Rand Paul, the man who has dedicated himself to wooing African Americans back to the Republican Party, even in Detroit, defended Cliven Bundy, the self-proclaimed American “patriot”, deadbeat rancher, and domestic terrorist, by saying the federal government is to blame for his lawless squatting on federal land in Nevada because they are “violating the law”.
When people wonder why we are dubious about Paul’s actual feelings about African Americans, it’s because he supports people like Bundy who are unmitigated racists. Here’s Bundy on “the Nego”:
“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
A spokesman for Mr. Paul, informed of Mr. Bundy’s remarks, said the senator was not available for immediate comment.
It was nice of you to open the African American outreach office in Detroit, Sen. Paul. Perhaps you’d be willing to come back and explain to Detroiters why you are standing up for this racist who thinks that slavery was a good option for their ancestors and gave them “freedom”.
UPDATE: I want to highlight this bit of excellence from Laura Clawson at Daily Kos:
Does government subsidy somehow work differently for white ranchers with 14 children? Sorry! Stupid question, I realize. Cliven Bundy is a special snowflake to whom no rules apply, ever. He gets to illegally graze cattle on public land for decades and take up arms against the federal government, and then when the New York Times comes calling to write about them, he gets to hold forth about how the Negroes were better off under slavery and it not only doesn’t make the headline, you have to read down 11 paragraphs to get to what would seem to be significant information about who this guy is. But apparently the Times thought the more significant piece of information in the article was that Bundy “savors the audience that rallied to his side.” What a piece of hard-hitting news that is—deadbeat on ego trip savors ego trip.
