People who don’t listen to Rand Paul much (which means most of the world) might think this is new (via):
The danger to majority rule – to him sort of thinking, well, the majority voted for me, now I’m the majority, I can do whatever I want, and that there are no rules that restrain me – that’s what gave us Jim Crow,” Paul said. “That’s what gave us the internment of the Japanese – that the majority said you don’t have individual rights, and individual rights don’t come from your creator, and they’re not guaranteed by the Constitution. It’s just whatever the majority wants.”
Paul added: “There’s a real danger to that viewpoint, but it’s consistent with the progressive viewpoint. … Progressives believe in majority rule, not constitutional rule.”
Like most of what comes out of either Paul’s mouth, this has been around for a long time, at least since Rand made an ass of himself over the Civil Rights Act. For example, Rand trotted out this crap seven months ago, and the young and impressionable Conor Freidersdorf (remember him?) lapped it up. Elias Isquith tore that apart on this very blog at the time.
The lesson here is that, when you’re dealing with the Pauls, “new” needs to be construed on an almost geologic timeframe. In this case, it’s the notion that Jim Crow was bad that is new, because Papa Doc’s newsletters from the 80’s and 90’s would seem to indicate otherwise.
gene108
White’s were not the majority in many parts of the South after the Civil War. Jim Crow was the result of the Whites having the money to take back government, by force if needed, from the newly freed slaves and a complicit Judiciary that was prejudiced against Blacks.
Only after the Great Migration, when half the black population of the South moved north and west to get away from Jim Crow, do you have a clearly white majority in the South.
If the post-Civil War South had true majority rule, there would not have been nearly a century of no blacks in government at any level.
EDIT: In short, Rand Paul is an ignorant idiot.
c u n d gulag
In a chamber with James Inhofe in it, it’s hard to be an even lower wattage bulb in the Senate’s chandelier.
But give Rand some credit – he’s sure trying!!!
To quote that great American philosopher, Foghorn Leghorn:
“That boy’s about as sharp as a bowling ball!”
Baud
I love that majority rule and constitutional rule are polar opposites in Rand Paul’s
worldtalking point of the day.MikeJ
@c u n d gulag: Also, “Boy’s got a mouth like a cannon, always shootin’ it off. “
Baud
“And that’s why I strenuously oppose draconian voter ID laws,” said Rand Paul never.
Suffern ACE
Laws that I don’t like aren’t constitutional. There’s nothing in the constitution that says we should have a standing army, yet Congress passes laws to fund the army every year. The founders in their wisdom thought that there would never be policy differences between groups of people. Hence they listed all of the laws that they thought should be passed.
muricafukyea
All Paul has to say is “Drones Suck” and Griftwald will immediately start to wax on poetically about how Jebus would have voted for Paul. The libertarian curious Coles of the world will lap it up and start talking again about how “Rand Paul has some good ideas”. Just cannot fix whatever fuked up thought processes go through these peoples minds
Culture of Truth
Please. For decades Republicans attacked “card-carrying members of the ACLU” That’s a quote from HW Bush. Then there’s Nixon, Reagan.
Also, not to familiar with George W. Bush’s track record protecting individual rights.
Culture of Truth
Rand Paul has never responded to e-mail on Jose Padilla. Coward.
RaflW
The government-shutdown-via-rump-caucus is such a fine example of minority rule we should all bow before it.
It all boils down to being terrified of the actual majority of Americans. Because Rand and his whole team know, deep down, they are the 27%.
Birthmarker
I think technically he is correct, except that this supports progressive ideas, such as the Civil Rights Act and the abolition of slavery, just to name a couple of controversial issues…I could name many…
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
It’s the typical brilliant logic of the glibtards. It’s like saying the water in West Virginia is making people sick as opposed to, ya know, the poison glibtards put in it.
shelly
So when Bush barely got re-elected for his second term, and folks like Ann Coulter were crowing about a ‘mandate’ and that Bush could do whatever he wanted cause the ‘American people had spoken.’, …that wasn’t okay?
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
It’s also why he was adamantly opposed to California’s Prop 8, and jumped up and down and screamed like a banshee about it.
What do you mean, he didn’t? He must have if he wants to be logically consistent.
Oh, wait…
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
The irony was that when Poppy made that comment, suddenly the ACLU got lots of inquires about how to acquire one of those cards to carry around.
That’s when the ACLU started issuing cards.
Chris
@gene108:
Don’t forget to add “terrorism” to money and corruption in the judiciary. That was the entire point of the KKK, after all.
hells littlest angel
Hey kids, you don’t think dope smoking can damage your brain? I give you … Rand Paul, who still sounds like a buzzed 16-year old.
gorram
This is clearly useful within the context of Whites declining as a proportion of the population. If you reduce racism to simply a (not always actually a thing) majority oppressing a minority, he can whine about ~reverse racism~ all day in a few years based on that understanding of what racism is.