent history of eHarmony. This web-based dating service was founded by a Christian marriage counselor to help single people meet potential mates for the purpose of long-term compatibility. It had great success, making money and making lots of customers happy.
It was then sued by a homosexual man because the service did not allow him to meet other men. Despite the fact that there were many alternative sites for such purposes, the law supported this claim of discrimination. After millions of dollars in legal costs, eHarmony settled the suit and agreed to create a version of their product that catered to homosexuals. The lawsuits continued and, just this year, eHarmony had to settle again and significantly change its business model when it was sued by a bi-sexual man who was unduly inconvenienced by the fact that he had to use two different eHarmony sites to meet his needs.
The point is that this kind of abuse of our legal system and harassment of private businesses is what Rand Paul is talking about. It is the result of legislation with a good purpose - eliminating the segregation and Jim Crow laws - being carried to a ridiculous extreme 40 years later.
Eya, that's why that PATRIOT Act is still around. Tyranny of the majority and all that. A republic can fall quite easily. It's happened before and it will happen again. Libertarians prefer to postpone that as long as possible.
The Republican Party is being hollowed out from within by the wackos.
Madddow wasnt throwing Paul lifelines, she was trying to trap Paul into saying something that she could run around with later to denouce him with....
Pauls respones were not 'loopy,' he was being artful and was trying to deflect Maddow....the issue was 10% of the civil rights bill of 1964, and Paul didnt bring it up, it was a 'gotcha' interview..which Paul handeld fairly well. That 10% might be better addressed by state legislation and not federal, thats all. No big deal here..
What is most revealing about him however, and this is now perfectly obvious, is his total lack of skills as a politician - the kind of politician you simply must be to get elected. I'm not saying a raging politician here - I'm using politician in the sense of having the street-smarts to go from one election to another. The smarts on how to turn your ship from the right (or left, as it may be) to the middle - and quickly!
But this guy, based on his comments AFTER the election - after he had it wrapped up, declared the victor, given the nod to represent his party, stayed right where he's been - even went further to the right.
Yea, there are some people who will absolutely love what he says about not allowing people into a private business. But what he apparently doesn't realize - what the Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks of the country - what the arch conservatives of the country - refuse to realize (and perhaps thankfully so) is that their views are of only a slim minority of the population.
So it's going to be fun watching him - make that listening to him over the upcoming 5 months and realizing that it's all good if you happen to be a Democrat.