I doubt Maddow was trying to paint Paul as a racist. She was trying to get him to answer a simple question. The question had to do with public comments he had made. It is his answer that could paint him as a racist.
MADDOW: Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don’t serve black people?
I would have said to Paul, Answer the question directly and then answer why you think the way you do. It would’ve been an honest conversation. Might even have been an example of a profile in courage.
“odius and appaling” are useless modifiers if the baseline intent is to support a businesses legal and moral right right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
The fact that you seem to be saying that if he does indeed confirm that he doesn’t think businesses shouldn’t be able to discriminate against protected groups, then he’s a racist, is exactly the sort of sentiment she was going to feed into by getting a soundbite. You are (as far as I can tell) demonstrating the reason he was so defensive.
Phrasing the question as specifically whether or not business should be able to deny black people is deliberately inflamatory in that regard. A more neutral way to ask it would be to ask if he feels that the government has the right to dictate who or how he chooses to serve customers.
Your assumptions of what most* liberals* understand, would be hilarious if it weren’t being used to cover over the libertarian nonsense that separates principles from real world consequences.
The rest of your answer reflects ignorance of the distinctions between open to the public businesses, and private business dealings.
You also are taking progressive attitudes and stamping them on liberals. Bad.
Not sure why Maddow has such an interest in the subject now that society can no longer legally discriminate about who can serve in what jobs, who can marry whom, etc.
I think the point the previously referenced blogger Klein made was the most on point in this discussion, specifically that Rand Paul is not necessarily, or even obviously, a de facto racist, but he is an obvious ideological extremist and that’s not a recipe for success in statewide **general **elections for political office.
I’m saying that there’s a certain attitude more common amongst liberals that if something is right, then it’s fine to be made law by the government. There’s no consideration of whether or not it’s something with unintended consequences or whether it should be left up to the individual. So quite simply, “racism is bad” becomes “let’s make all sorts of laws that stamp out racism”. There’s not a position of “I find it morally wrong, but this isn’t an issue for the government to solve with law”. So, when you don’t even have this concept in mind, the only conclusion you can make is “opposes laws forcing non-discrimination” = “desire to discriminate”.
No, it doesn’t - I’m just saying that I think businesses open to the public should be able to discriminate. Which they can - except for protected groups. A business owner can ban all kids under a certain age, or people who dress a certain way, or even just kick people out because he doesn’t like the way they look at him. It’s only the specific prohibitions on discriminating against protected classes that are given some reverence.
Could you explain to me the differences on this issue?
I don’t really have a problem with your criticms there, it seems valid enough. However, I do think I would feel better living in a society where, upon given the chance, people would do what’s right rather than being held back in their racist desires due to the active intervention of the government. I’d like to think that in this day and age, businesses that had a blatantly racist policy would be boycotted and ran into the ground by people of their own free will, rather than by force of law.
You jump between asking Paul what a business should be able to do and what Paul himself would do.
So this is about the personalities of Rand Paul and Rachel Maddow, or will we be discussing the principles involved? Framing an argument or question is important, but it can be used as a way of deflecting. Being disingenuous in speech, is a cowardly way of avoiding responsibility for words and actions.
An open to the public business that demands the right to deny service to black people is initiating an an inflammatory event. Open to the public businesses are regulated. Are you against regulating ‘open to the public’ businesses?
The answer he gives, he clearly indicates that he has no desire to discriminate against blacks with his own business.
Asking “do you think businesses should be able to ban black people” is obviously more loaded and more inflammatory than “do you think businesses should be restricted from discriminating against protected classes?” or even more generally “do you think business owners should have the right to choose who to serve?”
I’m against the specific exception that business owners can’t discriminate against protected classes in choosing who they serve. I think business owners should be able to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
I agree that the position he holds is not very radical, but poses a large risk for misinterpretation. A savvier politician probably wouldn’t have brought up the issue for the media to misinterpret in the first place, but you can’t unring the bell in this case. The best thing Paul can do is acknowledge that he believes that the authority of a person to run their business as they see fit, including but not limited to, denying service to whomever they please, is absolute. I assume the Tea Partiers backed him because they thought he’d bring something new to Washington. So far, he’s been practicing the doublespeak with the best of them.
Here’s a soundbite that might work for Mr. Paul:
“Yes, a business should be legally allowed to discriminate based on race, and right thinking people should boycott such a business.”
Ok, it’s not really snappy, but I think that sums it up well enough for a nightly news segment.
If the agents of a freely-elected government prevent a business from operating in such a fashion, how is than not “the people acting of their own free will”? A legal expression of the will of the people is far more effective than any boycott.
Then why not try to enact into law every aspect of behavior you deem correct? How about we just outlaw people being racist at all? That’ll solve the problem.
If we allow the freedom to discriminate with your business, and yet those who use that freedom for harm suffer for it (through boycotts, ostracism, whatever) we’ve won both in terms of having property owners retain sovereignty, individuals making the right choices, and society being served as a greater goal. If this happens at gunpoint rather than through individual choices, it still accomplishes some good, but less, and has greater costs.
I don’t generally subscribe to a one-axis political orientation world. You cannot infer from my words that if I believe liberals have some trait, then I must believe that authoritarian conservatives don’t. Rand Paul is, I assume, basically libertarian, and I can very much suggest the statement is less true of libertarians since that’s one of the main issues of their philosophy. Probably the main one.