Liberal Democracy

Liberal Democracy
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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

CSPAN: Senator Rand Paul at Howard University



Source:CSPAN- U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) speaking at Howard University in Washington.

"Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke to students at Howard University about the Republican Party's outreach efforts to young people and minorities." 

This is actually very smart politics by Senator Paul here and I'll explain why. African-Americans, including by left-wing African-Americans have been stereotyped, at least since the 1990s as a community of leftists that expect the Federal Government to do everything for them and want government to just give them things and take care of them, to make up for everything that the United Kingdom and the United States has done to them, since the 1st African was kidnapped and forced to live in North America as slaves, in the 1600s. 

The truth is, African-Americans voted Republican, perhaps not as a majority, but the Republican Party was very competitive, at least in that community, all the way through Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. It's really not until George H.W. Bush's presidential campaign of 1988 and his reelection campaign of 1992, where you started to see the African-American community as a large and reliable voting bloq of the Democratic Party, because of the Christian-Right and broader Far-Right influence in the Republican Party. 

You go back to the 1960s with Nation of Islam Minister Malcolm X, or go way before that with Frederick Douglas, Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell today, there's always been a conservative or classical liberal movement in the African-American community. 

Of course there are Socialists and Black Nationalists in the African-American community. But you can say that about every racial community in America. There's also a Christian-Right in the African-American community, like with European-Americans, especially Anglo-Saxons. 

But there's always been a core faction of African-Americans that believe in limited government, personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, and property rights (economic and personal) and I believe those are the folks that Senator Paul was trying to reach at Howard University.

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