Rand Paul is No Barry Goldwater on Civil Rights

[one...two...tree 2,762]

by Bruce Bartlett

Rand Paul, son of legendary libertarian Congressman Ron Paul, for whom I worked in the 1970s, is now the official Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky. Perhaps unfortunately for him, he did not get a great deal of national press scrutiny during his primary campaign because he was an outsider that many in the national press corps thought could not win. Now that he has, they are making up for lost time. And Rand has accommodated them by repeatedly saying that he would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on libertarian grounds: private businesses should not be forced to serve African Americans if they so choose. Presumably, market pressure will eventually force them to be more accommodating. If it doesn't, then so be it, Rand believes.

Both Rand's supporters and critics point to Senator Barry Goldwater's principled opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, according to Rick Perlstein's excellent book, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act was based entirely on constitutional concerns. He had been told by both William Rehnquist, then a private attorney in Phoenix and later chief justice of the Supreme Court, and Robert Bork, then a professor of constitutional law at Yale, that it was unconstitutional. Bork even sent him a 75-page brief to that effect.

To be sure, the Rehnquist-Bork position was not a lame rationalization for racism. It was rooted in the fact that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 essentially replicated the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which was enacted by a Republican Congress over strenuous Democratic opposition. However, in 1883 the Supreme Court, then it its most libertarian phase, knocked down the 1875 act as well as many other Republican measures passed during Reconstruction designed to aid African Americans. The Court's philosophy in these cases led logically to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which essentially gave constitutional protection to legal segregation enforced by state and local governments throughout the U.S.

As we know from history, the free market did not lead to a breakdown of segregation. Indeed, it got much worse, not just because it was enforced by law but because it was mandated by self-reinforcing societal pressure. Any store owner in the South who chose to serve blacks would certainly have lost far more business among whites than he gained. There is no reason to believe that this system wouldn't have perpetuated itself absent outside pressure for change.

In short, the libertarian philosophy of Rand Paul and the Supreme Court of the 1880s and 1890s gave us almost 100 years of segregation, white supremacy, lynchings, chain gangs, the KKK, and discrimination of African Americans for no other reason except their skin color. The gains made by the former slaves in the years after the Civil War were completely reversed once the Supreme Court effectively prevented the federal government from protecting them. Thus we have a perfect test of the libertarian philosophy and an indisputable conclusion: it didn't work. Freedom did not lead to a decline in racism; it only got worse.

Sadly, it took the Supreme Court more than 50 years after Plessy before it began to undo its mistake in Brown. This led to repeated efforts by the Eisenhower administration to enact civil rights legislation, which was opposed and gutted by Senate Democrats led by Lyndon Johnson. But by 1964, it was clear to Johnson that the tide had turned. The federal courts were moving to dismantle segregation to the extent they could, and the 1963 March on Washington, the murder and beating of civil rights demonstrators in the South and growing awareness of such atrocities changed the political climate and made the Civil Rights Act of 1964 possible--despite the filibuster against it by Senator Robert C. Byrd, who still serves in the Senate today.

If Rand Paul were saying that he agrees with the Goldwater-Rehnquist-Bork view that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was unconstitutional and that the Supreme Court was wrong to subsequently find it constitutional, that would be an eccentric but defensible position. If he were saying that the Civil Rights Act were no longer necessary because of the great strides we have made as a country in eradicating racism, that would also be defensible. But Rand's position is that it was wrong in principle in 1964. There is no other way of interpreting this except as an endorsement of all the things the Civil Rights Act was designed to prohibit, as favoring the status quo throughout the South that would have led to a continuation of segregation and discrimination against African Americans at least for many more years. Undoubtedly, changing mores would have broken down some of this over time, but there is no reason to believe that it would have been quick or that vestiges wouldn't still remain today. Indeed, vestiges remain despite the Civil Rights Act.

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. To defend the rights of racists to discriminate is reprehensible and especially so when it is done by a major party nominee for the U.S. Senate. I believe that Rand should admit that he was wrong as quickly as possible.

Bruce Bartlett is an American historian who turned to writing about supply-side economics. He was a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and was a Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush.

http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1734/rand-paul-no-barry-goldwater-civil-rights

[Danno 1,228]

What do you say to his point that private businesses are private property,

if you Steve accept the concept that Big Gov has the right to force Jimmy's Hamburger Stand into serving people they don't want because the customers Civil Rights are greater than the businesses Property Rights, then you would you also

Agree Jimmy's Hamburger Stand also has no right to refuse service to someone enjoying their 2nd amendment rights by carrying a legal concealed handgun?

[Texanadian 10]

Rand isn't against the 1964 Civil Rights act as a whole. Just the one part of it related to private businesses. People are forgetting that the '64 Civil Rights act was to prevent GOVERNMENT from denying blacks the same rights as whites. It was government that was enforcing the Jim Crow laws in the south. It wasn't an issue in the northern states where governments were more moderate.

One need only take an example of fast food hamburger joints. Let's take McDonalds, Burger King, Arbys, Wendy's, and Jack in the Box. Five restaurants that all serve cheap hamburgers. If Burger King decides to say that they won't sell food to black people but the other four do, it's not just a matter of Burger King losing out on black customers. It's also that the other four would gain black customers due to their non-racist business practices. They would also gain white customers who didn't agree with Burger King's blocking of serving black people......Under a national law that says that all companies must serve everybody, this only makes the other four companies lose out on sales that they would have gained from Burger King's racist business practises..... Imagine if a Texas restaurant chain today decided to not allow latinos to eat there. The business would be boarded up and closed within a month.

Libertarianism is actually the biggest opponent of racism. Because libertarianism doesn't gather people in groups to be deemed better or worse. Libertarianism is about the individual. It's extremely difficult to be racist against a person. It's very easy to be racist against a group.

Bartlet mentioned that the free market didn't solve segregation. But he also noted that it was government laws that prevented the free market to solve segregation.... Free markets are actually amazing at benefiting people who you normally wouldn't like and religions who you normally wouldn't support. The coffee cup you're drinking out of. It could have been made by a white person, a black person, a Chinese person, an Indian. Anybody. It could have been made by a Catholic, a Protestant, a Muslim. You simply don't know. But the simple act of the trade being made by the buyer and seller allows other people to benefit the same as it benefits you.

[peejay 327]

What do you say to his point that private businesses are private property,

if you Steve accept the concept that Big Gov has the right to force Jimmy's Hamburger Stand into serving people they don't want because the customers Civil Rights are greater than the businesses Property Rights, then you would you also

Agree Jimmy's Hamburger Stand also has no right to refuse service to someone enjoying their 2nd amendment rights by carrying a legal concealed handgun?

I usually take the conservative view and I think I will answer conservatively. A person can't change their race, but they can leave the gun at home. They weren't born with the gun, but they are born day one with their race. How can you penalize someone for something they cannot control (their race)? That is just wrong.

A business owner is fully justified to make certain rules about who they serve. They should be able to restrict behaviors. People can change behaviors...they can't change their race. How many have seen: No shoes, no shirt, no service. To me that is acceptable. Refusing someone service because of their race is wrong.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I usually take the conservative view and I think I will answer conservatively. A person can't change their race, but they can leave the gun at home. They weren't born with the gun, but they are born day one with their race. How can you penalize someone for something they cannot control (their race)? That is just wrong.

A business owner is fully justified to make certain rules about who they serve. They should be able to restrict behaviors. People can change behaviors...they can't change their race. How many have seen: No shoes, no shirt, no service. To me that is acceptable. Refusing someone service because of their race is wrong.

Well stated.

[Danno 1,228]

I usually take the conservative view and I think I will answer conservatively. A person can't change their race, but they can leave the gun at home. They weren't born with the gun, but they are born day one with their race. How can you penalize someone for something they cannot control (their race)? That is just wrong.

A business owner is fully justified to make certain rules about who they serve. They should be able to restrict behaviors. People can change behaviors...they can't change their race. How many have seen: No shoes, no shirt, no service. To me that is acceptable. Refusing someone service because of their race is wrong.

Right or wrong was not the question..... are people free to be wrong? If no, why is race some special condition, it's just as wrong to reject someone because of their faith or their political views.

Well the truth is, this encroachment of gov didn't stop at race, and predictable it has spread far and wide.