The Gospel According To Dr. Paul

The quest for ideological purity can be a dangerous thing. Especially when one applies this standard to politics. As the 19th century German Prussian politician, Otto Van Bismarck put it: "Politics is the art of the possible." I suppose you could amend this quote slightly and say that "politics is the art of compromise." However, if your policies and beliefs are so rigid that there can be no common ground, then you really ought to just do something else.

Which brings me to the Republican nominee for the senate in the state of Kentucky, Dr. Rand Paul.

Paul, the son of House Republican Ron Paul of Texas, roundly trounced Trey Grayson, the establishment candidate backed by Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, by over 20 percentage points in the Kentucky primary last Tuesday. Backed by the Tea Party, Paul provided the grass roots organization with their biggest victory yet. That's when the trouble started.

In an interview last month with the Louisville Courier-Journal, Paul was asked for his opinion on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is what he said: "I don't like the idea of telling private business owners-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. But I think there should be absolutely no discrimination on anything that gets any public funding and that's most of what the Civil Rights Act was about to my mind." The implication here is that no publicly funded Government entity should be able to practice any form of institutional racism, but private establishments? Well, he seemed to leave that open for debate.

Which is exactly what he got when he appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show this past Wednesday evening. In a withering exchange, Miss Maddow asked the good doctor in several different ways if he was against the portion of the Civil Rights Act that forced businesses and services open to the public to accept the patronage of those who may be of a different race than that of the business owner. Places like restaurants, gas stations, and rest rooms could no longer discriminate against people of color after the bill was signed into law. However, Dr. Paul found this portion of the Civil Rights Bill to be flawed. While he considered the policy of not allowing a certain racial group to access the goods and services of the business owner to be "abhorrent" and a "bad business decision," he seemed to defend their right to do so.

Using freedom of speech as a metaphor, Dr. Paul stated: "I think what's important in this debate is not getting into any specific 'gotcha' on this, but asking the question 'What about freedom of speech?' Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from speaking? I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things that freedom requires."

Furthermore, Dr. Paul conflated gun rights with civil rights in this response: "[I]f 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?"

In both cases, Paul is foolishly mixing metaphors that don't apply. How does free speech allow you to discriminate who you offer goods and services to based on their race? There is a profound difference between expressing one's opinion (no matter how heinous) and refusing to service a paying individual in your place of business based on the color of their skin.

Even worse is the gun metaphor. First of all, a person isn't a weapon. Secondly, saying that if you are forced to allow a certain race of people into your establishment then you will have no choice but to allow armed citizens in as well is akin to saying if we allow gay marriage then we must also allow people to marry their family dog if they so choose. Or, that if you must let black people swim in your pool, you must also allow a Kraken (see The Clash Of The Titans or the first Pirates Of The Caribbean for mythological reference) in as well. And lastly, states already have laws on the books about the rights of individuals to carry concealed or unconcealed weapons into public places.

By the end of the interview, Paul fell back on this last defense: "You bring up something that is really not an issue…a red herring, it's a political ploy…and that's the way it will be used."

Except here's the problem for Dr. Paul: It is still an issue. Last summer the Valley Swim Club in Philadelphia told a group of black children that they could not swim in their pool. Or how about the idiot Wal-Mart employee in New Jersey who announced "Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now" over the store P.A. in March of this year? If we apply Dr. Paul's philosophy to both incidents, then the Valley Swim Club and the New Jersey Wal-Mart store would have simply been exercising their "freedom."

It's not like this is the only questionable viewpoint held by the son of Ron Paul. Both of these flakes believe that the Department of Education should be abolished, and that the Fair Housing Act should be repealed along with the Americans with Disabilities Act. On the subject of the disabilities law, Paul stated: "I think a lot of things could be handled locally." "For example, I think that we should try to do everything we can to allow for people with disabilities and handicaps. You know, we do it in our office with wheelchair ramps and things like that. I think if you have a two-story office and you hire someone who's handicapped, it might be reasonable to let him have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a $100,000 elevator. And I think when you get to the solutions like that, the more local the better, and the more common sense the decisions are, rather than having a federal government make those decisions."

I guess Dr. Paul isn't aware that some businesses have different departments on different floors. By his logic, would a disabled person have to work on the first floor receiving office instead of the second floor accounting office even if he was hired as a C.P.A.? Would he or she have an office next to the fork lift? Would he/she have to negotiate their wheel chair around skids of stacked boxes? This is the argument he wants to make? Seriously?

Not surprisingly, Dr. Paul is also against Government provided health insurance. Which is fascinating when you consider it was revealed that 50% of his patients are on Medicare. I guess he isn't so pure that he can't accept Government cash at his place of business.

The day after his Maddow provided beat down, Dr. Paul has come out in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Saying that he would have voted for it himself. Of course, if that's so true how come he couldn't say it on Maddow's show Wednesday night? Would it have been so hard? I'm betting the reason why he reversed course has more to do with politics than anything else. In fact, Paul himself said that going on Maddow's show was a "political mistake." Considering that when Paul decided to run for the Senate he announced it on Rachel's show, I find this terribly hypocritical. He can announce a run for Senate on her program but not be asked a question about his political philosophy? I think he's confusing his inability to answer the question with his dislike for the question.

Once again, this is the danger as presenting your self as "pure" or above politics. Clearly Dr. Paul wants to position himself as an outsider who with the help of the Tea Party, will "Take our country back." Which is what he said at his victory rally which took place in a private country club. My question to Dr. Paul is what country are you talking about? The one that ended segregation, provides health care for the aged, and reasonable allowances for the disabled? Or is he talking about the country that resides under that tousled mop of hair of his? Personally, I prefer the former country. You know, the one that actually exists. Here's to hoping the good people of Kentucky do as well.

Sumo-Pop
May 21, 2010