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Please Stop the Pandering, Senator Paul
You may count me among those unenthused by the prospect of a Rand Paul presidency. To understand why, look at the speech he gave in announcing his candidacy on Tuesday. Using an old and stale a rhetorical device, Senator Paul proclaimed his visions of an America he assures us would exist under his stewardship. Among these visions was this: “I see an America where criminal justice is applied equally and any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color is repealed.”
Senator Paul cannot possibly be so uninformed as to think that crime is committed in equal proportions across all ethnic lines. The only explanation for including that little nugget in the speech is that he is pandering to those who cling to the discredited belief that the criminal justice system is rigged against racial minorities.
The myth of the racially biased criminal justice system has been thoroughly debunked, in my opinion most effectively by my friend Heather Mac Donald (see here, for example). But, like “Hands up, Don’t Shoot,” it is a myth that refuses to die. And though this myth persists, it is nonetheless disappointing to see politicians propagating it, most especially a Republican aspiring to be president.
That Senator Paul should insert this line into his speech came as little surprise. Recall his sit-down last November with Al Sharpton, a man whose rise to national prominence was born in the racial hucksterism of the Tawana Brawley hoax and whose career ever since has been no less shameless. Yes, one can appreciate that success in electoral politics can require a candidate to consort with some unsavory characters, but there must be limits. And wherever those limits are, Al Sharpton is beyond them.
I will vote for Senator Paul should he emerge from the primaries as the Republican nominee, but my glee in doing so will be measured.
Image Credit: Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
Published in Domestic Policy, Law, Politics
< devil’s advocate mode = on >
a) If they’re repealed democratically, that’s still a step up from them being struck down by an unelected Supreme Court.
b) If elected President, he would not have the authority to repeal laws, so it’s arguably a bit of a moot point.
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
I am not sure b) is still operative. President Obama has taught us, through the immigration policies, that the President/ Executive Branch has the prosecutorial discretion to ignore laws it does not like.
What was quoted in the OP is a direct quote from what Sen. Paul said in the speech, and the rest of the speech did not provide extra context.
If Sen. Paul meant something other than what he said, that means he either made the statement in error (which says something about his competence as a campaigner) or he made the statement insincerely (which says something about his sincerity as a campaigner).
That being said, the statement still wouldn’t be a deal-breaker for me personally, because:
…and the fact that Rand Paul is not promising to follow President Obama’s lead is, for want of a better word, promising. IMHO.
That being said, I’d love to hear him make a campaign promise regarding a constitutional amendment to limit executive power. Past presidents have illustrated that voters cannot trust campaign promises about personal self-restraint.
Well, that’s one of the differences between a Libertarian and a Conservative. I’m a conservative. Frankly a Libertarian is no different than a Liberal on police matters. You seem to think that humanity is absent of the tendency to evil.
My point exactly. The quote is ambiguous; it uses the term “disproportionately” without defining what it’s supposed to be proportionate to. Without knowing what Paul meant, it’s meaningless to criticize what he said (except to criticize it for being ambiguous).
I grant the possibility that Paul’s meaning might be illuminated by other things he has said on other occasions. I haven’t followed his statements closely enough know where he stands.
Are police not human, or are they made of sterner stuff than mere humans?
Mr. Paul is starting to give libertarians a bad name. I’d really thought he was smarter than this.
Some of my favorite shows are crime dramas.
NYPD Blue is may favorite of all time, and it’s re-running now on DirecTV’s Audience Channel. Yes, Andy Sipowicz had his flaws, but he overcame them. Internal Affairs was a busy active participant over the years, but “the rat squad” too had it’s good guys and bad guys. The show was relatively honest about racial portrayals, to the degree allowed on an ad-supported broadcast network in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. In the end it was a program which gave great respect to law-abiding citizens, and gave consequence to every type of person, witnesses and victims’ families, admins and spouses, straights and gays, people struggling with faith and people overcoming terrible pasts. The show it the solution to the problems you list.
Today, a crime drama I would recommend is Scott & Bailey, which is available in the U.S. on some secondary PBS affiliates as well as on Hulu+ and on DVD from Acorn. Wonderful characters, good cops, all women. It’s set in Manchester, UK. The drama comes from putting away criminals, and from the tendency these women have to marry men who are unworthy of them.
I don’t want to analyze the fine points, or broad points I guess for that matter. I just know that hearing clips from the speech on Rush made me shrink down with my head in my hands going no no no. Everything about it made my skin crawl.
Ted Cruz’s speech made me put down my tools and fist bump the sky going Yeah! But I admit there is something to what James and the guys were saying on the podcast last week about there being something off about him being President. There’s a job for him where he would be absolutely killer, unstoppable. But the presidency these days requires some ineffable – or maybe perfectly effable, though regrettable – skills and ways to finesse your enemies which I fear he will never bow to. I LOVE that about him, but it means that this is probably not the job for him.
Rand Paul is good by many objective measures, but there’s no getting around the fact that hearing him speak made me cringe: tone, delivery, message. My reaction was “You too? You have to keep spouting this boilerplate?”
Jack, just as (my favorite print journalist) Heather Mac Donald settled all accounts about Ferguson, you have succinctly stated the inconvenient truth about crime and who commits it.
Liberals — and Rand Paul — just need to face the facts. If they keep talking about race and crime they will only empower their opponents, as the Black Power movement and its defenders did when they inadvertently helped Dick Nixon win as a “law and order” candidate.
Republicans need to remember the lessons of the Giuliani years in New York. Criminals cause crime. Crime declines when criminals are incarcerated. Let them out (as some propose) and crime returns.
Young people who take their studies seriously don’t even have the time to commit a crime. Don’t do the crime, and you won’t do the time.
Well, what does that have to do with anything? Are you saying police are not under scrutney?
I’m saying that it’s precisely because I do not believe that humans are inherently good that I tend not to trust humans who are given the power of deciding who lives and who dies.