Thread: NY Post hit piece on Rand Paul and Russell Pearce

GOP populism can get ugly

By LINDA CHAVEZ

Last Updated: 3:58 AM, May 29, 2010

Posted: 12:57 AM, May 29, 2010

Are the likes of Rand Paul and Russell Pearce becoming the face of the Re publican Party? Let's hope not.

Paul, who recently became the Senate nominee from Kentucky, has already embroiled himself in controversy over his comments about the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Pearce, the Arizona legislator who sponsored the state's anti-illegal-immigrant law, has decided to target not only illegals but their US-citizen children, too.

Paul's comments on the Civil Rights Act, which he's tried to soften since he said them on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show, were no mere faux pas. Maddow's direct question was: "Do you think that a private business has the right to say, 'We don't serve black people'?" And his simple answer was "Yes."

He went on to try to qualify that by saying he personally opposed discrimination of all sorts -- including by private businesses. He has since assured everyone that he doesn't want to repeal the act's public-accommodations section.

But Paul's clarifications miss the point. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- especially its prohibition against private discrimination -- is one of the most important pieces of legislation in our history. The act and its successors, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act, represent our highest principle: the guarantee that all persons are equal under the law, a promise made explicit by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

The 14th Amendment appears to be Pearce's next target. In an e-mail sent to supporters, the Arizona state senator recently said that he'd offer legislation "that would refuse to accept or issue a birth certificate that recognizes citizenship to those born to illegal aliens, unless one parent is a citizen."

But the 14th Amendment is unambiguous on the issue: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Pearce sees a loophole in the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." He's wrong. The qualification originally applied to diplomats and to Indian tribes, who at various times have been considered sovereign.

Sadly, Pearce is not alone: Similar legislation has been introduced in Congress, the latest version of which has more than 90 co-sponsors, all but two of whom are Republicans.

Pearce is a nasty piece of work. In the e-mail to supporters on citizenship, he forwarded a supporter's view that the bill might be deemed sexist, but that "we need to target the mother . . . Men don't drop anchor babies, illegal-alien mothers do." When asked by a reporter what he thought of the language, Pearce said he didn't see anything wrong with it.

It wasn't the first time Pearce said or did something unsavory. When a photograph of him with a local neo-Nazi surfaced in 2007, he claimed not to know the fellow's affiliation. He made the same defense in 2006 when he sent an e-mail to supporters that included an attachment from a white supremacist group.

The GOP can't allow extremists to become its public face. The party's history in promoting civil rights is an honorable one, from the time of its founding as the anti-slavery party to the passage of the very civil-rights law Paul criticized. If not for Republicans, there'd be no Civil Rights Act of 1964. A larger percentage of Republicans than Democrats, 82 percent to 66 percent, supported the bill in the key Senate vote.

It's time the GOP gets back to its roots and disavows these ugly sentiments.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/op ... z0pMoSOqyS

It is a personal opinion piece by Linda Chavez and does not represent the opinion of the Post itself.

GOP populism can get ugly

Linda Chavez is already ugly. Ignor her...maybe she will soon go away, newspapers are on their way to dinosaurland.

Originally Posted by IndianaJones

GOP populism can get ugly

Linda Chavez is already ugly. Ignor her...maybe she will soon go away, newspapers are on their way to dinosaurland.

You said it. The Internet and news in electronic form is the future and newspapers need to get this into their heads.

One can only hope that the GOP will go the way of the newspaper as well. The tea party is certainly helping to make that possible so more power to them . They'll split the party up into the Karl Rove/Gingrich/Cheney (RGC) party and the Tea Party.