Rand Paul: The Politicians Are To Blame in Ferguson

By Rand Paul

The failure of the War on Poverty has created a culture of violence and put police in a nearly impossible situation.

We are witnessing a tragedy in Ferguson. This city in Missouri has become a focal point for so much. The President and the late Michael Brown’s family have called for peace. I join their calls for peaceful protest, but also reiterate their call to action — “channel your frustration in ways that will make a positive change.”

In the search for culpability for the tragedy in Ferguson, I mostly blame politicians. Michael Brown’s death and the suffocation of Eric Garner in New York for selling untaxed cigarettes indicate something is wrong with criminal justice in America. The War on Drugs has created a culture of violence and put police in a nearly impossible situation.

In Ferguson, the precipitating crime was not drugs, but theft. But the War on Drugs has created a tension in some communities that too often results in tragedy. One need only witness the baby in Georgia, who had a concussive grenade explode in her face during a late-night, no-knock drug raid (in which no drugs were found) to understand the feelings of many minorities — the feeling that they are being unfairly targeted.

Three out of four people in jail for drugs are people of color. In the African American community, folks rightly ask why are our sons disproportionately incarcerated, killed, and maimed?

African Americans perceive as true that their kids are more likely to be killed. ProPublica examined 33 years of FBI data on police shootings, accounted for the racial make-up of the country, and determined that: “Young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts – 21 times greater.”

Can some of the disparity be blamed on a higher rate of crime in the black community? Yes, but there is a gnawing feeling that simply being black in a high-crime area increases your risk for a deadly altercation with police.

Does bad behavior account for some of the interactions with law enforcement? Yes, but surely there must be ways that we can work to prevent the violence from escalating.

On the other side of the coin, defenders of the War on Drugs say, look at Mexico if you want to see drug violence unchecked by police power.

Isn’t there another alternative where we utilize police power to counter violence, but for the most part leave non-violent citizens alone?

As I’ve visited our nation’s urban centers and predominantly white, impoverished rural areas, I sense an undercurrent of unease. It’s not just lack of justice, but also a cycle of poverty, to crime, and back to poverty again. There is a sense of helplessness. To be sure, we all hold a certain degree of responsibility for our lives and it’s a mistake to simply blame others for our problems.

Reforming criminal justice to make it racially blind is imperative, but that won’t lift up these young men from poverty. In fact, I don’t believe any law will. For too long, we’ve attached some mythic notion to government solutions and yet, 40 years after we began the War on Poverty, poverty still abounds.

When you look at statistics for the white community alone, you see that we’ve become two separate worlds in which the successful are educated and wait to have children until they are married, and those in poverty are primarily those without higher education and with children outside of marriage.

This message is not a racial one. The link between poverty, lack of education, and children outside of marriage is staggering and cuts across all racial groups. Statistics uniformly show that waiting to have children in marriage and obtaining an education are an invaluable part of escaping poverty.

I have no intention to scold, but escaping the poverty and crime trap will require more than just criminal justice reform. Escaping the poverty trap will require all of us to relearn that not only are we our brother’s keeper, we are our own keeper. While a hand-up can be part of the plan, if the plan doesn’t include the self-discovery of education, work, and the self-esteem that comes with work, the cycle of poverty will continue.

I will continue to fight to end the racial disparities in drug sentencing. I will continue to fight lengthy, mandatory sentences that prevent judges from using discretion. I will continue to fight to restore voting rights for non-violent felons who’ve served their sentences. But my hope is that out of tragedy, a preacher or teacher will arise — one who motivates and inspires all of us to discover traits, ambitions, and moral codes that have slowly eroded and left us empty with despair.

I will continue the fight to reform our nation’s criminal justice system, but in the meantime, the call should go out for a charismatic leader, not a politician, to preach a gospel of hope and prosperity. I have said often America is in need of a revival. Part of that is spiritual. Part of that is in civics, in our leaders, in our institutions. We must look at policies, ideas, and attitudes that have failed us and we must demand better.

Real solutions will include a revival of spirit, purpose, and action. I, for one, pledge to be part of those solutions.

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John
John

I’m not sure politicians are to blame for a fine upstanding member of the community deciding to bring his fists to a gunfight with the enforcement arm of the local powers that be.

Now, the politicians might be responsible for screwing up the marketing, or sales, or perception management of this event, but they certainly have nothing to do with the first order principles of what happened in Ferguson.

starfcker
starfcker

Rand, you’re so full of shit. Higher education doesn’t work for 315 million people. Let’s stop trying to turn garbagemen into rocket scientists. Nothing wrong with garbagemen. The war on blue collar american employment is the one that needs to be ended, it’s the one that’s failed the most people. You’re a fraud.

starfcker
starfcker

Higher education does work. Not sure for how many, but I’m betting for more than the remainder between the American population and 315 million.

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

I agree with him on the need for charismatic leadership, but the last time we came close to that was Obama. Didn’t work out so well and not the “Hope and Change” we expected, quite the opposite. A “charismatic” tool of the Illuminati.
What we need is someone more like Rand’s father, Ron. And we need a person who doesn’t buy into the “official” story on everything from JFK’s assassination forward, because we the people have constantly been lied to. That TPTB are blatantly lying to our face under oath (Clapper, Alexander), is highly disturbing because it underlines the Gruber (sp?) meme of the “stupid” American voters.

Anonymous
Anonymous

What cock of shit .Blame , blame , blame everyone except the ones committing crime .Even Christ said the love of many will grow cold because of lawlessness.Matt 24

John
John

Oh, if Ronald Reagan wasn’t a charismatic personality, I don’t know who else would qualify. And undoubtedly Presidents before him as well. Obama was just the flavor of the election cycle is all. When faced with a machine animal like Hillary, and then competing against a man of accomplishment but not exactly looking like much of a difference from the Bushies, we got the hope and change and it turns out to have been just another expensive suit with a liar inside…in with the new boss…same as the old boss.

I’m surprised people continue to think that just because you plug in another mouthpiece, that what comes out of the new figurehead is supposed to be any different.

SSS

Looks like Rand’s message isn’t resonating here.

IndenturedServant

Looks more like the TBP message is resonating with Rand.

Bruce
Bruce

Ferguson has problems. Lots of places have problems. There’s a lot of trouble in the world. But the real reason for Ferguson’s violence is due to members of the Black community using a unfortunate event as an excuse burn, pillage and loot. That’s it.. Period.

Sure the folks in Ferguson hate the cops and probably for good reason,but people almost everywhere of all creeds and colors hate the cops for the same reasons and they are not looting and burning down everything in sight………………….at least not yet..

The problems we see in Ferguson are are the same kind of problems we have had with Bears in some State and National Parks. People were feeding the Bears and giving them treats. Eventually the Bears felt they were entitled to food and goodies and would get all bent out of shape and dangerous if they were not given a hand out or disciplined for bad behavior. Same with people. If you give bear or a human free food and free shit even with the best of intentions bad things will someday happen.

If you leave the bears alone, don’t feed them or leave garbage out for them they will go off and find berries and what ever else they are supposed to be eating or starve. Most bears will choose to forage for their food the old fashion natural way and teach their cubs to do the same. If people are left alone they will either pull their shit together or starve in utter poverty. Many will choose to get it together and pull themselves up and will pull others up with them rather than pull others down by the demands and burdens of dependency.

Sure there will be bears who can’t adjust. They get put in zoos or compounds and are cared for by those who know how best to do it. Sure there will be the poor and the weak who will not be able to care for themselves. With humans an organization of some type ( governmental or not) is best suited to assist those people. This is where the humane aspects of socialism should be employed. Not not to make every one equal but insure that everyone is cared for. Not to make life similar to those who have earned or achieved something but to make life possible.

As far as politicians go they are guilty for many depredations against the people and probably the best thing do with the likes of congress is to swing them from the lamp posts right after all the bankers are terminated.

Probably Bankers, Politicians, Police and Pedophiles can not be rehabilitated and need to be disposed of all in the same fashion. But as far as Ferguson is concerned if you want to stop those problems in the long term the answer may be a hard pill to swallow in the near term …….but it’s simple……………….Don’t Feed The Fucking Bears.

overthecliff

As usual TPTB are not letting a crisis go to waste. You have to hand it to them they are really good. The following is what I think has happened.
Gentle Giant gets himself killed.
Niggers react typically to protess the death of the honor student and dedicated father who was targeted and murded by the police while eating skittles on his way to choir practice.
The Democrats(communist party) and associated organizations collude to make as big a mess as possible. The following Democrats have orchestrated the crisis at the expense of Ferguson to keep their plantation niggers distracted. Democrat President Obama, Democrat Governor Jay Nixon who activated the National Guard to piss off the niggers and then held them out of Ferguson so they couldn’t stop riots,Democrat St Louis County Executive Charley Dooley who instructed his Democrat St Louis County Police Chief to stand down while Ferguson burned. Democrat Prosecutor Bob Mucolloch made sure the charge was adequately conducted to infuriate the niggers and the timing was right for maximum cover of darkness. The Democrat news media from local KMOV to the Communist News Network to Multicultural Socialist NBC dutifully provided entertainment to the FSA to lazy to go riot. They have had us watchin g this hand while the other hand is looting us for TPTB.

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

BRUCE

In the very beginning of the Ferguson farce, local Ferguson blacks were all over youtube saying “it’s not us” , they were mad and upset that those out of town niggas were in there inciting civil unrest. Paid provocateurs were bussed in to Ferguson and the show began. This has “staged” written all over it. I’ll just bet you that that place will be relatively quiet over the biggest shopping weekend of the year because TPTB won’t fuck that up for the retailers. Monday rolls around and it’s “lights, camera, action”.

Bruce
Bruce

Bea Lever

You very well maybe right.

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