Senate hopeful slams civil rights

Dr. Rand Paul is Kentucky's GOP nominee for Senate. Dr. Rand Paul is named after Ayn Rand. And Dr. Rand Paul is in a PR pickle.

In an interview with Robert Siegel on NPR's All Things Considered last Wednesday, Dr. Paul was asked whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act went too far.

Paul answered: "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."

Upon the show host's urging, Paul then went on to say that he is in favor of ending institutional racism, but that "a lot of things could be handled locally."

What does that mean exactly? Leave it to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to ask just that, and then some:

Maddow: Do you think that a private business has a right to say that 'We don't serve black people?'

Paul: I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.

But I think what's important in this debate is not getting into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question 'What about freedom of speech?' Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent. Should we limit racists from speaking. I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things that freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it...

Maddow:...How about desegregating lunch counters?

Paul: Well what it gets into then is if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says 'well no, we don't want to have guns in here' the bar says 'we don't want to have guns in here because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each-other.' Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? These are important philosophical debates but not a very practical discussion...

Maddow:Well, it was pretty practical to the people who had the life nearly beaten out of them trying to desegregate Walgreen's lunch counters despite these esoteric debates about what it means about ownership. This is not a hypothetical Dr. Paul.

WOMP. Busted. And so began the dig out. After today's appearance on Good Morning America, the Washington Post reports that a Paul campaign spokesman said the GOP nom will do "no more national interviews on the topic." Paul also backed out of this Sunday's scheduled appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, becoming only the third guest to do so in the program's history.

(Have we learned nothing from Tiger Woods, Dr. Paul? You clam up. We talk more.)

Now let's get to the meat of what Paul was saying. A Libertarian through and through, Paul advocates for limited government infringement in public life. Fine. But limited government infringement on discrimination, to the point of allowing private businesses to say, "No, young black man. You cannot work/eat/exist here"?

Liberty for who, Dr. Paul?

Watch the complete Maddow skewering of Rand Paul: (And let me just say, minute 14 on? DING! Maddow for the kill!)

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Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal