Fools will send a fool to Washington
Fools will send a fool to Washington


Fools will send a fool to Washington
By Jerry Richardson
Published: Saturday, October 9, 2010 6:11 AM EDT
Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul is a fool. I know it would be more acceptable to say Paul has made foolish statements or that Paul is behaving foolishly. Those are certainly more polite phrases but they should be reserved for those who make the occasional faux pas not someone whose words so obviously represent his core beliefs.

Paul has stated that coal miners, who make up a large part of Kentucky’s workforce in the eastern and western parts of our state, will not work in an unsafe mine thereby forcing the coal operator to improve working conditions. I would like to see Paul explain that statement to my father and the tens of thousands of other miners who entered the mines as children and only through pluck and luck survived to see adulthood.

My dad went into the mines when he was 13 in order to help his mother because his father had been crushed in a rock fall. The mine operators carried my grandfather home and put him in bed where he lingered for two years. There was no social security. There was no workman’s compensation. There were no food stamps. There were six children who needed to eat so in 1923 my father left school and worked in the mines for the next 49 years. Let me assure Paul that most of those years were spent underground in an extremely dangerous environment.

Paul swears to the god of personal responsibility but a single individual cannot withhold his labor and affect change. It takes a unified effort but unions like the United Mine Workers are anathema to Paul’s concept of free-enterprise. One would think Paul would applaud the initiative and courage required to establish a union in the face of thuggery and abuse by coal operators but that’s not the song one sings when he sits at the feet of Old King Coal.

What about the child labor of my father’s era? Fortunately, we live in a modern age where research is essentially instant. Go to your computer and Google American photographer Lewis Hine. Pull up examples of his work. Find the one that shows three young boys picking slate rock out of the coal as it comes down the chute. Notice the brute behind them with a very large stick in his hand. When the boys missed a piece of rock, they were hit across the back and shoulders. My father was one of those boys and if it we had followed Paul’s prescription of allowing market forces to dictate industry practices boys would still be doing that job and they would still be coming home with bruises across their back and shoulders.


What about the mountain-top removal that’s destroying the streams coming out of our beautiful eastern mountains? Paul’s solution: don’t call it mountain-top removal. Choose something more palatable. Here’s Paul in his own words. “I think they should name it something better,” he says. “The top ends up flatter, but we’re not talking about Mount Everest. We’re talking about these little knobby hills that are everywhere out here.” “Most people”, he continues, “would say the land is of enhanced value, because now you can build on it.”

Need more proof? Paul would do away with the federally mandated Americans With Disabilities Act. No more stickers in Grandma’s car so she can park closer to do her marketing. Paul would do away with Medicare. Paul would leave integration to market forces. Smoke free ordinances? Forget it. Assistance to children through programs like WIC? Let the little tykes eat cake. Food stamps? No way.

What about college loans? Paul would let the banks administer those and reap the profits even though the money is guaranteed by the taxpayers, not the banks. When the auto industry was going under affecting tens of thousands of Kentucky’s workers, Paul would have let it go and waited for the market to sort it out. The thousands of Kentuckians who work in auto-related industries might want to remember that in November.

Paul wants to end federal monies that currently fund our police in their efforts to curb the drug abuse that’s destroying our society. He also wants to do away with the Departments of Energy and Education which would result only in Kentucky falling farther behind in these critical areas. Does Paul know Kentuckians get a lot more back from the federal government than we contribute? Does he care?

In truth, Rand Paul knows little about the needs of Kentucky and even less about how to address those needs. He’s the perpetual college freshman sitting around his dorm room worshiping Aqua Buddha and dreaming of the day Milton Friedman’s market forces drivel will bring peace and plenty to Kentucky. Still, in spite of the many statements which reveal Paul’s insensitivity and lack of respect for everyday people, he has a good chance of becoming Kentucky’s next senator. What does that say about the fools among us who are going to send him to Washington?

Jerry Richardson is the proud and grateful son of a coal miner and a coal miner’s wife.