Patrick J. Ford

The news of Rand Paul's big primary win (in a randslide) was certainly positive, tempered by his unclear foreign policy message. Now that he finds himself in the general election, the media is starting to ask questions about his views on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Politico reports on his waffling on the CRA:

Moving from the Republican Primary to the general election means, for Rand Paul, addressing a broader set of issues than the anti-tax, anti-spending focus of his campaign.

And while he's answered this question before, I'm not sure he's going to be able to get away with an evasive response to a question today on whether he would have voted for the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in public places and in the workplace.

Paul has suggested in the past -- and been attacked for suggesting -- that the federal government has no place regulating private business decisions, even on issues like race and accomodations for the disabled, and was pressed on the question -- three times -- on NPR just now:

"What I've always said is, I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would have -- if I was alive at the time, I think -- had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, ad I see no place in our soc for institutional racism," he said in response to a first question about the act.

"You woul have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater?" asked an interviewer.

"I think it's confusing in a lot of cases in what's actually in the Civil Rights Case (sic)," Paul replied. "A lot of things that were actually in the bill I'm actually in favor of I'm in favor of -- everything with regards to ending institutional racism. So I think there's a lot to be desired in the Civil Rights -- and indeed the truth is, I haven't read all through it, because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue on the campaign on whether I'm going to vote for the Civil Rights Act."

Paul explains his position further on the CRA at the one hour mark of this video interview with the editors of the Louisville Courier-Journal. He says he supports the parts of the bill that fought discrimination in the public arena and on public property, but disagrees with telling private business owners what to do. He then goes on a bit of a rant about his admiration for Martin Luther King Jr., and explains how he gets emotional when watching his speeches.

I have no doubt we will begin to see the media paint Paul as a racist, just as they attempted to do to his father. But the reality is that Rand , despite his positives as a candidate, is riven with many of the modern multi-culti pathologies that infect political discourse. Absent from his views on the CRA is any bit of understanding about the major cultural upheaval that resulted from the Act, and absent from his views on MLK is an understanding of the racial redistribution of wealth King advocated. Instead Paul tries to paint him as some anti-government crusader. In the end, I have no doubt that Rand is telling the truth about his views on the CRA; that it merely clashes with his ideological views on private ownership.

At any rate, Rand's clash with the media on the CRA is a healthy reminder of how hard it will be for a real alt-right candidate to infiltrate the PC state.

While conducting a military raid on a local police chief and a local prosecutor in Iraq, you may find yourself tempted to fire upon a pregnant mother of 10 and a pregnant mother of six. You may then be tempted to dig the bullets out of the corpses with a knife and make the murder look like an unrelated stabbing. These are on the job hazards of the modern military, I suppose.

But if you can resist the temptation, Uncle Sam may have a medal waiting for you back home: 

U.S. troops in Afghanistan could soon be awarded a medal for not doing something, a precedent-setting award that would be given for "courageous restraint" for holding fire to save civilian lives. 

The proposal is now circulating in the Kabul headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force, a command spokesman confirmed Tuesday.

"The idea is consistent with our approach," explained Air Force Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis. "Our young men and women display remarkable courage every day, including situations where they refrain from using lethal force, even at risk to themselves, in order to prevent possible harm to civilians. In some situations our forces face in Afghanistan, that restraint is an act of discipline and courage not much different than those seen in combat actions.

"Soldiers are often recognized for non-combat achievement with decorations such as their service's commendation medal. But most of the highest U.S. military decorations are for valor in combat. A medal to recognize a conscious effort to avoid a combat action would be unique.

Consideration of such an award, first reported by an Associated Press reporter in Afghanistan, doesn't mean that, if approved, troops would be pressured to prevent such casualties at risk to themselves, Sholtis said.

Giving a medal for restraint was proposed by British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, ISAF's Regional Command South commander, during a recent visit to Kandahar by Army Command Sgt. Maj. Mike Hall, the top U.S. enlisted member in Afghanistan, Sholtis said. 

U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the ISAF commander, has placed a premium on preventing civilian deaths, having last year tightened the rules of engagement for air strikes and other combat operations in an effort to prevent fatalities. Such deaths build resentment among a populace the U.S. is trying to win over as part of its counterinsurgency strategy to simultaneously drive out the Taliban and strengthen Afghan government.

I'm sure our occupied brethren (/facetious) in Mesopotamia will sleep easier tonight.

In the spirit of Richard's post on Mr. Newman, the evil 74 year-old pensioner who wants to kick the crooked MPs out of his government, there is another story in the news about an innocent Brit being arrested for violating PC boundaries. The story:

Dale McAlpine was charged with causing "harassment, alarm or distress" after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of "sins" referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.

The 42-year-old Baptist, who has preached Christianity in Wokington, Cumbria for years, said he did not mention homosexuality while delivering a sermon from the top of a stepladder, but admitted telling a passing shopper that he believed it went against the word of God.

During the exchange, he says he quietly listed homosexuality among a number of sins referred to in 1 Corinthians, including blasphemy, fornication, adultery and drunkenness.

After the woman walked away, she was approached by a PCSO who spoke with her briefly and then walked over to Mr McAlpine and told him a complaint had been made, and that he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.

The street preacher said he told the PCSO: "I am not homophobic but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator".

He claims that the PCSO then said he was homosexual and identified himself as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender liaison officer for Cumbria police. Mr McAlpine replied: "It's still a sin."

The preacher then began a 20 minute sermon, in which he says he mentioned drunkenness and adultery, but not homosexuality. Three regular uniformed police officers arrived during the address, arrested Mr McAlpine and put him in the back of a police van.

At the station, he was told to empty his pockets and his mobile telephone, belt and shoes were confiscated. Police took fingerprints, a palm print, a retina scan and a DNA swab.

He was later interviewed, charged under Sections 5 (1) and (6) of the Public Order Act and released on bail on the condition that he did not preach in public.

Mr McAlpine pleaded not guilty at a preliminary hearing on Friday at Wokingham magistrates court and is now awaiting a trial date.

The Public Order Act, which outlaws the unreasonable use of abusive language likely to cause distress, has been used to arrest religious people in a number of similar cases.

Does anyone honestly think the results of the upcoming election will make any sort of difference in regards to the treatment of these crimes?

A few weeks ago I argued that "the myth that libertarianism and traditionalist conservatism are one and the same is going to come crashing down when amnesty is brought before Congress." It appears I didn't have to wait that long, as libertarians are up in arms about SB 1070, recently passed in Arizona.

Reason puppets the PC lie about Hispanic crime in a piece attacking "Arizona's draconian new law" (the stastically-sound report "Color of Crime" notwithstanding):

The state has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants. But contrary to myth, they have not brought an epidemic of murder and mayhem with them. Surprise of surprises, the state has gotten safer.

Over the last decade, the violent crime rate has dropped by 19 percent, while property crime is down by 20 percent. Crime has also declined in the rest of the country, but not as fast as in Arizona.

Babeu's claim about police killings came as news to me. When I called his office to get a list of victims, I learned there has been only one since the beginning of 2008-deeply regrettable, but not exactly a trend.

Truth is, illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native Americans. Most come here to work, and in their desire to stay, they are generally afraid to do anything that might draw the attention of armed people wearing badges.

The big story in the upcoming NFL draft is the prominence of Toby Gerhart, the first elite white running back in a long time. Steve Sailer has previously noted that sports journalism is by far the most PC of any type of journalism--and that's saying something--so naturally the mainstream sports media like ESPN and Fox Sports, known for their regular coverage of baseball's "race problem" or discrimination in NFL coaching jobs, has ignored the anti-white mindset hurting Gerhart's chances. Yahoo, however, reports on Gerhart's debacle:

When NFL scouts look at Gerhart, they see a 6-foot, 231-pound power back who ran for 1,871 yards and 27 touchdowns last season, getting edged out by Alabama's Mark Ingram in the closest Heisman vote in history. When they look at Gerhart's numbers from the NFL scouting combine, they see that he ran a 4.50-second 40-yard dash and registered a 38-inch vertical leap, both impressive numbers for a player his size.

Yet they also see a white guy trying to make it in the league as a feature back, something that has become increasingly rare in this era. Peyton Hillis, now with the Cleveland Browns, led the Denver Broncos in rushing yards in 2008, but was limited to just 54 last season in part because of 2009 draft pick Knowshon Moreno's addition.

Race shouldn't be an issue, of course, but Gerhart can't help but believe that it has colored the opinions of at least some potential employers.

"One team I interviewed with asked me about being a white running back," Gerhart says. "They asked if it made me feel entitled, or like I felt I was a poster child for white running backs. I said, ‘No, I'm just out there playing ball. I don't think about that.' I didn't really know what to say."

One longtime NFL scout insisted that Gerhart's skin color will likely prevent the Pac-10's offensive player of the year from being drafted in Thursday's first round.

"He'll be a great second-round pickup for somebody, but I guarantee you if he was the exact same guy - but he was black - he'd go in the first round for sure," the scout said. "You could make a case that he's a Steven Jackson-type - doesn't have blazing speed but he's strong and powerful and versatile."

Sailer had a great write-up on Gerhart last October.

During the neoconservative ascension within the conservative movement, an essential tactic used by the Trotskyites was to push the rest of the Right, especially the libertarians and traditionalists, into the fringe of permissible political opinion. Opponents of empire were branded "isolationist" and opponents of federal civil rights laws were labeled "racist." And although, on almost every front, the neoconservatives won the field, a stable political underground resistant to the usurpers existed for some time.

This political alliance was as unlikely as any, with everyone from hedonist anarchists to medieval Catholics in agreement on most policy prescriptions. Murray Rothbard, the godfather of anarcho-capitalism, supported (for a time) the candidacy of Pat Buchanan, an ardent nationalist. It is hard to overstate the fragility of a political movement that finds Murray Rothbard and Russell Kirk agreeing on a Presidential candidate.

The most recent incarnation of this alliance could be seen in the support for Ron Paul's 2008 Presidential campaign. Paul, being well-read on Austrian economics, was already a libertarian folk-hero, and having opposed NAFTA and amnesty, stated that life begins at conception, and holding a reverence for the Founding Fathers bordering on adulation, was an easy candidate for traditionalists to support. As political ideologies, the libertarians and traditionalists are about as different as you can get, but if the political agenda of the neocons has done any good it has aligned the policy prescriptions of these two different groups and allowed such a fragile alliance to be continued for some time.

That being said, the simple fact is that this alliance won't last much longer. It has played itself out and, having accomplished little, won't survive the coming immigration debate.

The Media Research Center compiles news clips from paranoid leftists on the Obamacare protests:

Amidst the torrent of anti-white press coverage surrounding the Tea Parties and Obamacare protests, Albany's Times Union has published a fair account of Obama's white male problem. In "White men shun Democrats," David Paul Kuhn eschews knee-jerk accusations of "racism" and instead outlines the statistical evidence and aims to find a race-neutral explanation for Obama's declining support among white men. In doing so he gets the issue about 50% right; he leaves race out of the white side of the equation but refuses to acknowledge the impact race has on Obama and his agenda.

Kuhn outlines the looming midterm crisis the Democrats face:

For more than three decades before the 2008 election, no Democratic president had won a majority of the electorate. In part, that was because of low support -- never more than 38 percent -- among white male voters. Things changed with Obama, who not only won a majority of all people voting, but also pulled in 41 percent of white male voters.

Polling suggests that the shift was not because of Obama but because of the financial meltdown that preceded the election. It was only after the economic collapse that Obama's white male support climbed above the 38 percent ceiling. It was also at that point that Obama first sustained a clear majority among all registered voters, according to the Gallup tracking poll.

It's no accident that the flight of white males from the Democratic Party has come as the government has assumed a bigger role, including in banking and health care. Among whites, 71 percent of men and 56 percent of women favor a smaller government with fewer services over a larger government with more services, according to ABC/Washington Post polling.

So, despite what many have said, Obama's unprecedented success among white men can be largely attributed to the political circumstances of the 2008 election and John McCain's shortcomings as a viable alternative, not his status as "post-racial." On the prominent issues at the time (economic stimulus and creating jobs) Obama and McCain were virtually identical, as they were on another issue that plays well with "angry white men," immigration. White guilt and the manufactured willingness to "look past race" and elect a black man certainly played a role, but this was no doubt aided by liberal-warmonger McCain and his policy prescriptions.

 

Our friends at Youth for Western Civilization were in DC for the pro-amnesty march this past weekend and have made a video that purports to show the "true colors" of the protesters. Check it out:

I wasn't sure if this video belonged in "Trash" or "District of Corruption" but  it is too strange to pass up. Mult-culti brainwasher Dora the Explorer tells the kids to pressure their parents into filling out the Census:



Can't wait to see what the little Mestizo has to say about amnesty! (HT: LRC)