Rand Paul Wants To Abolish The Americans With Disabilities Act, Citing Fairness ‘To The Business Own

[deminks]

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/17/rand-paul-ada/

U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY), a darling of the tea party movement, has gained notoriety for his extreme views and close relationships with fringe leaders like Alex Jones. Part of Paul’s appeal has been his supposed support of individuals over large interests, like the government. But Paul appeared to reveal his true priorities during an interview with the candidate in Lexington over the weekend.

Paul was asked whether he supports the Americans with Disabilities Act, the landmark 1990 legislation that established a prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability. Paul said he advocates local governments to decide whether disabled individuals deserve rights. Requiring businesses to provide access to disabled people, Paul argued, isn’t “fair to the business owner.” Later in the interview, when asked if he believes Americans have a right to use the 2nd Amendment to violently overthrow the government, a Paul staffer physically intercepted the recording and shuffled Paul away:

PAUL: You know a lot of things on employment ought to be done locally. You know, people finding out right or wrong locally. You know, some of the things, for example we can come up with common sense solutions — like for example if you have a three story building and you have someone apply for a job, you get them a job on the first floor if they’re in a wheelchair as supposed to making the person who owns the business put an elevator in, you know what I mean? So things like that aren’t fair to the business owner. <...>

Q: Do you think Americans, based on the 2nd Amendment, do you think they have a Constitutional right to violently overthrow the government?

PAUL STAFFER: Alright, we’ll have to stop recording.

(end snip)

WTF???

[jillan]

1. What an ASSHOLE - things may suck in Arizona - but I sure wouldn't want to live in a state that

elects Rand Paul - or Mitch McConnell either.

[lefthandedlefty]

39. Sad part is that is where I live

The people here in KY are some of the most misinformed people I ever met.If a preacher Rush or the 700 club says it it is fact no ifs ands or buts.Everything is naturaly Obamas fault even if it happened a year before the election.About the only to keep your sanity in southeast KY is to avoid most people.

[muntrv]

2. As usual, you're not allowed to ask wingnuts tough questions, only softballs.

[mdmc]

3. He is the future

We will have a center party and a right wing party.

[Ron Green]

5. Sadly I must agree with you.

[inna]

13. that's the present, not the future.

[gratuitous]

4. A big bag of crazy

With a plaid ribbon holding it all together. "We'll have to stop recording."

I wonder why Mr. Paul thinks someone with a disability should have ADA rights in, say, Lexington but not in Frankfurt? Or what argument he proffers to make rights a geographic contingency rather than a legal one? Is it his opinion that Congress overstepped its authority in passing the ADA, and that the Executive had no authority to sign it into law? If that is his opinion, why hasn't he or anyone filed suit to that effect? Seems the current make-up of the Supreme Court would lend the most sympathetic ear possible to such a nutty legal argument.

Or is he just full of hot air, without the courage to follow through on his convictions?

[baldguy]

6. More proof that the "libertarian" act is a scam. Rand Paul is a totalitarian corporatist.

Just like his dad.

[musette_sf]

10. + 1

[depakid]

23. Corporate feudalist, no doubt about it

[krabigirl]

30. No, that is the libertarian viewpoint. I disagree with it but it is what it is.

[baldguy]

34. True libertarians don't believe that people with disabilities are sub-humans undeserving of rights.

The ideas promoted by no-govt, no-personal responsibility (and no corporate responsibility) "libertarians" are using a fascist bastardization of the term.

[roguevalley]

33. he's also an out racist too, just like dear old dad.

[asjr]

7. What is really frightening is that he will

probably win.

[Puregonzo1188]

8. When I take AP American Government in high school there was a girl in my class

who in addition to not thinking non-Christians should be legally allowed to hold office, also believed the Americans with Disabilities Act should be repealed as "handicapped people needed to help themselves." This quote was in response to a question about wheel chair ramps.

On another note, she sat next to me in AP World History and one day during a lecture on the Haitian Revolution she asked me "Why would anyone want to live in a country whose name literally means hell?" I told I thought she was thinking of Hades, not Haiti.

She's now at NYU.

[jillan]

12. I met a women at rally recently in Phoenix. She was wheelchair bound. She needed help to get out

of bed in the morning, she couldn't do it herself. Physically she has disabilities, but that's where her disabilities stop. She is a productive member of society...she works hard, she just needs help physically. I'm sure she would LOVE it if she didn't need help.
Everyone wants to be independent and not need help, including people with disabilities.

How can people be so ignorant? How can they call themselves Christians, and turn their nose down at everyone else? I will never understand people like that. It's a good thing she was in your class, not mine....I definitely would have let her have it.

[Odin2005]

37. That sounds a lot like my lady friend with cerebral palsy.

[bobbolink]

22. "Pick up your bed and walk"

May she be hit by a car and left paralyzed.

Yes, a very mean thing to say, but that is the 0nly thing that will get through to heartless people like this.

[bullwinkle428]

25. She's sure to get a law degree at Liberty U., and end up working

as a lawyer in Preznit Jeb Bush's Justice Department!

[hyphenate]

28. What a whackadoodle

They're getting to become like a swarm of locusts,

[Maru Kitteh]

29. Well. I hope she either wakes up, or alternatively, loses her legs in an accident.

And I don't even feel bad about it either.

[bobbolink]

32. Thank you. I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one who couldn't help saying something mean.

Its the only way she will GET IT.

[JuniperLea]

9. You know...

He's an asshole, you know...

[hlthe2b]

11. Ahh.. more RW selfishness, whether libertarian or RETHUG..

Count me surprised... NOT

[LarryNM]

14. More Antebellum Mindset

Pass such a law in the nation or any state and watch all the little podunk places set up their Theocratic Plantations where the master rules and everyone knows their place.

[starroute]

15. He doesn't ever understand the ADA

Nobody can be forced to put an elevator in. According to http://www.access-board.gov/adaag/checklist/a16.html, new construction is expected to comply with the guidelines and alterations to existing construction must comply "to the maximum extent feasible."

In addition, "Public accommodations covered by Title III of the ADA must remove architectural barriers in existing facilities, including communication barriers that are structural in nature, where such removal is readily achievable. The ADA generally defines readily achievable as 'easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense.'"

So no -- no forcible elevator-insertion.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

21. Few people do

It could use a tweak here and there, but so could just about every law. There are the occasional corner cases that put it in a bad light, but they are few and far between.

[unblock]

16. if the STAFFER stopped the recording, it's because paul's answer was going to be a big gaffe

hmmmmm...

[justanaverageguy]

17. i wonder if he would still feel that way

if he was on the third floor of a building and had a heart attack (there by becoming disabled), and he died because the EMT's couldn't get him down and to the hospital fast enough without that elevator. Dumbass!!

[katandmoon]

19. We can but hope...

[bobbolink]

24. He has enough money to have a helicopter rescue him.

Good point, but these heartless idiots only think of themselves. That's what Libertarianism is about.

And there are still a lot of DUers who think Ron Paul is just great. :nuke:

[katandmoon]

18. He is such a foul POS. Typical entitled asshole without a fucking clue.

[Arkana]

20. I wonder how all those enormously fat teabaggers with Rascals

feel about this.

[high density]

26. So government regulation is OK if it's local?

I'm confused.

[Rex]

27. Um...so you want the business owner to refurbish the entire first

floor, of a three story building, in order to accommodate people with disabilities? And that is cheaper than building an elevator? REALLY? Man am I stupid.


EDIT - what if the person with the disability had to deliver something to someone on the second/third floor? Out of luck, Chuck. I could go on, but I won't...

[krabigirl]

31. He'll never win in November with attitudes like this, if he gets the nomination. Sorry that's just

mean.

[mdmc]

38. You think he will lose in the general in the deep red?

I doubt it, imho..

[Wednesdays]

35. *facepalm*

[Odin2005]

36. Rand Paul is officially on this disabled American's shit list for all time!

[Hawkeye-X]

41. Same here.

My mother was present for the Poppy's signing of the law. She is not disabled, but she is the mother of one, and has ran a non-profit company helping the deaf and the disabled become independent. She was ousted because the board was paranoid. Three years later, it went belly-up because of no funding (my mother was adept in getting money from sources).

Many of them regretted their decision and have already told her. She holds no grudges and is always looking for ways to help the deaf community (she's already working with another non-profit on a consulting basis).

Yeah, I understand the ADA because I'm disabled, and a lot of barriers were broken down for me in the past 20 years since the signing, and I am a living proof of it. I can talk to people on the phone (videophone), and yesterday I had to call 911 cuz of my wife, and the paramedics were there three minutes later. (Turned out my wife's fine - she just had a bad post-surgical pain). Even one of the firefighters happened to know American Sign and was able to communicate with my wife very well. That is the legacy of ADA.

So in other words, fuck Rand and Ron Paul - they're nothing but a big bunch of assholes who I sincerely hope they are disabled one day so they can be DENIED services that they so much needed because of their fucking loony philosophy.

I was a Liberterian for all of 10 seconds. Then I decided to go back to being a Democratic Socialist.

Hawkeye-X

[Lance_Boyle]

40. ADA needs some changes, to be sure, but doing away with it would be bad.

Just last week there was a story about conflicting accommodations - one worker was allergic to paprika and needed a dog to alert her to its presence. Another worker was allergic to dogs. So who gets accommodated? At a certain point, demanding accommodation for EVERYTHING becomes so burdensome that a business will shut down rather than comply. And then LOTS of people are out of a job.

[OnyxCollie]

42. Kick. nt