Presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) weighed in on the turmoil in Baltimore on Tuesday, standing with police and blaming the violence on a lack of morals in America.
“I came through the train on Baltimore (sic) last night, I’m glad the train didn’t stop,” he said, laughing, during an interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.
Railing against what he repeatedly called “thuggery and thievery” in the streets of Baltimore, Paul told Ingraham that talking about “root causes” was not appropriate in the middle of a riot.
“The police have to do what they have to do, and I am very sympathetic to the plight of the police in this,” he said.
As for root causes, Paul listed some ideas of his own.
“There are so many things we can talk about,” the senator said, “the breakdown of the family structure, the lack of fathers, the lack of a moral code in our society.”
He added that “this isn’t just a racial thing.”
Paul, who has branded himself as an advocate of criminal justice reform, also said justice must come from an investigation of the case of Freddie Gray, a black man who died of a spinal injury while in the custody of Baltimore police.
Listen to the clip, courtesy of Media Matters:
“What the blacks really need,” he went on to say, “is to accept the Aqua Buddha as their lord and savior.”
Thuggery and Thievery
Ivory and Ivory
Blow that dog whistle just a little louder there Randy. I’m not sure that everybody with two brain cells to rub together got the implication that you’re talking about black people raised by single mothers after their deadbeat, criminal dads left them.
Ya’ know Randy, I would like to think that if the police had executed you while in custody, your daddy would have been there in the front line throwing bricks. I guess that whole “libertarian” thing just ain’t what it used to be.
I really don’t know if Republicans genuinely believe those loud-ass shrill police whistles they keep blowing are pitched to a frequency only they can hear or whether they just assume they can gaslight their way out of trouble everytime they get called out for blowing them.