On the good side, unlike Michelle Malkin, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky doesn’t think the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two was sound policy. On the bad side, Sen. Paul wants us to take him seriously as a presidential candidate:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) likened President Barack Obama’s decision to take executive action on immigration to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order authorizing putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World War II.
Paul made the comments on Friday, a day after Obama formally announced the executive actions, at the Kentucky Association of Counties conference in Lexington, Kentucky.
“I care that too much power gets in one place. Why? Because there are instances in our history where we allow power to gravitate toward one person and that one person then makes decisions that really are egregious,” Paul said. “Think of what happened in World War II where they made the decision. The president issued an executive order. He said to Japanese people ‘we’re going to put you in a camp. We’re going to take away all your rights and liberties and we’re going to intern you in a camp.'”
“We shouldn’t allow that much power to gravitate to one individual. We need to separate the power.”
As is his custom, Rand Paul doesn’t even have his history correct, since Congress passed Public Law 503 to help enforce FDR’s executive order that authorized the internment camps.
I recall raising That spector in… 2003.
Plus, as digby details, he’s only concerned with the “process” anyway. He’s very, very upset that Obama is waging war against ISIS without his say so, even though Rand Paul is all on-board with that war.
The “process” of the Japanese internment included pressure on the White House to do so, to include California Republicans to include Governor Earl Warren.
It’s a bad example because FDR wouldn’t have gotten much grief if it had been taken to Congress.
By the way, if Paul is concerned about power being shifted about in DC he might consider the various Continuation of Government committees, units, etc., that have been gobbling up more and more power for decades.
But he isn’t. He raises the specter of FEMA detentioon camps, but the military-industrial complex is not concerned by him. And he is not concerned about the military-industrial complex. Not really.
Why is he running for a position that he claims has too much power in one place? Does he suffer under the illusion that he is free from the temptation of power?
I don’t think he has thought the self-contradictory nature of his ambitions through at all. He seems like another “Daddy didn’t make it, but I will.” sort of candidate. Mitt’s that way. Al Gore was that way. W was really that way. But all three of them had definite agendas and knew exactly how they intended to handle that power (W would give it to Dick Cheney, for example).
Rand Paul is pretty vague how you get from the Imperial Presidency to a weak Rand Paul. That contradiction prima facie makes him seem very untrustworthy.
Yes, it’s rather like “don’t throw me into the briar patch”, isn’t it?
Rand is a man with no vision. A vision of what or how the future should or will look like. He is stuck in a present that he can only compare to the past.
Yes, leave aside the fact that Congress in 1942 was absolutely wild to get itself associated with the internment of Japanese-Americans, passing this enforcement bill within 20 days of FDR’s (wildly popular) order. So much for instances where “that one person then makes decisions that are really egregious”, ha-ha.
Also leave aside that Obama is here simply operating under an existing federal statute passed by Congress, as opposed to unilaterally exercising an Art. II power, such as the sacred Commmanderer in Chief power under which FDR was (ostensibly) operating.
Also leave aside that FDR (and the Congress) were operating to oppress and strip substantial civil rights from a despised minority, to the jubilation of the (white) majority, whereas Obama is standing to help a despised minority simply exist in their daily lives to the great anger of the (white) majority. Yes, the horrors of allowing “that much power to gravitate to one individual.” The danger! The injustice!
Leave that all aside, all those little quibbles that render Rand’s analogy so flawed, so inapposite, so foolish, that whoever dreamed it up should be summarily fired from the staff, and Rand deeply humiliated that he is so abjectly stupid as to think these words should ever be uttered or taken seriously.
After all that, what in hell is the point of his this little diatribe about the supposed Imperial Presidency? What in hell does Rand want to DO about it? We “need to separate the power”? What the hell does that mean? From whom to whom? From where to where?
Are we to take from the FDR example that the sacred Commander in Chief power needs to be circumscribed? The power under which most of the actual “egregious” abuses occur? Well, how are you going to do it, Mr Glibertarian? By a constitutional amendment? Our holy founding document is flawed? We need more Commanders in Chief? As if Repub Rand would ever say any of this.
Maybe it’ll all be in the next whizbang speech…not.
You want to talk about too much power in one place, what would it take to deport 11 million people and make sure none of them come back? That, in a nutshell, is Rand Paul’s solution to the immigration question. Of course, he wouldn’t violate anyone’s rights, because he’s not that kind of guy.
A Final Solution to the immigration problem?
Maybe we should just set up a camp and let them go live there voluntarily. They really seem to want it. We could even dress up and pretend to force them in.
I find this comparison disgusting. If I was Japanese-American, I would also find it highly insulting. Even those who disapprove of this action shouldn’t consider it equal to the tremendous suffering that the internment caused. This is just like white Christians claiming that being forced to give insurance to their employees is slavery. Stupid and racist all in one.
Rand Paul. I will give him credit for being the only Republican with serious (albeit ridiculous) designs on the White House who actually seems to take seriously the idea that the Republican Party needs a new coalition to have any chance of retaking the White House any time soon, unless the Democratic Presidential candidate self-destructs (far from impossible, but pretty silly to pin all your hopes on that). However, the man is plainly stupid, has absolutely no capability for self-reflection (see his comments on “minority rights”), and is just lazy.
Running for President doesn’t rely on intelligence, so stupidity doesn’t doom him from being President (although President Rick Perry will tell you that it doesn’t help). But gaffes are the direct result of an unexamined life (and stupidity), and President Fred Thompson will tell you how far laziness will get you. It also doesn’t help that the man has the speaking style of a whiny, drugged potato (if potatoes could talk) and all of the charisma of a smelly gym sock. If you really want to shake up a coalition, you need charisma, and Rand Paul makes Al Gore seem like Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton in comparison.
There’s absolutely zero chance of this man even appearing to have a chance of succeeding at winning the Republican nomination for President. I would enjoy watching John McCain endorse him for President, though, just for the schadenfreude. McCain loathes him, but for all of his “maverickiness”, I just don’t see him endorsing the Democrat, even if it’s Hillary.