Update V: Son Of Ron For Senate (Civil Wrongs?)

Constitution, Elections, libertarianism, Private Property, Race, Racism

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, endorsed his slick opponent, Trey Grayson, but he won “the Republican nomination for Senate from Kentucky.” He is Rand Paul, son of Ron.

The win “followed the defeat of an incumbent Republican senator, Robert Bennett of Utah, by conservative forces in that state. And it came after the recent decision by Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida to drop out of the Republican primary for Senate in the face of a surge by a Tea Party favorite, Marco Rubio.”

Not wishing to delve into the issues, and say unseemly, hick words such as “Constitution,” the New York Times has chalked the defeat of the establishment candidate to “A strong anti-Washington sentiment.” Of course they would.

Update I (May 19): “March with Martin Luther King, vote with Barry Goldwater.” Rand Paul vacillates about his opposition to the federal regulation of private property wrought by the Civil Wrong’s Act. This is the strict propertarian/libertarain position, apparently “repulsive” to mainstream America, claim NPR and RM. It cannot be denied that Rand Paul comes across as sour.

Part I

Part II

Update II (May 20): SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT, somewhat weakly, I think. Backing away from First Principles…

In response to liberal media attacks, Dr. Rand Paul today released the following statement:

“I believe we should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person. I have clearly stated in prior interviews that I abhor racial discrimination and would have worked to end segregation. Even though this matter was settled when I was 2, and no serious people are seeking to revisit it except to score cheap political points, I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Let me be clear: I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation, which was to stop discrimination in the public sphere and halt the abhorrent practice of segregation and Jim Crow laws.

“As I have said in previous statements, sections of the Civil Rights Act were debated on Constitutional grounds when the legislation was passed. Those issues have been settled by federal courts in the intervening years

“My opponent’s statement on MSNBC Wednesday that I favor repeal of the Civil Rights Act was irresponsible and knowingly false. I hope he will correct the record and retract his claims.”

“The issue of civil rights is one with a tortured history in this country. We have made great strides, but there is still work to be done to ensure the great promise of Liberty is granted to all Americans.

“This much is clear: The federal government has far overreached in its power grabs. Just look at the recent national healthcare schemes, which my opponent supports. The federal government, for the first time ever, is mandating that individuals purchase a product. The federal government is out of control, and those who love liberty and value individual and state’s rights must stand up to it.

“These attacks prove one thing for certain: the liberal establishment is desperate to keep leaders like me out of office, and we are sure to hear more wild, dishonest smears during this campaign.”

Update III: Civil Wrongs: When I allude to the Civil Rights Act, as I have every so often, it never occurs to me that for the reasoning advanced in these posts, I could be construed as a racist. Respectable scholars advance the same arguments: Richard A. Epstein, Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England, 1995), and Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom: The Story of How Through The Centuries Private Ownership has Promoted Liberty and the Rule of Law (New York, 2000).

I guess what I’m struck by is the incredulity and the indignation the cable cretins are expressing at Paul’s pretty standard, if hard-core, libertarian position. Dare I say that the founders held similar, if not identical, views about the sanctity of private property?

Update IV: Howard Fineman is one of the most detestable journos. Here’s how he turns Rand Paul’s principled defense of private property into something dark and dreadful. This does not take skill, but a wicked sleight of hand:

“…Some of that old-time, race-based attitude—a Kentucky mix of romantic benevolence and cruel disdain (immortalized in D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation)—has seeped into the groundwater of the Tea Party. I attended one of its first rallies, in Louisville more than a year ago, and I saw on the ground some of the anti-busing elements of old there.

If Dr. Rand Paul doesn’t immediately apologize for holding his victory rally at a private club—and doesn’t abandon his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act—then he will not only pollute the Tea Party, he will severely damage the GOP’s chances of winning control of either the House or Senate this fall.”

Update V (May 21): Writes Richard Spencer at AltRight (but what, for heaven’s sake, is HBD?):

As revealed by the above video, Rand is a proponent of a sunny-side up, left-libertarian version of American history.

Racial discrimination within public institutions should be stamped out; discrimination in the private sector, however, probably should not be, as this would entail a prying federal government and likely violations of multiple Constitutional amendments. But never fear! Racial discrimination isn’t just immoral, it’s bad business, and if the government just gets out of the way, all non-economic discrimination will come to an end on its own.

Through Rand certainly goes further than any other politician in criticizing Civil Rights, there’s a lot wrong with his view.

The argument that private businesses are more profitable when they serve everyone is often correct, particularly in a mass consumer society — though one shouldn’t forget that value is ultimately subjective. An entrepreneur might be able to charge higher prices, and receive more personal satisfaction, by operating a restaurant that caters only to whites (or Jews or Chinese or Indians), and he should have the right to do so.

Of course, instances of businesses refusing service are exceedingly rare….

Canucks Protest … Global Bank Tax

Canada, Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank

The Canadian government, not the American one, “will ‘resist’ a bank tax, Industry Minister Tony Clement said Tuesday as ministers fanned out across the world to raise opposition to the proposal for avoiding another financial crisis. ‘Canada is, and will remain, opposed to a tax that would penalize financial institutions that remained strong and prosperous while many of the world’s banks failed,’ Clement told a press conference with Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon.”

Clement said the bank tax would “encourage risky behavior” if it is used to create a bank bailout fund and “reward bad behavior” of those institutions responsible for the recent financial crisis in the first place.
As well, it would “unduly burden” Canadian banks and put them at a “competitive disadvantage” to other financial institutions.

As the AP reported a while back, “while the U.S. has seen 81 banks fail in 2009 alone, Canada has not experienced the failure of any major financial institution. There has been no crippling mortgage meltdown or banking crisis north of the border, where the financial sector is dominated by five large banks.”

I’ve often contended that if it cut back on its interventionist policies, Canada could become an economic giant. It has natural resources and a highly educated population. And as David Frum (another Canuck) reminds in this excellent piece (via alternativeright.com): Canada has an immigration system that doesn’t tolerate a tsunami of illegal alien illiterates, as does it adhere to a strict point system that benefits the country.

More HERE about the global regulatory regime debated by our oracular governors.

Updated: Miss Ummah America?

Aesthetics, Affirmative Action, Intelligence

I thought she was merely stupid and definitely not beautiful, but it turns out that the Miss Ummah America might be the beneficiary of a pattern of Muslim affirmative action in western beauty pageants

That might explain why these women are winners, although not one is particularly beautiful.

Rima Fakih certainly isn’t. I was struck by how conceited and stupid she was.

Conceited because during the competition she described herself as beautiful, intelligent, and a “goddess.” Modesty and a little less self-awareness and narcissism are what make a woman attractive in my old-fashioned opinion. These brazen creatures have repulsing personae.

Stupid because in her reply to that question that gets asked typically by the prototypical radical liberal gay (Oscar Nunez) or by a retarded glamor puss (Trump trophy wife), Fakih managed to promote taxpayer support for the birth-control pill (“b/c it’s expensive”), as well as claim the Pill was a “controlled substance.”

We’ll be exporting more stupidity with her as representative.

The first runner-up, Miss Oklahoma Morgan Elizabeth Woolard, sealed her fate when, in reply to one Oscar Nunez’s question about where she stood on Arizona’s SB 1070, she said she was “a huge believer in states’ rights”: “I think that’s what’s so wonderful about America, so I think it’s perfectly fine for Arizona to create that law.” “The crowd erupted in boos over the intrusion of politics,” Fox News reported.

This girl had a bit more of a brain than Carrie Prejean, that’s for sure, however, since the competition is ultimately about beauty, it should be noted that one or two real beauties were eliminated early on in the competition.

The finalists were certainly not the fairest.

Update (May 18): Myron’s favorite of 1992 has that regal look, as opposed the pole-slip-sliding appeal. There were a couple like her in the 2010 intake, but they were, obviously, dismissed in favor of the porn (and the politically correct) aesthetic.

To those who confuse cheap, sexy with beautiful: no, Rima Fakih is no beauty. She looks like porn star Kim Kardashian, who, frankly, repulses. She may be sexy in that cheap way, but in my view, the culture has adopted the male-centered porn aesthetic. So enamored are we with it, that we would not know refined beauty if we saw it. Witness the classic beauties (one in particular with green eyes and brown hair) who never made the finals in this year’s pageant. Obviously, all contestants had fabulous figures.

Devious Deployment Of The Apartheid Epithet Against Israel

Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Race, South-Africa

Larry Auster on the meaning of the devious deployment of the apartheid epithet against Israel by “paleostinian conservatives” who, arguably, once were able to see separate development in South Africa as a desperate survival strategy by a besieged minority (now being ethnically cleansed by the majority):

“It wasn’t just paleos, but mainstream conservatives, who opposed the divestment strategy against South Africa. But such is the paleocons’ hatred of the Jewish state that they now adopt as a weapon against Israel that same left-wing policy which they themselves opposed when it was used against South Africa and which by their own estimation has led to the ruin of that country. There are no words to describe adequately the sickness and evil of the anti-Israel paleocons.”

Read “The Paleostinian Conservative calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel.”