No Byrd Hunting Allowed

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man"

Joe Biden

I find the gyrations of the media concerning Rand Paul fascinating. Although I personally like Rand Paul and think he will be a good Senator I do not agree with his every position, but the firestorm he has ignited is the flailing of a dieing cult, the leftist media.

Paul in advisably made a comment about having a problem with one aspect of the 1964 civil rights act, not the act itself, just one provision of it. I feel he is mistaken about his constitutional interpretation but at least he has an interpretation.

For months we have listened to the absolutely ridiculous explanations from one Democratic legislator after another as to where in the Constitution they find the power to mandate health care upon American citizens. They sound less informed about the "law of the land" than fourth graders. Some including the Speaker of the House thought it "unserious" to even ask such a question as if any discussion of the Constitution was undignified in the hallowed halls of Pelosiville. Now Rand Paul a man who obviously has a deep understanding and love of the Constitution gives his constitutional opinion on one aspect of a 45 year old law and he is somehow a political neanderthal bent on raising the confederate flag over the white dome and reinstating slavery to the Union.

The vicious attack and the smearing of a political figure the likes of which we have not seen since...Sarah Palin is as pathetic as it is predictable. The hypocrisy and double standard that is applied by the media would be breathtaking if we still took these lilliputians of giant egos seriously. On the same day that a foreign president insults the United States to the standing O of an entire political party in the House Chambers our press corps is obsessed with the comments of a Senatorial candidate about his thoughts on constitutional issue that is not only settled law but which he says he would have voted for.

Our Vice President is a walking gaffe machine with a history of plagiarism and a record of racial insensitive comments and yet they malign Rand Paul as if he is a card carrying member of the KKK. Which by the way a current member of the Senate was.

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds. ”
— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944

Rand Paul may have a slightly extreme libertarian view of one portion of the civil rights act but he certainly wasn't on the Senate floor filibustering it as now ancient but bloved Robert Byrd of West Vitrginia was. In fact the compromise that allowed for the Civil Rights act to go forward was based on nothing less than the very point that Rand Paul has a problem with:

The bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, 1964 and the "Southern Bloc" of 18 southern Democratic Senators and one Republican Senator led by Richard Russell (D-GA) launched a filibuster to prevent its passage.[4] Said Russell: "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states."[5]

After 54 days of filibuster, Senators Everett Dirksen (R-IL), Thomas Kuchel (R-CA), Hubert Humphrey (D-MN), and Mike Mansfield (D-MT) introduced a substitute bill that they hoped would attract enough Republican swing votes to end the filibuster. The compromise bill was weaker than the House version in regard to government power to regulate the conduct of private business, but it was not so weak as to cause the House to reconsider the legislation.[6]

On the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) completed an address that he had begun 14 hours and 13 minutes earlier opposing the legislation. Until then, the measure had occupied the Senate for 57 working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the bill's manager, concluded he had the 67 votes required at that time to end the debate and end the filibuster.

That is precisely the disagreement with the law that Paul has, the federal government going too far into private enterprise, what a quaint idea huh? It obviously was a deep concern at the time so much so that a compromise had to be worked out to pass it. This Constitutional issue has absolutely nothing to do with racism, unlike a current Senator who tried everything in his power to defeat the law.

Remember Obama's famous if totally untrue line about his association with Bill Ayers which he concluded with:

..And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who
engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow
reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense.

Do you know how old Rand Paul was while Robert Byrd was actively fighting to keep from having the"intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states" ? Rand Paul was one year old, to him like most of his generation, segregation is a stain from the historical past which is more an intellectual discussion having very little to do with the world all but a few liberal masochist live in today. Unfortunately most of them reside in the media.


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