Or, actually, in light of his state-level back-up plan, "What part of 'Property rights are for white people' don't you understand"?
TPM:
Gingrich: Make Ground Zero A National Battlefield To Stop The Supposed Mosque
Rachel Slajda | September 2, 2010, 6:26PM
The majority of New Yorkers want the developers of Park51, known to its opponents as the "Ground Zero mosque," to voluntarily move the community center further from Ground Zero -- but the majority also acknowledges the developers' right to build there if they want.
Newt Gingrich doesn't feel that way. In a radio interview today, he said he wants the national government to step in and stop the developers from building the Islamic community center by whatever means necessary.
"I think the Congress has the ability to declare the area a national battlefield memorial because I think we should think of the World Trade Center as a battlefield site; this is a war," he said, apparently thinking that if Ground Zero was a national park, Park51 would be restricted from building near it.
And if that fails, he said, the state government should step in and use its considerable power to stymie the development.
"The Attorney General of New York, Andrew Cuomo, could intervene because frankly he has the ability to slow it down for decades if he wants to."
Ah, yes! Newtie was just like Haley Barbour, part of the GOP's "New South" that had nothing to do with segregation, no siree!
There is, of course, a precedent for this not-so-colorblind interpretation of "states' rights." It's called the "Fugitive Slave Act." It basically said that non-slave states had no rights at all to stop the invasion of slave state terrorists.
Ain't Newt grand? Jefferson Davis would be so proud!
Rand Paul made such a fool of himself the week before last, that it was understandable folks might miss perhaps the most foolish--and most telling--thing of all that he said. When asked point-blank on NPR if he would say that the Civil Rights Act was "an overreach by the federal government", he didn't just duck the question, he claimed he would have marched with Matrin Luther King " to overturn institutional racism". As became quite clear later in the day on the Rachel Maddow Show, he was really opposed to letting the government do anything about private discrimination, because it violated his libertarian model of freedom for business-owners. And freedom for libertarians is all about property. In this diary, I want to make five basic points:
(1) The Civil Rights Movement was much more involved in fighting private discrimination that Rand Paul acknowledges, which means there is no way that Paul would have marched with Martin Luther King.
(2) The Civil Rights Act was much more involved in fighting private discrimination that Rand Paul acknowledges, which means there is no way that Paul would have supported it.
(3) Barry Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act was largely based on the same broad reasons that Rand Paul has a problem with it.
(4) Private discrimination has played a significant role in conservative politics in the years since the Civil Rights Act was passed, which means it is anything but an historical irrelevancy.
(5) Libertarians have a very different vision of "freedom" from the Civil Rights vision, although they take great pains to obscure the fact. In fact, the libertarian vision of freedom was part of what helped keep slavery in place, as well as what helped justify opposition to the Civil Rights Movement.
Let's turn to the record. Here's the passage in the NPR interview:
SIEGEL: You've said that business should have the right to refuse service to anyone, and that the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, was an overreach by the federal government. Would you say the same by extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
Dr. PAUL: What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.
SIEGEL: But are you saying that had you been around at the time, you would have hoped that you would have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater against the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
Dr. PAUL: Well, actually, I think it's confusing on a lot of cases with what actually was in the civil rights case because, see, a lot of the things that actually were in the bill, I'm 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 to tell you the truth, I haven't really read all through it because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue in the campaign, on whether we're going to vote for the Civil Rights Act.
SIEGEL: But it's been one of the major developments in American history in the course of your life. I mean, do you think the '64 Civil Rights Act or the ADA for that matter were just overreaches and that business shouldn't be bothered by people with a basis in law to sue them for redress?
Dr. PAUL: Right. I think a lot of things could be handled locally. [Goes on to talk about wheelchair access, etc.]
