Rand Paul cancels interview on 'Meet The Press'
"Following a week of unsparingly critical press coverage, Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is now seeking to limit his national exposure.
A spokesperson for the Tea Party-endorsed candidate informed NBC News late Friday afternoon that an exhausted Paul was canceling his interview on Sunday's "Meet the Press," Betsy Fischer, the executive producer for the program, told the Huffington Post. "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/2 … 85460.html
What's next, Rand? Pre-screened questions submitted in advance? (Sarah Palin style)- PrettyPantherposted 14 years ago
0Poor Rand went out into the big, bad world and discovered that not everyone agrees with him. Poor thing.
Seriously, now that he is in the public eye, he will be advised to hide the true nature of his beliefs so as to seem more mainstream. He needs time to practice evading questions.
- Larry Croftposted 14 years ago0
I hope Mr. Paul remains true to himself and doesn't change one bit.
Sure, he might lose the election but that's OK. As a completely candid person, he will have offered his "product" with all the ingredients known. The voters can then know what to expect.
That's how it should be. There are too many politicians now that tell what they think voters want to hear. There are too many politicians in bed with political correctness. That's why promises during campaigns become broken promises when in office.
If Rand Paul remains true to himself, he will finish the game - the end of his life - in 1st place.You don't think Rand Paul is telling certain people what they want to hear?
Rand Paul was a big it running against Obama.
Now he's being asked about what he's for - which is far more important than what you are against. It's not playing well. The best chance a libertarian has to get elected is to NOT discuss what the libertarian philosphy is about.
He's already backed off his foolish position on civil rights on the Maddow show last week.
I don't think he's backed off his position, nor do I believe his position to be "silly". To the contrary, it is right on. The Civil Rights Act should not have imposed upon private business a restriction on who could be hired. That responsibility is outside the bounds of constitutional authority. That said, I think we can all agree that discrimination isn't right and that is Paul's position. The problem is if he is to say he was against the civil rights act it would be misrepresented by the press and the reason for his opposition may not be well understood as much of the citizens of the USA misconstrue the power structure of the republic.
Yours is a "fringe" view. Discrimination isn't right but nothing should be done about it. Give us a break. The 1964 Civil Rights Act is one of the most successful pieces of legislation ever.
Because the vast majority of Americans support the Civil Rights Act. Just curious, why don't you? I helped implement the act in a major U.S. corporation and can provide chapter and verse on what a healthy change that the act brought about, a change that would have been a very long time, or never, coming in the absence of the Act.
I believe he did say, the day after his disastrous Maddow intervies, he would have supported the Act or that he does support it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/weeki … nhaus.html
Here's a Republican comment:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opini … amp;st=cseYes he did say he would have voted for it, but who knows what he would have done if he had the chance to at that time.
The principles he espoused though make sense, even if they are morally wrong in the view of some. If you believe in private property and your rights to do with that property as you please, then you must share the view that as an owner of a business it is your right to hire and fire anyone for any reason. Certainly it isn't the right to the government to impose such restrictions. If you believe the government does have that right, then you must also believe the government has the right to limit your choice to abortion as well.You sound just like those people who tried to justify and continue slavery.
I'm not trying to justify slavery at all. There is no justification for slavery, it's wrong.
But people used the excuse that they were property and the owners had the right to do whatever they wanted with their property.
Rand was only three years old at the time. I'm willing to cut him a little slack for having not lived through the civil rights revolution and watching the dogs set on marchers by Bull Connor and hearing MLK's speeches, and hearing and seeing contemporaneously about Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat to a white man, and the Kresge lunch counter sit-ins and discrimination of passenger railroads, movie theaters, hotels, restaurants and so forth. He needs to read up on the subject and watch a few movies.
You may be willing to cut him some slack, but I'm not. I wasn't even born at the time, and I know better. As a politician, he ought to be very aware of such history and its impact. IMHO.
Good to see you, Ralph...Would love to read your "chapter and verse" about helping a company implement these changes.Just a little slack, not much.
When I came to GM in 1960 the only women in the Headquarters were secretaries--no engineers, accountants, managers. The only blacks were janitors, one elevator operator and a few laborers and zero salaried employees, not even one black woman secretary. No women had ever been accepted into the skilled trades apprentice program. Yet, when criticized on the occasion of annual stockholders meetings the officers cited the company's longstanding policy of non-discrimination in employment but was silent about it's longstanding practice of discrimination against blacks and women. This struck me as the ultimate in hypocrisy.
The practice of discrimination didn't begin to change until the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 requiring corporations with federal government contracts to report annually on goals and timetables and which created an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and to accept individual claims of discrimination. I happened to be working in the section of the personnel staff which hired the first black secretary who, as I recall, had been carefully selected by the Urban League to break the color line. She had impeccable qualifications. The day before her first day at work the department head called a meeting of the other secretaries in the department, almost apologetically, to ask that everyone welcome the black woman. One of the secretaries broke down in tears over the prospect of working with a black secretary (I'm not a mind reader, and I can't say for sure why she cried.)
Not long after the Act was passed GM and the UAW on a pre-apprentice training program to prepare minorities for the entrance test and began recruiting minority applicants for high paying skilled trades jobs. (The pre-apprentice training program was open to whites as well as blacks, but the announcement was made mostly in predominantly minority schools and in the Michigan Chronicle, a black owned newspaper.) This program was quite successful in attracting qualified minority applicants who had completed the required high school math and science courses. This effort over several years brought minority participation in the skilled trades throughout GM to levels more or less comparable to their numbers in the cities where the plants were located.
At that time no one had given any thought to participation of women in the skilled trades, and a woman had never been accepted as an apprentice. In 1966 or 1967 I happened to take a call from the director of labor relations of the AC Spark Plug Division in Flint, Michigan. He said "We've got our first woman applicany to the apprentice program. She applied to enter the toolmaker apprentice program." I asked how she did on the test, and he replied that her score was among the highest of all the applicants. I then asked whether physically she could perform the work of a toolmaker, and he replied as I recall that she was 5'8" and plenty strong enough to do toolmaker work. I asked then if the local union was okay with admitting the woman to the program. The answer was yes. So, without consulting my boss, because I wasn't sure what his answer would be, I urged the man who called to put the woman into the skilled trades apprentice program. I'm pretty sure she was the first woman accepted to the GM-UAW Joint Apprentice program. I checked once in a while on her progress, and was informed that she was an outstanding apprentice who completed the program and became a journeyman toolmaker. For the first time in its history GM sent recruiters to predominantly minority universities and engineering schools. It was not long before GM had qualified minorities and women in every factory, engineering, accounting, managerial classification in the company including two or three vice presidents.
Similar progress was made in the other automobile companies and other businesses in the Detroit area and across the land. The progress was not completely smooth. It was marked by a lot of grumbling by white employees and claims of reverse discrimination. However, managers were never asked to hire or promote anyone who was not qualified for the job. I'm convinced that it would have been a long time, if ever, that the doors to all occupations would have been opened if the Civil Rights Act had not been passed. I'm not aware of any court challenges to the constitutionality of the act or claims that it infringed on private property rights.
Aside from company and union efforts, colleges and universities who had admitted few minorities also began recruiting minorities. Engineering schools who had had few or no women began recruiting promising women applicants. There were only two blacks in my freshman college class of 2,000. After 1964 this change and today the school has ten or twelve percent minority student. The business school where I got an MBA in 1960 did not admit women and had close to zero minority male students. This also changed in the 1960s.Thanks, Ralph. I really appreciate your taking the time to answer my question and tell us about that. And thank you for your work in that arena. It's thanks to you and people like you that I am able to be a fairly independent woman pursuing an education and a career in what used to be a male-dominated field.
The non-discrimination in employment and public accommodations parts of the Civil Rights Act are perfectly compatible with private property rights. The courts judge each limitation on its own merit. Just because one proposed limitation is not accepted doesn't mean that another may not be approved in the public interest by the courts. Employment discrimination has nothing to do with abortion. They are two different issues. Employment discrimination has been found to be illegal. Current abortion law supports a woman's right to choose but allows for states to pass certain limitations, but not an absolute prohibition of abortion. This is not likely to change but it could. Rand's ineffectual performance on Maddow illustrates the problem with doctrinaire, dogmatic beliefs held by libertarians and some religious true believers. Few rights are absolute under our system, e.g., exceptions to the sacred right of free speech.
Here's one of my favorite quotations on property rights:
George Baer, president of the Philadelphia & Reading , 1903: "the interests of the working man will be protected, not by labor agitators, but by Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has entrusted the property interest of the country." Labor's Progress and Problems, Millis and Montgomery.
There is nothing to be gained by appearing on Meet the press for Paul, sounds like a smart move.
"What's next, Rand? Pre-screened questions submitted in advance?"
Are you serious? This coming from an Obama supporter...Classic!Awwwwww...you mean I don't get to see him make himself look like even more of an ass than he already does?
Quel dommage.Or the right to guarantee your right to an abortion.
The point is if you own a business, it's yours to do with as you please, just as your body is yours to do with as you please. You can say the government has say over one and not the other.
Suppose I own a kitten. Is it mine to torture if I like, or does the government have a 'right' to limit how I use my property?
That depends on how you define torture doesn't it? Some would say dropping a live lobster into a pot of boiling water is torture. Do you eat lobster?
Do you have a pet lobster? Does Rand eat lobster or kittens?
Most people would agree that the government DOES have a right to ban the torture of kittens. By doing so, they reject a basic tenet of libertarian thought that's not obvious when you discuss it outside the real world. Property rights are NOT the sacred thing that libertarians wish.
The rich - and I mean the VERY rich - live in terror that "We The People" will realize what is being done to us and use the power of democracy to change the game. Libertarians want to build a firewall to protect the government from requiring that the rich pay their fair share.
The top 1% (by population) own 38% of the net worth of this country. The bottom 40% by (population) owns 2-tenths of one percent of the net worth of this country.
I really don't care what his personal views about race are, the liberals screaming about what he said stay strangely quiet about Robert Byrd! You know, Robert Byrd, supposed former Klan member, sitting DEMOCRAT senator?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd
You guys make me laughFrom your Wikipedia link;
In 1997, he told an interviewer he would encourage young people to become involved in politics, but to "Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena."[13] In his latest autobiography, Byrd explained that he was a member because he "was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision—a jejune and immature outlook—seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions."[14] Byrd also said, in 2005,
“ I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened. ”
Perhaps it would be fair to say that, as in the case of Byrd, Rand Paul is "sorely afflicted with tunnel vision, a Jejune and immature outlook..."Yeah, that's great, he decided he was wrong, uh huh! Do you believe that or is this just an attempt to not look hypocritical? Face it, liberals only scream racism when its politically expedient and having a conversation about someones racial tolerance when this guy represent your views is disgusting!
Robert Byrd is a "supposed" former Klan member! And most of you remain silent and accepting of it because of the (D)behind his name, shameful!No. He is an admitted member and an officer. Did you actually read the Wikipedia article. He joined when he was 24 in 1941 when attitudes in the South and in the North were quite different than today. Rand Paul's dumb remark was made last week in a time when thoughtful people have accepted that all occupations and public businesses (restaurants, hotels, schools, etc) should be open to all regardless of race, religion or national origin.
Predictable, you found a way to excuse the Democrat, nothing said from this point on concerning racial intolerance on Rand Paul"s part should be taken seriously.
All it apparently takes is "I'm young and from the south so excuse my racism and belonging to the most vile and disgusting organizations that ever existed".
That is all it takes, unless, of course you are a conservative then its "off with his head"
Predictable, sad and disgusting but, predictable.And you are excusing Rand Paul whose attitude in 2010 isn't far from Byrd's in 1941.
Absolutely not!
However, joining an organization that routinely murdered blacks for sport and having an opinion on the governments intrusion into private business is not even anywhere near being the same!
If you believe that it is, you better rethink your own racial views.
EDIT
I have no opinion on Rand Paul at all, my beef is with you and the rest of the liberals who are obviously able to shrug off association and the actual joining with cold blooded murderers!I haven't said so, and I don't believe so. But Byrd's attitude was commonplace when he joined the kkk and when he voted against the Civil Rights Act. Rand's position is far out and not commonplace today.
You have accepted Byrd as a member of the Democrat party, that say's to me that his association and membership into the Ku Klux Klan doesn't mean a thing to you or any other Democrat. I have never heard any Democrat denounce this man as a disgrace, and everyone of you should!
Byrd is now a respected member of the Senate. He has apologized over and over for his past racist history, more than Strom Thurmond or Jesse Helms ever did. I don't recall anyone from the GOP excoriating them for their racism. Both, if memory serves, started as racist Democrats and then they were welcomed into the GOP with open arms as racist Republicans.
I am not a member of the GOP, I have expressed outrage over both Helms and Thurmond as many others including Democrats have. But not once, not once have any Democrats spoke out against this "respected" member of the Senate.
I am appalled that you would use the word "respected" in a description of a Klan member, oh yeah, former Klan member.
Who actually respects Robert Byrd?Somebody must respect him he's been reelected every time he ran for the Senate since 1959. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1952. He's the longest serving Senator and the longest serving member of Congress in history. He is pretty frail and strikes me as a bit senile. I'm not a big admirer of Byrd, and most Democrats I know aren't either. Most think it's long past the time for him to retire. He appears intent on dying with his boots on.
Do you think maybe he gets reelected because of his racial views?
You mean his racial views of 50 years ago which he renounced and apologized for many times? I doubt it. He gets reelected because he uses his seniority to get lots of pork for West Virginia. I suppose some W. Virginia rednecks vote for him because of his past affiliation with the Klan. Who knows. I don't pretend to know much about W. Virginia politics.
I meant that a little tongue in cheek.
Actually, a lot tongue in cheek!
The other thing about Helms and Thurmond, neither belonged to the KKK! You yourself said Byrd was a product of his times they were certainly of those times, so why mention them at all?
You are excusing one racist and calling other people racist, its like a dog chasing his tail. Really, do you believe any thing you are saying?No, I was merely pointing out that the GOP had two white racist Senators. You are the one who brought Byrd up as if he were still a member of KKK. As far as I'm concerned Byrd's long past history is irrelevant to Rand's current attitude toward government action to promote or guarantee civil rights. Note, I have carefully refrained from characterizing his personal attitude as one of supporting discrimination. I accept his statement to that effect.
So you pointed out they were racist, wonderful, but don't act as if you are not excusing Byrd simply because he is a Democrat because you are.
I brought up Byrd because of all of the fake outrage on the part of so many liberals commenting on this thread. Paul's statement does not even register on the scale of racism compared to Byrd's. But not a single one of you mentions Byrd ever, you all have to know about his membership in the Klan, but never a word.
Its more than hypocritical to say Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond are bad racists and just so easily excuse Byrd, but as I said, its predictable.
I didn't start this to paint Byrd as a current member of the KKK, but the mere fact that he belonged to that vile group in the first place is reason to question anything he say's!
Well, I guess it would if you were consistent in your hatred of racism, but that does not appear to be the case.
Robert Byrd? Anyone, Klan member, drooling idiot who represents West Virginia? Hello, where is the outrage about Robert Byrd?
I see, you aren't outraged when its one of your own just when the competition is supposedly racist!
And you all want to be taken serious.What does that have to do with talking about what Rand Paul said?
If you need to ask then you wouldn't understand the answer. Good luck.
It must be a relief to you that you are right about absolutely everything you say and anyone that disagrees with you is an idiot.
Absolutely nothing. It's a cheap shot from a lack of a credible argument.
I know I never caller Rand Paul racist. I have read over Ralph's remarks and he doesn't say that. Rand Paul made it clear that he's not a racist in the Madow interview and I take him at is word.
What Rand DID say that's moraly objectionable and I DO believe represents Rand's true core beliefs is that the property rights of business owners trump the individual civil rights of minorities or disabled people. Yes, as a liberal I want to shine a light on the despicable meaning of libertarian thought, the glorification of greed, it's emphasis on the 'property rights' of the rich over the civil rights of the common man. Libertarian thought is abastardized distortion of the intent of the founding fathers. This truth is far more of a threat to Rand or Ron Paul than the false accusation of racism.It has everything to do with this thread, a bunch of liberals condemning "racist" statements while never condemning an actual racist.
And then there is the complete and total excusing of a racist while condemning others as racist.
Again, you guys are funny and should never be taken seriously!What you continue to fail to admit is that not a single person has called Rand Paul "racist." Yet, you continue to argue as though they have. This tells me that you'd rather argue an imaginary point than a real one because you know the real point being made by Doug, Ralph, and others here is legitimate.
What Doug said here is crystal clear:
"What Rand DID say that's moraly objectionable and I DO believe represents Rand's true core beliefs is that the property rights of business owners trump the individual civil rights of minorities or disabled people. Yes, as a liberal I want to shine a light on the despicable meaning of libertarian thought, the glorification of greed, it's emphasis on the 'property rights' of the rich over the civil rights of the common man. Libertarian thought is abastardized distortion of the intent of the founding fathers. This truth is far more of a threat to Rand or Ron Paul than the false accusation of racism."
Now, you could show us you actually have comprehension skills by addressing the original point, which is that Rand Paul's positions on the Civil Rights Act and the Americans for Disabilities Act are NOT agreeable to many Americans and now that the media has shown a light upon his radical beliefs, he is having to "regroup" to figure out how to handle inquiries about them.
I will leave you to your hypocritical bashing of Rand Paul!
GM in 1960 sounds like Heaven to Robert Byrd, any thoughts at all on the racist DEMOCRAT representing West Virginia in 2010?
I'm sure Robert Byrd has changed his attitude considerably since he was a member of KKK in his youth. You're dragging him in as a red herring. Byrd has nothing to do with our discussion of Rand Paul's incredible answers to Maddow's questions. His dogmatic, unthoughtful position on the Civil Rights Act was nothing new on Maddow's show last week. Somebody on NPR today pointed out that the news media reporting on the Kentucky election didn't do their job of pointing out his previous unacceptable public positions on civil rights and private property. Maddow deserves credit for bringing the matter out into the open.
GOP SOUTHERN STRATEGY
Although the phrase "Southern strategy" is often attributed to Nixon political strategist Kevin Phillips, he did not originate it,[1] but merely popularized it.[2] In an interview included in a 1970 New York Times article, he touched on its essence:
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.[3]
While Phillips sought to polarize ethnic voting in general, and not just to win the white South, the South was by far the biggest prize yielded by his approach. Its success began at the presidential level, gradually trickling down to statewide offices, the Senate and House, as some legacy segregationist Democrats retired or switched to the GOP. In addition, the Republican Party worked for years to develop grassroots political organizations across the South, supporting candidates for local school boards and offices, for instance. Following the Watergate scandal, there was broad support for the Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election.
From 1948 to 1984 the Southern states, traditionally a stronghold for the Democrats, became key swing states, providing the popular vote margins in the 1960, 1968 and 1976 elections. During this era, several Republican candidates expressed support for states' rights, which some critics claim was "codewords" of opposition to federal enforcement of civil rights for blacks and intervention on their behalf, including passage of legislation to protect the franchise.[4]. This is in spite of any concrete appeals in opposition of civil rights in the course of supporting states' rights.
Analysts such as Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer have argued that this phenomenon had more to do with the economics than it had to do with race. In The End of Southern Exceptionalism, political scientists Johnston of the University of Pennsylvania and Shafer of the University of Wisconsin wrote that the Republicans' gains in the South corresponded to the growth of the upper middle class in that region. They suggested that such individuals believed their economic interests were better served by the Republicans than the Democrats. According to Johnston and Shafer, working-class white voters in the South continued to vote for Democrats for national office until the 1990s. In summary, Shafer told The New York Times, "[whites] voted by their economic preferences, not racial preferences".[5]
In 1980 Republican candidate Ronald Reagan's proclaiming support for "states' rights" at his first Southern campaign stop was cited as evidence that the Republican Party was building upon the Southern Strategy again. The location was significant - Reagan spoke at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, the county where the three civil rights workers were murdered during 1964's Freedom Summer,[6][7][8] although political speeches from local, state, and national politicians at the fair had been a long-standing tradition at the Fair dating back to 1896.[9]I appreciate it too Ralph! It's hard to remember now how it used to be. My own daughters never had the idea that they were limited in anything other than their own drive and determintation!
Didn't use to be that way.
And another Michigan story; Back in the 70's, my friends sister was the first female pipe-fitter! She was so proud..joined the pipe-fitters union, was in the newspaper--it was a big deal.
And that is why having a president who signed the Lily Ledbetter bill, appoints women to high-level positions and supports reproductive rights is so important.
A man who wants to outlaw abortion and doesn't agree with civil rights laws is no one I want in that office.When you think of it, it's enough to make you scream...or cry.
All those little kids thrown away, while other little kids get the world handed to them on a silver platter.
And try to do something for the little kids, and get demonized!
Where did we go so wrong?
Here But I'm Gone
by Curtis Mayfield
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