Yesterday, Tuesday, May 18, 2010, Dr. Rand Paul won the Republican primary election in Kentucky for U.S. Senate. Today, those of us outside of Kentucky have begun our introduction to a man who is, according to Catholic Online, “…the real article; a man guided by principle, not party; a man loyal to ethics, not party bosses.
Dr. Paul is a Libertarian. It is a political viewpoint that I share in a diminished form, so I can relate to his views – views that emphasize individual liberties over governmental influences. {Friends who know me: Do not be confused. ‘Libertarian’ and ‘Libertine’ are utterly different and mutually exclusive. Do not assume that my strengths in one quality are matched in the other.}
Today, our introduction to Dr. Paul included his views on important historical events, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I listened to his interview on the Rachel Maddow Show. (It was on this show that he first announced his candidacy.) The interview was prompted by an interview he gave to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Dr. Paul was unequivocal in describing himself as a staunch advocate of civil rights. He absolutely believes that the federal government should not discriminate, as per the terms of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
As a Libertarian, Dr. Paul advocates that such legislation is only appropriate in restricting government. Individual citizens and businesses should not be incorporated into the Civil Rights Act of 1964 using the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution). Several states and their Republican officials have recently expressed the same view regarding federal reform of health care – that such reform should not be forced upon states using the Commerce Clause and its practical extension, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and that states have the right to decide individually if they will be subject to the federal government’s regulation.
Dr. Paul says that private conduct is properly controlled by the free enterprise system. It is clear to me that this is true. If a public business chooses to accomodate only customers of specific races or religions, another business can accomodate both those and other races or religions. The second business will surely prosper in comparison to the first. It will have a economic advantage which intelligent business people will recognize and choose to incorporate.
I was born in 1950, so I had a little direct experience (in addition to lessons from history) with how this worked before 1964. Springfield had some businesses which were, for example, ‘Whites Only‘. Those businesses, and similar ones which existed in virtually every city and town in former Slave States and many Northern ones, must have suffered significantly for their policies. Springfield might be a poor example of this, because there were not many non-white residents after the famous 1906 lynchings (concluded on the Public Square) prompted much of Springfield’s non-white citizenry to move away – immediately. I’m sure that, wherever they choose to live after 1906, their economic influence guaranteed that they would be served equitably by businesses. They would also not have had to fear a repeat of such injustice as the 1906 lynchings or similar lynchings which occurred as often as daily in the South of the late 1800’s.
At the least, groups which are discriminated against by businesses may actually form competing businesses. They have every economic, free-market, incentive to do so – and they often did before 1964. It is obvious from this the Dr. Paul is completely correct, and that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 accomplished (for private business) nothing but an artificial interference on an efficient mechanism for insuring just and equitable treatment of all citizens.
Just as I am not a 100% Libertarian (we must balance our views to some degree), neither is Dr. Paul. He does advocate implementing a consitutional amendment (with supporting state and federal legislation) to totally outlaw abortion. There does not seem to be a free-market mechanism to achieve the outcome he seeks, so he recognizes the practicality of government involvement.
Dr. Paul has the heart of of a true civil rights advocate and moral leader. He says, for instance, that if he had been old enough, he would have marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the struggle for equal rights.
Thank you, Dr. Randal Howard “Rand” Paul. That’s real white of you.
Postscript
Will Allen, Horace Duncan, and Fred Coker,
lynched in 1906 by a mob of 2,000,
were falsely accused and were innocent.
![[http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j4/elsacade/boxcontents_large.jpg]](https://heygetthis.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/shelterbox-org-boxcontents_210x209.png "\"To the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.\" - Matthew 25:39")
H e y ! G e t T h i s . . . 
What he should have said:
Well, let me ask you a question Rachel. Should it be illegal for someone to discriminate based on race when it comes to dating? Or who one wishes to have conversations with? Or who one chooses to allow into his own home? If not, why should it be illegal when it comes to operating a business?
I think racism is stupid, but you know what? Part of freedom is allowing other people to do stupid things. I think doing drugs is stupid but believe government has no role in trying to outlaw them. I think prostitution and gambling are unwise but think people have a right to do both.
Likewise, I think it’s stupid to be a racist. But should it be illegal? Of course not, because being a jerk simply isn’t a crime. It may be morally reprehensible. So is cheating on your wife, but no sane person supports a law against that. By demanding that your own moral thinking be legislated into law, you guys on the left are no better than the neanderthals of the religious right. Let’s not forget that it was your cherished government–not the market–that enforced and upheld the notorious Jim Crow laws.
So yes, I believe people have a right to be racist and will not apologize for it. In a free society, that is your absolute right. But where are all these supposed racist business owners? Are they the ones hiring illegal immigrants by the truckload and outsourcing our work to ‘minority’ nations*? Let’s face it: money ultimately trumps race in the marketplace.
Next question.
http://www.skepticaleye.com/2010/05/rand-pauls-horrid-performance-on-maddow.html
Ron Paul gets it right, unlike his son:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/58075.html
Poe’s Law is great, isn’t it? Reminds me of the time I wrote a letter to the Globe and said primates didn’t exist, and were invented out of whole cloth by Darwinist Hollywood special effects artists.. EVERYONE bought it. It was HILARIOUS
BTW folks, Rand has walked back a loooong way today – but not all the way. He ‘would have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964’ if he had been there to do that. He doesn’t say that he would also be holding his nose.
thepaulssuck, you are very correct except for one tiny thing. You know well the injustices which many have suffered and which require that we remain vigilant. Your disgust for the crimes of many probably is matched by genuine concern for others.
My blog has been a bit of a fooler for a number of folks. There are clues. The paragraph “I was born in 1950…” especially contains absurdities designed to express what Rand Paul has been careful to avoid discussing explicitly.
The punchline, reserved for those who didn’t catch the subtlety of the preceding absurdities, is “That’s real white of you.” Unfortunately, it is.
Poe’s Law has thus been demonstrated again:
“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing.”
I tout Hey! Get This… as “An eclectic and generally polite blog”, so don’t worry about the “sickening filth” remark. I set you up for some rigtheous indignation, huh? Have a nice day!
Sorry, but your main thesis lives in a bubble.
It’s all well and good to TALK about how things SHOULD work, and then there’s reality.
When black people in the USA, freed from the bondage of slavery, attempted to set up their own economies in their own districts they had great success in many cities. One teeeeensy tiny little problem though: almost every single time they did so, their white neighbors violently attacked them and destroyed their economies.
Did you know that the first ever use of aerial bombardment was a part of an attack on a black enterprise neighborhood in Oklahoma by an all-white mob?
Some of the posters here, in their ignorance, have confused affirmative action and quotas with the doctrine that a business that is open to the public may not discriminate based on race. Do you understand that there have been instances (some of which I Have witnessed first hand) where people have been denied the very basics – food, clothing, housing, transportation? Do you understand what mob rules really means?
Rand Paul is a neocon who believes that evil foreigners (of our own making) should be imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. He insists that the Congress declare War against Afghjanistan. He ignores the openly published fact that the Taliban was created by Zbigniev Brizinski, an American. He wishes to ho9ld 100% innocent foreigners accountable for crimes 100% committed by Americans.
Should anyone be surprised? History shows us that the USA is the most bloodthirsty nation in history. The ruling class of the USA bankrolled the Bolsheviks, the Nazis, Pol Pot, and practically every other despotic nightmare you can come up with. Then you get these fake pieces of garbage who insist that scum like Rand Paul are going to solve the problem.
You are sickening filth.
I always say that a Libertarian is a Republican that was bad at sports.
Rand Paul (his name alone makes me groan) does little to dissuade me from the belief that his politcal party is comprised of conservatives that realize how blatantly unlikable they are, and feel the need to rebrand themselves. Unfortunatly for them, Rand (GROAN) may hve let the cat out of the bag.
MWB, consider how we get that discrimination-free government. It would be elected, financed, and influenced by (among others) the very people and businesses which consider bigotry to be moral, patriotic, and righteous. Perhaps you haven’t considered that such folks would not settle for a status quo of a discrimination-free government. At the least, businesses with government contracts would have to adhere to non-discrimination to avoid government financing of discrimination. Those businesses which are run by bigots would not leave that arrangement unchallenged. You may have also forgotten that we have already fought and many have died to diminish the influence of such people from our society. It has never been practical to let human nature (even in the guise of ‘economic principles’) drift without guidance. LO PHATT and others do not trust politicians. I do not trust the demons which reside within all of us. Under the appropriate conditions (as has been demonstrated perennially) any of us can turn on our neighbors. We must be vigilant to keep our society civil.
So should the NBA be required to have only the same percentage of Afican-Americans as the population as a whole?
Should Ebony Magazine also not be allowed to have any more “Blacks” in its issues than percentage-wise exist in the general population?
When there is a casting call for a movie about the life of George Washington, our first president, should the casting directer be required to interview women, Chinese and Blacks for the role of George Washington?
No, in a free society, people should be free. The civil rights legislation can only apply to discrimination by governments.
disinter, I do not find any suggestion by Rachel Maddow that her viewers are too stupid to enforce an economic concept that Rand Paul imagines to be true. Civil rights legislation was needed precisely (and partially) because the free market could not – and never did – maintain an equitable society. A significant reason for this is that there is not (and there never has been) a pristine free market. Another significant reason is that racism, with its social contracts and former pervasiveness in society, produces conditions utterly contrary to those imagined by Rand Paul.
LO PHATT, politicians have always been what they must inherently be. We are now subject to that natural state after it has been heavily fertilized by the “unwarranted influence” of an immensely more influential business sector. I believe, with you, that thoughtful voting can still be an effective counter to those influences.
I distrust ALL politicians. I think history would prove that to be a good starting position. Those who would make much needed and effective change a priority will not be permitted to interfere with the plan.
I am also suspicious of any of these “either/or” arguments regarding “capitalism” vs “socialism”, etc.. They are all contrived. It isn’t as though we have a world of either-or choices or that we have to “settle for the best of a bad lot”, etc., we have real choices and we should be the ones to make them.
The American political landscape, just like the rest of the world, is a side show. There is only one “party” and they work for the same controllers. The only way to correct this within the system is to wrest control from the parties themselves and to prevent infiltration of any alternative.
This is not likely to happen. For now, the best bet is to vote for who you like, period. They should not be affiliated with either branch of the corporate party or any gate-keeper alternatives that they float to capture the disenchanted.
Pure grassroots candidates chosen from local stock are the only viable answer here. If they are affiliated with one of the major tools, forget it. If they were a threat to the status quo they would not be there.
Not to mention Maddow is insulting the intelligence of her viewers by suggesting that they are too stupid to decide where to spend their money.