It's the racism, stupid

In the past few days, as we go through our latest wave of questionable personal and professional ties of Ron and Rand Paul, their defenders have increasingly moved toward a "Civil War is over, get over it" line of defense. I find this ironic, given that it's the Pauls' relationship to people still holding on to the Lost Cause that continually brings them problems, but let's grant, for the sake of argument, that fighting over the Civil War is indeed beside the point.

Guess what happens when you google "Ron Paul r" or "Rand Paul r":

If Rand Paul wants to be president, and his supporters want that to become reality, allegations of racism have to be put to bed. Not brushed aside like "Dude, that was like 150 years ago!" or "But his policies aren't racist..." It doesn't matter. I understand that winning politics has never been libertarians' strong suit, but politics is a popularity contest and racism is unpopular. Perception is everything in politics, and right now, the Pauls are perceived to have a long history of race problems.

"Don't look behind the Confederate battle flag curtain" is not a viable political strategy.

Presidents have to delegate massive amounts of authority and heavily rely on their closest advisers. Thus, the people with whom they surround themselves will in all probability influence their decision making as president. If one is known to surround himself with questionable people, the public will be right to question what kind of people will have his ear as president.

The Pauls race problems are not going to go away so long as they continue to flout public sentiment and protect those who cost them politically. Libertarians, by extension, continue to be hurt by defending the asinine decisions by the Pauls to protect their cronies who make a living bashing the outcome of the Civil War...because, you know, it ended that whole race-based slavery thing.

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Why can't the Pauls get past their race problems?

Another day, another associate of the Ron/Rand Paul political camp in race trouble. Yesterday, Sen. Rand Paul's new media chief, Jack Hunter, was outed (to those of us who ignore such people) as “The Southern Avenger,” a Confederate battle flag luchador mask wearing Southern apologist who used to host a radio show. Instead of owning up to his clear, unambiguous, and appalling behavior in his past career, Mr. Avenger Hunter blames unbalanced reporting at the Washington Free Beacon for his unceremonious unmasking:

My Statement on Recent Attacks

Today’s article that brought my not-very-hidden radio pundit background to light does not accurately reflect me or my full, or true, views.

The role of a radio host is different from that of a political operative. In radio, sometimes you’re encouraged to be provocative and inflammatory. I’ve been guilty of both, and am embarrassed by some of the comments I made precisely because they do not represent me today. I was embarrassed by some of them even then.

I am also no longer a guy who judges beer drinking contests in a wrestling mask. Things change. We all hopefully grow up.

I abhor racism and have always treated everyone I’ve met with dignity and respect as individuals. This was true in the past and it is true now.

The controversial comments are also but a fraction of my decade of writing and talking about conservative, Tea Party and libertarian causes.

I have also written columns over the years promoting African-American history and politics, and many other writings that tell a far different story than what the headlines portray today. Not surprisingly, the reporter chose not to balance her piece by citing any of those columns.

“Attacks” on “not-very-hidden” punditry, as if those of us who inhabit a social world free from nostalgic slavery-apologia were supposed to assume that a United States senator would knowingly hire a man known as “The Southern Avenger”—a hostile, vengeful, character who equates the NAACP and the Ku Klux Klan—and that hiring should or would be assumed to be common knowledge without much fanfare.

I can't speak to Mr. Hunter's past or current embarrassment about what he said or did as a pundit, but many of us seem to make our names without inflaming racial tensions that have haunted its country since its inception, don't also take charge of local chapters of slavery apologist organizations, and continue using that nickname as one progresses through our professional careers as he has. As recently as 2010, Hunter gave airtime to Tom Woods, a fellow-traveler in Civil War revisionism, on his radio show. Perhaps more telling, the above non-apology is listed on “SouthernAvenger.com,” supporting his contention his past is not very hidden, but it doesn't really explain how he's attempted at all to put his youthful indiscretion behind him, save scrubbing the many iterations of the Confederate battle flag off his website.

What exactly is he avenging now, anyway?

More Race Problems from the Pauls

It's as if the Paul family just drives vans around white neighborhoods in the South playing 'Dixie' and whatever fool chases it like an ice cream truck gets a job on staff:

[Rand] Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.

From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.

Prior to his radio career, while in his 20s, Hunter was a chairman in the League of the South, which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.”

Read the whole thing at the Free Beacon here.

Some Thoughts on the Broad Spectrum of Racism

I've never shied away from my particular resentment of Southern racism. Cloaked in tradition and gentility, years of barbarity and terrorism are blithely ignored as the Southern gentlemen and their darling belles get misty when they hear 'Dixie.' It's enough to make me reach for blood pressure medication. But that doesn't mean that it's the only kind of racism, or the most important.

Racism isn't geographically isolated, nor is it confined to a particular political or ideological affiliations. Boston, for example, famously resisted bused integration in the 1970s, resulting in this Pultizer prize winning photograph:

Today, Boston remains one of the most segregated cities in the United States. Don't let the 'enlightened Northeastern liberal' reputation fool you. (see also Twitter reaction to the Bruins' elimination from last year's Stanley Cup Playoffs on the goal by a black man) Racism, in its individual and collective forms, is still ubiquitous.

Progressives tend to focus on racism in systems, often referred to as "institutional racism." Conservatives and libertarians tend to be skeptical of allegations of entrenched racism, seeming to believe that racism can only exist on an individual level, and that to the extent it exists in the United States, it's not pernicious enough to require laws to combat it because "Jim Crow is over."

Neither political side quite seems to get it.

"And How Does This Relate to Our Discussion of the Uses of Irony?"

Pardon the Ferris Bueller reference, but I received this case in a media update from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and it made me laugh:

On December 15, 2009, while on duty, Appellants stopped and frisked men they believed were engaged in an illegal drug transaction. One of the men they frisked, Keyshawn Artis, accused Appellants of stealing money from him. Appellants denied the accusation, and told Artis to ―move along.

When Appellants returned to headquarters, a superior officer, Sergeant Salvatore Fede, ordered them into his office. After informing Appellants that a complaint about their behavior had been made to the Internal Affairs Bureau, Sergeant Fede took Appellants to Captain Melvin Singleton’s office. Appellants did not feel free to leave because they had been ―ordered to be in the captain’s office.‖ App. 285. After waiting fifteen to twenty minutes, Appellants and Sergeant Fede were joined by Captain Singleton, then-Sergeant Patrick Kelly, and Lieutenant Frank Palumbo.

Appellants were instructed to stay in Captain Singleton’s office until officers from the Internal Affairs Bureau arrived. While Appellants waited, Captain Singleton offered them water and told them that they could watch television, but instructed them not to use their cell phones. Appellants then were questioned about their interaction with Artis, including whether they had taken money from him. In that regard, Appellants were asked to remove their jackets and Gwynn was asked to remove his outer vest. Appellants also were told to pull out their pockets, pull up their pant legs and pull down their socks, and open their wallets. Finally, Appellants were told that cooperation would be in their ―best interest insofar as it could demonstrate to Internal Affairs that they did not have Artis’s money when they returned from their patrol. During the hour or so they spent in Captain Singleton’s office while awaiting the arrival of Internal Affairs officers, Appellants did as they were told because the orders came from their ―superiors and supervisors, and they feared ―discipline and possible loss of employment‖ if they disobeyed. App. 241.

Upon their arrival at Captain Singleton’s office, two Internal Affairs officers questioned Appellants for about fifteen to twenty minutes and then left briefly to talk to Artis, the complainant. Appellants were told to stay put until the Internal Affairs officers returned after speaking with Artis. As Appellants waited, Gwynn asked for permission to call his wife to arrange for her to pick up their son, and then-Sergeant Kelly granted permission. The Internal Affairs officers returned, stated that they believed Artis, and told Appellants that they were not needed for anything further that day. Appellants left Captain Singleton’s office around 8:15 p.m. and when they opened their lockers that evening, it appeared as though they had been searched.

For those not fluent in legalese, two Philadelphia police officers stopped and frisked two civilians who were not found to have any contraband, one of the civilians said one of the cops took his money, the cops told him to get lost, and the police superiors (to my surprise! Especially in Philly.) put the officers in an office, told them to empty their pockets and turn out their clothes to prove they didn't take the man's money. The ordeal at the station lasted about an hour.

They sued the department and their fellow officers for violating their 4th Amendment rights and false imprisonment because the department superiors kept them in an office and had them, to borrow a term from the anti-immigration folks, "self-frisk"...after they stopped and frisked two guys on the street. (Bonus chutzpah: they also sued for overtime.)

Thankfully, CA3 was unpersuaded by their case. You can read the opinion here.

Quick Comment on the Paula Deen Mishigas

I was only vaguely aware of Paula Deen until recent events proved alleged her to be a relic of the Old South who still likes to say "nigger" and various other less-than-pleasant holdovers from the Good ol Days. Granted, this is one of the few times when that segment of the commentariat who always rush to point out what appears to be at least plausibly racist MUST HAVE a plausible non-racist explanation will say "oh yeah, that's pretty racist." But then it invariably devolves into 'this shows how rare racism really is' and we're back to where we were before. For this reason, I hadn't really planned on writing anything until I read the TPM write-up of the affair, commenting on a part of her book:

In the book, Deen, who was born in 1947, frankly wrote about her youth in Albany, Ga., where she “never thought” about the fact she was living “in the mix of what was fixin’ to be a huge social change.”

“It was happening right under our noses: our local African-Americans were claimin’ their right for fair and equal treatment and some white folks were inspired to rethink old ways,” wrote Deen. “Still, I hardly noticed.”

The language of the second graf struck me. The use of "our" to describe southern blacks is not just a semantic accident--that reflects years of an assumption that the South and its racial identities are inextricably woven into their singular geo-political identity. This is the same way of thinking that fomented resentment at Yankees meddling with their 'way of life' and starting trouble with their  good Negroes in the 1950s and 60s.

Moreover, that blacks were "claimin'" rights--not demanding, not asserting--claiming, as if even years later, equal treatment under the law was still a matter of opinion. But these 'claims,' "inspired" some white folks to "rethink" old ways.

Inspired firefighters

James Meredith lies shot after some white people in Mississippi disagreed with his claim to attend Ole Miss

But still, she "hardly noticed" the most momentous social change of her lifetime.

Ms. Deen is just the latest person to inadvertently expose the despicable lies needed to prop up the mythical 'Southern Heritage.' I don't even care about her aborted attempt to moniker her "Sambo Burger." This willful ignorance about what the South was, what it stood for, and the direct role its people played in the oppression of so many, is the most infuriating thing about their repugnant, beloved "heritage." To even recognize the change, the Southern whites were simply "inspired" to "rethink" how they lived their lives and terrorized others. 

They weren't forced by federal law and the National Guard. Hundreds or thousands of terrorists didn't just melt back into the population, never paying for the crimes they committed against blacks who dared 'claim' equality. They weren't a society that enforced its code of oppression with government power and outside of it. It was just a some that needed to rethink old ways.

Some people like to show their pride of heritage with flags

Yay Heritage!

bellum medicamenti delenda est

Mother Jones Continues to Make the Case...That Guns Save Lives?

(UPDATE BELOW)

Josh Harkinson at MoJo has a series of charts debunking the "gun lobby" claim that "millions of people" stop crime with their guns. Honestly, that number is probably quite exaggerated and is worthy of debunking. However, what he does after establishing this is conflate a whole bunch of numbers for comparisons that obscure a very simple truth: guns save lives. A lot of them.

For example, his first chart [click through] compares gun related homicides to justifiable homicides in 2010. That number is 8,275 to 230. Granted, that's a huge disparity--but to those 230 people were deemed justly killed by someone with a firearm, that's a lot of potential lives saved from imminent danger. By comparison, the MoJo staff compiled a pictorial list of mass murder victims from 2012--all 151 of them. Clearly, those deaths are tragic, awful, and they each have a story worth telling. I don't blame them one bit for that story.

But what about the people who defended themselves against the 230 would-be assailants? Are their lives not valuable either?

And guns, of course, are also quite useful in dissuading attacks at all without pulling the trigger. Again, ahem, thanks to MoJo's fine research into federal crime data, we know that 338,700 people used guns for self-defense from 2007-2011, averaging out to 67,740 per year over that time.* That's a whole lot of self-defense. I can't say they were all at mortal risk, but it's foolish to think none of them were.

So yes, Mr. Harkinson, 12.5 million self-defense uses is probably too high. (I'm not sure where exactly that number came from, but my point holds even if I grant it.) But your own research shows thousands of cases of defensive gun use and at least 230 justifiable homicides in one year alone. I don't understand how that proves that "guns stop crimes" is a myth. Indeed, I think you proved exactly the opposite.

UPDATE 2:35PM: I was in a rush when I wrote this post, but having revisited the original article, I figured out where Harkinson seems to have come up with his 12.5 million self defense uses claimed by "the gun lobby." There is an oft-cited statistic that between 100,000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses occur each year. It's hard to say what that number actually is, as someone who may have brandished a weapon to stop a crime from occurring may not report it. But if you multiply the high end of that estimate by 5, you end up with 12.5 million. I think there is a reasonable argument that an estimate in which the high end is 25 times the low end is inappropriate, but that's not the argument Harkinson is making.

If you take the low number of that estimate, cited in Mother Jones' own point #5 here, the accuracy of the claim leaps from .54% to 2/3 (67%). Even if the high end estimate is preposterous, and even if the low end is a bit of an exaggeration, that over 67,000 Americans use guns in self defense per year is noteworthy when discussing the number of occurrences of defensive gun use. Emphasizing comparisons of non-like statistics--as most crime victims are not themselves armed, or that gun-theft outpaces defensive gun use in unconnected instances--is irresponsible and to think such a framing was unintentional strains credulity. -JPB

 bellum medicamenti delenda est

*Their subsequent chart has the five year average at 67,600, but dividing 338,700 by 5 gets you the number I used. It's not terribly important to me. I mean, what's 140 self-defense uses among friends?