Paul to Russia: Illegal Immigrants Kids Shouldn’t Be U.S. Citizens
Every day Rand Paul looks more and more to me like Joe Pesci as David Ferry in JFK. This Tea Party, Libertarian, Republican Hybrid thing that Paul has going on also has me confused. But, then so do all of the Republican party’s viewpoints the past two decades. Here I am, thinking I’ve got a bead on the tea party philosophy when Rand Paul breaks out this gem to a Russian tv station (video on the right):
Paul recently suggested to a Russian TV station that the U.S. should abandon its policy of granting citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants — even if they’re born on U.S. soil.
Paul also said he’s discussed instituting an “underground electrical fence” on the border to keep out unwanted elements, though he emphasized that he’s “not opposed to letting people come in and work and labor in our country.”
The real problem, Paul said, is that the U.S. “shouldn’t provide an easy route to citizenship” because of “demographics.”
Boy, things sure have changed here on Walton Mountain. (lame reference) Am I to understand that Rand Paul thinks the 14th Amendment of the Constitution should be changed so that being born in America doesn’t automatically grant you citizenship? The 14th Amendment says:
“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.”
This Amendment was enacted, of course, to grant citizenship to slaves, people whose parents were brought here “legally” through kidnapping. Therefore, if you were born a slave on a plantation in South Carolina the 14th Amendment granted you citizenship in the United States and South Carolina. Therefore, in today’s world, if your parents sneak over here from Mexico and give birth to you while they’re here (a choice that I assume Rand Paul would prefer since he’s against abortion) you get to become a United States citizen.
What is it about the tea party that insists on one hand the Constitution be enforced to the letter of the law and on the other hand just willy nilly amended when it suits their purposes? I suppose you can argue that about just about any party, but it seems dominant among tea drinkers.
The other part that boggles the mind is the fact that Paul sat down with a RUSSIAN television station. I can’t imagine that this act would bring anything less than a withering critique about socialism and communism from Glenn Beck if Obama did the same. Maybe it was all part of a national security strategy. He was warning the Russians we’re going to build an invisible underground fence so that they won’t try and come here illegally through Alaska. Now, I’ll give him that it’s a better defense than Sarah Palin watching Russia through binoculars from her house, but really?
The topsy turvy logic of Paul and the Tea Partiers makes me think I’m losing my mind. If they were allowed to govern it would be, as Dr. Peter Venkman so eloquently put it, “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”
Rand Paul Says What?
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about Rand Paul. I’ve gleamed a few things here and there. Tea Party… less spending… not part of the old guard GOP… not named after Ayn Rand… thinks blacks should be denied service at restaurants…
Say what?
In a bit of political philosophizing gone too far Rand Paul dug himself a hole he didn’t even know he was in on the Rachel Maddow show. He was so intent on not letting her play gotcha that he defended his legal position into the grave. Witness the following exchange (video on the right):
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 do discriminate.
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.
Paul certainly doesn't strike me as a constitutional scholar based on this conversation. He is a doctor with ideas about what he thinks the law should be but not what it actually allows. The government has greater leeway in regulating commercial speech and public safety, thus the first amendment argument regarding private establishments doesn't really hold much water. Everyone's rights have to be balanced against each others and the constitution insures that the law that is in the best interest of the general welfare triumphs.
I digress. What's really great about this Maddow / Paul exchange is that someone is actually arguing something that is politically incorrect. It's so abhorrent, it's thrilling. Paul is now back peddling like crazy and taking back what he said, and that’s too bad. If he really wants to make the argument that the civil rights acts were an overreach, go for it! Let’s get real public discourse again instead of the bullshit slanted crap that every other politician gives us.
And one more thing. FWIW: When you’re aligning yourself with a party that’s already been maligned with allegations of shouting racial epithets at black Congressmen, the last thing you probably want to do is argue that a restaurant should turn someone away because of the color of their skin.
Beck’s Very Own “Mein Kampf”
For someone who claims to hate anything that hints at socialism (aka Nazism), Glenn Beck sure does a lot of writing in and reading from his own personal journal. I’m sure his journal has a catchy name like “The Liberty Files” or some such goofy shit, but it just reminds me a little bit too much of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” The way he treasures it, the way he brings it out to read from. Beck probably keeps each finished journal in a hermetically sealed compartment so that one day it can be shared with the master race (aka White Republicans)(and no, his attempt to
hijack“honor” the anniversary of MLK’s “I have a Dream Speech” doesn’t improve his racism).His latest recitation of his personal thoughts came as commencement speaker at Liberty University’s graduation (a school that hired about to be disbarred, pro-life crazy, former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline as a law professor). Interesting that they gave Glenn Beck, a college drop out, an honorary diploma whereas Arizona State didn’t think President Obama had achieved enough to merit a diploma from them.
Beck spoke to graduates for a whole of five minutes, crying through most of it. I think maybe the crying is a way to make his speeches seem longer so he doesn’t have to write as much. It only takes so long to say, “Socialist, Facist, Nazi, let’s go kick some non-American ass!” First, he made sure to tie President Obama to Hitler again. In his own commencement address President Obama said this of technology:
“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,’ Obama said.
Beck took this too mean Obama said there was “too much information.” Never mind the fact that he said information could be a means of emancipation, something Beck should know about seeing as how he is honoring MLK. I digress. So Beck says, “This is a course that has been charted before in the past and it always ends with those who are willing to burn books.”
Nazism. In case you missed the reference. That means Obama = Hitler. So Glenn’s settin’ you up to believe that Obama is the Hitler in this case. It’s all misdirection so that he can continue to promote his Mein Kampf and one day take over the world! Beck is the real Nazi! How do I know? Because Beck then whipped out his liberty journal and
read the audience passages from his journal that he had written for his daughter, urging her (and graduates) to “marry for God” and “always forgive.”
That was pretty creepy, but not as creepy as the time he read his journal to Sara Palin. And is it just me, or is he really having a hard time manufacturing the tears? Ah, Glenn, Hitler just yelled, he didn’t cry!
