"Philosophers Shouldn't Run for Office," Except Obama

I can understand why people are upset with Rand Paul. I think they are misunderstanding his intentions, which are not racist. But I can understand how they could have that reaction.

From what I have read in the Twittersphere and in blogs, etc. people angry with Paul quite often show that they misunderstand the very nature of the crisis of southern segregation, which was not a spontaneous exercise in free dis-association, but a government mandated and enforced reality, under Jim Crow, etc. (Separate public facilities, anti-miscegenation laws, etc.) Laws which violated basic rights under the constitution, which were helping to integrate the races. Laws which were supported by a band of vigilantes in a secret society. So, why did this require laws, and "secret" enforcers?

I still think it is possible to have a reasonable discussion about what actually happened during that crisis and learn lessons from it. About lawmaking. The same way people still watch D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" to understand the reality of political propaganda, and how the Klan flourished.

If a senatorial candidate can't "philosophize" on the job, what is he or she doing running for the United States Senate anyway, which is supposed to be an aristocratic, deliberative body?

Which is why I don't understand someone like Chris Matthews going on the Jay Leno show and saying "philosophers shouldn't run for office."

Matthews, it seems to me, thinks politics should be basically for the enjoyment of him and his beer-drinking buddies. Like sports; to watch the instant replays, talk about tactics and tell colorful stories about old Irish pols like his former boss, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill.

I used to enjoy Hardball, but I am finding Matthews' approach to politics growing shallower by the day. Perhaps he's been hanging around Keith Olbermann a little too long.

Anyway, who then was this guy (see below), who gave Matthews that thrill up his leg? You know, the guy who wants to "transform" America by eliminating the Founders' paradigm of negative rights?

I guess you can only "philosophize" about America if you're going in one direction -- which is away from the philosophy of the highly-philosophical Founders.

Rand Paul Bending or Breaking Under Charges of Racism, etc.?

Odd exchange last night on CNN between Rand Paul, the GOP senate nominee from Kentucky, and host John King.

King pressed Paul on a number of questions, particularly on whether or not he would dismantle the Department of Education, and Paul, it seems to me, danced around that question a little, and some others.

CNN went ahead anyway, after the question was asked, and attributed to Paul in the caption that he did seek to eliminate the DOE and the Dept. of Agriculture. A little odd journalistically, I think.

Anyway, I suspect to Paul's supporters this behavior is excusable, because they see him under attack by liberal media. Paul is libertarian, but as his profile has been raised he now appears to be feeling the sting of responses to his positions on federal legislation, articulated in front of the more critical audiences on NPR, CNN and MSNBC.

But after the similar constant beat down that occurs on the national stage, would this same habit endear him to anyone years from now? I don't know how his father, Texas congressman Ron Paul, has withstood the onslaught for so long.

Rand has to practice his responses a little more for the national media I think, particularly on the federal departments. "The correct answer is," to borrow a trope from TV commentator John McLaughlin, that while these departments seem to place decision making in the hands of trained experts, they often concentrate more decision making in the hands of those with less knowledge about the overall education situation. Does anyone really believe that Head Start or No Child Left Behind are effective?

Devolution of political power to the local level outsources work on many more smaller decisions to MORE people. This is the paradox of large federal interventions. It places more power in the hands of fewer (self-interested) people, reducing the overall information and aggregate motivation available to solve social problems.

In a recent exchange, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow pressed Rand Paul on his views about federal civil rights legislation. Joan Walsh, the liberal editor of Salon magazine, makes great hay about Paul's "demolishment" at the hands of Maddow (video included). And today, the Twittersphere is full of comments about how Paul "opposed the Civil Rights Act," "supports segregation" and is "racist." Google Rand Paul and you see additional headlines asserting that Paul is defending discrimination.

Whereas, Paul explicitly said in the interview (!) that he would have voted for all but one part of the Civil Rights Act, he finds racism abhorrent and that segregation was actually a government policy and misuse of the law. I agree with him on all these points.

Paul acquitted himself reasonably well here in this one interview.

The problem for many liberals is that they will see in Paul what they want to see. Which is what they want to see in most people who want to protect property rights and limit government power, the core of Paul's philosophy: a closet racist and homophobe. All because he opposes a certain means of achieving a social objective. (A rather heavy-handed means with numerous unintended consequences.)

For many on the left, that the 1960s were a triumph of progressive legislation is a "settled question." The 1960s are never to be discussed with any critical eye again, because it was the age of Abraham, Martin and John. Unfortunately, libertarians keep cropping up.

But these libertarians often struggle to articulate the organic link between the expansion of federal power then -- however well intentioned it was -- and consequences being felt today in ever expanding, intrusive federal action over private initiative and all its related costs and debt, and little room left for local initiative.

All while feeling the sting of being called racist, because you oppose certain aspects of legislation touching on race - which is not the same thing.

Libertarians and conservatives have to repeat it until they are blue in the face, that supporting limited government and defense of private property does not mean they endorse repugnant social behavior. Wasn't it a great liberal with progressive attitudes about women, John Stuart Mill, who argued that social sanction rather than legislation should play an important role in behavior we find repugnant?

So, those of us who are libertarian should expect great moralizing on the part of the left this election season, and a sense of crisis that the KKK is back in town. Some don't know enough to know better. But some of those critics in the media clearly are educated enough to know better.

Rachel Maddow's parting comment to Rand Paul:

"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."

No one says it's a hypothetical, and this is the usual posturing and playing to the left-wing audience by Maddow.

People who had the life beaten out them (and fire-hosed and attacked by dogs) had it done to them by the government. And those acts were disproportionate and already illegal and federal intervention was necessary to stop them. Paul AGREED on that much.

Maddow is smart enough to know that. But her comments were about demonizing, not actual, real discussion and journalism.

Not an exclusive province of MSNBC or left-wing media by the way. It's a pervasive risk of being a popular journalist, to play to an audience. You see the same kind of thing on FOX.

In response to certain external stimuli, journalists tend to bend and break as well.