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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSen. Rand Paul: Civil Rights Act Was Overreach Because "I Can't Have A Cigar Bar Anymore"
Kate Conway
While campaigning for a Senate seat in 2010, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) came under fire for his opposition to the part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting private businesses from discriminating on the basis of race. This morning on CNN, he revisited the topic when host Soledad O'Brien asked him about a 2004 statement his father, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), gave asserting that "the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty."
Defending his father, Sen. Paul tried to explain that the "unintended consequences" of the Civil Rights Act have constituted a threat to property rights. "For example," he said, "I can't have a cigar bar anymore."
O'BRIEN: So he's saying property rights
PAUL: Well let me finish, let me finish. For example, I can't have a cigar bar anymore, and you say, well, that has nothing to do with race. The idea of whether or not you control your property Now it also tells you, I want to know the calorie count on all that. And the calorie Nazis come in here and tell me
UNIDENTIFIED: I don't think I do, Senator.
PAUL: I don't think you can measure the calorie count there. But that's the point. The point is that it's not all about that. It's not all about race relations. It is about controlling property, ultimately.
Watch:
http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201201090003
baldguy
(36,649 posts)HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)He's fucking nuts. PA outlawed smoking in bars and restaurants, but we still have cigar bars (with and without alcohol) and we still have bars that allow smoking - there's a little caveat in the bill that allows smoking if less than 15% of the revenue comes from food sales.
MrCoffee
(24,159 posts)Is it really so shocking to see that Rand Paul values property rights more than equal rights?
Skinner
(63,645 posts)Can we infer from this that Rand Paul would want to have a whites-only cigar bar? Because nothing in the civil rights act makes cigar bars illegal.
moriah
(8,311 posts)HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)There doesn't appear to be any logic behind anything the guy says. Yes, I made that example up, but I wouldn't be at all shocked to hear him use those exact words.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Hell we have cigar bars here in San Francisco!
Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)I read it three times and can't find the connection. Your reasoning makes as much sense as any other.
I read it as, "Another spoiled spawn from the right claims cigar bars are more important than humans."
The whole family is daffy.
MrCoffee
(24,159 posts)The guy is a libertarian nutbag. He's making the legitimate point that there is a property rights aspect to the Civil Rights Act that he doesn't like.
There are property rights aspects to almost everything government does that libertarian nutbags don't like.
At least he's consistent about being so totally wrong all the time. I'll take a consistent lunatic over an inconsistent one any day.
"The guy is a libertarian nutbag. He's making the legitimate point that there is a property rights aspect to the Civil Rights Act that he doesn't like. "
...the Civil Rights Act didn't ban cigar bars so his claim is loopy. If he wants to talk about the freedom to discriminate, then he needs to find another anecdote.
"At least he's consistent about being so totally wrong all the time. I'll take a consistent lunatic over an inconsistent one any day."
I'll skip the lunatic, but as lunatics go, Rand isn't even consistent.
Rand Paul, Supposed Defender Of Civil Liberties, Calls For Jailing People Who Attend Radical Political Speeches
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/31/232182/rand-paul-criminalize-speech/
BootinUp
(47,201 posts)smoking cigars with black people or non-whites. That's my take.
surrealAmerican
(11,365 posts)... certifiable, that one ...
Rex
(65,616 posts)Rand Paul goes home to read a coloring book.
EDIT - He only needs ONE crayon...can you guess which color?
Spazito
(50,514 posts)There is NOTHING redeeming about them, absolutely nothing.
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)as the SNL skit on sat where the guy reads a headline and then ad libs his thoughts (badly).
ProSense
(116,464 posts)DevonRex
(22,541 posts)spanone
(135,900 posts)Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)"It's not all about race relations. It is about controlling property, ultimately."
I think I found the connection. Civil rights, race relations and property. It was right there in front of me. They can't be property if they have rights, so he's correct. The CRA did ruin his chance to own property...of the human kind.
Thanks, Rand. We'll just add that to the stash.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)EC
(12,287 posts)He's absolutely bouncing from one thing to another and one doesn't have anything to do with the other. And who's stopping him from having a cigar bar?
and if it's about property rights, couldn't he just have a PRIVATE club - not a business - on private property, that has a cigar bar for just "his people"?
Paladin
(28,277 posts)opihimoimoi
(52,426 posts)This is the last DUMB FUCK the GOPers gave us
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)Since so many Black Rappers and Athletes are known for smoking cigars, I would hope they would ponder that they are aping the images of people that used to use these symbols of priviledge.
That and they smell like crap, and this is coming from a Tampa boy, i.e. our town invented the Cigar Bar. The "Churchill", the expensive huge types, were invented here, and made popular by a young Brit that later became prime minister. None of Tampa's laws stopped cigar bars at all, new ones open every day, and the old ones are still around.
Withywindle
(9,988 posts)This seems to really bother him.