Posted on 08/20/2014 10:21:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Running for the U.S. Senate in 2010, Rand Paul became known as that crazy right-winger who expressed reservations about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But in the past two years, the Kentucky Republican has emerged as his party's most passionate voice on criminal justice reform, explicitly decrying the system's disproportionate impact on African Americans. You might assume that Paul, widely seen as a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, is trying to redeem himself with black voters who were alienated by his criticism of the Civil Rights Act. Yet both positions spring from the same wariness of state power, as illustrated by the senator's recent comments on the over-the-top police response to the unrest that followed the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo.
Paul has always said he supports the provisions of the Civil Rights Act that apply to racial discrimination practiced or enforced by the government. But during his 2010 campaign he said he was not so keen on the parts of the law that ban discrimination by private businesses, likening such "abhorrent behavior" to the racist speech that we tolerate, even while condemning it, because of our commitment to individual freedom.
Not surprisingly, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous vigorously disagreed with Paul's views on the Civil Rights Act. But Jealous also said this: "I have got to hand it to Rand Paul. It takes some serious guts to publicly challenge such a cherished pillar of the modern American identity."
Paul's positions on criminal justice issues also take some serious guts. He is not just reaching out to a segment of the electorate that is overwhelmingly hostile to Republicans; he is challenging members of his own party to rethink their reflexive support of law enforcement and tough-on-crime policies.
"There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response," Paul wrote in Time last week. "There is a systemic problem with today's law enforcement," he added, and "big government has been at the heart of the problem," fostering the militarization of police equipment and tactics.
Paul went further, encouraging Republicans to consider what it feels like to be on the receiving end of excessive police force and excessive criminal punishment. "Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system," he said, "it is impossible for African Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them. This is part of the anguish we are seeing in the tragic events outside of St. Louis, Mo."
The point is not that Officer Darren Wilson committed a crime when he shot Michael Brown, a question that has yet to be resolved amid conflicting accounts of the incident. The point is that black residents of Ferguson had ample reason to suspect the shooting was not justified and to worry that the official investigation would be rigged in Wilson's favor.
"Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention," Paul wrote. "Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for nonviolent mistakes in their youth."
We are not used to hearing Republicans say that sort of thing. But it happens to be true, and Paul, who in March 2013 introduced a bill that would effectively abolish the federal government's mandatory minimum sentences, is trying to do something about it. He is also sponsoring legislation aimed at restoring the voting rights of nonviolent felons who have completed their sentences and mitigating the lasting impact that serving time has on people's employment prospects. "I believe in redemption and forgiveness," he explained in USA Today last month.
Rand Paul is not asking conservatives to abandon their beliefs. He is asking them to extend their avowed skepticism of big government to the parts of that apparatus that lock people in cages and shoot them down in the street.
The facts are these.
A black man mixed it up with an officer, causing harm to the officer and causing his weapon to discharge during a scuffle.
This black man walked away from the officer’s vehicle, then turned and charged the officer.
The officer, already injured, fired his service weapon to end the threat to himself.
I would say it was unfortunate that a man died here, but in fact it is fortunate that man died. The officer is alive today because that man died. He very well could be dead right now.
At the end of the day, the message to me is this.
I don’t like officers having to use lethal force, but sometimes it is reasoned and necessary.
The message to Rand Paul is that officers need to be under even more scrutiny after this event. F—k you Rand Paul.
Where’s your demand that blacks be under even more scrutiny?
Where is your condemnation of the lack of respect officers get when performing their duty?
Where is your demand that blacks demilitarize?
Yes, throwing Molotov cocktails is an armed attack. Breaking into businesses, looting them, and setting fire to them are militaristic acts of aggression.
What the hell is wrong with you Mr. Paul?
What went wrong here? The Police?
How many people have been killed by the police so far? As far as I know, one.
How much destruction of the black community have the officers carried out? The answer is none.
How much destruction has the black community carried out? The answer is quite a lot.
Who takes the black community seriously here?
Who asks them to comport themselves as decent human beings?
You Mr. Paul? No!
That’s something that wouldn’t even occur to you.
The officers do what they are supposed to do, and you criticize them.
The black community goes off on a wild destructive tangent, and public officials wet their pants trying to placate them.
What the sam hell is wrong with this picture?
Can you figure it out Mr. Paul? Evidently not!
You’re unfit to lead.
Police reform means two very different things to conservatives and leftists.
To conservatives it means that police regularly use police weapons and tactics, not military weapons and tactics, and that their purpose is to be “peace officers”, not “public control paramilitaries”.
Once they are returned to proper function, their purpose is to “enforce the law”, not of their creation, but of the elected government. Conservatives also think there are far too many laws on the books, some of which are clearly good, but many of which are frivolous, irrational or unfair, so should be removed. So in this way there needs to be “legal reform” that is not directed at the police but at the government.
Leftists, on the other hand, imagine police as “public control paramilitaries” *first*, but on an unfair basis, based on the choices and whims of the leftists. They want themselves, their friends and allies, to be immune from arrest and imprisonment; but at the same time, they want the police to brutally oppress their enemies.
Rand Paul, I’m afraid, is adopting the leftist outlook, with his “explicitly decrying the system’s disproportionate impact on African Americans.”
For conservatives, the two opinions that “You put lawbreakers in prison”, or “You change the law”, are not mentioned by Paul, which demeans the entire idea of “equality before the law”.
If the law is wrong, change it.
But until you do, put convicted criminals in prison. If they are black, it does not matter, because they are convicted criminals. If they are disproportionately in prison, then it is because they disproportionately break the law.
You don’t have to be a cop lover or a cop hater.
All authority should be held up to examination, but having no police is not a position many would hold.
Why does the media push everyone into boxes like lover, hater, denier, etc?
The media is the real problem, not so much cops (though there are surely bad cops out there). If the media were doing its job they would not stoke jumping to judgment and stereotyping people.
The Democrats know that they are losing. They will try to split the Republican vote by advancing libertarians. It worked for them in 1992 and 1996.
Excellent comeback.
I don’t like the term either. In the past I used to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I have had to deal with too many corrupt and/or lazy law enforcement to even do that anymore.
The short answer is...no!
I am more of a “Sheriff lover” than a “Cop lover”, but it depends on where you live and which one of the two is more corrupt at the time...
Rand Paul is an idiot.
Libertarians are like Leftists. They have their ideological religion and their faith is unshakable even when proven wrong. Eyes shut, fingers in ears, humming loudly. Like Leftists, they also think they are the smartest people in the room. Think the execrably smug John Stossel.
I am a law-and-order lover, not a cop lover. I think we’ve seen many many cases where they’ve gone over the top, but from the evidence that’s coming out, that boy deserved every bullet that hit him. Of course, convincing these street monkeys of that ain’t gonna happen with Holder, Jackson, Sharpton and OhVomit fanning the flames.
What a bunch of garbage. The writer is an idiot and Paul might be one also.
I used to agree with similar sentiment.
Not anymore.
I no longer grant law enforcement the benefit of the doubt. They lost my trust as an institution in the last few years.
They proved to me via family experience and an abundance of recent news that such sentiment of trust and benefit towards them is a measure of gross imbecility on my part.
Law enforcement are agents of the state - and as such - are as corrupted and authoritarian and dismissive of personal Constitutional liberty as every other agency of the government. They are being trained to look at citizens who cherish liberty as a threat and a clear and present danger to the country.
It is wise in Obama's Amerika to remain suspect of anyone and anything from government, because Obama has successfully transformed law enforcement into a civilian security force.
And there is silence among the institution when abuse and evil is now perpetrated on citizens, excepting a situation like Ferguson where race can be used as a tool to foment mayhem by ghetto thugs who are the Democrats' main constituent dependents.
I’m a conserative, not a libertarian, but I will concede them the argument that we don’t need every locality having militarized police armed to the teeth. However, many major cities are virtual war zones due to black criminals. And that is not the fault of the police. Libertarians do themselves no good when they try to snuggle up criminals in the name of seeking justice for both sides.
I don’t hate the police but I do hate this militarization of the police. Its not a good thing for you and me and I think that’s what Rand Paul is worried about.
Happens to us all. Speed off a response and miss small misspellings or bad grammar. I've done it many times. Fortunately, many people can see that a poster probably used one word when he or she meant to use another. I did that in your case.
See kids, this is what too much marijuana does, it clouds your mind or if you don’t believe that to be so, he’s just being idiotic (again). (If one thinks criminal behavior is bad now, throw all law enforcement out and see what your daily life would become). I respect the individual officer until facts show me not to. I don’t love too many institutional things though this one, I do want to keep around.
Government is government. For the most part, cops in my area are tax collectors, actually tax assessors. Most are too busy hiding in the bushes or behind a bill board waiting for speeders or someone slow rolling a stop sign.
Just recently I caught some SOB in the act of dumping on my property. I made the guy clean it all back up and followed him a few miles until he was on the interstate. I followed up with a call to the state police to report the incident. The cop told me that there was nothing they could do since the guy picked everything back up. I told them that someone else will end up with the crap dumped on their property, the cop wasn’t concerned. I finally convinced him to at least take the license plate number of the SOB just in case someone finds the stuff on their property.
Individual cop? Most likely not based on what we now know.
What was wrong was the response - all around.
Ferguson is being used as a a fulcrum by Communist and ghetto thugs to justify the need for mayhem and 'revolution' which plays to justifying a Domestic Civilian Security Force, just as strong, just as powerful and just as well funded as the U.S. military.
Sow chaos. Incite violence, mayhem and bloodshed. Never letting a crisis go to waste - justify the solution, which Obama has already stated as a goal: a Civilian Security Force for domestic use.
One day today's justified 'solution' will end up used on American citizens who are not fomenting mayhem like the ghetto thugs, but who are demanding redress like the rallies against ObamaCare, or TEA Party rallies.
Because that is what the Civilian Security Force is actually intended to be used against. That is whom this current federal regime continually declares to be an enemy and threat to the country.
I'm not a Ron Paul fan by any stretch, I loathe the guy on many issues, and his son's Libertarianism and seeming willingness to compromise with the Oligarchy in Washington on many issues - is disgusting and disappointing.
That said - IN GENERAL, his question is valid. Is it a requirement in terms of platform of principles for Conservatives to be automatic supporters of law enforcement in an age where we are witnessing their militarization and training by the feds and their union bosses to see American citizens as a threat to the country?
I think these are legitimate questions to ask. The ridiculous militarized display by the county cops in St. Louis sighting in weapons on American citizens gathering BEFORE night fell is beyond anything we should tolerate if we value liberty at all.
One thing that has started is the serving of warrants with swat teams. These are people suspected of committing a crime. In some cases they might be justified in using swat teams for this, but it seems to bite them in the butt when they get it wrong. Wrong address etc.
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