The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife.. Rand Paul

[Peacetrain]

has historically made comments that could are so off the wall racist.. yes racist.. saying "personally" I would oppose it but a business should be able to discriminate based on color" is RACIST.

Oh there was outrage for all of 12 hours.. now the talking heads of media and others are coming out with this "philosophical" debate.. that poor old rand p is just such a philosophical purist and not a racist..

Some one explain to me how anyone can even begin to start off with something like that.

Outrage.. outrage.. I thought the country was going to come apart at the seams when President Obama said this about the Cambridge Police.

"The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home," the president said."

We had to have a beer summit to get back to normal.

This is "liberal" media?

All I have to say, is with friends like these.. who needs enemies?

[treestar]

1. At least the attention given to him takes some from Palin

:hi:

[Peacetrain]

4. He is just such an awful person.. to cut any slack for him..just sticks in my craw

:hi:

[lunatica]

2. If Sarah and the Teabaggers hadn't 'softened' us up about racists and racism

Rand Paul's political career would be deep sixed by now.

When Sarah Palin was unleashed on us by McCain it was like opening another Pandora's Box with the darker aspects of humanity spilling out. She crossed the Rubicon and broke the unspoken rules. Now the media is having philosophical discussions about racist remarks. It's the new normal.

[Peacetrain]

3. Yep... suddenly we are arguing things that were settled decades ago

I do not get this at all..

[BootinUp]

6. I think its what happens whenever the apple cart

is turned over. When there is mass unemployment etc. People are more susceptible to extreme arguments, more into accepting selfishness as virtue.

[Peacetrain]

10. That is the theory behind the Nazis.. that is for sure..

[Bluenorthwest]

5. I have been repeatedly told on DU that a person can

be opposed to equal rights for all minorities, say so openly, and still that person is not a bigot. They say a politician can favor discrimination against some portions of the population, unfair taxation, and all manner of ill treatment and that politician is not to be called a bigot.
I mean I agree that Paul is a racist. But I also say that those who are against equality for all are bigoted. I do not think you can have it both ways. Do you?

[msongs]

7. DADT could be suspended today.....but those who are against equality for all will not do it nt

[Bluenorthwest]

11. All these people wondering why Paul is not sunk already

do not understand that his views are similar to those the President speaks about gay people, and the policies DuBois controls at the Faith Based Bigots department. They help churches discriminate, they shield them with law to allow them to discriminate. So, there you have it.

[Peacetrain]

8. I give the DU admins a lot of creds for TS'ing people who do just that..

[Bluenorthwest]

13. But they do not do so.

That is commonly said by many of the most frequent posters here.

[90-percent]

9. Ranned

What I find despicable on top of his despicable beliefs is that he refused to take the congratulatory phone call from the guy he beat.

He's a SORE WINNER!

American's don't like a sore winner.

-90% Jimmy

[Peacetrain]

12. The guy is certifiable.. seriously something is amiss is his intellectual makeup

Ron Paul is also.. And the two big players in the Republican party now.. the teaparty and the uber religious right.. are at odds on so many things..

Sometimes I feel like just pulling out the :popcorn: and watching the show as they pull themselves apart

[mrcheerful]

15. All Rand P did was voice what the right have been saying every since civil rights started

back when schools were desegregated in fact it started when Truman desegregated the military. I remember when the first black family showed up in my area and what right wing parents were telling their kids when the first 3 black kids showed up at my all white school, the thing was it was not an all white school as there were migrant worker children in my school mostly from Mexico. I remember right wing fathers telling horror stories about having to share the shower room at the foundries with black workers after 1964.

I remember right wingers throwing fits that blacks were using white city parks, within a few years of 64 every city water park shut down because people protested the parks allowing all citizens using the parks by refusing to vote for tax increases to support the care of the city parks. I remember how shabby the city parks got after 64 and how even today the parks though are better they are still no longer the places they were before 64. Then in the 80's with massive GM lay offs how right wingers were out raged that they were expected to live off the same welfare grants that the welfare queens lived off and how that wasn't fair to them because they paid all their taxes.

You forget that Nixons law and order platform was code word for going after non whites. Then Reagan's welfare queen, more code words for non whites. Sure Rand was wrong for saying his racist crap, but it only reflects what the right wing believes, part of that belief is segregation. In the right wing mind the country didn't start falling apart until 1964, everything was fine and dandy before civil rights opened closed doors for minorities. I also remember when there were no black police in the city, nor in the fire department or stores having all white cashiers, stock boys, sales clerks, unless you went on the south side of the city where the blacks lived and you went into black stores which was frowned on. Btw, this wasn't the deep south this happened in, it was in northern Michigan.

Then in the 90's, a right winger opened the city's only Denny's where you could go for a free Birthday breakfast, free, until it was sued because the Denny's was refusing black people Birthday breakfast. So instead of allowing everyone a bday breakie, the Denny's stopped doing the bday breakie. Do you remember when Denny's called itself Sambo's?

[BootinUp]

16. Sambo's (<>) Denny's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo's

But they both have interesting histories with regard to racial controversy.

[mrcheerful]

17. Up here all of the former Sambo resturants were taken over by Denny's which maybe the

reason that the myth started about Sambo's being renamed Denny's. I know the Denny's up here did practice treating black customers differently then they did whites, I saw them seat white customers who came in after black customers often making blacks wait 30 to 50 minutes for a seat.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. +1 million. nt

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

21. Thank you so much for this. The saddest thing that I'm confronting is black Republicans not

understanding the history of the Republican Party. They assert that the Democratic Party is racist because the Southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) controlled the party. What the wingnuts won't tell their supporters is that it is precisely because the Democratic Party in the North passed civil rights laws, the Southern Democrats became Republicans. I see that their only retort is to use Senator Robert Byrd's past association with the KKK to prove that it is the Democrats--not the Republicans who are racists. To be fair, there are racists in BOTH parties, but to deny the history of the Republican Party is just ridiculous. The modern day Republican Party is becoming more and more a regional party made up with wealthy, white men. Not to mention that we are seeing remnants of a new "Southern Strategy" where racially coded words, language, and rhetoric is being used (read: the Tea Party and Sarah Palin)

I really don't know how to reach these people. As a woman of color, I am ashamed of them and their total lack of intellectual dishonesty.

Thanks again!!

[butterfly77]

14. Another thing that has been getting...

on my nerves is that they are trying to pretend that his dad RON PAUL HASN'T BEEN SAYING THE SAME THING FOR YEARS.

RON PAUL AND RAND PAUL HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS! THEY ARE SAYING THIS AND THE MAJORITY OF REPUBLICONS SAY IT TOO in so many words but,many can read between the lines and many know it (media) and try to pretend they don't..

[Clio the Leo]

19. His statement in and of itself isn't racist....

.... but the Title he claims to disagree with (Title II) protects the very liberty he claims to regard so highly. I have dined on many a burger in my time and let me tell you, a big fat juicy one with cheese, bacon and all of the fixings (hold the pickles please!).... THAT is happiness and I intend to keep pursing it as long as I live. And dont you DARE try to tell me I can't sit down and enjoy one in your place of business.

That's the beauty of the Constitution and of this country .... the rights of the minority should always be protected as fiercely as we take the rights of the majority for granted.

(And YES, that applies to gays as well, we still have work to do.)

But yeah ... from a spin/bash the right point of view, Rand's a total robe wearin' racist. (Or might as well be.)

[depakid]

20. If he were really a Libertarian purist, he'd support a woman's right to choose

[opihimoimoi]

22. He is a phoney....phuck him....and phool of shit as well

[Prism]

23. The President says this about LGBTers all the time

Scores of posters on this site defend it. But calling the President bigoted because of his views is a no-no.

Hell, a poster in this thread just said the other day that calling the President bigoted because of his opposition to gay marriage is racist.

Meh.

You'll get used to it.

Or are we supposed to be mad now because it's a Republican doing it and not the leader of our own party?

Oh, right. Ok. Rawr! Bad, Rand Paul! Bad!

Shoe, other foot, pinching, etc.

[Hippo_Tron]

25. In that case you would also have to say JFK was a bigot too

We presume the President isn't a bigot because we look at the convoluted stances he takes like opposing Proposition 8 but still not being for gay marriage and assume that he arrived at such a stance because gay rights are (sadly) still controversial in this day and age. JFK also waffled on civil rights but eventually came out and supported it. Presumably it wasn't because he was a bigot but because he was worried about poll numbers.

Rand Paul is opposing a Civil Rights bill that became law 40 years ago and equal rights for African Americans is a (mostly) settled issue in this country and a completely settled one in our mainstream political discourse. If Obama is still saying the same things about gay rights 40 years from now (when gay rights will almost certainly be a matter of fact) then yea I will admit he's a bigot.

[Prism]

27. Someone is either a bigot or they're not

Under your approach, the nicest thing to be said for the President is that he is a coward. He knows inequality is wrong, he knows that opposition to gay marriage is wrong, but he says otherwise for the sake of his career.

That's not much better.

However, the President doesn't just mumble under his breath about the anti-gay aspects of his religion (which is weird, because his church is pro-gay). He proclaims it proudly. He went in front of one of the biggest anti-gay denominations in the country and declared "God is in the mix." That isn't just mumbling to get along, that is actively perpetuating bigotry, promoting it, endorsing it.

At what point do the "true beliefs" ameliorate the acts of an individual?

From this President's behavior, I have reached the conclusion that if he thought it was in his political best interest and the good of his party, he'd sign another DOMA. There are things one says during the campaign, and I gave this president an awful lot of slack for his bizarre and insulting behaviors towards the LGBT community. I, personally, took a lot of crap from people when I defended him and said "It's just the campaign. Once he's in office . . ."

Then he got into office and made a liar out of me.

He has delayed, denied, and rhetoricked his way through LGBT issues, all while slouching over at public events, looking down, and mumbling in discomfort whenever he had to do anything at all for the community because we were being so unpleasant about everything.

I do not think the man is comfortable around gay people. The man has cited his religion to justify inequality. The man has given prominent homophobes places of honor. He challenges the LGBT community to dialogue with people who would be perfectly happy seeing us in prison, and he asks nothing from them in return. No sacrifice, no understanding, no listening. No, it's the 3-5% of a second class population that has to prostrate themselves before the powerful majority.

These are not the ideas and behaviors of a man merely mouthing the words for political expediency. At some point, in some part of his beliefs and psychology, he has a lot of trouble accepting LGBT issues as valid or important or worthy of his time and best efforts.

He is marinating in bigotry, and whether or not the right thing to do is controversial or not is immaterial. The right thing is the right thing is the right thing, regardless of how well it polls.

So we get this bizarre Rand Paul approach to LGBT issues from the President, and how he might not personally believe in such and such (except that he claims he does), but virulent bigotry in service to religion is just ducky with him.

Rand Paul may not be a racist, but his ideology enables the institutionalization of it. President Obama may not be personally opposed to equality (a big if in my mind), but his policies, behavior, rhetoric, and inaction enable and promote it.

If Paul's a racist for his beliefs, the President is a bigot for his.

[pundaint]

24. Sometimes stupid isn't racist, it's just stupid. If one thinks narrowly, and never considers the

the unacceptable outcome of basing law on that line of reasoning, it could make sense to a particular person. But that person hasn't thought hard enough about it yet to speak in public!

[Hippo_Tron]

26. That's the thing either he's a racist or he has the wisdom of a teenager

Neither of which are qualities I would want in a US Senator. If Rand Paul really thinks at age 47 that we don't need the Civil Rights Act and we can just trust private businesses not to discriminate then he has lived far too sheltered of a life to adequately serve the public.