Rand Paul Pandering on Voter ID Laws Counterproductive

Throughout his career, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) has built upon his reputation as an independent maverick who is willing to buck party leadership or dogma to advance his goals for America. For conservatives dubious of the feckless GOP beltway bunch, this has been a refreshing change and helped the Kentucky Senator establish himself as a true contender for the 2016 Presidential nomination. While this trait is without doubt a positive one, Rand Paul's criticism of Republican's efforts to establish voter ID laws in various states is the wrong issue to tackle and counterproductive to the overall goals of increasing genuine dialogue with the black community.

In addition to his independence, Paul is to be legitimately commended for taking the lead in reaching out to African-American voters. His ideas on how we fight the drug war, sentencing and civil liberties are timely and come with reasoned solutions, rather than the sycophantic methods of the left. With his stance on voter ID laws however, he appears dangerously close to the pandering Democrats in gaining support by reinforcing red herring warnings of a society returning to the days of Jim Crow. Republicans, and in particular conservatives, certainly need to have open and honest discussions with the greater black community, but this is not the way to go about it.

At a recent gathering of Liberty PAC, a libertarian-leaning group, Paul was right to critique GOP appeal toward minorities when he noted, "The bottom line is, we aren't winning. We aren't winning because, its pretty simple, we don't have enough people in that group." In this regard he is absolutely correct, and the Republican Party is to be rightfully reproached in this. Despite being a party formed in large part as a direct result of the plight facing African-Americans, over the past 50 years the GOP has acquiesced the overall black vote to Democrats. This had been of dire consequence to both the Republican Party and black Americans as it has enabled a Progressive takeover of the Democratic Party and a disproportionate level of the negative impact of the Great Society to fall on the shoulders of the black community.

That Republicans previous failures at establish dialogue with black America, save a few standard election season efforts, have allowed Democrats to capture in upwards of 90 percent of African-American votes in many elections and gain near unanimous control of nearly every elected office in black communities. From City Council, to Alderman offices, congressional and state seats and most importantly (or rather devastatingly) local School Board seats. This has been the reality in America for going on 50 years now. This has come with a cost to the Republican Party, the black community and America as a whole. 50 years of Liberal-Progressive hegemony has in many ways reversed the historic progress black Americans have made on their American journey and have given back little, other than introduce the national culture to the terms "baby daddy."

In 1964 only 24 percent of all black children were born into single parent households, today that number stands at nearly 70 percent. Despite only encompassing 13 percent of the overall United States population, nearly half of all abortions performed are done on black women, 488,000 per year. If we include mothers of other races impregnated by black men, we are easily terminating the life of more than half a million black infants each and every year. These are numbers that even the leaders of the 20th century Klu Klux Klan would have thought to be impossible.

Due to the inane and corrupt leadership of the Democrats in the inner-cities, economic opportunity is stalled, thus limiting the job prospects of black youths. With idle time on their hands, they have become fodder for the nefarious trappings of urban American life. As more and more entry-level jobs go to Democrats new favored voting bloc, Hispanic immigrants, legal and otherwise, millions upon millions of young black men have virtually given up on the traditional paths toward upward mobility and jump into the "hustlers life." Misplaced liberal sentiments of compassion for the criminal and restrictive urban gun laws for the law-abiding have further exacerbated the crime problems plaguing the good and honest folks in the black community, creating conditions that should never be tolerated in the greatest nation on earth.

So I ask with great sincerity Senator Paul, why embark on a course of dialogue which matches that of the opportunists we all know to be wicked. In playing the "race card" you lower yourself and divert attention away from the real problems facing African-Americans in lieu of emotional appeals that have dubious merit. As I pondered earlier in this piece, I will ask again, how many potential voters are truly going to be disenfranchised due to voter ID laws, particularly when state Republicans often include free identification programs when drafting these measures?

I personally have challenged our party to place a greater emphasis on reaching out to minority voters and have previously commended Senator Paul's efforts in this regard. However, if we are going to do so by mimicking the strategy of the disingenuous left, and play off of historic fears and suspicions to do so, any gains we make in this area will be superficial and we will find ourselves becoming no better than Democrats. Indeed, let us as conservatives commit to increased open and honest dialogue with the black community at large, but by playing up the false argument that voter ID laws disenfranchise black voters, Rand Paul is stooping to a level that is both unproductive and unneeded. We have at our disposal 50 years of disastrous Democratic Party policy that is literally killing off African-Americans. Let us highlight these problems and counter with conservative ideas to rectify them, for a better black community, a better Republican Party and a better America.

Hey, there's no such thing as bad publicity. /s

Rand Slams Congress for Funding Egypt's Generals: 'How Does Your Conscience Feel Now?'
Sen. Rand Paul is hammering his fellow senators for keeping billions in financial aid flowing to Egypt's military -- even as Cairo's security forces massacre anti-government activists. [by "anti-government activists" is meant church-burning Christian-murdering jihadists]
[Posted on 08/15/2013 5:44:10 PM PDT by Hoodat]

Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"
I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.
[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]

Rand Paul: Time for GOP to soften war stance
...by softening its edge on some volatile social issues and altering its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said.
[Posted on 01/31/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by xzins]

Rand Paul's immigration speech
...The Republican Party must embrace more legal immigration.

Unfortunately, like many of the major debates in Washington, immigration has become a stalemate-where both sides are imprisoned by their own rhetoric or attachment to sacred cows that prevent the possibility of a balanced solution.

Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation.

Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.

If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you...

This is where prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into being taxpaying members of society.

Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers.12 million more people assimilating into society. 12 million more people being productive contributors.
[Posted on 03/19/2013 7:04:07 AM PDT by Perdogg]
Rand Paul calls on conservatives to embrace immigration reform
Latinos, should be a natural constituency for the party, Paul argued, but "Republicans have pushed them away with harsh rhetoric over immigration." ...he would create a bipartisan panel to determine how many visas should be granted for workers already in the United States and those who might follow... [and the buried lead] "Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers...
[Posted on 04/21/2013 1:52:42 PM PDT by SoConPubbie]
[but he's not in favor of amnesty, snicker, definition of is is]

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