Author: Ophelia Benson

Rand Paul, Kentucky’s “Tea Party” nominee for the Senate, is opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo says why that’s not just a principled libertarian view:

To a degree the argument Paul is making is something like saying that I don’t like rape or murder, I just don’t believe in a police force to prevent it or a judiciary to punish the offenders. The reason we, albeit imperfectly, have equality before the law and in the society at large (in terms of public accommodations and so forth) on racial grounds in the whole of the United States is because of federal legislation that forced that to be the case. The reason we don’t have white and colored drinking fountains or pools for whites only

is because of federal legislation that forced that to be the case.

And we know all that because that’s how it played out during the 1950s and 60s. There was activism, there were protests and marches and freedom rides, and they got things going, but they weren’t enough. They faced overwhelming state force, and they would have lost if the federal government hadn’t – slowly and reluctantly under Eisenhower and Kennedy, with more commitment under Johnson – joined in. Libertarianism wouldn’t have worked, at least not nearly as fast.

Sean Brady says no no no no no he won’t go. He doesn’t want to. It’s not fair. All the others. He was only. They didn’t use to. Back then it was all. You just don’t. We all thought that.

The cardinal, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, is under pressure to stand down after it emerged that he took part in a secret canonical tribunal in 1975 at which two minors were made to swear oaths of silence about their allegations against the paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth.

Smyth went on to rape hundreds more children across Ireland, the UK and the United States before he died in prison in 1997.

Well, yes, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary. Look here – suppose you’re an executive of BP, or General Motors, or Enron, or Lehman Brothers, or any other fine upstanding capitalist institution. Suppose a couple of children credibly report being raped by one of your subordinates. What do you do? You force them to swear secrecy, of course! And you transfer that subordinate from London to Salford, or Galveston to New York, or whatever it may be; you move the subordinate to a city different from the city where the two raped children live, thus insuring that that subordinate will not be raping those two children again. Simple! Problem solved! The children have been made to shut up, and the rapist has been moved, so it’s a win-win. Everybody is protected, everybody is safe, everybody is happy.

So what possible reason could there be for Sean Brady to quit his excellent high-status job?

Marie Collins, a campaigner who was abused by a priest as a child, said that she was not surprised. “I met with him six weeks ago and he gave no indicaton whatsoever that he felt any remorse or regret or even grasped that he’d done anything wrong in the Brendan Smyth case, that he’d left an abuser free for 18 years to continue abusing.”…

“He [Cardinal Brady] was well aware for the following 18 years that Brendan Smyth was free to continue abusing and he did nothing about it,” she said.

“In his statement he has not even referred to the past, so I think it’s an indication that nothing is changing in the Church, the attitudes are still the same for all the words that we are getting.”

Forgive and forget, Marie Collins. Cast not the first stone. That was then, this is now. Move on. Spilt milk. Get over it. Get a life.

In his own words, which he put down in a comment [Apr 19th, 2010 at 11:16 am] on Cristina Odone’s vicious Telegraph blog post about him just before the election.

On the issues, it is true that, in common with 80% of the country and a majority of Christians, Lib Dems support – on a free vote for MPs and peers – the legalisation of assisted dying for the suffering terminally ill of sound mind. This is very different from “euthanasia” which would include involuntary and non-voluntary euthanasia (non-consenting or where no capacity to consent) which we of course oppose.

And yet both Odone and Pitcher flatly stated that he supports euthanasia. The election result was very close; Odone’s falsehood may have been decisive. She said something false and hateful just before the election, and he just barely lost. I do not like Cristina Odone.

On abortion, there is no party policy. I support – as does 80% of the population and the Church of England – the right of women not to be forced to go through pregnancy and give birth against their will. Abortion, when it happens, should take place as early as possible and our current laws should be amended to make access to early abortion easier to prevent delays.

Always good to have falsehoods corrected, don’t you think?

I just heard Peter Tatchell speaking very sharply to a Ugandan government minister (whose name I didn’t get, having turned the radio on in mid-segment) on the World Service. “You do not speak for all Ugandans,” he said fiercely. The minister said, “We’re not going to be bullied.” No indeed; instead you’re going to bully.