Posted on 04/11/2015 9:38:43 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., formally launched his presidential campaign Tuesday with a speech in Louisville. Among the notable quotes from Paul's speech was a comment seemingly meant to raise minority support by calling for reform of federal drug laws that disproportionately lead to incarceration of black Americans.
"I see an America where criminal justice is applied equally and any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color is repealed," Paul said.
Paul went on to address other topics without expanding much on what kinds of laws he meant. But given his past comments, it's not hard to guess he was talking about the war on drugs. "The war on drugs has become the most racially disparate outcome that you have in the entire country," Paul said in November 2014. "Our prisons are full of black and brown kids. Three-fourths of the people in prison are black or brown."
Lauren Galik, the Director of Criminal Justice Reform at Reason Foundation, said she was excited to hear a Republican presidential candidate campaigning on drug reform. "More than half of our federal prison population right now is there for drugs, many of which are African-American," Galik told the Washington Examiner. "African Americans are more likely to receive a sentence that carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment than white individuals."
Mandatory minimums disproportionately affect African American criminals compared to whites and Hispanics. "Although Black offenders in 2012 made up 26.3 percent of drug offenders convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty, they accounted for 35.2 percent of the drug offenders still subject to that mandatory minimum at sentencing," according to the United States Sentencing Commission, an independent federal agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.washingtonexaminer.com ...
I though reaching out to minorities was Carsons role for the GOPe’s.
It’s clear to me that immigration laws disproportionally affect hispanics, so immigration laws should also be scrapped.
Well, Goodbye Rand Paul.
In reality black problems are due to generally low intelligence creating a lack of foresight, plus poor impulse control which overrides any foresight that does come to the individual. There is a real horror in facing biological limits in our Society.
I don’t have the answer but I do know the current and past MO is not working and it is costing us and taking rights even from average law abiding citizens. I’d support the use of statewide pilot programs with different philosophies and evaluate outcomes and tweaks, just as most businesses do before making major policy changes.
For some reason the government thinks they know how to implement major programs by committee and expect them to work. We need to look at other countries and use their experience too.
A big problem is we’ve created a huge embedded interest group that profits off the status quo.
The same conversations were held during Prohibition, but America didn’t take as long to come to its senses after that mistake. And just as it was with Prohibition, the only winners were organized crime and government police power that grew to fight it. Laws that outlaw the mere possession of any thing are antithetical to freedom, for without the requirement of criminal intent, any citizen can be set up and framed with planted evidence. I hate drugs as much as anyone, but I fear a police state even more. We must be cautious of good intentions, because freedom is often lost to thundering applause.
I don’t remember his dad ever pandering though. Maybe politicians must lie, pander, scheme, back slap and kiss babies to get elected.
The basis for his desire to repeal drug laws is stupid.
Every law will affect one group more than others.
Secondly, if polls shows Paul gaining any traction with minorities by this pandering, the Dems will pick it up as their own idea and Paul will never win in the general election.
Rand Paul is an idiot.
Soon enough he will want carjacking legalized
Rand Paul is in the wrong party, he obviously has no intention of supporting the platform
Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have the same position on marijuana, which is to leave it up to the states.
yea you keep telling everyone Ken. Randy panderer is done and was on the first day of his speech.
see an America where criminal justice is applied equally and any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color is repealed.
Cruz is a conservative and social and fiscal, while Paul is liberal, hell he;s more liberal than more liberals on social issues
” Sadly there are people voting for their drugs to be legal, or some who hate the military to see it reduced, or homosexuals who want their agenda advancing.”
Swell......
So one can be for legal pot and still be a conservative.
Black problems are due to others making excuses for their problems. When they take responsibility for them, the problems go away.
Impulse control comes from a strong family unit that teaches at a very young age that there are repercussions for their actions.
Couldn't you find a way to do that without punishing people for trying to be self-sufficient?
One cannot say this and be a conservative
The Libertarian Pander Bear, Rand Paul, strikes again!
My point Ken is that you keep saying the same thing to everyone.
Paul needs to either stay with his own party which is the liberal-tarian or go and join the Dems
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