Update:
I went through the transcript, and, to be honest, don’t know what the fuss is about. So Paul was vocalizing rather than saying, ‘yes, they have a right to discriminate.’
So what? Why are libertarians upset about this one way or other?
It is in fact a person’s right to choose whether he serves someone or not, works with someone or not, or associates with someone or not. That’s an essential libertarian principle. The 1964 Civil Rights Act had (apparently) good political consequences. But most (many?) constitutional scholars regards it as poor jurisprudence. That too is non-controversial…at least, in academia.
There’s no reason to think that the same (or much better) results couldn’t have been obtained by civil disobedience, cultural critique, boycotts and other non-statist forms of action.
Let’s not be such panderers to the mob. Let Paul stand up and say, yes, I personally abhor discrimination on the basis of race or gender or sexuality, but I do indeed defend every man’s right to discriminate in the uses to which he puts his private property and business.
Here is a better approach to such things:
“I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don’t treat me right – shame on you!” – Louis Armstrong.
ORIGINAL POST
The Daily Paul has a good round-up of the latest media tizzy over libertarian/constitutionalist Republican candidate for Senate, Rand Paul. Apparently, there was some doctoring of his exchange with Rachel Maddow:
“I’ve noticed a few recent news articles are reporting Rand had the following exchange with Rachel Maddow.
Maddow: Do you think that a private business has the right to say, “We don’t serve black people”?
Paul: Yes. I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form…
If you go to the video however, Rand obviously never said the word “yes”. Here it is, cued up to the exact moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VGdP2mNPeo#t=8m1sIt was merely some sort of insignificant vocalization to maintain the flow of conversation that was already made difficult by the satellite delay. Now he WAS laying out what the arguments would be for “yes”, but he never actually said “yes”. It makes a BIG difference to insert that word there.
Here are some of the bigger media outlets misstating the quote, but there are a LOT more out there.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/rand-paul-is-kentuc…
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/white-house-…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9088468
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100520/ap_on_el_se/us_rand_paul…
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/rand_paul…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/us/politics/21paul.htmlUPDATE: Looks like MSNBC released a fraudulent transcript that may be the source of all these misquotes popping up.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37252841/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_madd…
http://i46.tinypic.com/2dhb5lv.jpgUPDATE #2: A fill-in for Rachel Maddow acknowledged on Friday’s show that their transcript was indeed misleading, but said the quote was still “technically correct” and declined to apologize for it. The host also acted like it was just the New York Times that used the misquote, when in fact there was a HUGE amount of media outlets that did, all because of their shady transcript.
Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg5zOQ05b9EUPDATE #3: NewsBusters has picked up this story and is linking to this thread:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/05/22/rachel…As the Nation’s Chris Hayes amazingly pointed out Friday, that’s not what Paul said (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Daily Paul via NB reader Russell Davis):
UPDATE #4: DP user j has pointed out ANOTHER misquote of Rand Paul by the Rachel Maddow Show. From Thursday’s show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JFKsV0SKDAUPDATE #5: Influential Kentucky political blog BlueGrassBulletin has picked up the story and is linking here as well:
http://www.bluegrassbulletin.com/2010/05/rand-paul-controver…UPDATE #6: Lew Rockwell linking here!
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/58246.html”
Bill Maher ran with it to.
http://www.breitbart.tv/bill-maher-on-rand-paul-the-s-doesnt-fall-far-from-the-bat/
Well, it’s a circus now and everyone will jump in to profess the dogmas of the holy state.
I thought we got rid of tests for office
“Let Paul stand up and say, yes, I personally abhor discrimination on the basis of race or gender or sexuality, but I do indeed defend every man’s right to discriminate in the uses to which he puts his private property and business.”
No, let Rand Paul say that what ever his personal or religious views toward any group are, he will defend their civil rights, PROPERLY DEFINED, in addition to property rights, PROPERLY DEFINED. Personally, I do find the sexuality of some groups disgusting. However, the proper response is PRIVATE sanctions if one chooses not government ones since we all pay taxes.
Let’s not ask anyone to be a hypocrite.
OK, yes. I didn’t mean to put words in his mouth at all. I was stating my own view.
I love the tests of the holy state! Slicker and overall far better production values that the old soviet or maoist models. Never seen that Maher fellow. What a strange stooge of the progressive elite. Some sort of sacastic wit to make the nasty thought control process palatable to the younger set. Mocking of difference. Too much focus on the particulars of this. Its symptomatic of broader disturbing trends. Suspect that as the status qou is increasingly threatened the circus will get more insane and even farcical…..