That’s Right Nate

Rand Paul has been under attack lately since he was the victim of Rachel Maddow’s particular brand of Gotcha Journalism.   This new style of reporting ignores what your guest has carefully prepared to say on your show and instead of listening to his answers like a responsible journalist would, you throw a whole lot of facts at him so that when his statements fail to hold up to your crazy suppositions, you can say “gotcha” and make your guest look like an idiot.

In the Maddow/Paul fiasco Miss Maddow asked Paul if he believed that government should get involved in matters involving private businesses and their rights to refuse service or set their own rules for their establishment.   Being a strict libertarian of course Rand Paul said “No”.  Maddow immediately pounced on him by asking if that meant he was against the civil rights act.  Suddenly, Rand Paul’s answers seemed racist.  Nothing is further from the truth.

Rand Paul is not saying that black people should all go to the back of the bus—not all buses anyway.   What Rand Paul says is that public transportation, which is paid for by city tax dollars should allow black people to sit anywhere they please.   Meanwhile, a private bus company like Greyhound should in theory be allowed to have a black seating section on the back of the bus.   It may seem rather unreasonable to turn back the clock on civil rights 50 years, but alas that is the price of living in a Constitution Republic like ours.  Let us not forget that Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal witlessness.”

Desegregation and integration would work the same ways in other areas of society.   Jim Crow laws would only be applicable in private settings and not in public buildings:

• Restaurants: Restaurants would again be allowed to refuse service on the basis of race unless they were in a publicly funded building like a museum.
• Schools: School integration would continue pretty much unchanged with charter schools being allowed to continue to exclude minorities, while public schools could not.
• Bathrooms: For minorities, find a bathroom they could use would be as simple as heading to the nearest public building.

This may seem oppressive, but remember there are sacrifices to be made for true liberty.   It may be tempting to restart the protest segregation all over again, but I hope that reasonable people will wait until we have enough time to figure out where the public police department’s jurisdiction ends and the private police department’s begins.  We certainly don’t want police trying to arrest police anymore than we want both the private and public fire departments showing up at the same time.

In both the West Virginia and Kentucky Democrat primaries it was revealed that in 1/5 of the votes cast race played a role.  Keep in mind that these were Democrat primaries where the most liberal people in the states voted.  Far be it from me to give advice to Barrack Hussein Obama, but Kentucky and West Virginia are states Obama needs.  He’s also having trouble in all states with older people who were born while Jim Crow laws were still in effect.

On this blog, I  have already implored Obama to distance himself from the hate speech of Reverend Wright and Martin Luther King (http://thatsrightnate.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/obama-must-distance-himself-from-black-church/), but at this point I don’t think that is enough.  Obama must capture the racist vote if he is to win the presidency.  It won’t be easy for a black man to emerge as the choice of racist America, but anybody who has seen the hilarious Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles knows it isn’t impossible.

In order to win over racists, Obama must come up with an issue they will get behind no matter who is pushing it.  Obama must come out for repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  This law which created the EEOC and outlawed segregation in this country has long been a bone of contention among racists.  It took a Southern in Lyndon Johnson to get it passed.   It would take an African-American to get it repealed.  McCain who was a staunch opponent of the Martin Luther King holiday would be unable to take a similiar position over fear of losing the moderates that he needs to win.

Now don’t get me wrong.  The KKK has already endorsed McCain (http://thatsrightnate.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/obama-hamas-kkk-endorsements/).  Obama is never going to get racists to embrace him as one of their own.  However, a grudging respect and their votes would probably be worth a lot more to Obama at this time. Old habits die hard, but by playing ball Obama can change a lot of minds among those people like the voters in Kentucky and West Virginia who think they could never vote for a black man.