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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America where criminal justice is applied equally and any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color is repealed.”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
I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve come to the conclusion that — while I can easily imagine remarks along these lines that would be defendable, responsible, and even laudatory — what Sen. Paul actually said does not fit into any of those categories.
Assuming it’s true — as I don’t doubt it is — that that black kids who smoke pot are more likely to get into trouble for it than white kids, that’s a function of the drug war and the fact that the black kids are more likely to live in neighborhoods with a greater police presence than their white peers. That leads to some deeply unfair outcomes that correlate strongly along racial lines and that’s a serious social problem. There are a number of things one might propose to address the issue, and I would be very interested in hearing a presidential candidate address the Federal angle on that clearly.
But, again, Sen. Paul didn’t actually do that in his speech. I hope he learns from this and does better next time.
You’re so right. The Paul family as a whole comes from a strange place, half revolutionary and half Ruling Class. Rand is Ron lite. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.
They argue from the assumption that America is at fault for much of the world’s chaos. Yes, we’ve made mistakes. But very often we wanted to make things better, and saboteurs from inside and outside of America were successful in their efforts..
I don’t think the Paul family really understands what they’re doing. They’re not to be trusted with the highest office in the land.
The whole idea of “disproportion” is wrong, whether applied to race or some other category. If equality before the law means anything, it is that each case is sui generis, whether the supposed category to which it belongs rarely suffers prosecution or often suffers prosecution. However the worst part of Paul’s sin here is that the policy he proposes would most hurt the communities he appears to want to help. Not a good sign.
So what is behind the disproportionate incarceration rate between blacks and whites?
I respectfully request specificity and brevity in the response.
A great many African-Americans want to be different from whites. They like the idea of being “African”. They don’t want to accept the same moral code, way of living, styles, or goals. They ostracize all other blacks who differ from them.
Martin Luther King – had he lived – would have steered his people a better course with a far better outcome. His assassination provided an excuse for radical rebellion, and the ‘progressives’ exploited Africa-Americans by pandering to them, all for the sake of political power.
River touches on it in his response. It is a cultural thing. Crime, rather than legal gainful employment, is taught as a way of life. We’ve stratified into classes in America. One of those classes is a criminal class. Arrest and incarceration are just part of the ebb and flow of life for these people. Sadly, this class is populated in large part by minorities who are themselves robbed of incentive by what Bush labeled as the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
I’m friends with a very intelligent black man I served with in the Navy. His father is a professor, his mother holds a PhD and does research. He grew up in Maryland. He is in no way a hood rat. His family basically is the black family from the Zales commercials. And yet he strains to connect himself to thug culture, to glom onto the Sharpton oppressed victim bandwagon. Although he was one of my best workers (always first out of the seat when something needed to be done) he was a terrible sailor because his off-work behavior caused disciplinary problems. Thankfully he grew out of it, but it sure caused some head scratchers at times. He had every reason and resource to succeed, but sometimes his longing to be part of that other culture caused him to fail.
I will suggest that in large the welfare state shares much of the blame. Dope keeps them from being able to get any decent blue collar jobs, which actually abound, depending on the state one is located in. Good paying INDUSTRIAL construction jobs know no state boundary. They are somewhat of a migrant job, especially annual maintenance type jobs which are a few weeks to a month here then a few weeks to a month there, expenses paid and 12/7 minimum working hours. Then they can go fishing for a month or so with money in the bank.
I’m no expert on this issue, but as Tom Meyer suggests, isn’t it possible for both Rand Paul and Heather MacDonald to be correct?
Yes, there are more blacks in prison than whites because blacks commit more crime than whites. However, isn’t is also true that crack cocaine sentences have been much harsher than powder cocaine sentences?
Of course, the variable might not actually be color and instead be class. Those with fewer resources are perhaps more likely to accept unfavorable plea agreements or have less capable lawyers than those of greater means.
The black murder rate is much higher than the white murder rate. Thus, blacks are imprisoned disproportionately to whites for murder. Does Rand Paul believe laws against murder should therefore be repealed?
On the crack versus powdered cocaine issue, if there are sound reasons to treat crack differently than powder, and I believe there are, the mere fact more blacks than whites favor crack over powder does not make it a racial issue. It is no different than that more blacks than whites favor murder as a solution to personal conflicts with their associates.
Tommy,
This is as brief and specific as I can make it: On a per capita basis, blacks offend more than Hispanics, who offend more than whites, who offend more than Asians. Everyone employed in law enforcement and criminology knows this to be the case.
Not coincidentally, you can invert the list when academic performance is measured.
Jack that is fascinating!
Everyone’s answers so far have helped me and thank you. I suspected a cultural situation that led to drugs and public assistance as pointed out.
I wonder now if Jack is pointing us to our best chance for solution.
Did Paul say “disproportionate to the general population,” or is everyone just assuming that that’s what he meant? Seems to me this could just as easily mean that incarceration rates are disproportionate to the crime rates (that is, that black people who commit crimes are more likely to be incarcerated).
I don’t know one way or the other; I just think it’s a crucial distinction that everyone seems to be breezing past.
Our TV shows emphasize, day and night, that the law-abiding citizen is a chump, a person of no consequence. Of course, I don’t know how to reverse that. They’re after drama, and people who pay bills and follow laws are not dramatic unless they’re cops. We could start there, maybe: fewer narratives of cops-with-problems. After all, there are fewer than depicted (most are just working people), and the “troubled cop” cliche has become a hackneyed dramatic device.
Ready for Hillary, Mr Dunphy?
She will be delighted by the Republican in-fighting this early on, before she emerges from her bunker.
You mean education? Don’t fall into that trap, Tommy. It is the delusion of Leftists everywhere that people act wrongly only because those people don’t know any better. You have been a lawyer long enough to understand that people are willful and often act in spite of what they know to be better paths.
Shaping values through culture, not informing of facts through schools, is the key to freedom. Specifically, freeing poor people from the claws of manipulative Democrats is the way to help them.
But what if school was free?
But, Aaron, I think that Jack meant, statistically, those with more education commit fewer crimes (and/or are smart enough not to be convicted).
< devil’s advocate mode = on >
Are there many federal laws which meet this criterion?
< devil’s advocate mode = off >
There is an argument to made that heavy regulation crushes opportunity to the poor and blacks are disproportionately poor. And that lack of opportunity in legitimate work has led too many people to illegal activity.
I wish Mr. Paul had made that argument instead of what he said.
Is that a surprise? Sen Paul has been soft on crime on a number of issues. He thought police were were getting overly armored, or something like that. Perhaps the Libertarians on Ricochet might disagree, but Libertarianism has historically been soft on crime. Police and incarceration represent the power of the state over the individual. Add that as another reason why I am not a Libertarian. ;)
The UK tracks statistics for homes where no one works. This data might be beneficial for us as well. I’m guessing it would track very well with incarceration statistics also.
The power of the state is a dangerous thing. We attempt through our constitution to “oblige it to control itself.” Sometimes that doesn’t work and those wielding the power of the state fail to be worthy of their charge.
I fear you are right, Aaron.
My hometown is one of New Jersey’s “Abbott” districts (very long story short, the Supreme Court commanded that poor districts be funded not to the average, but to parallel the wealthiest districts). Despite spending $30,000 per student per year (!) it is one of the worst performing school districts in the country.
So the education is offered. The residents don’t take advantage of it (the district is nearly entirely black and poor).
I have a suspicion, but calls of racism will trump the observation even if it is valid:
I wonder about patriotism and love of country taught in the home, supplanted instead by a claim that if you are black and poor the deck is stacked against you so don’t even try.
I’ve spoken to the teachers. Parent/teacher conference night will often have no parents show. Not one in a whole class.
Ill answer in a separate post. Rand is talking about incarceration for drug offenses.
BTW, Al Sharpton better not get within spitting distance of me.
So Sen. Paul says:
Now I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that he is “color-blind” in his application of this principle. Thus he should also believe that he “see[s] an America where criminal justice is applied equally and any law that disproportionately incarcerates white people is repealed.”
Which sounds like a call for racial quotas in application of the criminal law.
I find it extremely disappointing that Sen. Paul would include such a dreadful principle in the speech announcing his candidacy.
I see you were quoting me. Yes, but (1) that is an anomaly and (2) that cop in effect became a criminal himself. Sure the state is a dangerous thing, but it is the only means of maintaining an orderly and civil society. Are you saying that police departments across the country are violating the constitution? Are you saying that the founding fathers didn’t enforce laws? I remember George Washington sending out a military force to enforce the whiskey law tax.
I look forward to your post. That’s exactly what he’s talking about.
It’s a chicken-egg question. Do successful, educated blacks reject urban culture because of their education, or was rejecting urban culture a necessary first step towards getting said education?
It begins with culture, because a person has to want to learn before he can learn. He also has to avoid dangerous people and situations long enough to make good on that education.
Certainly, poor people in slums (of any race) start against a stacked deck. But a major part of that adversity is the slum culture.
I fundamentally disagree with the bolded statement. Society itself is responsible for being orderly and civil. The power of the state (in the police power area) only comes into play when that fails, and hopefully only on an individual level. My point is that we must remain ever cautious about how and to whom we entrust our collected power because, after all, it’s gonna be someone just as fallible as we are wielding it. The officer in the linked story has now been fired, which is the right way to withdraw state authority from his hands, and he is being charged for his misuse of the power we entrusted to him, which is also the right course of action.
Rand Paul pretty much lost me when he was scrambling out of the gate after the Ferguson shooting with an op-ed that suggested Michael Brown was an innocent kid gunned down in the streets for “smarting off”.
To my knowledge, he has never clarified or revisited that contention.
In fairness, I think anyone familiar with libertarian critiques of the justice system knows what he was generally getting at, but it’s at best bad phrasing (maybe he should have said “reformed”) and at worst bad logic (so the measure of the rightness of a law is how many people of different colors get locked up?)
Generally, if you’re a politician not named Barack Obama, you don’t want to be in the position of needing other people to explain “what you really meant”.