PAUL: Thank you, Rachel, and thank you for that wonderful intro piece, quite a collection.
MADDOW: I know this must feel like frying pan and into the fire here, so soon after the election with really being the focus of this national storm right now. Everybody is trying to figure out what you meant by these things. But let's talk about it.
PAUL: Yes.
MADDOW: Was "The Courier-Journal" right? Do you believe that private business people should be able to decide whether they want to serve black people or gays or any other minority group, as they said?
PAUL: Well, I think to put things in perspective, when "The Courier-Journal" does not endorse a Republican, that's not something very unusual in our state. They typically don't endorse Republicans, and it's a very Democratic paper.
But with regard to racism, I don`t believe in any racism. I don`t think we should have any government racism, any institutional form of racism. You know, one interesting historical tidbit, one of my favorite historical characters is William Lloyd Garrison. And one of the interesting things about desegregation and putting people together, do you know when it happened in Boston?
MADDOW: What do you mean, the desegregation? In general?
PAUL: You know when we got -- you know, when we got rid of the Jim Crow laws and when we got rid of segregation and a lot of the abhorrent practices in the South, do you know when we got rid of it in Boston?
MADDOW: I -- why don't you tell me what you`re getting at?
PAUL: Well, it was in 1840. So I think it is sort of a stain on the history of America that 120 years to desegregate the South.
But William Lloyd Garrison was a champion and abolitionist who wrote about freeing the slaves back in the 1810s, '20s and '30s and labored in obscurity (ph) to do this. He was flagged, put in jails. He was with Frederick Douglass being thrown off trains.
But, you know, they desegregated transportation in Boston in 1840, and I think that was an impressive and amazing thing. But also points out the sadness that it took us 120 years to desegregate the South. And a lot of that was institutional racism was absolutely wrong and something that I absolutely oppose.
MADDOW: In terms of legal remedies for persistent discrimination, though, if there was a private business, say, in Louisville, say, somewhere in your home state, that wanted to not serve black patrons and wanted to not serve gay patrons, or somebody else on the basis of their -- on the basis of a characteristic that they decided they didn't like as a private business owner -- would you think they had a legal right to do so, to put up a "blacks not served here" sign?
PAUL: Well, the interesting thing is, you know, you look back to the 1950s and 1960s at the problems we faced. There were incredible problems. You know, the problems had to do with mostly voting, they had to do with schools, they had to do with public housing. And so, this is what the civil rights largely addressed, and all things that I largely agree with.
MADDOW: But what about private businesses? I mean, I hate to -- I don`t want to be badgering you on this, but I do want an answer.
PAUL: I'm not -- I'm not --
MADDOW: Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don't serve black people?
PAUL: Yes. I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.
But I think what's important about this debate is not written into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question: what about freedom of speech? Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from speaking?
I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it. I think the problem with this debate is by getting muddled down into it, the implication is somehow that I would approve of any racism or discrimination, and I don't in any form or fashion.
MADDOW: But isn't being in favor of civil rights but against the Civil Rights Act a little like saying you're against high cholesterol but you're in favor of fried cheese?
PAUL: But I'm not against --
MADDOW: I mean, the Civil Rights Act was the federal government stepping in to protect civil rights because they weren't otherwise being protected. It wasn't a hypothetical. There were businesses that were saying black people cannot be served here and the federal government stepped in and said, no, you actually don't have that choice to make. The federal government is coming in and saying you can't make that choice as a business owner.
Which side of that debate would you put yourself on?
PAUL: In the totality of it, I'm in favor of the federal government being involved in civil rights and that's, you know, mostly what the Civil Rights Act was about. And that was ending institutional racism.
MADDOW: When you --
PAUL: And I'm in favor of -- I'm opposed to any form of governmental racism or discrimination or segregation, all of the things we fought in the South, in fact, like I say, I think it's a stain on our history that we went 120 years from when the North desegregated and when those battles were fought in the North. And I like to think that, you know, even though I was a year old at the time, that I would have marched with Martin Luther King because I believed in what he was doing.
MADDOW: But if you were in the --
(CROSSTALK)
PAUL: But, you know, most of the things he was fighting -- most of the things he --
MADDOW: I`m sorry to interrupt you. Go on, sir.
PAUL: Most of the things he were fighting -- most of the things that he was fighting were laws. He was fighting Jim Crow laws. He was fighting legalized and institutional racism. And I'd be right there with him.
MADDOW: But maybe voting against the Civil Rights Act which wasn't just about governmental discrimination but public accommodations, the idea that people who provided services that were open to the public had to do so in a nondiscriminatory fashion.
Let me ask you a specific so we don't get into the esoteric hypotheticals here.
PAUL: Well, there's 10 -- there's 10 different -- there's 10 different titles, you know, to the Civil Rights Act, and nine out of 10 deal with public institutions. And I'm absolutely in favor of one deals with private institutions, and had I been around, I would have tried to modify that.
But you know, the other thing about legislation -- and this is why it's a little hard to say exactly where you are sometimes, is that when you support nine out of 10 things in a good piece of legislation, do you vote for it or against it? And I think, sometimes, those are difficult situations.
What I was asked by "The Courier-Journal" and I stick by it is that I do defend and believe that the government should not be involved with institutional racism or discrimination or segregation in schools, busing, all those things. But had I been there, there would have been some discussion over one of the titles of the civil rights.
And I think that's a valid point, and still a valid discussion, because the thing is, is if we want to harbor in on private businesses and their policies, then you have to have the discussion about: do you want to abridge the First Amendment as well. Do you want to say that because people say abhorrent things -- you know, we still have this. We're having all this debate over hate speech and this and that. Can you have a newspaper and say abhorrent things? Can you march in a parade and believe in abhorrent things, you know?
So, I think it's an important debate but should be intellectual one. It's really tough to have an intellectual debate in the political sense because what happens is it gets dumbed down. It will get dumb down to three words and they'll try to run on this entire issue, and it's being brought up as a political issue.
I think if you listen to me, I think you should understand that -- I think you do, I think you're an intelligent person. I like being on your show. But I think that what is the totality of what I'm saying -- am I a bad person? Do I believe in awful things? No.
I really think that discrimination and racism is a horrible thing. And I don't want any form of it in our government, in our public sphere.
He is heading down the traditional politician path. Avoid saying what you really mean to make your ideas more palatable. When you are asked questions that should be answered with "yes" or "no" and you come back with a paragraph, there is an inability to be candid.
