An Open Letter to Rand Paul
Before we get to this letter, please watch the following video.
Rand. Buddy, how are you doing? I bet the last few days for you have been a blast. You just won the notation to be the Republican candidate in the Kentucky! High Five!
But Rand, sometime you just need to shut the fuck up. Like, big time.
INTERVIEWER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I’m all in favor of that.
INTERVIEWER: But?
PAUL: You had to ask me the “but.” I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.
See. That is the sort of bullshit that you need to stop. This is not something to laugh off. If you are going to take positions on major policy issues, people are going to ask you to justify those positions. Welcome to politics. You are not an eye doctor any more*.
Saying you are not racist and that you are a fan of MLK in one breath, than in the next breath say that a private business can openly discriminate is complete bullshit. First off, anytime anyone begins by saying they are not a racist, you know they are about the say something super racist. Second, yes, Martin Luther King was a great speaker and true believer in his cause. But fuck Rand. FUCK. Setting aside the 175+ years of social, structural and legal racism, people were brutalized in Selma and Birmingham and rural Mississippi just because they wanted to be treated as humans. In 1963, six hundred students marched through the streets of Birmingham to protest the cities segregation. They were attached by dogs and fire hoses. Rand, I think we can agree that is fucked up.
But sitting in a chair nearly 50 years later you cannot say that Bull Connor had a First Amendment right to do that. That is the dirtiest false-equivocation I have heard in a long time. That "boorish" behavior that you would stand up against now rings hollow in the light of your comments. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of many attempts to break the very long very destructive cycle of structural discrimination. The structural discrimination that allowed for a culture in which it was okay to attack people for wanted to eat a fucking grilled cheese.
So Rand. Shut up. We here at EoiaS like it when you rant against the Federal Reserver and promote the gold standard. We eat that shit up. But this bullshit is a bullshit bridge to far.
* Please see vonnegut on why that is a problem.
7 comments:
I'd love to have something substantive to say here.. but.. really?
All I have is an affirmitave, solid agreed.
A solid -signed, Roscoe Brown
Therefore,
signed, Roscoe Brown
I'm not a racist, but I think that if Rand Paul were not retarded he could defend this position: "I do believe in private ownership."
If you remember back to April 21, 2009 you will recall the headline Texas Man Settles Discrimination Lawsuit Against Hooters for Not Hiring Male Waiters. The guy's argument is that Hooters is discriminatory in its hiring practices, which it demonstrably is; Hooters will not hire male waiters and only hires female waitresses. Given what "discrimination" means, Hooters is discriminatory; Hooters discriminates based upon sex/gender.
Which is a problem until you learn the phrase Bona Fide Occupational Qualification, which may be one of the best legal phrases, ever.
Said simply, a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification is a legitimate basis for discrimination. As wikipedia defines it: "a quality or an attribute that employers are allowed to consider when making decisions on the hiring and retention of employees – qualities that when considered in other contexts would be considered discriminatory and thus violating civil rights employment law."
It's fantastic. While we have laws which make discrimination in hiring practices illegal, we ALSO have a phrase which can be utilized to undermine these very laws. We can discriminate; it is entirely legal to discriminate, as Hooters does in its hiring practices.
The issue is that one need argue that the discrimination is "bona fide".
For example, if one were to consult Title 29, Chapter 14, Section 623 of the US code one will find that it is legal to discriminate on the basis of age:
"It shall not be unlawful for an employer, employment agency, or labor organization—
(1) to take any action otherwise prohibited under subsections (a), (b), (c), or (e) of this section where age is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business"
So, while we think discrimination a horrible bugaboo it is entirely legal if one can articulate a bona fide occupational qualification.
The beauty of which, of course, is that "bona fide" means "in good faith". And there is no rigid legal standard for discerning what is or is not done "in good faith". Discerning whether or not X is done "in good faith" is subjective.
So, to bring this back to Paul's quote: "I do believe in private ownership."
If Hooters can have a "women only" policy for waitresses and that constitute a bona fide occupational qualification? Then Paul could start a whites-only restaurant and articulate a bona fide occupational qualification that the servers not be niggers.
And all he has to do is convince some racist judge that his restaurant theme is made in good faith.
It's just that simple.
Rand can't defend the position, though, becuase he's less interested in having the debate, than he is in getting a career in national politics.
He knows, rightly so, that if he wants to talk about this, it's got to be nuanced. And he, and the media, aren't nuanced. Which makes his evasions sound like dog whistling.
Do you think he thinks he can come out well in a nuanced debate?
... I think he'd come out well in a nuanced discussion, in a roundtable or on a campus somewhere.
A debate suggests defending your point, attacking your opponent's point, and projecting an image throughout it.
I dunno if Rand can do that, but I could see him in an academic discussion, pontificating about what he really WANTS to say..
I think he could do well in a discussion with persons who have not thought through these issues. Sort of like how Libertarianism seems to hold up well on internet forums.
He could probably say many things people would like to believe, and in that way do well.
But I think that eventually he's going to end up articulating either a fundamentally contradictory story, or a narrative which has nothing to do with the world in which we live.
And that's the part where I think he'd fail in a nuanced debate. He could probably participate in a town hall meeting and convince some toothless hicks that they don't need the gov'rment. But he can't possibly be right.
I'd go you one farther, and say he's okay holding up his end of a discussion, and defend his stance, complete w/ some very unsavory implications... by arguing those implications to be outside of his control/domain.
I might be misreading him.. but.. I get the feeling he's willing to own up to awful things, by saying he's got no right to intervene.. but I get the feeling he wouldn't just say that in instance X, but that he'd hold it across the board.. which.. I don't think most politicans who stick their foot in it w/ regards to institutional racism would.
But.. I could be misreading him.
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