Rand Paul, still fighting the 1964 Civil Rights Act

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That's Rand Paul, who recently stomped his opponent in Kentucky's GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, re-fighting the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Clearly, he didn't want to answer Maddow's question. Bobbing and weaving, he kept assuring us of his personal abhorrence of racism (not the point), argued about free speech (again, not the point), and telling little stories - which seemed to have nothing pertinent to do with anything - about William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. What in the world did any of that have to do with the question?

He claims that segregation is a bad business decision. Really? And that's why segregation was everywhere in the South? Because it was such a bad business decision?

The U.S. government stepped in because, one hundred years after the Civil War, black people were still deprived of their civil rights in the South. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was one of the greatest accomplishments of Congress - and of the Democratic Party - in our history.

I must say that it's bizarre we're even having this debate 46 years later. Why are we still debating the 1964 Civil Rights Act? It's very easy for Rand Paul to say that he's not a racist. And who knows? It might even be true. But should blacks still be banned from restaurants and motels and other businesses in the South? Is there really any reasonable argument that ending segregation was wrong? How can we still be debating this in 2010?

No one is claiming that Rand Paul is a racist, only that his political views are extreme. Well, I've never known a libertarian who didn't go completely off the rails following his political theories to their most inane conclusion. Frankly, it seems to be all theory and no common sense whatsoever. That's just libertarianism in a nutshell.

But that's another thing. In most respects, Paul doesn't seem so libertarian, does he? In fact, he seems to be a very typical Republican. He's anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-immigration reform. He actually proposes to cut taxes and also balance the budget. (Haven't Republicans learned anything in recent decades? Still with the voodoo economics?) He's solid with the NRA. He pushes home-schooling. In what way, exactly, is he any different from the Republicans who ran our country into the ground in recent years?

I see no social libertarianism in his thinking. And all that talk about taxes and spending is... well, talk that we've heard from every single Republican for decades (to our ultimate dismay). Frankly, as the son of a prominent GOP politician, he seems as typically Republican as they get. After all, isn't that how we got George W. Bush, by inheritance? Isn't that how we got the last GOP administration, full of incompetent, and very conservative, ideologues with no common sense?

And now these Tea Party lunatics want to take back America. What a phrase! Do they just want to go back to a year and a half ago, so they can continue the job of destroying our country? Or do they want to go clear back to the 1950's, so they can end all that racial civil rights nonsense and keep white men on top, as God intended?

Claiming that you're not a racist doesn't impress me much when you're not willing to do anything to combat institutional racism in America. And claiming that you'll cut taxes and balance the budget certainly doesn't impress me, when we've heard that claim before and seen exactly the opposite result.