Reactions To Rand Paul's Op-ed

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is the most interesting man (or woman) in the Republican Party today. He is known as a staunch conservative on fiscal issues, but he's working with Democrats on criminal sentencing reform. He woos religious conservatives in Iowa, but he also flirts with a more libertarian stance on social issues. And as unrest continues in Ferguson, Paul said something no other Republicans are saying: That the "militarization" of police is harmful to African Americans.

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Sen. Rand Paul is staking out new ground: He’s the Republican who can talk race and police brutality.

In an op-ed for Time magazine Thursday on the events in Ferguson, Missouri, Paul (R-Ky.) took on race, militarized police and why “it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.”

The potential 2016 presidential contender is fond of telling the GOP that it needs to appeal beyond its mostly white base if it wants to be competitive in national races — pushing for sentencing reforms and speaking to traditionally black audiences. But his efforts to make inroads with new GOP constituencies haven’t always gone smoothly.

The tension in the St. Louis suburbs, however, could mark a turning point for Paul.

The senator’s lengthy, provocative and personal op-ed went further than any other Republican in acknowledging pervasive racial divisions in the U.S.

“Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention,” he wrote.

Republicans have a long way to go toward building support among African-Americans and other minorities. But politicians from both parties often struggle to talk about race — and Paul is winning applause from unlikely places for his willingness to confront the issue.

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[u]Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is no doubt delighting in the liberal love he is receiving for his TIME magazine op-ed on race, policing, and the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri. But I am not one of those easily impressed. Why not? Because he is wrong.

Paul is correct to critique the militarization of local police in America. But that’s not a new phenomenon when it comes to black communities in America – it’s been the norm since the 1960s. And the demilitarization argument does nothing to challenge nor change the fact that “nearly two times a week in the United States, a white police officer killed a black person during a seven-year period ending in 2012”, according to FBI statistics. Two times a week. That’s everyday local policing, and has nothing to do with the militarization of local police forces, nor big government. The choke-hold that killed Eric Garner or the multiple gunshots that killed Michael Smith were not military-grade weapons. They were weapons used as the result of what Senator Paul believes in most strongly, when it comes to civil rights: “a lot of things can be handled locally”.

And this is where he gets it most wrong. Sen. Paul’s most mistaken premise is that “big government” is “at the heart of the problem”, presumably when it comes to the loss of black life at the hands of the police.

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