Blacks here, Rand Paul and pals there

[Ed Barrow]

"I abhor racism, I think it's a bad business decision to ever exclude anybody from your restaurant, but at the same time, I do believe in private ownership." — Rand Paul



If you notice, they have never been on our side. "They" meaning social conservatives. "Our" meaning African-American people.

They were not there in the century after the Civil War, as conservative Southern Democrats violently repressed would-be black voters, made a shadow government of the Ku Klux Klan, turned a deaf ear to the howling of lynch mobs and lynch victims. They have not been there in the half-century since, as conservative Southern Republicans fought affirmative action, poverty programs, and attempts to ban the American swastika, i.e., the Confederate battle flag, from public lands. They have never been on our side and always, they have claimed "principle" to justify it. So remarks like the one above that got Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul in trouble last week are surprising only in the sense that one is surprised to hear an oldie on the radio one hasn't heard in a while.

He first told the editorial board of the Louisville Courier-Journal, then reiterated in last week's interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, that he thinks the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 overreached in telling private businesses they could not discriminate against black people. Paul, a Republican, a tea-party favorite and an apostle of tiny government, considers private ownership sacrosanct. If that sounds familiar, it's because it was also the reasoning of segregationists in '63 and '64.

The civil rights bill "would dictate to private businessmen who they must do business with," said ex-Mississippi Gov. James Coleman.

It "would further impinge on the right of private property in this country," said Georgia Sen. Richard Russell.

It represents a "threat to the fundamental right of private property ownership," said the Jackson (Mississippi) Daily News.

With an obtuseness that can only be called stunning, Paul repeated that reasoning to Maddow and then dismissed the whole thing as "abstract," and "obscure." Spoken like a man whose forebears never suffered the stark humiliation of arriving in a strange town and having to ask around for a hotel that would take them or a restaurant that would serve them. And frankly, if anyone had shown such tender concern for American principles from the beginning, there'd never have been a need for a Civil Rights Act in the first place.



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0527-pitts-20100527-2,0,1415228.column?page=2

[Zoeisright]

1. Who the hell would unrecc this? Some closet repukes?

For God's sake, Paul is a racist bigot, if that isn't too redundant.

[opihimoimoi]

2. KnR #12 :o) Ranny boy is a wannabe....he ain't series

[beam me up scottie]

3. This kind of denial is legion in the South.

It's accepted and it's dangerous.

Don't be fooled - Rand is a very real threat to more than one minority.