So, Rand Paul has a great week, by easily winning the Republican nomination for Senate from Kentucky over a much better funded and connected establishment opponent. Well, a great week, until he stepped into a shitstorm over a law nearly as old as he is:
In an interview Wednesday with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Paul was asked whether he believed private businesses should have the right to refuse service to African-Americans.
“Yes,” Paul said. “I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. … 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?”
Now, I’m not a racist, so I don’t even know what sort of mindset it takes to consider someone unworthy based on his race. That likely comes from my upbringing here in the Western US. The pioneer spirit still lives out here, and as part of it, a belief that cooperation and hard work are much more productive, and therefore desirable, than concerns and hang-ups about anybody’s differences. This upbringing of mine leaves me vexed when I encounter an actual racist, and is likely why I’m last onboard to classify someone as racist based on anything other than obvious and blatant action clearly identified as having its genesis in racist beliefs. (For example, while I often find them sophomoric and unfunny, racist jokes don’t usually offend me outright, even though they don’t generally entertain me either.)
All that said, is it possible for someone to object to the Civil Rights Act’s restrictions on private business and private property without being viewed as a racist? Clearly the lunatic Left has registered their vote. But as I read news on the kefuffle over Paul, all of it seems to be based on the premise that there is no acceptance whatsoever for criticizing the Civil Rights Act in any way, and doing so means you’re a racist. Why is that?
-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from an Undisclosed Secret Alternate HQ)
I am sure Rand Paul probably spoke faster than his brain was able to process a good answer, everyone has done that at least once in their lives…
But please lets not forget he is the son of arguably the most laughably insane politician to tie on the “tag” Republican in the last 50 years, Ron Paul. A man who basically said we have to revert back to isolationism, carry around gold as currency and gathered the most fanatical band of truthers, racists, isolationists and xenophobes of every kind…
And if he even starts to show the same qualities of his father not only will he fully form the image the far left have painted about the Tea party since the start, but he will obliterate any chance the Republicans have in Nov.
It could be a very bad thing Paul grabbed the nom…
Related question: Is it possible to be against gay public policy issues without being labeled a “bigot”?
Paul’s basic point is correct, but did he take the opportunity to point out that it goes both ways? That the black shopowner should be able to discriminate against white people, if she wants to? I didn’t see the interview, but I believe the overall doctrine here would be known as “freedom of association”.
The race-baiting, big-government, “moderate” and/or “progressive” Establishment of both major parties will, of course, seize on this to create or enhance their false narrative that Tea Partiers and small government people are racists, blah blah blah. And yes, it’s possible that Paul is not a good candidate and, whether through sheer amateurism or something more serious, has unfortunately played into their nonsense.
To answer your question, Nick: yes it’s possible. I find his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act actually refreshing in that it gives his similiar opposition to ENDA something many in the GOP who only seem to hold the latter view: consistency of principles.
I don’t agree with Paul at all on this but I respect where he’s coming from.
In fact, Ace of Spades knocked this one out of the park IMO with his response to Paul, in which he said in part:
I think it is simply wrong — and libertarian doctrine gone goofy, very selectively reading the Constitution, and ignoring the parts that plainly say “the government shall have constitutional power in this area” — to say that the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional as written, that the government didn’t have that power, that “boycotts” and other manners of non-state, non-coercive action were the only permissible way to go, etc.
The GOP doesn’t need this debate nor do libertarians frankly. I’d like to see Obama-ism crushed without this kind of nonsense that has no prayer of doing anything other than pissing off a lot of folks and accomplishing nothing more than stalling efforts to throw out the bums.
“Paul’s basic point is correct, but did he take the opportunity to point out that it goes both ways? That the black shopowner should be able to discriminate against white people, if she wants to?”
Yes, and the rich have the same right to sleep under the bridge. as do the poor.
I think he does have a point, because it’s all willy nilly. We allow the Boyscouts to set their membership qualities, but not men’s clubs. Curves can be women only, but the YMCA is co-ed. Hells, we have the Congressional Black Cacuss that excludes white members for pete’s sake.
Not in Obama’s America, Brendan. Obama, with all his bailouts, has been making the rich artificially richer, and the poor artificially poorer.
(which, as should be needless to say, is not capitalism)
I don’t wanna go to bat for Rand Paul, but damn the left is stupid.
What Rand Paul said (paraphrasing): Racial discrimination is bad, but Government interfering in how a business operates is also bad. It may be necessary, but we have to think long and hard about how far government should go, even in addressing that which is universally agreed to be wrong.
What the Idiot Left says Rand Paul said. “It’s A-OK for businesses to racially discriminate.”
And they call us the dumb ones.
I’m with you Nick. I was born, raised, and live in Montana and real live racists are few and far between. And just like you, I too find racists vexing.
Although Rand Paul’s answer was politically incorrect, I agree with his premise. I think racists have a right to free speech and business owners should be allowed to serve whomever they want. Can you imagine a shop with a “WHITES ONLY” sign on the door? Talk about a shitstorm. I know there are laws about this sort of thing but do you think this store would stay open very long? Even if you take away the maelstrom in front of the store, driving a significant portion of potential customers to your competition just seems like a bad business model for anyone. I think the problem of racism in this instance is self correcting. Racist shop opens, very few if any customers, racist shop closes. No laws, no rules, no regulations, and no government intervention required.
I’ve been discriminated by store here in Montana because I’m gay. I didn’t call the cops, the newspaper, or start picketing the store. At first I was admittedly stunned and went elsewhere. But after reflection, I was glad I was confronted by someone’s true bigoted feelings. I took my dollars elsewhere and I won’t be back, and told my friends as well. I don’t feel my “rights” were violated, quite the contrary. I was very happy my money did not end up in the pockets of a bigot. Any law requiring a bigot to do business with me, hides from me the fact that I am in the store of a bigot. It allows that store to stay open and my patronage away from a store I would much rather do business with.
I guess the libertarian in me thinks most of this stuff is self-correcting. Companies have non-discrimination hiring practices not just because its politically correct, but because the best employees often times come in the form of minorities. Bigoted company policies are a bad business decision. I think when DADT is overturned, it will be just as much for wanting the best and brightest recruits as it will be for political correctness.
I just spent the last few hours discussing this topic with some straight liberal friends of mine, and although they could not find fault with my argument, they were very disapproving of my opinion that even bigots have the right to free speech and the right to the freedom of association. Please forgive my sheltered life here in Montana if the rest of the country is different. My experience has been that Montanans (not transplants) don’t care about anyone’s minority protected class status. If you can do the task, you get the job. If you treat people with respect, you will be treated with respect. Montana is still live-and-let-live, your word is your bond, or any other cliche you can think of. Demand to be treated differently because of your minority protected class status, and you will be treated differently. Probably not the way you expect, but you will be treated differently.
Where the hell’s the debate? What we have is an idiot carpet muncher, and other tools, distracting from the fact that we have a regime in power that refuses to enforce federal law to protect the country. They got a twofer in that they can distract from that AND the fact they applauded Claderon parroting Obama’s “America Sucks Ass” spiel.
That’s not a debate, that’s a CYA.
Rand Paul walked into a word trap laid especially for him. Maddow did not ask that from out of the blue.
Gotcha journalism is the rule of the day for the MSM and Rand Paul should be savvy enough not to take the bait.
Next up, he will have a long interview edited down to a few moments that make him look like picking his nose is high art.
so just to be clear…you guys would be okay with a black family being turned away at a highway rest-stop because they’re black? what if there isn’t another one for 50 miles? hopefully they don’t run out of gas on the high way…
you’re okay with a black family living in a small georgia town to not be allowed to shop at the only grocery store after new owners take over? i guess they should just move then, right?
starting to see the problems with your logic?
this is not an issue of free speech. the law requires equal access to public accommodation. if you want to say something racist or whatever, you’re allowed to do so. but when you are providing some sort of public accommodation, the law precludes discrimination based on certain characteristics. is that really so awful?
of course, the need for this law cannot and should not be separated from our history. this kind of stuff actually happened, particularly in the deep south. business owners essentially tried to segregate towns or made it impossible for black people to live in certain areas by refusing to serve them. i hope we can all be rational enough to understand the need for the civil rights act.
nevertheless, i think this argument beautifully demonstrates the unrealistic academic bubble in which many libertarians live. of all the different political persuasions i have encountered, libertarians are by far the most “ideological” and “pure.” they seem to learn some basic economic concept and jizz their pants at the beauty of it, and then they think such an “efficiency” is, in all circumstances, the most optimal goal. unfortunately, when such views confront the real world, problems arise, as here.
if you believe that the government has no authority to, in any way, intervene in private businesses…then you must believe that government doesn’t have the right to make sure food at restaurants and stores is safe to eat. i guess people can just wait until they get violently ill (or die?) and then they can decide to thereafter take their dollars elsewhere. ah yes, the free market at work!
But as I read news on the kefuffle over Paul, all of it seems to be based on the premise that there is no acceptance whatsoever for criticizing the Civil Rights Act in any way, and doing so means you’re a racist. Why is that?
As usual, you’re 100% incorrect. The issue here, and this should be obvious, isn’t that you’re attacking a liberal sacred cow that all of us reflexively rally around, it’s that a Senate candidate, in 2010, said that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against people. And while there are no doubt many on the left who are accusing Paul of being a racist, for me this issue is about how naive and immature libertarianism is as a political ideology. Paul doesn’t want any interference from the government even if it means fatally compromising social cohesion and segregating society.
And everyone complaining about the media asking questions to a Senate candidate is a just showing their authoritarian slip. The media is severely deficient in this country, it rarely speaks truth to power and even more rarely does it expose corruption. In this day and age, you’d think a question like “Should businesses be allowed to discriminate?”, any politician with half a brain would be able to say, simply, “No.” This is just more special pleading, it’s more of the persecution complex, it’s more asserting of the ridiculous notion that a party as powerful and widespread as the Republican party is being treated unfairly, and most of all it’s just pathetic, childish whining in place of recognizing the deficiencies in the right wing’s theories of government.
Once again, we see the narrow, black and white stupidity of leftist thinking: Discrimination is bad, therefore Government intrusion to stop discrimination must be good. It’s quite beyond the leftist brain to consider that both of these may be bad, though the latter may be a necessity in certain circumstances.
The question is one of which is the lesser of the two evils, and what are the limits to Government’s ability to tell us who we must do business with, who we must associate with, even how we are allowed to express our innermost beliefs.
Back in 1964 — where most progressives are permanently stuck on racial matters — a case for intervention could be made. But the Federal presence in people’s lives has metastasized since then. Worse, the Federal Government via Affirmative Action has positioned itself not just as a preventer of discrimination, but as an entity that actively practices discrimination.
This debate on the limits of Government power and the degree of intrusion people are willing to accept would be a good one to have. It’s a pity the progressive left is exploiting it as an opportunity for racial demagoguery.
The funny thing about bob popping his head up on this topic (only to be smacke down again) is his past support of Hitler is well known. Just a little fascism to get the world going, that’s bob’s way. So bob would be perfectly comfortable with a rest area (goverment maintained) discriminating against blacks.
Or more likely installing a railway booth to take them back to the death camps.
As to Levi’s prattling. Yes, he’s not willing to let people make their own decisions. He’s just as much a fascist as bob.
Oh and Levi, 84 days and not a successful socialist state springs to mind?
V to the K,
I understand the Paul’s argument completely, and I’m rejecting it, mostly because I reject the premise that government intervention is a necessarily bad thing. Nine times out of ten, government intervention stabilizes society, it protects peoples’ rights, it protects public safety, it protects critics and expression, etc. Of course, on occasion government can go to far, and lately under Bush and Obama the government has been going to far, but on the issue of racial segregation? No, that is something they got right, and if you’re actually going to suggest that we roll back the clock and start having that debate again, it just shows you how intellectually deficient libertarianism is.
Then why be stupid and bring it up in the first place? The Act isn’t going to be repealed so wasting time in the campaign over this accomplishes squat. In a purely academic setting, yeah I would be more sympathetic with Paul’s view on the matter but in the real world it ain’t going anywhere.
Shades of Cicero on Carthage!
#13: boob – with few exceptions, a highway rest stop is a public (gubmint) facility… the question concerned private business.
John Derbyshire, in his weekly podcast, said that libertarianism is almost impossible to explain in a sound bite. This is a good example.
I have difficulty believing that in an age of terrorism, massive unsustainable deficits, and the Government putting new shackles on the economy in a time of recession… the most pressing political issue is the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
But apparently, that’s where the progressive left is stuck.
Which if I’d have my way would be what ALL of these highway rest stops would be: managed by private businesses. The 1950s & 60s are over and so is the need for government-run rest stops. Stop at a gas station or McDonald’s for cryin’ out loud.
Let me be clear bob. I am NOT ok with a black person being turned away from anything for the sole reason of being black. I find the thought of it despicable and, quite honestly, outside my comprehension. I think someone who does that should be identified and shunned. I question weather the government has the right to tell someone what to think or with whom they can associate. But what I really question is weather government is more effective than peer pressure on what kind of “equal rights” people have.
Let me try a different approach bob. Let’s say you knew a grocery store owner was a KKK member who would hang every black, gay, or Jew he could get his hands on. Would you shop there? Do you know anyone who would? Do you honestly think, in this day and age, that this guy would be able to keep his doors open? You can smear the good people of Georgia all you want as racists bob, but I don’t think this grocery store would be open anywhere in the country.
No laws will stop racism or get rid of racists, and I question weather the government should even try.
The 1950s & 60s are over and so is the need for government-run rest stops. Stop at a gas station or McDonald’s for cryin’ out loud.
That’s why letting the left frame the debate is so unhealthy for Republicans. The media/Democrat left frame the question as “You oppose Government spending on rest stops, then you hate rest stops and you hate Government.”
The way the right should frame the debate is, “Rest stops may be a nice thing to have, but can we afford to keep running them when the Government’s broke and there are private sector alternatives?” That approach works equally well with all kinds of things the Government has no business getting its paws into.
Like SCR said, the problem is that libertarianism, like opposition to gay marriage, can’t be explained on a bumper sticker.
Why doesn’t the Civil Rights Act apply to the United Negro College Fund? It is a non-profit, tax-exempted 501(c)(3). Who was the last white person to receive a scholarship from them? Why won’t they award me some of their moolah?
Back in the mid 60s my mom tried repeatedly to get her bosses to allow her to hire minorities. She was constantly hiring in a field with a high turnover. In those days women mostly worked only until they got married or at the latest until they got pregnant with their first child. She hated turning away qualified candidates that she felt would be good for the job because of their skin color. The company refused up until the day the law changed and they were forced to and my mom opened a file and started calling people she had wanted to hire all along and wasn’t allowed to.
I understand what Paul said in theory. But as someone who grew up in the south in the 60s and 70s and have parents old enough to remember Jim Crow I have to say that it’s terribly naive to think that desegregation would have happened without federal intervention.
As for freedom of association, no one can force you to be friends with anyone, to invite anyone into your home or other private activities. We just ask that you not refuse to hire qualified people based on race, gender, etc. Most businesses don’t do that and I suspect that even without the laws most businesses would not at this point revert back to discriminatory hiring practices (among other things doing so would create a PR nightmare that most busness owners would prefer to avoid).
I don’t think Paul is racist. But I think he’s too entrenched in an ideology that people left to their own devices will always treat each other fairly and ethically and in too many situations that has proven to be anything but the case.
That said, this topic has come up on this board many times in response to adding gays to ENDA. I always said that if the GOP wants to argue that we shouldn’t have workplace nondiscrimination laws that they should run on that as a campaign issue. Bring it on. Well someone did and this was exactly what I would have predicted would happen. Most Americans don’t like the idea that someone qualified for a job would be turned away whether it’s discrimination or reverse-discrimination.
1) i don’t actually think rand paul is a racist. i just think he’s naive and overly ideological.
2) i should have said “gas station” and not rest stop in my example. most gas stations are privately owned, no?
3) thank you, hound, for speaking some sense on this comments board.
Houndentenor, I have a questions for you.
Why is Obama, Bryd, and Sotomayor still doing their jobs?
Where is the outrages like it did to Rush Limbaugh and Football?
#25,
Actually I know of one. Back in 86 in fact. The only reason she got it was a) The presenter didn’t know the best student in the (mostly black) school was white and the (black) principal at the time told the presenter when he was boxed in the corner, that he’d make such a big stink about them recending the scholarship on account of her skin colour.
Now at the same time, I know the same thing almost happened at a school in DC, but the NAACP caught their ‘mistake’ of offering a scholarship to a white kid and reversed themselves.
Could you please cite the government’s authority to do so?
Also, try Googling Food Lion v. ABC News sometime. Ah yes, the free market at work, dumbass.
How in the world did we ever live without the nanny state in control?
As long as they’re not white and/or male when you have a quota to fill, eh?
Let’s keep one thing in mind, though: under “Jim Crow,” a number of states and many, many municipalities mandated segregation — that is, state and city governments required privately-owned businesses to discriminate between “whites” and “coloreds”.
Thus, it’s quite misleading to view the Jim Crow era as an example of libertarian social structure gone hideously awry, creating conditions that had to be remedied with government regulations — to a large degree, segregation was the anti-libertarian PRODUCT of (local) government regulation.
Dear TGC, I have never been in favor of quotas or reverse discrimination. However, as I white male I do not doubt that I have gone to the head of the line any number of times and can only think of one instance where I probably didn’t get a job for being a man and not any for being white. I think most of the claims by white males for being discrimated against are bogus. Not all, but most.
Since the Federal government itself awards contracts on the basis of skin color and gender, business owners should be allowed to do the same thing.
Since universities and colleges can use skin color and minority status instead of actual predictors of success like grades, business owners should be able to similarly discriminate.
Since Barack Obama and his puppet Sonia Sotomayer say that people should enjoy preferential treatment based on their skin color and that peoples’ intelligence and wisdom is based on their race, then private business owners and citizens should be allowed to do the same thing.
When Levi, Houndentenor, and the rest of the racist liberal left condemn these practices and demand that the government hire and award contracts based solely on qualifications, that schools be required to make decisions without any consideration for skin color or minority status, and when they state that Sonia Sotomayer is a racist for stating that Latina women are always wiser than white men, then they might have a point.
But they won’t. Instead, they want to perpetuate the institutionalized discrimination via ENDA.