Here is Rand Paul's World.
A black couple walks to a restaurant and sees a sign: 'No blacks or hispanic served here'. Impossible today? Not in the world Rand Paul envisions!
What about a a local tennis club? If they didn't want to allow minorities, in Rand Paul's world, it would be legal.
For that matter, that would be the same for women. Or for gays. Certain facilities would not have to make reasonable accommodations for disabled customers.
It's hard for to imagine the full impact of living in a world that Rand Paul would advocate for!
Don't believe me? You should have seen Rand Paul's interview with Rachel Maddow. Not only did he reveal this bizarre viewpoint, but he tried to double-speak and dance around the questions, without EVER giving an outright answer. But, Maddow pressed him. So, I will weed the weasely political maneuvering part out.
Rachel Maddow. "Do you think that a private business has a right to say that 'We don't serve black people?'"
Rand Paul: "What about freedom of speech?' Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent. Should we limit racists from speaking... we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it..."
Courier-Journal: "Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?"
Rand Paul: "In a free society we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior"
Rachel Maddow: "How about desegregating lunch counters?
Rand Paul: "Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?"
Courier-Journal: "... under your philosophy it would be okay for Dr. King to not be served at the counter at Woolworths?"
Rand Paul: "... believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things ... It's the same way with other behaviors. In a free society we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior ..."
Rand Paul even compared blacks coming into a restaurant to eat with the concern a business owner might have for someone coming into his establishment with a gun and starting fights:
Rachel Maddow: "How about desegregating lunch counters? Lunch counters. Walgreen's lunch counters, were you in favor of that? Possibly? Because the government got involved?"
Rand Paul: "Right. Well, what it gets into is, is that then if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant, even though the owner of the restaurant says, well, no, we don't want to have guns in here.
The bar says we don't want to have guns in here, because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each other. Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?"
Also, Rand Paul obviously is ignorant of what 'Institutionalized Racism' means.
In his responses to Maddow, he says: "But with regard to racism, I don`t believe in any racism. I don`t think we should have any government racism, any institutional form of racism."
Rand Paul seems to think 'institutional' is all government or publicly funded, in some way. His ignorance, as a representative of a body of people, is amazing, to put it mildly.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutionalized_racism :
(Quote)
Institutional racism (also structural racism and systemic racism) is any form of racism occurring specifically within institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations, and universities (public and private). Institutional racism is one of three forms of racism: (i) Personally-mediated, (ii) internalized, and (iii) institutional.
... “the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, culture, or ethnic origin”.
Institutional racism is the differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society. When the differential access becomes integral to institutions, it becomes common practice, making it difficult to rectify. Eventually, this racism dominates public bodies, private corporations, and public and private universities, and is reinforced by the actions of conformists and newcomers. Another difficulty in reducing institutionalized racism is that there is no sole, true identifiable perpetrator. When racism is built into the institution, it appears as the collective action of the population.
(End quote)
Not only would Rand Paul endorse legalizing discrimination as long as it is a private business or organization perpetrating it, he is not a very well-informed individual.
I don't want to live in Rand Paul's world, thank you very much!
Michael L. Buie
