Paul withdraws from show appearance

[bugatti]

 

Restaurants are allowed to refuse service to anyone they choose, are they not?

 

Which basically means they are allowed to refuse service to anyone they choose. Thanks, I knew I was right.

 

Yes it does. If they wanted to, a restaurant manager could very easily refuse service to a certain group of people and do so in a way that wouldn't be against any laws. How exactly could you prove the reason a person is refused service? You can't.

 

Dude, what are you talking about? I think you need to brush up on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[75center]

No, you are absolutely wrong. If you refuse service based on race or a number of other criteria you are in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There is good news in all of this. It is somewhat heartening that some of the younger members on this board don't see allowing a business to discriminate as a problem for the simple reason that they don't believe that the vast majority of businesses would do so. Those of us of a certain age not only believe they would do so, we have witnessed them doing it in our lifetimes. When I was young, we used to drive from Louisville to Nelson County about once a month. I still remember the signs at the gas stations along Bardstown Road that labeled one side "white" and the other side "colored". When I was in high school, a teacher was shown on the front page of the CJ being arrested and drug out of city hall at an open housing demonstration. It is good that to younger people, and I'll include Rand Paul in that group, those days seem like ancient history. For me, those days are memories and I am not willing to go back. Liberal action from both Democrats and Republicans gave us the fix for those un American and immoral actions. I am not willing to risk going back to those days for the sake of Rand Paul's idea of personal freedom. Make no mistake. Rand Paul does have a philosophical objection to the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Social Security, Medicare, zoning and any number of other things that are taken for granted in the modern world. He has three choices between now and election day. He can expose himself to questions and lie in his answers, he can avoid questions from anyone except the prescreened or he can expose himself to questions, give truthful answers and show himself to be the unelectable nutjob that he is.

 

It will be number one, same as Conway will. Same as a huge number of politicians do.

[Trinity alum]

It will be number one, same as Conway will. Same as a huge number of politicians do.

 

You may be right. To his credit, Rachel Maddow gave him a number of chances to take option one and he didn't. He has walked back from that position in subsequent statements. He is not a natural liar. His problem is that if he tells the truth I think he will be rejected. If he lies and does a bad job of it, he may be rejected anyway. His best chance to win the election is to learn to lie with conviction. He can try to say that his views on a wide variety of issues don't matter because they are "settled". He can get away with that on the Civil Rights Act and maybe even the Americans With Disabilities Act. It will be much harder to ignore social security and Medicare. He may run into another problem - money. Will his money start to dry up? I thought that he got very tepid support from RNC chairman Steele and other Republicans. They may feel thaat they need to throw him under a bus to protect the Republican Party. You can't throw away 90 percent of all minorities in the country and expect to have a future. I think Rand Paul as the face of the Republican Party risks doing exactly that.

[Butters]

You may be right. To his credit, Rachel Maddow gave him a number of chances to take option one and he didn't. He has walked back from that position in subsequent statements. He is not a natural liar. His problem is that if he tells the truth I think he will be rejected. If he lies and does a bad job of it, he may be rejected anyway. His best chance to win the election is to learn to lie with conviction. He can try to say that his views on a wide variety of issues don't matter because they are "settled". He can get away with that on the Civil Rights Act and maybe even the Americans With Disabilities Act. It will be much harder to ignore social security and Medicare. He may run into another problem - money. Will his money start to dry up? I thought that he got very tepid support from RNC chairman Steele and other Republicans. They may feel thaat they need to throw him under a bus to protect the Republican Party. You can't throw away 90 percent of all minorities in the country and expect to have a future. I think Rand Paul as the face of the Republican Party risks doing exactly that.

 

When Michael Steele is throwing you under the bus you've got a real problem.

[UKMustangFan]

Dude, what are you talking about? I think you need to brush up on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

 

I'm saying it's nearly impossible to prove. So while it may not be allowed, that doesn't mean restaurants a) aren't doing it, and b) can't easily get away with doing it.

 

That's all I was attempting to show, probably didn't word it as I should have though.

[History]

When Michael Steele is throwing you under the bus you've got a real problem.

 

Yeah we should listen to the guy that brought us John McCain and can't keep his own political huse in good financial order. Steele is a fraud.

[Voice of Reason]

You may be right. To his credit, Rachel Maddow gave him a number of chances to take option one and he didn't. He has walked back from that position in subsequent statements. He is not a natural liar. His problem is that if he tells the truth I think he will be rejected. If he lies and does a bad job of it, he may be rejected anyway. His best chance to win the election is to learn to lie with conviction. He can try to say that his views on a wide variety of issues don't matter because they are "settled". He can get away with that on the Civil Rights Act and maybe even the Americans With Disabilities Act. It will be much harder to ignore social security and Medicare. He may run into another problem - money. Will his money start to dry up? I thought that he got very tepid support from RNC chairman Steele and other Republicans. They may feel thaat they need to throw him under a bus to protect the Republican Party. You can't throw away 90 percent of all minorities in the country and expect to have a future. I think Rand Paul as the face of the Republican Party risks doing exactly that.

 

The only way the money dries up is if it starts to look like he has no shot at winning. Or if Paul becomes a potential liability for the party and that forces them to distance themselves. I don't think either of those will be the case. So the money will be there. Spin will be there to keep the money flowing and to keep those contributing feeling like it is the right thing even if they have doubts about their candidate. Paul just has to have his positions and talking points well thought out to successfully run the coming media gauntlet.

[75center]

You may be right. To his credit, Rachel Maddow gave him a number of chances to take option one and he didn't. He has walked back from that position in subsequent statements. He is not a natural liar. His problem is that if he tells the truth I think he will be rejected. If he lies and does a bad job of it, he may be rejected anyway. His best chance to win the election is to learn to lie with conviction. He can try to say that his views on a wide variety of issues don't matter because they are "settled". He can get away with that on the Civil Rights Act and maybe even the Americans With Disabilities Act. It will be much harder to ignore social security and Medicare. He may run into another problem - money. Will his money start to dry up? I thought that he got very tepid support from RNC chairman Steele and other Republicans. They may feel thaat they need to throw him under a bus to protect the Republican Party. You can't throw away 90 percent of all minorities in the country and expect to have a future. I think Rand Paul as the face of the Republican Party risks doing exactly that.

 

He's new to the political game, he'll become a better liar. All it takes is practice.

[Butters]

Yeah we should listen to the guy that brought us John McCain and can't keep his own political huse in good financial order. Steele is a fraud.

 

Sarcasm intended.

[StickerMann]

He's new to the political game, he'll become a better liar. All it takes is practice.

 

Soon he'll be chanting he's for "change" and all will be well!!

[Habib]

While nothing about debating the Civil Rights Act or opposing aspects of it makes a person a racist, inherently, these libertarian and states’ rights philosophies regarding it have been used for racists to hide behind, especially during the contentious debate surrounding it. Therefore, it is important to have an honest debate about it, one where all parties’ views are fleshed out entirely. Dodging questions or refusing to elaborate on a publicly held belief give the impression that one does not know what they are talking about. Either the person is simply stubborn, isn’t curious enough to attempt to understand the issue of race relations fully, and thus one of the most important issues in this country, or something worse.

 

For those who wish to argue against the Civil Rights Act on a libertarian principle, I couldn’t disagree more. Either one doesn’t consider racism a problem, which I won’t entertain, or one is advocating a market based solution to a social problem. Advocates of this suggest that businesses who refuse customers based on race, ethnicity or gender will flounder and fail because people would not patronize those businesses out of detest. The first problem with this is that it clearly did not happen when it was allowed. Racist businesses flourished. And this was relatively recently. Secondly, I think it underestimates the problem. People are quick to use lunch counters as an example, as that is where the famous sit-ins often took place. But businesses have much wider reaches and people are certainly not aware of all of the policies that take place. Perhaps a realty firm would refuse to sell homes to black citizens, especially in certain neighborhoods, as happened in the 1960s. How many people would realize this? How many people would be in an economic position to affect this? Since it rarely gets mentioned, I would assume not many. Thirdly, the issue isn’t as cut and dry between personal liberty and public policy as some would like to have it. If a black man walks into a white only theater and refuses to leave, will the police not be asked to enforce this? How can public funds be justified for this, or does this demand anarchy? While I would typically take the libertarian side in an issue like this, especially on free speech, I think this is simply too detestable to allow and places too great a restriction on other persons’ liberty. On the whole, I think this argument reflects a strong lack of understanding of this country.

 

These are some of the questions I would like to hear Rand Paul answer. While the Civil Rights Act is not going to be repealed and probably not debated, his answers would provide insight into his ideology and belief system, most especially about race in this country. I would also like to hear how he reconciles this belief with beliefs about something like keeping marijuana illegal, which might likely be an issue he could vote upon in his tenure.

[mcpapa]

I'm saying it's nearly impossible to prove. So while it may not be allowed, that doesn't mean restaurants a) aren't doing it, and b) can't easily get away with doing it.

 

That's all I was attempting to show, probably didn't word it as I should have though.

 

Backpedaling quicker than Rand.

 

Seriously, T alum brings up an interesting point - it can be viewed as a good thing when young folks have no understanding of the necessity of enacting the Civil Rights Act.

 

However, this isn't all ancient history. Doesn't anyone remember Denny's coming under fire a few years back for this very thing (and paying over $50 million in fines)? That was only 15 or 16 years ago.

[the mathemagician]

Backpedaling quicker than Rand.

 

Seriously, T alum brings up an interesting point - it can be viewed as a good thing when young folks have no understanding of the necessity of enacting the Civil Rights Act.

 

However, this isn't all ancient history. Doesn't anyone remember Denny's coming under fire a few years back for this very

thing (and paying over $50 million in fines)? That was only 15 or 16 years ago.

 

 

You're right. It's not ancient history at all. Denny's restaurants started disappearing faster than a bottle of Limbaugh's Oxy's. Without the CRA of '64, you'd still see "Whites Only" signs at restaurants in the town I live in.

[Plato]

He's new to the political game, he'll become a better liar. All it takes is practice.

:lol:

[SKINPIG]

While nothing about debating the Civil Rights Act or opposing aspects of it makes a person a racist, inherently, these libertarian and states’ rights philosophies regarding it have been used for racists to hide behind, especially during the contentious debate surrounding it. Therefore, it is important to have an honest debate about it, one where all parties’ views are fleshed out entirely. Dodging questions or refusing to elaborate on a publicly held belief give the impression that one does not know what they are talking about. Either the person is simply stubborn, isn’t curious enough to attempt to understand the issue of race relations fully, and thus one of the most important issues in this country, or something worse.

 

For those who wish to argue against the Civil Rights Act on a libertarian principle, I couldn’t disagree more. Either one doesn’t consider racism a problem, which I won’t entertain, or one is advocating a market based solution to a social problem. Advocates of this suggest that businesses who refuse customers based on race, ethnicity or gender will flounder and fail because people would not patronize those businesses out of detest. The first problem with this is that it clearly did not happen when it was allowed. Racist businesses flourished. And this was relatively recently. Secondly, I think it underestimates the problem. People are quick to use lunch counters as an example, as that is where the famous sit-ins often took place. But businesses have much wider reaches and people are certainly not aware of all of the policies that take place. Perhaps a realty firm would refuse to sell homes to black citizens, especially in certain neighborhoods, as happened in the 1960s. How many people would realize this? How many people would be in an economic position to affect this? Since it rarely gets mentioned, I would assume not many. Thirdly, the issue isn’t as cut and dry between personal liberty and public policy as some would like to have it. If a black man walks into a white only theater and refuses to leave, will the police not be asked to enforce this? How can public funds be justified for this, or does this demand anarchy? While I would typically take the libertarian side in an issue like this, especially on free speech, I think this is simply too detestable to allow and places too great a restriction on other persons’ liberty. On the whole, I think this argument reflects a strong lack of understanding of this country.

 

These are some of the questions I would like to hear Rand Paul answer. While the Civil Rights Act is not going to be repealed and probably not debated, his answers would provide insight into his ideology and belief system, most especially about race in this country. I would also like to hear how he reconciles this belief with beliefs about something like keeping marijuana illegal, which might likely be an issue he could vote upon in his tenure.

 

I don't know how to take Paul's remarks yet. I sure wish he would defend them though. I deplore racism and would frown on anyone that refused a service to someone based on their skin color. I don't think Mr. Paul thinks one should either.

 

A few questions that I do not have an answer for:

 

1. Is it against the law for a private citizen to be racist?

2. Is it against the law for a private citizen to discriminate?

3. Does the Constitution allow the Federal Government to determine whether or not a private business can "discriminate" or choose who they do, or do not serve?

4. Does the KKK, NAACP, or any other group that is of one color or race discriminate? Is it legal?

5. Is it legal for some to discriminate and illegal for others?

Edited May 26, 2010 by SKINPIG