Posted on 05/21/2010 4:19:18 AM PDT by reaganrevolutionin2010
Since last Tuesday, it’s been morning after week for Kentucky Senate Republican candidate Rand Paul. While he recorded interviews at NPR and The O’Reilly Factor today, he didn’t waste any time booking himself for the toughest interview he could find. Tonight, that interview was on The Rachel Maddow Show. Don’t be deceived by the lack of shouting– this was by far the most heated exchange of the night across cable news.
It wasn’t the first time Paul was on the program– in fact, he had announced his candidate for Kentucky Senate on The Rachel Maddow Show months before. But last night’s interview was almost like a science experiment: put two of the most ideologically pure people in the politi-media world together to challenge each other on one of the issues they each care about the most. For Paul, that issue is the rights of the individual and the danger of the federal government stepping over them. For Rachel Maddow, the issue is institutional discrimination and the moral obligation to abolish it. That, at least, is how each one of them saw the respective problems and successes of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which Paul had been coming under attack for allegedly opposing.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
I see, you were a kid in 1985 and therefore have no real knowledge of the US prior to the civil rights act. Any argument that an America where a large portion of the population was institutionally held back and its opportunity in every arena was institutionally restricted and in many cases flat out denied (in other words - their freedom) is preferable and conservative is bullshit.
Oh, so institutionalized racism opposite of that prior to the civil right act is okay then. I see your argument - NOT!
Democrats are cowards for refusing to go on Fox. They would be glad to, if they had facts and logic rather than showmanship behind their snake oil, but they don't - so they stay away from the exposure. The trouble with going on Fox is that you will be asked the second question. If you have the facts and logic to back up your case, that's no problem. Conservatives do have facts and logic behind their cases; it is their defining characteristic.and then turn around and call republicans stupid for going on any of the other networks.
Journalism as we know it did not exist until the era of the Civil War. Prior to that, newspapers were fractiously independent of each other, and didn't accept claims that competing newspapers' reporters were objective. In fact, the newspapers of the pre-Civil War era were more like National Review than like The New York Times. Most were weeklies, and some had no deadline at all and just went to press when the printer decided he was ready. More than modern "hard news," they were about the opinions of their printers. Presses of that ilk naturally were ordinarily associated with political parties. The whole paper was what we'd now think of as an editorial page - and the printers couldn't and didn't try to make that a secret. That was the milieu when the First Amendment was written and ratified.Its hypocritical and pathetic.What changed that?The telegraph. The telegraph, and the Associated Press. Suddenly the printer had available to him a font of news stories to which his readership could not be privy before he printed them. A wonderful thing for the printer of a paper! But, at a price. It was expensive in money, and the printer needed to get value out of his AP newswire. How to do that, when the printer didn't employ, didn't even know, the reporters who produced the cornucopia of newswire stories? How to vouch for the veracity of the stories? Simple - you simply launch a propaganda campaign to the effect that all reporters are objective!
Here's a news flash for you: journalists actually aren't objective! How do I know? Well, you can do a lot of ponderous research, such as (A Measure of Media Bias (research shows Drudge/Fox centrist, NYT far liberal) ), to prove it - but you need not expect that journalists will do anything but stonewall the results, no matter how thorough the research might be. Far simpler to just be direct - journalists are not objective because they say that they are objective. Simple - the only way anyone can even attempt to be objective is to start your analysis with an up-front declaration of your own interest in the question you are analyzing. If you are arguing that more roads should be built, you declare up front if your father-in-law would be the one to build them, and you would even declare your ownership of a car which would be more useful if there were more roads. Declaring your own objectivity is the precise opposite of that, so you should take it for granted that journalists who never declare anything but their own "objecitivity" are not merely not objective, they are heavily biased.
What is the inherent bias of journalism? Simple again - journalists are biased in favor of the notion that journalists are heroes. In Mark Steyn's expression, they are cardboard heroes - great at attacking "dastardly villains" such as bankers who actually pose no threat, but impotent and cowardly in the presence of actual villains such as ruthless terrorists who'll behead you for crossing them. Cowards who boast that "you never argue with someone who buys ink by the carload" - and then pick on some poor defenseless schlub precisely because he can't effectively argue back, and wouldn't hurt a fly anyway.
How does that bias of journalism play into politics? Simple again - "liberal" politicians are those who cooperate with journalists and essentially exist in symbiosis with them. You can tell that by the way journalists give them positive labels. Americans favored liberalism - which was a word for the advocacy of liberty - so journalists began to call politicians in symbiosis with them "liberals." The meaning of the word "liberal" was inverted in the 1920s, according to Saffire's New Political Dictionary. Journalists also, alternatively, call politicians in symbiosis with them "progressives." What American doesn't favor progress? And as to the label applied to "liberals'" opponents, well, I'll believe that "conservative" is intended as a positive label as soon as you convince me that marketers don't want to label their products New!
Ann Coulter has pointed out that if she goes on a book tour and is put on TV, journalists always "balance" her with one (usually more than one) "liberal" commentator to argue with her. in addition to the "objective journalist" him/herself, who will always attack as well (the usual result is that Ann has to really fight to get a word in edgewise - and as quick-tongued as she is, that's saying something). If a "liberal" goes on a book tour, when have you ever seen him/her "balanced" by a conservative? When have you ever seen him/her attacked by the "objective" journalist?
In reality "objective" journalists are sophists - and, in the original sense of the term, conservative politicians and analysts are philosophers.
Not only is there no hypocrisy involved in advocating that conservative politicians go on Fox but keep the "objective" journalist at arm's length, it is IMHO actually pathetic to think that they are obligated to do otherwise.
BTTT
I hope you didn’t spend a whole lot of time writing all that because I didn’t bother reading beyond the first couple of lines.
Man up or go home is the message that are republicans need to hear.
Excellent post!
This is clearly a winning issue for Republicans. They need to drive it home again and again that it was the Democrats who fought against the Civil Rights Acts while Republicans overwhelmingly supported them.
That’s Rosie ??? And all this time, I thought it was a dude.
First of all, those forced changes were not mandated by the Civil Rights Act, but instead violate that same Act. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 should have been a huge victory for Republicans. After three prior attempts in the previous decade, the GOP was finally able to overcome Democrat filibusters to enact a bill that clearly defined the spirit of Equal Protection that had been given to us by the very same GOP a century earlier.
Your anger should be directed at activist courts who today continue to ignore the Equal Protection clause just as they did when they handed down the Plessy v. Ferguson decision at the end of the 19th century. King was correct when he said that people should be judged by the content of their character - not the color of their skin. Yet with liberals, it is skin color that counts most.
In 1960 Richard Nixon got about one third of the Black vote. In 1964 Goldwater got less than ten percent. Why? Goldwater came out against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You don’t have to support affirmative action to affirm the rights of an average American to be treated decently. Goldwater was not a racist and later recanted his stand on the Civil Rights Act. But the damage had been done.
“Your anger should be directed at activist courts who today continue to ignore the Equal Protection clause just as they did when they handed down the Plessy v. Ferguson decision at the end of the 19th century.”
I am, and this only proves MY (and Paul’s) point - I am not upset with the Civil Rights Laws (as they were written and passed), I am upset with where it has LEAD!
Can we all agree that the new Arizona Anti-Illegal Immigration Law, as written, expressly prohibits racial profiling? People like our idiot president, say it is a bad law because it can LEAD to racial profiling - if not implemented correctly.
Listen closely, originally he ridiculed the LAW, then after reading it and realizing that it is the same as the Federal law, he has subtly changed his tune to say that “...it can LEAD to racial profiling...” It’s all BS. The speed limits laws can be (and many are) abused - but since they don’t use it to racially profile, that’s ok.
If in two years, the police in Arizona are racially profiling and only accosting Mexicans - all while using this law as their badge - then I will be upset with WHERE THAT LAW HAS LEAD - although I do not think it will lead to that, just as I am sure that the Republicans didn’t think the Civil Rights Laws would lead us to institutionalized “reverse-racism”!!!
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You seem pretty hysterical for a guy who calls himself a Texas Marine.
Where is there a housing community in America that forces homeowners to sign a covenant that prohibits them from ever selling the house to a white person? When was the last time you had to pay a tax or pass a test (how many bubbles in a bar of soap) before you could vote?
When was the last time you saw a restaurant or bathroom that had a sign saying people your color couldn't use it? Or a public swimming pool? Or a Hotel?
I could go on but you might break down and cry at the way the man is keeping you down....Texas Marine.
“When was the last time you saw a restaurant or bathroom that had a sign saying people your color couldn’t use it? Or a public swimming pool? Or a Hotel?”
You seem like an idiot for espousing that racism (so as long as it is against someone other than blacks) is okay.
You also seem to think that allowing racism against me makes up for transgressions with which I never had anything to do! Do you not understand that? In your mind, two wrongs DO make a right! Is that what you liberals call “equal?”
My generation, and that of my children and grandchildren can NEVER undo the evils that were done to the American Indians, the slaves (both black and white) or any other group of people who have been on the receiving end of discrimination! And when idiots like you encourage racism against us, it actually created resentment. But, according to you since I’m not black, I am allowed to feel wronged. How dare I?!?!
The audacity of me to think that we should all be equally judged, to think that we should “...not be judged by the color of....skin but by the content of...character.” Damn, how backwards can I and all the other conservatives be?
But, according to you since I’m not black, I am allowed to feel wronged. = But, according to you since I’m not black, I am NOT allowed to feel wronged.
nope Paul will carry that interview for ever lol. Dont get me wrong Im glad he won but only because its a slap at the RNC elites.
It's the deep, pathological drive among some libertarians to be the smartest people in the room, even though it alienates more people to their cause than it attracts.
Don't be so sure. The jury is still out on whether the entire communist government run media screaming RACIST in unison will get you more or fewer votes in Kentucky.
I hate Maddow and all her ilk and I will be quite proud if Rand Paul ends up making her hate Kentucky more than Alaska!
Man up or go home is the message that are republicans need to hear.
Cynicism ill becomes anyone - but especially one who considers himself conservative.
Encourage racism? Espousing racism? Get a grip before you faint...you’re giving Texans and Marines a bad name.
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