Newly-minted Republican Senatorial candidate Rand Paul has had quite a couple of days with his statements about the Civil Rights Act of 1965, hasn't he? From Talking Points Memo:
So, by our reckoning, here's Paul's progression on the issue over the past 24 hours:This is one of the reasons I have trouble with libertarianism; it's full of high-minded principles which run headlong into practicality. Guess which wins?
- Paul on Maddow, circa 9 p.m. Wednesday: I don't agree with the Civil Rights Act, but I don't believe in racism.
- Paul statement, noon Thursday: I wouldn't support repealing the law.
- Paul campaign statement, 2 p.m. Thursday: I support the law and the government's power to enforce it.
- Paul on CNN, 5 p.m. Thursday: "I would have voted yes" for the law. "There was a need for federal intervention."
In this case Paul tried to make the point that his philosophy says "government should not interfere with private businesses; if they want to discriminate it's their right to do so. Let the free market sort out the ones who can discriminate between their customers and stay afloat." But that philosophy ran into the question of "what's the greater good here? Should businesses (like lunch counters in the South) continue to take advantage of some rules of government, like cops to keep them from being robbed, streets their customers use to get to their doors, etc. and not be required to conform to other rules government lays down?" You don't get to be a cafeteria businessperson when it comes to government regulations.
See also Bruce Bartlett:
I don't believe Rand is a racist; I think he is a fool who is suffering from the foolish consistency syndrome that affects all libertarians. They believe that freedom consists of one thing and one thing only--freedom from governmental constraint. Therefore, it is illogical to them that any increase in government power could ever expand freedom. Yet it is clear that African Americans were far from free in 1964 and that the Civil Rights Act greatly expanded their freedom while diminishing that of racists.
It doesn't matter if it's libertarianism, capitalism, socialism...all the isms sound great on paper. They just don't work in the real world, especially when you take them to the extreme. For example, communism is a great idea, but humans don't work that way.
In theory, Paul is right. The unregulated free market would prevent businesses from discriminating on race. In theory, they'd go out of business because all the right-minded patrons would get disgusted and go elsewhere. Yeah. Right. How long before we'd see "No gays served" or "Mexicans, Arabs and Muslims not welcome" signs in hotels and restaurants without the Civil Rights Act. I'll bet it wouldn't take 2 days.
Posted by: Solonor at May 20, 2010 05:47 PM