The most important quote in American politics, from Lee Atwater:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff.
I *don’t* think that is what Rand Paul is doing here. He’s doing the opposite, in a way, spelling out his opposition to Civil Rights in a politically suicidal way for reasons I can’t ascertain. This may derail his Senate campaign. But it also appeals to racists:
In December, Chris Hightower, the spokesman for Paul’s senate campaign, was forced to resign after a liberal Kentucky blog discovered that his MySpace page had a comment posted around Martin Luther King Day that read: “HAPPY N***ER DAY!!!” above what appears to be a historical photo of the lynching of a black man.
What makes this whole discussion interesting isn’t figuring out whether Paul is racist or a Randian nut job or just an idiot, what’s interesting is that the entire modern Republican party is based on opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and yet it’s taboo to oppose the Civil Rights Act openly. Look, I know there’s taxes and foreign policy and blah blah blah, but the simple fact is that the south was dominated by Democrats before the Civil Rights Act and is dominated by Republicans today.
Can you think of another single issue that has completely changed the political climate of an entire region?
To take this one step further, the institution of slavery is often described as the “original sin” of the United States, but obviously there was nothing original about it. I’ll bet you that in any ancient civilization anywhere in the world, one of the first things people did once they’d figured out the really important stuff — how to feed themselves, how to produce booze and pornography, etc. — was start developing theories about why they were better than the people from nearby areas and why it might be a good idea to steal from these people and/or keep them as slaves. And so it is today, with William Saletan and the Bell Curve and Andrew Sullivan’s deranged readers.
Racism and tribalism have always been a big part of politics everywhere. Why do we have to keep pretending otherwise?
Jamie
The Confederacy: a septic wound that just won’t go away.
Gregory
Elvis Costello reference ftw.
And after quoting Lauryn Hill, double win!
El Cid
But the advocates and defenders of segregation weren’t racist either. They were all in favor of proper equalization of blacks and whites, they just wanted states to do it their way and on their timetable and do so free of judicial oppression. Of course segregation wasn’t racist. It was just all about the Constitution and states’ rights.
Lee Atwater wasn’t being racist, either — he was just explaining that at one time, it was electorally helpful to shout ‘n***** n***** n*****’, and at another time you used code phrases. They weren’t racists, just good political strategists entirely willing to appeal to racists and motivate race hatred and mythological prejudices among conservative and especially Southern whites in order to win elections.
How is defending segregation on a states’ rights and states’ methods platform and appealing to racists to get elected at all racist? We don’t know what all those people were thinking deep down in their hearts.
Cat Lady
You forgot to mention genocide and the original internment camps now known as reservations. That pretty much got the whole white European privelege ball rolling.
Gregory
On topic:
I disagree. The repetition of “institutional racism” on the Maddow show was an unmistakable dog whistle about affirmative action.
ETA:
And LBJ knew it, and signed it anyway.
And yet you still get those who sneer that the Democrats were racist in the ’40s, without noting which party welcomed the Dixiecrats with open arms.
Feh.
Matthew Reid Krell
Free Silver and the Midwest.
During Reconstruction, the Midwest was reliably Republican. Then the Grange arose and the Nevada silver mines opened up and when the Republican part tied itself to the gold standard, every single farmer in the Midwest went Populist (and eventually Democratic and/or DFL).
N.B.: I may be completely wrong about this.
Midnight Marauder
I don’t know. I’ve been wondering that about you and John after your performances thus far today.
What the fuck do you mean, you can’t “ascertain” why he’s doing this? THIS IS WHAT HE FUCKING BELIEVES, MAN! THIS IS FUCKING IT!
Can we please stop the front page apologizing for Rand Paul’s “collateral racism”? Please? It is honestly getting to be disgusting.
Rosalita
green balloons on the Rand Paul discussions?
liberty60
Which is why I am cool to using the word “racist”- not that it isn’t accurate in some cases, but it has become loaded with all sorts of cultural images that make it disappear.
Racism is so closely associated with Southern Klansmen that it allows polite Northerners and urban folks to distance themselves from it, even if they believe that there is in fact an ethnic group that is inferior.
Because tribalism is really the issue here- and yes, not just white people suffer from it. We just happen to be wielding the tools of power, so our tribalism packs a more painful punch.
But come midcentury, when we are in the minority, I suspect a lot of glibertarians and Republicans will suddenly take a keen historical interest in the theories of 1970’s era Afro-American Studies professors and topics like “Structural Racism in Media”
Patriot 3
teabaggers’ playbook:
g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/8b/49/2e95e03ae7a07d1b310e0210.L.jpg
KG
The Civil Rights Act is just part of it. The GOP – in particular, the dominant southern strain – is based on opposition to industrialization and modernization. By the end of the Civil War, they were hopelessly behind on industrialization (the History Channel’s mini-series “America: the Story of Us” had a great episode on this). But industrialization and modernization is the world we live in, by their nature, they lead to authority/power being more centrally concentrated.
They really want to have a pre-industrial government. I really don’t get it, at all. In 1789, when the constitution was written, if you needed a stove, you went to the local blacksmith who built one for you; commerce was almost exclusively local. Now, you want a stove, you go to a chain store (likely headquartered in some other state than where you live), who sells you a stove built by some other company (likely headquartered in a third state), who bought parts from countless other companies around the world.
It’s an old joke, but it’s very, very true: when in doubt, blame the Industrial Revolution.
Asshole
The issue of taxation without representation was pretty pivotal circa 1763…
El Cid
@liberty60:
For what it’s worth, it’s only been in recent years that South America has had its first completely indigenous leaders elected after 500 years since European colonialism, and in many countries the “Spanish” or “Portuguese” elites are still much more powerful than the indigenous, African, or mixed background majorities.
stuckinred
Wow, and I thought the Blumenthal shit got nasty yesterday!!
Linda Featheringill
Mr. Paul is a jerk. Accept and get over it. Let him go.
We have a world of problems to focus our attention on. Why don’t we address some of them?
Citizen Alan
@Midnight Marauder:
I don’t think anyone’s denying that Rand Paul is a scumbag. The issue is whether he’s a racist scumbag who actively hates black people or simply a libertarian nutjob scumbag who has nothing against blacks but is perfectly content to see them treated as second-class citizens if doing so will further his bizarre and failed ideology. I think the latter is probably more accurate but I don’t see the distinction as being important enough to care about. He’s a scumbag. Period.
DB
Read more of Atwater’s statement. Taxes are the same thing for them:
Derek
I agree, this is fucking ridiculous. The man is a racist. The end.
MattF
I’ve been expecting, since about Election Day 2008, that the question of Republicans and racism would arise– sooner or later. It’s interesting that it’s finally come up in such a complex, weird, indirect, ironic (via Ron Paul’s son!) way. But it really did have to come, eventually. So, I guess it’s possible to make predictions, but the future is always weirder than you expected.
And, oh yeah… racism is a fundamental problem for Republicans, and it’s not going away, ever.
Redshift
A couple of quibbles — “original sin” means (as it does in the Catholic context) the sin our country was born with, not that it was a new thing that no one had ever done before. The fact that it predates our independence means that it obviously wasn’t created by Americans.
Second, as I understand it, there is a difference between the chattel slavery of Africans and most (all?) of those historical instances you cite, which makes it more evil. Traditional slavery (like that described in the Bible, for example) didn’t include ownership of the slave’s descendants, which makes it self-perpetuating.
The point about racism’s role in politics from the beginning of civilization is well taken, however.
Lost Left Coaster
@Citizen Alan:
Huh? If he’s perfectly content to see black people treated as second-class citizens, then how is he not racist?
I don’t understand the space that some people are carving out here for people to be accepting of racial prejudice and yet not being racist themselves.
Gregory
@Linda Featheringill:
Because regardless of Paul’s motives, as Mnemosyne pointed out in the other thread, he supports bad policies, and in that he’s of a piece with Republicans in general.
The motivation behind his policies isn’t so relevant — it’s usually the GOP who goes after the Democrats for bad motives, including and especially Obama. And they do that because their policies by and large suck, except at enriching the wealthy, and they don’t want to talk about it.
Just like Paul doesn’t want to talk about the implications of his loony libertarian philosophy, this should be an opportunity to open up the discussion in where the other parts of the GOP’s rancid little philosophy (FYIGM) leads.
Derek
@Redshift:
I was going to link you to a “let me google that for you” so you could see that it’s a reference to an Elvis Costello song, but this blog post is already the #2 link on Google!
El Cid
@Redshift: I thought the original sin was the defiance of God’s law in eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and thus this was the throwing out of all humans from Paradise.
In this case, the ‘original sin’ of the USA would somehow be the act in which the entity to be considered as ‘America’ or the USA was cast out of paradise.
Many use the term to refer to the wiping out of Native American civilization, uniting the European’s American colonies’ history with the identity of the nation which formed out of them.
Midnight Marauder
@Citizen Alan:
And I’m not even really talking about the fact of whether he is a scumbag. I was addressing DougJ’s contention that he is clueless and at a loss to understand why Rand Paul would get his general election campaign off to such a seemingly fatal start. I am saying, what the fuck are you confused about? This is exactly who this guy is. He is an asshole whose worldview places private property rights above the ability for minorities to have any grievances addressed by the government (or any central authority figure, for that matter).
Again, who gives a shit if this guy is objectively anti-black people? What I do know is that his entire governing philosophy would come at the expense of people of color, the disabled, and any other endangered or vulnerable minority in this society. I also understand that this is not a bug in his campaign, but a feature.
What I do not understand is how such otherwise smart individuals are failing to grasp this point.
Redshift
@Citizen Alan: I think the distinction is only significant in a tactical sense, that is, whether the followup to this is to pursue the point that he’s an appalling racist and not fit for polite society, or to pursue the other implications of his bizarre and failed ideology to turn up other views that will turn off more voters.
(If it weren’t for the limited attention span of our political media, the obvious answer would be “both.”)
El Cid
@Lost Left Coaster: Look, I’m not in favor of apartheid in South Africa because I think African blacks are inferior, I just think it’s wrong for the African and Coloured population of our country and other outside nations to try to force us from changing our government until we think it’s time.
See?
Linda Featheringill
@Redshift: Roman slavery did include the progeny. Assuming that the slave lived to reproduce. The romans sort of went through their slaves.
liberty60
Speaking of tribalism- check out the wingnut freakout over the standing ovation Calderon got when he addressed Congress.
Pretty hilarious.
By hilarious I mean “scary-funny in a Berlin-beerhall-circa-1933 way”
Jody
Because it gives bigots cover to keep trying to infect the system with their odious views. Next question.
kommrade reproductive vigor
He’s. A. Racist.
I don’t know. Why are people scratching their heads over Paul and muttering “Is he or isn’t he? Only his hairdresser knows for sure!”
No really what is it with you two? If Paul were a fat 65 year old with southern drawl that could stun a hog or some Get A Brains Moran dude I suspect you’d be slightly less confused as to the reasons and motivations for Dr. Paul’s statements.
James K. Polk, Esq.
THESE ARE THE SAME THING.
ed
Daddy Ron doesn’t have such a nice history with respect to race (and other stuff):
cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/10/paul.newsletters/
Daddy Paul insisted that he didn’t write any of those words and he has no idea who did. They just happened to somehow appear in the “Ron Paul Political Report.” Kind of like Randy’s former communications director just happened to rant about “Afro-Americans” and somehow happened to have a really hateful racist post on his MySpace page for 2 years. What are the chances?
Napoleon
@Linda Featheringill:
The reason to focus on it is to lay bare the fact that the right is in large part modivated by race, and Paul just handed the left a huge opening to drive that point home, which they should.
Additionally if Paul becomes toxic enough the Dems can pick up the seat, which will help with the problems that need focusing on.
Corner Stone
@Citizen Alan:
And has been repeated again and again – why should we care? At all?
It makes no difference to me whether he hates black people or not.
Corner Stone
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
And he’ll never tell!
The Moar You Know
I’m voting for all three.
And the president is a black man. We haven’t even begun to tap the barrel of true crazy out there, folks.
geg6
@Midnight Marauder:
You’re on fire today and rightfully so.
I’m a bit taken aback by the front pagers today. The Pauls run around for years supporting racist policies, writing a newsletter filled with racist diatribes, cavorting with John Birchers and militias…but we can’t tell if they’re racists in their hearts?
Who the fuck cares what’s in the heart Rand Paul obviously doesn’t have? Racism isn’t about what’s in the heart. It’s about the actions and behaviors that you demonstrate to the world. And by that measure, the Pauls are racist mother fuckers. And any liberal who can’t see that needs to be looking into his or her own heart.
IM
And Calderon is a right-winger…
But nobody has problems with latinos. It is just the illegality.
Mnemosyne
@Lost Left Coaster:
Because results matter, not feelings.
Rand Paul could prove absolutely that he genuinely is not personally racist and it would. not. matter. because the problem is the policies he supports, not what his personal feelings are.
For some reason this topic made an idea spring into my mind, so I’ll repeat myself from below: racists have managed to successfully turn the idea of civil rights from rights to feelings and insist that how people feel is more important than their actions. (This is also, not incidentally, how they’ve managed to frame civil rights battles as black/gay/Latino/etc. people acting out on their hurt feelings.)
But civil rights aren’t about feelings and emotions — they’re about the rights that citizens have under the law. I really think we should be talking about the results of Paul’s beliefs, not why he has them or what his secret motives are. They don’t matter when compared to the noxiousness of the results we would get from following his policies.
El Cid
@Corner Stone: What if I hated black people and thought they were half-breed monkeys but thought the Civil Rights Act was a good idea (for whatever odd reasons) versus a guy who thought we are all well and truly equal but thought the Civil Rights Act shouldn’t have passed or that the Confederacy had been allowed to form its own nation to protect its economic institution of slavery (for whatever odd reasons). Which one is racist? Is one racist and the other not? Who has the greater public impact on a nation’s actual public governance?
Midnight Marauder
@James K. Polk, Esq.:
Fucking thank you.
@Linda Featheringill:
That is mighty white of you.
Gregory
@Napoleon:
This.
kay
@liberty60:
Mexico is a “foreign adversary”?
I was not aware of that fact, so thanks. I suppose tough sanctions are now on the table? No dessert for the Mexican President at the next gala!
El Cid
By the way, not caring about whether an invasion and occupation of Iraq might slaughter hundreds of thousands and turn their former brutal tyranny into a likely long-standing perpetual warlord chaos hell isn’t xenophobic or anti-Arab or anti-Muslim at all, it’s just because you’re naively promoting freedom, security, and democracy.
SpotWeld
In short, Rand Paul is starting to make juggalos look a viable political alternative.
IM
On topic: The past is not dead, it is not even past.
Faulkner, by the way wasn’t against desegregation either. He just wanted the south to desegregate at it’s own speed or otherwise the southern culture, the last population not having lost it’s soul to modernity in the US, would be destroyed.
The Moar You Know
@Napoleon: Here in one sentence is the penultimate example of the failure of the current Democratic electoral strategy: relying on the fact that they are the “least awful alternative” to the GOP.
“Least awful” is a subjective perception. Try to keep that in mind – remember that in the last election, 47% of the electorate liked what the GOP was pimping enough to be willing to hand over control of the nation to a cancer-riddled angry jerk and his pet bimbo.
Rand is going to win Kentucky overwhelmingly. Anyone who says otherwise has never been there.
Ash Can
@ DougJ: I understand what you’re saying (and what John Cole is saying in the previous thread), but there are two big red flags for me here. First, why would Paul have a campaign spokesman who was a bigoted asshole in the first place? Second, in an economy where whites disproportionately own the means of production relative to population, it’s awfully convenient to say, “oh, I’m not racist; I just want business owners to be free to decide whatever they want to do with their businesses.”
No, he’s not coming right out and being explicitly racist. But he’s not exactly passing the sniff test, either.
Anne Laurie
No, as historians use it, the “original sin” was the Three-Fifths Compromise, when the New England/NY delegates agreed to Jefferson’s filthy, dishonest suggestion that Negro slaves be counted as partial-people when and only when it benefited their White masters. The sin lay in codifying, and enshrining, the Manichean duality of a new form of government where all men were created equal… except for the ones who weren’t.
Rand Paul may be the final rococco flower of that obscene compromise — a very privileged white male who can’t stop talking about his “philosophical attitudes towards human equality” and who can’t admit, possibly even to himself, that those philosophical attitudes are simple old-fashioned racism. He’s Tom Jefferson’s idiot great-great-grandson, in a sense; one foot in the eighteen century, one foot in the twenty-second, and his junk dangling temptingly over the pitbull political commentariat of the present.
Tsulagi
It’s kind of a yin yang thing. Have to work hard to keep in proper balance. But don’t forget tax cuts! They’re the certain path to unlimited wealth.
Not necessarily in that order, right?
The Moar You Know
@SpotWeld: Fuckin’ ICBMs, how do they work?
Linda Featheringill
@Napoleon: Picking up that seat would be a good thing. I approve.
Sarcastro
Racism and tribalism have always been a big part of politics everywhere.
Racism is a fairly modern thing. I’ll guarantee your ass that if the Emperor Septimus Severus, a Libyan, tried to get on a Macon bus in 1960 he’d be forced to sit in back.
“The ancients did accept the institution of slavery as a fact of life; they made ethnocentric judgments of other societies; they had narcissistic canons of physical beauty, yet nothing comparable to the virulent color prejudice of modern time existed in the ancient world. This is the view of most scholars who have examined the evidence.” – Frank Snowden
“Slavery was not born of racism; rather, racism was the consequence of slavery.” – Eric Williams
David in NY
“why they were better than the people from nearby areas and why it might be a good idea to steal from these people and/or keep them as slaves”
Because, of course, their God let them win and make slaves of the others, and that shows they’re superior. It’s not, unfortunately, just “racism and tribalism” at work.
Redshift
@El Cid: The doctrine of original sin is the Christian idea that everyone is born with the stain of that act and has to go through proper churchy rituals to even get up to zero, rather than being born a blank slate and responsible only for their own actions. Basically, you’re born in debt to the company store (pretty neat scheme to ensure that you can’t even walk away from the game, to mix metaphors.)
That’s the analogy to slavery — it’s our “original sin” because the country was born with it and the Founders didn’t address it at the founding (leaving aside the issue of how sincerely they wanted to.) It could be finessed for a while, but ultimately resulted in the Civil War.
I have not heard the term used in reference to the genocide of Native peoples, but I don’t disagree that is also quite apt.
LongHairedWeirdo
Paul Krugman mentioned an astonishingly simple explanation of slavery.
In societies where a slave could produce more wealth than the cost of keeping slaves, slavery tended to flourish. In societies where wealth production was more difficult, it didn’t.
No, it’s not very original… might makes right is the root of it.
jl
I said in a previous thread that it is difficult to determine what racial or ethnic prejudice lives in a person’s heart unless they provide good evidence in word or deed, but I did not mean to imply that what is in this person’s heart is the most important thing.
In this case, it one of the least important things. What is important is that Rand Paul’s policy would result in great harm to our society. Maybe the term ‘social suicide’ would be appropriate. And, as in foreign affairs and defeinse, the Constitution is not a sucide pact in domestic affairs either. And expecially, nutty ideas about the interpretation of the Constitution are not a suicide pacts either.
In my view, the most important thing about the Rand Paul flap is not what is in his heart, but that his ideas are nutty and unworkable.
If the Village Media try to dismiss Paulism through the ‘don’t know their hearts’ dodge, then I think the mightly liberal blogosphere should complain loudly.
If DougJ is right and this has the potential to sink his campaign, and damages the long term GOP race/ethnicity wedge electoral strategy, that is the only good I can see coming out of it.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Oh. I thought it meant if some dipshit starts whining that racism doesn’t really exist in America, you get to kick them in the junk.
Whups.
Fergus Wooster
@Anne Laurie:
Madam, you owe me a new monitor.
Bravo.
Redshift
@Derek: Dang. The cultural references are always too subtle for me.
kay
Well, he’s reversed his position, so it mattered to someone.
I guess he had a change of heart.
jl
@LongHairedWeirdo: Probably true, as demonstrated by the change in social attitudes towards slavery before and after technological development produced scale economies in cotton in the US in the early 19th century.
Butch
Except if you read his statement carefully he hasn’t really reversed his position because he continues to talk about banning racism “in the public sphere,” so he apparently still thinks a business should be free to discriminate.
Evinfuilt
@Citizen Alan:
I’m sorry, but willing to treat anyone as a second class citizen for the simple basis of skin colour is racism. In this case he’s both a Libertarian Nut Job and a Racist. He doesn’t need to be both, he chooses to. Of course, he’s also a scumbag, and all racists are also by definition scumbags, so I agree there, we are quibbling over minutia. Time to move on and deal with more pressing issues (for me, that’s getting his daddy out of my district.)
Ash Can
@kay: Shorter Rand Paul: “Hey, if it gets me elected, sure I’ll say it.”
licensed to kill time
@liberty60:
I’m not going to click that link (I have a pretty good idea of what they are saying already) but what was interesting to me today was watching the reaction in Congress when Calderon told them that the lifting of the assault weapons ban was when the drug/gun violence in Mexico really spiraled out of control.
Guess which side of the audience mostly sat on their hands?
El Cid
@jl: I’m sure Henry Kissinger didn’t push for the carpet bombing of Cambodia in order to slaughter hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocents and destroy agricultural production and wreak famine and set the stage for the takeover of the nation by the formerly marginal lunatic Khmer Rouge because he hated Cambodians, he just had other things he cared about more, and their fate just wasn’t a big issue with him.
I’m sure he felt it was somewhat unfortunate that mass slaughter and starvation and then a further genocide were unfortunate, but, hey, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right, although, hey, where are all these omelets we keep getting told are being made?
Zifnab
And yet, sixty years later, it seems like we’ve come full circle. I don’t know if “N****” is just back in vogue, or if the GOP is in it’s final throes (jinxed it just by saying it, I know), but since the 80s, we’ve seen a slow and steady uptick in this kind of in-your-face anti-PC rhetoric.
Can you imagine going to a Bob Dole rally in 1996 and seeing posters of Bill Clinton like we’ve seen of Obama? The GOP would have absolutely died. The guy would have been dragged off and shot. Now you can’t call a Tea Party meeting without inviting half the resident KKK.
Sure, there may have been more racists and more racism thirty years ago, but the Republicans were a damn sight more subtle about it. Even in the deep south, when you had the “hands” ads and the Willie Horton stuff, they at least TRIED to be subtle. You didn’t have Congressmen flipping out on national TV over immigration.
And the Hispanic outreach in 2002 was truly something to see. We had Hispanic GOP Senators, Hispanic state SCOTUS justices, immigration reform as a central platform of the party – it was all supposed to be there. Eight years later? Up in smoke.
It’s like someone dropped the Atwater / Rove playbook in the river. You don’t ratfuck with the lights on, people!
Napoleon
@El Cid:
That really is not all that far fetched. I would be willing to bet that a boat load of Abolitionist back in the day flat out thought blacks in general were inferior, but also believed that the institution of slavery was immoral. I would be amazed if that did not apply to a not insignificant number of supporters of the CRA.
Comrade Luke
I’d watch this. From a commenter at TNC’s place (sorry, I don’t know how to link directly to the comment):
END BLOCKQUOTE. FYWP.
David in NY
Paul should simply not be allowed to call himself a libertarian.
He is only for liberty for the socially privileged and the propertied. His kind of freedom is thus only for the white shopkeeper to keep blacks out. He cares nothing for the freedom of the black person stopped at his door to enter, that is to have the freedom that white citizens have, to shop or eat or sleep at any business establishment that caters to the general public.
I don’t know if it’s racism, but it’s sure not about freedom for everyone, and it can’t be called “libertarianism” without distorting the word “liberty” out of all recognition.
soonergrunt
@The Moar You Know:
Cough, BIRTHERS, cough!
sparky
ummm, this post seems pretty confused–are you trying to talk about tribalism? racism? things we don’t discuss in public? there are lots of things not discussed in public that affect political decision-making. abortion was a “fact of life” for a long time before it hit the political universe.
and as far as racism in the US goes, everyone did talk about it in the 1950s and 1960s, and on into the 1970s. it was only when the issue was “settled” that certain people had to resort to dogwhistles. so i really don’t understand what exactly you are talking about.
you want some other “issues” that changed the politics of a region in the US? here’s a few for starters:
tariffs
the gold standard
slavery
WWII
Reconstruction
the Depression
immigration
the Great Society
the Volstead Act
i’m sure there are more but i can’t think of them at the moment.
@El Cid: thank you. you iz on fire today.
Redshift
@Napoleon:
Ah. Hadn’t thought about that strategic aspect, and I have to agree. Also with the points made by several people that the “what’s in your heart” definition of racism is a right-wing creation, and the only practical definition is that if someone supports policies that enable racism (especially ones that have such a clear and unambiguous historical record) then they’re a racist, no matter what they claim is in their heart or what outcome they say they wish for.
That’s the tactical level, where I am inclined to disagree. I think branching out to mine the other implications of his extremist political philosophy is an approach more likely to make him toxic in Kentucky.
But by all means, let’s do both!
kay
@Ash Can:
It’s odd how he dropped his whole elaborate life-philosophy in 48 hours, but I think he’s sincere, don’t you?
He changed his mind. Simple as that.
Midnight Marauder
@Butch:
Exactly. It’s a total canard to try and get the media scrutiny to die now:
Right. Except that, for starters, no one is asking if you would work or vote to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The question you have been fielding, Rand Paul, is whether you would have voted for the Civil Rights Act in 1964, based on your current positions and worldview. The answer to this question–prior to the controversy–was, of course, no. More importantly, I am glad he realizes these issues were settled by federal courts years ago; however, what he fails to realize is that, if he had his druthers, he would overturn those court rulings because he disagrees with them.
I mean, that’s it really. His entire statement is a fucking joke that doesn’t even address the main issue, because he can’t address the main issue. Because who wants to run a campaign based on returning minorities and other vulnerable groups to their natural second-class citizen status for 6 months?
Gregory
@David in NY:
Which makes him precisely a libertarian.
kay
@David in NY:
Anyone can call themselves a libertarian. Have you ever listened to them? It means whatever you think it means.
They’ve been a big disappointment to me, over-all. They aren’t even true to the stereotype. I wish they were pot smokers. That would be a redeeming quality.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: In the first scenario you would be matoko_chan and in the second Rand Paul.
Cheryl from Maryland
That sincerity and good heart thing was unbelievable and crap when Bush said it about Putin, and it is still crap.
Where did the Terry Bicycle ads go? I was clicking on those like crazy to raise money for BJ.
Alex
@Comrade Luke:
Fun idea, but I’m not sure where that would be, even theoretically. Parts of eastern Indonesia would be my best guess.
Corner Stone
@Ash Can:
Will allow me to be re-Elected.
/Specter
Fergus Wooster
Funny all the discussion about whether he’s racist “in his heart”. I heard a radio interview with Daddy Paul, in which he decried the Civil Rights Act and other federal intervention of the era as overreach.
He said, oddly enough, that instead of legislation, the proper approach would have been to continue civil disobedience (and receiving beatings/lynchings, I assume) until “people’s hearts” changed and they voluntarily stopped discriminating.
Fuck what people believe in their “hearts”. It’s a red herring, then and now.
celticdragonchick
@Asshole:
Actually, I think you are confusing your dates.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Regulation
Last weekend was the anniversary of the final battle of the Regulator Uprising at Alamance Battlefield in North Carolina. I attended as a re-enactor with the Guilford Militia.
AhabTRuler
@Corner Stone: Co-sign?
celticdragonchick
@Zifnab:
I’m keeping that verbal pearl. :D
kay
@Ash Can:
Here’s the NYTimes, showing their traditional deference to right wing loonies:
Remember: this is the YOU LIE! newspaper, but only if you’re a Democrat running for the Senate.
“Rather murky”. God, that’s BRUTAL. I hope he’s okay.
Redshift
@David in NY:
That’s pretty much the textbook definition of libertarianism. Start with the unobjectionable concept of liberty, apply it to me, and declare that different people’s liberties can never come into conflict, government is the only entity that is a threat to anyone’s liberties, and assume a world in which corporations, gangs, and so on are magically ineffectual against the awesome power of my liberty.
(For the advanced course, take Econ 101 concepts and assume that they apply perfectly everywhere, in the same sense that Physics 101 proves that every object is a sphere, and deny the existence of Econ 102 and beyond.)
What’s especially weird about Paul’s particular example that you cite is the clear evidence (as you note) that someone’s freedoms are being infringed. However, this easily fits into the above paradigm once you realize that the someone is not me.
David in NY
@Gregory:
Me: He is only for liberty for the socially privileged and the propertied.
You: Which makes him precisely a libertarian.
Me: Touché.
@kay:
I absolutely agree — but given the workout the right-wingers give to the word “freedom,” I think we should point that they would deny “freedom” to many, including those excluded by Rand’s rule. The freedom of people at the door of a shop to go in, the freedom we all expect to have. It’s time we reclaimed the word freedom, and the word liberty too, since it is the root of liberal.
Short Bus Bully
Holy shit this thread is on FIE-YER.
And deservedly so. This issue is right at the heart of the modern GOP and Rand Paul stepped on this pandora’s box/landmine like the spastic child of privalege that he is. The fact that it all comes down to the Civil Rights Act explains so much about what is happening in the GOP these days answers a lot of questions for a lot of people and I’m sure that Paul’s handlers are getting a fuckton of emails from pissed off GOP national people telling him to STFU about stuff which is only talked about behind closed doors.
Is he a racist?
“I think it’s cool for other people to discriminate and deny people their freedom, but I would NEVER do it myself. Seriously. No lie. Honest injun. Wanna come hang out at the country club with me?”
No, he seems totally legit to me.
Mnemosyne
@Evinfuilt:
Ah, but that’s not all. He’s also willing to treat people as second-class citizens based on their gender, sexual orientation, and disability status. He’s an equal-opportunity discriminator!
I don’t know if you watch “Mad Men,” but there was a fascinating episode last season where a bright young man was brought in to be the new president of the company, but the entire plan was tanked when he lost a few toes in an accident. That’s right — losing a couple of toes made him sufficiently damaged goods that he lost his job.
That’s the world that Rand Paul wants to live in.
RS
What bullshit.
So Paul really agrees with the viewpoint that all government action is constitutional as long as a US court says it is. No problems with activist judges? Isn’t that the whole fucking point of conservative views on the judiciary? Original Intent of the Founders and all that?
David in NY
@Redshift:
You’re right too, but as noted above, I advocate a campaign to reclaim the word “freedom” for our side.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Interesting that a group that claims to be so heavily agnostic/atheist also seems to be so heavily invested into just world theory, isn’t it?
If the market didn’t reward him, well, he must have done something wrong to have it coming…
Bill Section 147
@kay: And we were told he was a man of principle but sadly, no. A man of principal or err the principal interest is to get elected so you can keep the government from imposing shit like the Civil Rights Act.
You go Paul. Please.
Amanda
…because we’re the USA and we’re special and pure unlike those yucky Europeans (/sarcasm) — is my guess as to why we pretend that we as a country are exempt from ever really self examining on this topic.
And it’s getting much more challenging for whites because we are slowly coming to terms with the fact that this is no longer a majority white country. I think a lot of white people — in and outside the South, conservative, libertarian, moderate and liberal — are really freaking out about that.
I’ve had conversations with relatives who are generally pretty progressive values-wise and not even close to racist but who’ve expressed their sincere concern about our identity as a nation if we are no longer majority white. To which my response was “Who the heck cares? We’ve always been a multi-racial society; we’ve just never admitted it out loud.” Which they acknowledged…but the feelings were still there.
Rock
@Gregory:
I think that’s an important point. I think that Rand’s principles might be different if there were any chance in his mind that he would be affected by discrimination. But we know that empathy is unacceptable to steely-eyed conservatives, so I’m sure that even if he were faced with a society that wishes to actively persecute him and his family he’d feel it was just.
SiubhanDuinne
I asked this a few days ago, in a different context, but it seems an even more apt question in light of the whole “Rand Paul: Is He Is or Is He Ain’t a Racist?” discussion:
What has happened to DennisG aka dengre? He posted a series of really terrific (imo) threads throughout April on all different aspects of Confederate History Month. The current series of discussions would seem to be right up his street, and I guess I’m kind of surprised that he hasn’t been around more. Maybe he posted a GBCW or maybe he announced he was going on vacation or something, in which case I just didn’t see it.
dengre, if you’re reading this, know that you and your incisive analyses are missed.
Redshift
@Midnight Marauder:
And it also ducks the other important implication of the question, which is how would he vote on legislation in the future if elected. That’s why the question should matter to every voter — with this and the ADA question, he has clearly stated that he is opposed to the federal government ever having the power to guarantee anyone’s rights, except in the arena of government itself.
celticdragonchick
@Amanda:
Do we really doubt western civilization and enlightenment values that much to where we can’t even be sure of the poor, benighted masses of savages not being able to pick them up after 300 years or more of living with them?
///
kommrade reproductive vigor
From the end of his setting straight of the record:
Ooo. And he was doing so well.
What does an out of control fed this have to do with the Civil Rights Act? I’m not sure, but Dr. Paul v. 2.0 feels they are some how related.
kay
@RS:
I think he’s just having a lot of difficulty making it hang together. He’s still trying to trace the source of the federal power.
I’m still flabbergasted that he got to the age he is and never actually grappled with what he believes, and how it might work.
He hasn’t given this any thought at all, yet he wants to be a US Senator. A lawmaker. It’s a twisted sort of contempt for a group he seeks to join.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
I’ve gotten that BS from professed atheists and, really, I would prefer it if they would just say, “God is punishing you,” because it’s clearly coming from a completely irrational belief that they pretend is rational.
On the Robespierre subject from the previous thread, Hilary Mantel’s novel about him, A Place of Greater Safety, is supposed to be pretty good and manages to make him sympathetic, though I’m not quite sure what Mantel’s obsession is with people who end up being decapitated (see also Wolf Hall, where history informs us that three of the four main characters end up losing their heads).
ETA: First book link above is clickable even though it doesn’t look like it.
Joseph Nobles
OT: DNI Dennis Blair has
been firedsubmitted his resignation, and President Obama has accepted it.cat48
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
Maya Angelou
Gregory
@Rock:
Sure! After all, libertarians and Randroids are Rugged Individualists, always prepared to invent perpetual motion machines, build their own roads and develop their own vaccines.
gwangung
@Citizen Alan:
There isn’t much difference between the two.
And this buys into the ideology (promulgated by the racists themselves) that racism is a slavering, rabid evil that’s cross burning and the KKK. It sanitizes the corrosiveness of racism, it makes racism and its fruits more acceptable; the noxious fruits of racism becomes more acceptable and part and parcel of public discourse–as we see here and now.
That discourages people from doing self-introspection, to examine themselves and their behavior, to see if they’re doing harm, which they surely are by their behavior.
You don’t have to be a KKK lynch mob to be a racist. You just have to stay your hand…
res ipsa loquitur
I seriously doubt that this is going to derail his campaign.
BR
OT: If you have money in stocks, you might consider moving them to US bonds / bond funds. Things are looking ugly and are likely to get worse in the near term before they get much better.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Cripes. I can’t believe I nearly forgot to throw this classic summary of Gibbertarian Paradise into the mix.
Derek
@Redshift:
I didn’t catch that particular one, either, but comment #2 did =)
Midnight Marauder
@res ipsa loquitur:
Then Kentucky will be joining Arizona on the front lines of the march to Peak Wingnut.
Honestly, that state is royally fucked if Rand Paul ends up “representing” its interests.
Da Bomb
@geg6: A-fucking MEN!
Citizen Alan
@RS:
Yes, his response really does sidestep the fact that, if he is elected to the Senate, he will cast votes on the confirmation of federal judges. Depending on who nominates those judges in the future, it is quite conceivable that he will someday be asked to confirm a judge (or God forbid, justice) who thinks favors Justice Thomas’s narrow view of the Commerce Clause, under which the CRA of ’64 would likely be unconstitutional.
Derek
@Comrade Luke:
If you put two underscores (like so: __) on each empty line inbetween paragraphs, it’ll all stay in one blockquote. You’re welcome!
EDIT: Oh, I am a retard. The two underscores I typed, of course, disappeared. So you can’t see what they look like. But you can see how they disappeared!
Ash Can
@kay: LOL! I wonder what kind of BS Paul’s going to have shoveled by the time the campaign is over. He’d better rent himself a bulldozer.
asiangrrlMN
Hell. I go away for a week to take a break from the Kagan kerfluffle, and I come back to the Rand Paul idiocy. When I left, the Republicans were going to win the world again, and when I returned, well, that seems to be the same.
As for Paul the Younger, I come down on the side of racist. If he is OK with policies that systematically discriminate against minorities, he’s racist. I have no doubt he’s other ists as well, but I think if anyone has any doubts he’s racist, it’s because we’ve taken racist to mean someone with a white hood and a burning cross. There are many flavors of racist, and he is one of them.
FYWP.
@gwangung: You beat me to it, only because WordPress crapped out on me. Still, excellent point.
Fern
@kay: It almost sounds like he has never had to defend his views to anything but a friendly audience.
He looked a little shell-shocked after the intro on Maddow a couple days ago.
maus
Atwater died as he was meant to, writhing in pain and alone, lying to his very last breath.
I’m only sad that Rove and the rest will never feel the need to feel similar shame or meet that exact fate.
Citizen Alan
@gwangung:
I’m going to tempt the outrage of my fellow posters and step out on a limb here. Personally, I think there is a difference — being a radical libertarian is worse than being merely a racist for two reasons. First, it is possible, albeit usually difficult, to persuade a racist to abandon his racism. I have personally known people who were extremely racist in their younger days but who, after being forced by circumstance to interact with minorities whom they had previously despised, have come to realize that their former beliefs were wrong and that minorities were people just like them. On the other hand, the level of narcissism and self-delusion needed to allow a grown man to cling to a philosophy as callow and ignorant as Randian libertarianism resists all but the most life-changing events. Nothing short of being crippled and then confronted with disability discrimination would ever persuade Rand Paul of the necessity of the ADA, and perhaps even that might not do it.
Second, absent any other pathology, racism alone does not lead inevitably to the conclusion that the EPA and OSHA should be abolished, that all environmental regulations should be withdrawn, that minimum wage laws should be overturned, or that it is acceptable for poor, 9-year-old children to work in unsafe coal mines. IMO, the idea (central to libertarianism) that the government should refrain from attempting to improve the lives of its citizens to the point of allowing citizens to suffer and die for no other purpose than to satisfy the ideological purity of a poorly conceived political doctrine is more obscene than mere racism. A racist utopia would be a nightmare for minorities. A libertarian utopia would end up being a nightmare for everyone including the libertarians themselves.
Or, I guess to put it in simpler terms, in Rand Paul’s utopia, black plantation owners would be allowed to own white slaves.
Steeplejack
@Comrade Luke:
WordPress blockquote primer:
(h/t Monkeyboy © 2009)
micah616
If you cut out all the faux intellectual glibertairan wankery, what Paul says breaks down to “While I personally would never lynch or economically disenfranchise non-whites, I don’t believe that the federal government should step in and stop said lynching or disenfranchisement.”
How is that not a racist philosophy? If one has a racist philosophy, does it not stand to reason that said person is a racist? Why does it matter if the racism comes about by ideological naivete or maliciousness? The effects are exactly the same. Actually, the effects would be worse if he actually won the general election.
Seriously, I don’t understand why so many people are trying so hard to make Rand Paul “not really a racist(TM).” And almost as confusing are the WATBs worrying that calling a racist a racist will hurt the racist’s feelings and muddy up the debate.
If Rand sends out an email with the White House sitting in a watermelon patch, can we call him a racist then?
Citizen Alan
@micah616:
Since I consider hardcore libertarianism to be an insane philosophy, I think it’s more like “I have nothing against black people. I just suspect that some black people may be space aliens from Venus who want to kill me with death rays shot from their minds. So I tend to err on the side of caution.” That’s the level of crazy I get from Rand Paul.
That said, I suppose I should clarify that Rand (and Ron) might actually be racists who are using their crazy ideas as cover for advancing a racist agenda. But Rand’s stated reason for hating on the CRA of ’64 is something I would attribute to libertarian craziness rather personal animus towards minorities.
Midnight Marauder
@Citizen Alan:
In Rand Paul’s utopia, there would have never been any black plantation owners because who the fuck would have given them their civil rights in the first place? In Rand Paul’s utopian world, who is the entity that would have emancipated black people from the dreadful squalor that is slavery? Serious question. Because, again, according to Rand Paul, ending discrimination across the board in all areas of life for its citizens is not the role of government. So how would these black people have even become plantation owners in the first place? Hint: They never fucking would.
Again, this is a difference without a distinction. This is like saying, “Well, this herpes outbreak is a lot less mild than my previous ones.” YOU STILL HAVE FUCKING HERPES! “Oh, well al least we can possibly, maybe convince the racist to change their mind. Those libertarians are just locked in to their misguided worldview.” They are both still deeply flawed positions that result in tragic devastation in the real world.
No, it just means that large segments of society are deprived of the benefits of those protective organizations.
Does that make you feel better?
asiangrrlMN
@Midnight Marauder: Wot you said. Keep it coming. You are bringing the heat.
Citizen Alan
I know. I was being ironic. Perhaps I should have used an emoticon.
IM
<If Rand sends out an email with the White House sitting in a watermelon patch, can we call him a racist then?<
He could just be a genuine fan of watermelons?
Racism and libertarian: The racist is worse in practical politics. it is quite difficult to take something away from everybody and so libertarians never get elected. It is very easy to take things away from the other and so racists can be elected easily.
Of course the two groups are overlapping anyway. You just hae to read a reason comment thread.
kay
@Ash Can:
I’m having way too much fun with this, but it continues:
Now that he understands the Civil Rights Act, he can move on to the Americans with Disabilities Act, because he doesn’t understand that either, judging from what he said.
How long until he’s seated? I don’t know that he has time for a tutorial on major federal legislation.
I think he’s vulnerable on health care reform opposition. It’s a safe bet he has no earthly idea what’s in that legislation. None.
Dannie22
I asked on the earlier thread what do white folks call a racist. I’ve read them. I’m not going to spend time dissecting them because I’ve seen all I needed to see.
This argument that Paul isn’t a racist he just doesn’t fly with me. Let’s take a look at history. Governor Wallace swore up and down that he wasn’t a racist. He just supported racist policies. He even turned the dogs loose on black civil rights worker. I can tell you that I’m positive the black civil rights workers didn’t give a rats ass if he harbored personal racist feelings toward blacks. They did care that their rights were violated and that he turned the dogs loose. So spare me.
I personally think some of you are too intellectual by half. I’m glad my right to exist has become such a nice, neat intellectual exercise for you. I hope you’ve had fun. I can’t say that I’m surprised. I do think some of you should do a little bit more reading about what the US was like before the civil rights movement. It would be eye-opening.
Thanks DougJ and John Cole et al. Thanks for letting me know who you really are.
DougJ
@Dannie22:
I don’t think you get where I am coming from on this. I will post more on it later.
The point is that if it’s just about whether or not Paul is a racist, he can wriggle off with “black best friends” or whatever. If it’s about an institutionalized anti-civil rights attitude within the Republican party (which it is), then he and others get nailed for it.
Once things are personalized, it becomes too mushy. Republicans took the south by opposing civil rights. Did they do it because they were racist? Does it matter? The effect is the same either way.
Mnemosyne
@Dannie22:
That’s what I, at least, have been saying: Rand Paul’s personal feelings about minorities don’t matter because he supports noxious policies that would take us back to the days of Jim Crow.
The right wing has been very successful at making racism a matter of “feelings” and not citizens’ rights under the law. If someone doesn’t “feel” racist, then they can say they aren’t, even if they think restaurant owners should be allowed to call the cops to drag out any black person who walks through their door.
I am, to a certain extent, trying to intellectualize it because I’m trying to go against the right wing’s construction of racism as an emotion or a personal feeling rather than an action. That means I try to talk about “racist actions” instead of saying “that asshole is a racist,” because otherwise we’re seating the problem of racism in people’s personal feelings and not in their actions.
George Wallace’s actions were incredibly racist. That’s why when someone says, “But he didn’t really hate black people,” I say, “It doesn’t matter what he thought about black people — his actions were evil.” And it’s a lot harder for them to wiggle away from that and whitewash him.
asiangrrlMN
@DougJ: I didn’t get where you were coming from, either, then. I think your post would have been stronger without the musing on Paul the Younger’s personal racism (or not) if the main thrust of the post is that the Republican Party is a bastion of institutionalized racism.
DougJ
@Dannie22:
Okay, I see your point. It’s all about the definition of racist. I agree with you completely.
maus
@Mnemosyne:
Self-ascription works with all aspects of ideology.
I’m not a racist. I’m a good Christian. I’m a fiscal conservative. I’m lowering taxes. I’m for the middle-class. I’m Pro-Life. I’m not an elitist. I’m pro-woman. I’m simultaneously an outsider, and my opponent too inexperienced.
DaBomb
@Mnemosyne: I had to take a step back and reread your comment.
I usually enjoy reading your comments on here.
I understand what you are trying to say. I get it.
It’s a different perspective.
goatchowder
Part of politics? How about part of human nature!
We’re social, territorial mammals: tribes. Just like monkeys or apes or dogs, with whom we get along so well, it’s all about pack dominance and alpha males and beating the other tribe.
The modern, benign way to get this human tendency out is through sports. MY TEAM RULES, YOUR TEAM SUCKS, it’s a tribe, really, and the games are tribal warfare. And it does the trick for many, and doesn’t cause any serious problems or hard feelings.
maus
@goatchowder: Yeah, but in the sundown towns Rand’s fans live in, the sport of choice is hunting on horseback, culminating in a lynching.
It’s not as if the small-town jock attitudes preclude being racist, either way.