Rachel Maddow vs. The Senate Candidate Who Thinks Businesses Have the Right to Exclude Blacks
Kentucky Senate Candidate Rand Paul took his surprisingly popular brand of crazy to some real unpopular depths the other day by suggesting that he supported a business' right to discriminate based on race. Rachel Maddow Grilled him tonight.
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This week, Paul beat out the establishment-backed candidate Trey Grayson in the Republican primary, putting him that much closer to becoming America's first real Tea Party senator. (Scott Brown doesn't count because he's not really crazy enough.) He celebrated by suggesting to the Lousiville Courier-Journal that he supported a businesses' right to put up a big 'ole WHITES ONLY sign, because it is a private business and if it's racist, just don't patronize it! See, Paul liked the Civil Rights Act, which desegregated the South. But!
I don't like the idea of telling private business owners – I abhor racism – I think it's a bad business decision to ever exclude anybody from your restaurant. But at the same time I do believe in private ownership.
So Rachel Maddow asked Paul over and over again if he would support allowing a business to exclude gays or blacks; he kept going on long rambles, without really answering the question.
But it's simple: Rand Paul hates racism, but wants to allow businesses to be racist. He would definitely support a segregated Applebee's as long as it instantly went bankrupt because no one liked its racist food. He basically loves the idea of the possibility that somewhere in America someone could open up a racist business, but as soon as that business becomes a reality he hates it. Ideally, racist businesses would shift between existence and non-existence at a rate approaching infinity, such that they opened and closed at exactly the same time, thus providing maximum individual freedom and minimum racism. It's so simple! Why can't Rachel Maddow get that through her thick Liberal elitist skull? [HuffPo]
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