[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

I'm not convinced of the Big Government argument anymore. In the Gulf of Mexico right now, the priority clearly isn't the saving of sea life, or of all the fishing and tourist industry jobs that go with life on the Gulf coast. By allowing BP, whose sole concern is saving their well, to direct the (so-called) clean-up, the US government has again shown that the priorities of an unanswerable corporation will be placed before the public good. If the government wasn't being held hostage to a basically pro-business-uber-alles and libertarian political mindset, the US Navy and Coast Guard would have been immediately put in charge and allowed to destroy the well-head in order to stop the flow of pollution.

Blowing up a well head underwater is going to stop the flow of oil...how?

Thanos Thanos:

But they weren't. BP's been put in total control of the situation, to the point where they're even allowed to use local police to kick reporters off of beaches to prevent them from photographing the puddles of oil and dead wildlife that are now washing ashore. BP pulled all the strings it could among local and federal politicians to get their way and the end result, thanks to the libertarian mindset that only regards the interests of business and capital as important, is going to be an unending disaster caused by the deliberate murder of an entire ocean-sized body of water.

Hate to tell you, but the most qualified people to control an oil well blow out are oil people who are experienced with such things. If you can think of any more qualified people to handle this then call this number now: (202) 395-2020

Thanos Thanos:

Libertarianism economic principles in their full glory. And the libertarian's hero of the moment, Rand Paul, could only say silly shit like "accidents happen, and "quit being mean to BP"? And this is the mentality that the right wing now believes whole-heartedly in.

Wheeeeee?

Accidents DO happen. Despite the best measures, they do happen.

[N_Fiddledog]

That was a pretty good speech by Maddow, however beyond the underlying insinuations, it does not reveal Paul, or anybody who supports his argument as racist. It merely fires a volley at the opposing argument, which is not primarily a racist one. I also, always find it interesting when libs are portraying the events of civil rights unrest of the 60s they're very careful not to mention facts like George Wallace was a Democrat.

Paul was not ready for the new antagonism from what were his buddies on the left. He got sucker punched. He has to adapt. However, because he defended his argument badly, it does not mean there is no argument.

Here's a clip from a lengthy essay by Dafydd ab Hugh where he attacks Paul for what he calls the "the ham fisted" way in which he handled the issue, yet defends the Paul side of the argument.

$1:

Rachel Maddow’s fundamental confusion is shared by all liberals and about 80% of conservatives (e.g., Hugh Hewitt): Under Jim Crow, the problem wasn’t that individual owners “decided” to racially discriminate; state laws required them to discriminate.

In a free market, some-but-not-all restaurants will discriminate, while others won’t. Those that do cut off much of their customer base — not just the potential customers who are black but also those whites who vehemently oppose racial discrimination; their non-discriminating competitors get the extra business instead. Thus, a discriminatory stance creates an automatic “economic penalty”: Racism becomes an expensive luxury that most business owners simply cannot afford.

(The same punishment operates whenever an owner makes an economic decision on a completely non-economic basis, such as not serving old people or divesting stock from companies that do business with Israel; that’s one of the magical effects of a free market!)

After a while, many racists will decide they need the money more than they need to discriminate; they will take down the “whites only” sign, no matter how much it pains them, or risk going out of business. A few will maintain their discrimination until the bitter end; so it goes.

But wait, what about the other side of the coin? Some dyed in the wool racists would only frequent those establishments that discriminate. They will boycott the integrated businesses and patronize only the racists.

Frankly, I doubt that such persons would have been the majority in any state even back in the days of Jim Crow: If they had been the majority, there would have been no need for laws to force them to do what they wanted to do in the first place. The very fact that the state legislature had to enact Jim Crow laws testifies that residents weren’t discriminating, they weren’t keeping blacks “in their places.”

Walter Williams writes about this in his wonderful book, South Africa’s War Against Capitalism: The Afrikaaners enacted Apartheid laws precisely because at the turn of the twentieth century, businesses (from railroads to mines to hotels), left to their own free will, were rapidly integrating the races. Economic necessity was breaking down the barriers; blacks offered their services for lower wages than whites, and employers snapped them up to save labor costs. Soon the whites had to lower their own wages to compete; at the same time, as blacks gained more experience, they raised their demands… eventually, the two races met in the middle, more or less.

Funnily enough, one of the first bills the Kreugerites enacted forced businesses to pay blacks and whites exactly the same wages, “equal pay for equal work.” Sound familiar? The effect was to remove the financial incentive to hire blacks, because their labor was no longer any bargain.

With the market mechanisms removed, it was easy to threaten or bully businesses into hiring and promoting only whites. (Most of the racist coercion was committed by the socialist labor unions, by the way… quelle surprise!) Thus, even in Apartheid South Africa, the free market acted to integrate and equalize the races, while the government — “for their own good” — acted to segregate and discriminate between them — “Apartheid” literally means “apart-ness”.

In any event, I steadfastly believe that even in the deep South in the 1950s, far more potential customers would choose to patronize a business on the basis of quality and price — than on the basis of whether that business segregated black from white. Over the long run (which would likely be only a few years), that would drive out the adamant racists: Businesses operate on such a small margin that even a small economic advantage towards race neutrality would have an oversized effect on a business’ viability.

Unless, that is, the state steps in and makes such racial discrimination mandatory; that is what we mean by “Jim Crow.” If the state interferes with the market, forcing everyone to discriminate, it kills the market’s ability to drive behavior away from irrelevant (and offensive) absurdities like racial discrimination: I can no longer compete with a “whites only” lunchcounter by advertising “we serve everybody!” I would be arrested and my business shut down if I tried.

That robs me of my liberty, my property rights; and that is the ground on which the Civil Rights Act should have been fought. Let freedom reign, and allow the market to do its holy job of driving the fools and haters out of business.

Of course, there will always be pockets where there really are more racists than sons and daughters of liberty; in those dark nooks, they will open their whites-only swimming pools and bowling alleys and ice-skating rinks. What do we do about that?

We let them. If they want to segregate themselves away from the rest of society, let them huddle together and fester. So long as we all have freedom of mobility and association, the 99% of the country that is decent will isolate the tiny fraction who are morally putrid; and the good citizens will open their own pools, alleys, and rinks open to everyone. After all, there’s gold in them thar businesses.

The racist kooks will become curiosities, monkeys in a zoo: We’ll point and laugh at the funny and now-powerless haters, just as we do whenever the Ku Klux Klan musters its eight or nine hoodwinkers to stand on the corner holding up racist, and typically illiterate signs.

That’s the American way, the path of liberty. Just as we don’t deny Klansmen, Black Panthers, or MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) their freedom of speech, we should also not deny them their right to serve only “their own kind,” if that’s what they want.

Nor do we prevent the rest of us from expressing displeasure by patronizing their competitors instead.

Had Rand Paul really thought this all through aforehand, he could have answered Rachel Maddow much more powerfully and directly, like this (warning, fabricated interview ahead!):

MADDOW: Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don’t serve black people?

LIZARDS: Sure — if they want to cut their own economic throats.

MADDOW: What do you mean? The Civil Rights Act was the federal government stepping in to protect civil rights because they weren’t otherwise being protected. It wasn’t a hypothetical. There were businesses that were saying black people cannot be served here and the federal government stepped in and said, no, you actually don’t have that choice to make. The federal government is coming in and saying you can’t make that choice as a business owner.

How about desegregating lunch counters? Lunch counters. Walgreen’s lunch counters, were you in favor of that? Possibly? Because the government got involved?

LIZARDS: The problem wasn’t that Jim Crow wasn’t protecting civil rights, Rachel. The great evil of Jim Crow laws was that they forced even non-racists to racially discriminate.

In a free market, I could open a lunchcounter right across the street from a “whites only” Walgreens; and in my front window, I could put a sign that says “we serve everybody!” I have faith in the American people, Southerners included. Let me compete with the racists without the state government or federal government stacking the deck, and I guarantee you I’ll drive the racial haters out of business and out of town.

That way, we’ll lose the racists — good riddance — but we’ll keep liberty and the sanctity of private property, the cornerstone of America. That’s the same sanctity of private property, by the way, that allows a homeowner to sell his house to a black family, no matter what the ancient, entrenched political class in the state capital demand.

MADDOW: Mr. Reptile, until the year 2000, Bob Jones University, a private institution, had a ban on interracial dating at their school, their private institution. If Bob Jones University wanted to bring that back now, would you support their right to do so?

LIZARDS: Bob Jones University didn’t drop its policy as a result of the Civil Rights Act; President Bob Jones dropped the policy in the year 2000, because the adverse publicity of its racist stance was hurting the university. That’s an important point, Rachel: The market was hurting Bob Jones badly enough that it forced them to change their stupid, evil policy.

The most the feds ever did to BJU was to take away its religious tax exemption. I’ve long argued that when an insitution requests special dispensation that amounts to an endorsement of that institution — such as a religious tax exemption that secular private universities don’t get — the government has every right to make that privilege contingent upon meeting the base-level standards of decency that American society demands. I would just as vigorously oppose giving a tax exemption to Mohammed Atta Martyrdom University, no matter how sincerely held was its jihadist religous curriculum.

MADDOW: Let’s say there’s a town right now and the owner of the town’s swimming club says we’re not going to allow black kids at our pool, and the owner of the bowling alley in town says, we’re not actually going to allow black patrons, and the owner of the skating rink in town says, we’re not going to allow black people to skate here.

And you may think that’s abhorrent and you may think that’s bad business. But unless it’s illegal, there’s nothing to stop that — there’s nothing under your world view to stop the country from re-segregating like we were before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

LIZARDS: Nothing but the justice and common decency of the American people! In the first place, this isn’t the 1950s. The whole world has come a long way in the last half century, wouldn’t you say? And no country in the world is less racist than the United States: Not a single state in the Union has even one pair of racists in its legislature to conspire together to re-segregate the country.

But frankly, Rachel, I don’t even believe any state in the deep South had a majority of racist citizens even in 1964. What they had was an oligarchy of bitter, hate-filled, septuagenarian racists who occupied state legislatures like the Nazis occupied the Reichstag. They were corrupt, elections were rigged, and they couldn’t be ousted from their seats except perhaps by dynamite… or by joining Republican Party!

But that’s no longer true, and it hasn’t been since I was in grade school. Oh yes, there is still racial discrimination in the United States; but today, as in the 50s and 60s, it comes from the left side of the aisle, from race-obsessed Democrats and leftists allied with radical Islam. But so long as we can keep the Left away from the levers of power, I’m confident America will never re-segregate.

I am quite certain this would have been much, much harder to spin as racist, pro-segregation, and anti-civil rights. And in any event, it sure would have made more exciting political theater!

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/20 ... rand-paul/

[Thanos]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Blowing up a well head underwater is going to stop the flow of oil...how?

A significant enough explosion that would have collapsed the sea floor around the well-head and would have bottled up the tube that had been drilled down to the basin containing the oil. The sea floor is 5000 feet down. The basin itself is 13000 feet down. Using an explosion to stopper the well would cut off the worst of the flow and any residual seepage could then be contained with a proper concrete and rubber seal (well, it should work as long as it isn't constructed by everyone's pals at Halliburton, who fucked up the original concrete portion of the well-head in the first place) that would close that particular well location forever.

$1:

Hate to tell you, but the most qualified people to control an oil well blow out are oil people who are experienced with such things. If you can think of any more qualified people to handle this then call this number now: (202) 395-2020

Safety Boss in Calgary said much better what I've already repeated. Next to Red Adair there's no better outfit in the world at fixing well blow-outs. Blow the damn thing up and stop the worst of the flow already.

$1:

Accidents DO happen. Despite the best measures, they do happen.

There's no evidence that BP even bothered to do a half-assed measure, much less their best one. The trail of evidence that they deliberately fudged equipment test results, fast-tracked the start-up before all safety protocols were put into place, and ignored almost all the concerns of the Transocean rig operations team grows everyday. Add in the minor fact that BP was instumental in coaxing the Bush administration (in meetings that were attended by none other than Dick Cheney himself) into reducing the already paltry amount of safety and operations procedures they were previously working under doesn't indicate a company that "gave it's best". It indicates a sociopathic corporation that truly believes it walks between the raindrops, that paid off practically everyone they could to either change the rules or look the other way just so they could save revenue against some miniscule safety costs on long-term projects that are going to net them billions of dollars.

It's never an accident, not when a malfeasant corporate entity and it's paid-off political lickspittles act in a manner so reckless that that a catastrophe and tragedy is virtually guaranteed to happen. And that they saved so little revenue by eliminating the regulations and procedures, in comparison to the value of the oil that's been forever lost, makes it even more baffling that they would even consider making their operations sloppier and lazier instead of better.

Libertarianism defined: fuck everyone else, as long as we make money just do it. Sounds 100% identical to a philosophy a heroin peddler would have.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

Laissez faire capitalism defined: fuck everyone else, as long as we make money just do it. Sounds 100% identical to a philosophy a heroin peddler would have.

Corrected that for you.

[sandorski]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

That was a pretty good speech by Maddow, however beyond the underlying insinuations, it does not reveal Paul, or anybody who supports his argument as racist. It merely fires a volley at the opposing argument, which is not primarily a racist one. I also, always find it interesting when libs are portraying the events of civil rights unrest of the 60s they're very careful not to mention facts like George Wallace was a Democrat.

Paul was not ready for the new antagonism from what were his buddies on the left. He got sucker punched. He has to adapt. However, because he defended his argument badly, it does not mean there is no argument.

Here's a clip from a lengthy essay by Dafydd ab Hugh where he attacks Paul for what he calls the "the ham fisted" way in which he handled the issue, yet defends the Paul side of the argument.

$1:

Rachel Maddow’s fundamental confusion is shared by all liberals and about 80% of conservatives (e.g., Hugh Hewitt): Under Jim Crow, the problem wasn’t that individual owners “decided” to racially discriminate; state laws required them to discriminate.

In a free market, some-but-not-all restaurants will discriminate, while others won’t. Those that do cut off much of their customer base — not just the potential customers who are black but also those whites who vehemently oppose racial discrimination; their non-discriminating competitors get the extra business instead. Thus, a discriminatory stance creates an automatic “economic penalty”: Racism becomes an expensive luxury that most business owners simply cannot afford.

(The same punishment operates whenever an owner makes an economic decision on a completely non-economic basis, such as not serving old people or divesting stock from companies that do business with Israel; that’s one of the magical effects of a free market!)

After a while, many racists will decide they need the money more than they need to discriminate; they will take down the “whites only” sign, no matter how much it pains them, or risk going out of business. A few will maintain their discrimination until the bitter end; so it goes.

But wait, what about the other side of the coin? Some dyed in the wool racists would only frequent those establishments that discriminate. They will boycott the integrated businesses and patronize only the racists.

Frankly, I doubt that such persons would have been the majority in any state even back in the days of Jim Crow: If they had been the majority, there would have been no need for laws to force them to do what they wanted to do in the first place. The very fact that the state legislature had to enact Jim Crow laws testifies that residents weren’t discriminating, they weren’t keeping blacks “in their places.”

Walter Williams writes about this in his wonderful book, South Africa’s War Against Capitalism: The Afrikaaners enacted Apartheid laws precisely because at the turn of the twentieth century, businesses (from railroads to mines to hotels), left to their own free will, were rapidly integrating the races. Economic necessity was breaking down the barriers; blacks offered their services for lower wages than whites, and employers snapped them up to save labor costs. Soon the whites had to lower their own wages to compete; at the same time, as blacks gained more experience, they raised their demands… eventually, the two races met in the middle, more or less.

Funnily enough, one of the first bills the Kreugerites enacted forced businesses to pay blacks and whites exactly the same wages, “equal pay for equal work.” Sound familiar? The effect was to remove the financial incentive to hire blacks, because their labor was no longer any bargain.

With the market mechanisms removed, it was easy to threaten or bully businesses into hiring and promoting only whites. (Most of the racist coercion was committed by the socialist labor unions, by the way… quelle surprise!) Thus, even in Apartheid South Africa, the free market acted to integrate and equalize the races, while the government — “for their own good” — acted to segregate and discriminate between them — “Apartheid” literally means “apart-ness”.

In any event, I steadfastly believe that even in the deep South in the 1950s, far more potential customers would choose to patronize a business on the basis of quality and price — than on the basis of whether that business segregated black from white. Over the long run (which would likely be only a few years), that would drive out the adamant racists: Businesses operate on such a small margin that even a small economic advantage towards race neutrality would have an oversized effect on a business’ viability.

Unless, that is, the state steps in and makes such racial discrimination mandatory; that is what we mean by “Jim Crow.” If the state interferes with the market, forcing everyone to discriminate, it kills the market’s ability to drive behavior away from irrelevant (and offensive) absurdities like racial discrimination: I can no longer compete with a “whites only” lunchcounter by advertising “we serve everybody!” I would be arrested and my business shut down if I tried.

That robs me of my liberty, my property rights; and that is the ground on which the Civil Rights Act should have been fought. Let freedom reign, and allow the market to do its holy job of driving the fools and haters out of business.

Of course, there will always be pockets where there really are more racists than sons and daughters of liberty; in those dark nooks, they will open their whites-only swimming pools and bowling alleys and ice-skating rinks. What do we do about that?

We let them. If they want to segregate themselves away from the rest of society, let them huddle together and fester. So long as we all have freedom of mobility and association, the 99% of the country that is decent will isolate the tiny fraction who are morally putrid; and the good citizens will open their own pools, alleys, and rinks open to everyone. After all, there’s gold in them thar businesses.

The racist kooks will become curiosities, monkeys in a zoo: We’ll point and laugh at the funny and now-powerless haters, just as we do whenever the Ku Klux Klan musters its eight or nine hoodwinkers to stand on the corner holding up racist, and typically illiterate signs.

That’s the American way, the path of liberty. Just as we don’t deny Klansmen, Black Panthers, or MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) their freedom of speech, we should also not deny them their right to serve only “their own kind,” if that’s what they want.

Nor do we prevent the rest of us from expressing displeasure by patronizing their competitors instead.

Had Rand Paul really thought this all through aforehand, he could have answered Rachel Maddow much more powerfully and directly, like this (warning, fabricated interview ahead!):

MADDOW: Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don’t serve black people?

LIZARDS: Sure — if they want to cut their own economic throats.

MADDOW: What do you mean? The Civil Rights Act was the federal government stepping in to protect civil rights because they weren’t otherwise being protected. It wasn’t a hypothetical. There were businesses that were saying black people cannot be served here and the federal government stepped in and said, no, you actually don’t have that choice to make. The federal government is coming in and saying you can’t make that choice as a business owner.

How about desegregating lunch counters? Lunch counters. Walgreen’s lunch counters, were you in favor of that? Possibly? Because the government got involved?

LIZARDS: The problem wasn’t that Jim Crow wasn’t protecting civil rights, Rachel. The great evil of Jim Crow laws was that they forced even non-racists to racially discriminate.

In a free market, I could open a lunchcounter right across the street from a “whites only” Walgreens; and in my front window, I could put a sign that says “we serve everybody!” I have faith in the American people, Southerners included. Let me compete with the racists without the state government or federal government stacking the deck, and I guarantee you I’ll drive the racial haters out of business and out of town.

That way, we’ll lose the racists — good riddance — but we’ll keep liberty and the sanctity of private property, the cornerstone of America. That’s the same sanctity of private property, by the way, that allows a homeowner to sell his house to a black family, no matter what the ancient, entrenched political class in the state capital demand.

MADDOW: Mr. Reptile, until the year 2000, Bob Jones University, a private institution, had a ban on interracial dating at their school, their private institution. If Bob Jones University wanted to bring that back now, would you support their right to do so?

LIZARDS: Bob Jones University didn’t drop its policy as a result of the Civil Rights Act; President Bob Jones dropped the policy in the year 2000, because the adverse publicity of its racist stance was hurting the university. That’s an important point, Rachel: The market was hurting Bob Jones badly enough that it forced them to change their stupid, evil policy.

The most the feds ever did to BJU was to take away its religious tax exemption. I’ve long argued that when an insitution requests special dispensation that amounts to an endorsement of that institution — such as a religious tax exemption that secular private universities don’t get — the government has every right to make that privilege contingent upon meeting the base-level standards of decency that American society demands. I would just as vigorously oppose giving a tax exemption to Mohammed Atta Martyrdom University, no matter how sincerely held was its jihadist religous curriculum.

MADDOW: Let’s say there’s a town right now and the owner of the town’s swimming club says we’re not going to allow black kids at our pool, and the owner of the bowling alley in town says, we’re not actually going to allow black patrons, and the owner of the skating rink in town says, we’re not going to allow black people to skate here.

And you may think that’s abhorrent and you may think that’s bad business. But unless it’s illegal, there’s nothing to stop that — there’s nothing under your world view to stop the country from re-segregating like we were before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

LIZARDS: Nothing but the justice and common decency of the American people! In the first place, this isn’t the 1950s. The whole world has come a long way in the last half century, wouldn’t you say? And no country in the world is less racist than the United States: Not a single state in the Union has even one pair of racists in its legislature to conspire together to re-segregate the country.

But frankly, Rachel, I don’t even believe any state in the deep South had a majority of racist citizens even in 1964. What they had was an oligarchy of bitter, hate-filled, septuagenarian racists who occupied state legislatures like the Nazis occupied the Reichstag. They were corrupt, elections were rigged, and they couldn’t be ousted from their seats except perhaps by dynamite… or by joining Republican Party!

But that’s no longer true, and it hasn’t been since I was in grade school. Oh yes, there is still racial discrimination in the United States; but today, as in the 50s and 60s, it comes from the left side of the aisle, from race-obsessed Democrats and leftists allied with radical Islam. But so long as we can keep the Left away from the levers of power, I’m confident America will never re-segregate.

I am quite certain this would have been much, much harder to spin as racist, pro-segregation, and anti-civil rights. And in any event, it sure would have made more exciting political theater!

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/20 ... rand-paul/

She didn't call him a Racist.

[Thanos]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Thanos Thanos:

Laissez faire capitalism defined: fuck everyone else, as long as we make money just do it. Sounds 100% identical to a philosophy a heroin peddler would have.

Corrected that for you.

Laissez faire? "Let us do it" (free of state intereference)? It is not logically plausible to suggest that this is not one of the central pillars of libertarian thinking.

[Thanos]

sandorski sandorski:

She didn't call him a Racist.

She should have because she would have been 100% right.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

Laissez faire? "Let us do it" (free of state intereference)? It is not logically plausible to suggest that this is not one of the central pillars of libertarian thinking.

Nope. Not at all.

http://www.lp.org/platform

$1:

2.0 Economic Liberty

A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner. Each person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.

That is not saying that you can conduct your business in such a way that it harms others. Not at all. You are grievously misrepresenting their stance.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

sandorski sandorski:

She didn't call him a Racist.

She should have because she would have been 100% right.

She should have because then Paul could've sued her ass off and won.

[Scape]

NPR interview

$1:

Question: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Rand Paul: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains and I'm all in favor of that.

Questioner: But...?

Rand Paul: (nervous laugh) You had to ask me the "but." um.. I don't like the idea of telling private business owners - I abhor racism - I think it's a bad business decision to ever exclude anybody from your restaurant. But at the same time I do believe in private ownership. But I think there should be absolutely no discrimination on anything that gets any public funding and that's most of what the Civil Rights Act was about to my mind.

Questioner: And then it was extended by most to most localities to include all... Would you be in favor of just local--

Rand Paul: On a local basis it might be a little different. The thing is I would speak out in favor of it. (pause) I mean, I look at the speeches of Martin Luther King, and I tell you I become emotional watching the speeches of Martin Luther King. I love it because he was a transformational figure... [...] (goes on to talk about Martin Luther King for a few moments)

Questioner: But under your philosophy it would be okay for Dr. King to not be served at the counter at Woolworths?

Rand Paul: I would not go to that Woolworth's, and I would stand up in my community and say it's abhorrent. um... But the hard part, and this is the hard part about believing in freedom is, if you believe in the First Amendment, for example, you to, for example-- most good defenders will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things, and we're here at the bastion of newspaperdom (sic) and I'm sure you believe in the First Amendment, so I'm sure you understand people can say bad things. It's the same way with other behaviors. In a free society we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior, but if we're civilized people we publicly criticize that and don't belong to those groups or associate with those people.

Questioner: But it's different with race, certainly a hundred years, discrimination based on race was codified under federal law.

Rand Paul: Exactly, it was institutionalize and that's why we had to end all of the institutional racism in um.. I was in favor of completely of that ...

Rand Paul is saying there that restaurants should be able to refuse service to black people. I'd say that racist.

Rand Paul on Racism and the Civil Rights Act of 1964

$1:

He does say that all private businesses have freedom of speech, and that their freedom of speech must be protected even if what they say is abhorrent. According to Dr. Paul, freedom of speech protects hate speech both verbal and in writing, as well as people's right to march in parades supporting abhorrent things. He draws the line at physical violence, and states that he is opposed to the beatings that nearly took the lives of black people sitting at the Walgreen's lunch counter less than 50 years ago. but he never expresses support for their right to sit there.

During his interview with Rachel Maddow, Rand Paul equates allowing blacks to eat in private restaurants with allowing patrons to bring guns into private restaurants, drink at the bar and start shooting. The logic is not easy to follow, but it seems to be that if the federal government tells private businesses that they have to serve blacks under the Civil Rights Act, then the federal government must also tell private businesses that they must serve people with guns under the Second Amendment. Toward the end of the interview Dr. Paul claims that desegregation is not an issue today.

[N_Fiddledog]

Scape Scape:

Rand Paul is saying there that restaurants should be able to refuse service to black people. I'd say that racist.

No. That isn't what Paul is saying. He's making his point badly, but what he's saying is a free market would serve to eliminate the racism in a way which would be less intrusive to individual rights.

Again here's the question answered correctly...

$1:

MADDOW: What do you mean? The Civil Rights Act was the federal government stepping in to protect civil rights because they weren’t otherwise being protected. It wasn’t a hypothetical. There were businesses that were saying black people cannot be served here and the federal government stepped in and said, no, you actually don’t have that choice to make. The federal government is coming in and saying you can’t make that choice as a business owner.

How about desegregating lunch counters? Lunch counters. Walgreen’s lunch counters, were you in favor of that? Possibly? Because the government got involved?

LIZARDS: The problem wasn’t that Jim Crow wasn’t protecting civil rights, Rachel. The great evil of Jim Crow laws was that they forced even non-racists to racially discriminate.

In a free market, I could open a lunchcounter right across the street from a “whites only” Walgreens; and in my front window, I could put a sign that says “we serve everybody!” I have faith in the American people, Southerners included. Let me compete with the racists without the state government or federal government stacking the deck, and I guarantee you I’ll drive the racial haters out of business and out of town.

That way, we’ll lose the racists — good riddance — but we’ll keep liberty and the sanctity of private property, the cornerstone of America. That’s the same sanctity of private property, by the way, that allows a homeowner to sell his house to a black family, no matter what the ancient, entrenched political class in the state capital demand.

Jim Crow laws enforced racism. They created the whites only lunch counters. Paul would eliminate those. However Paul and other libertarians believe the free market would then make individual racism not commercially viable. They believe racist rules could not exist in a commercial environment in any broad sense. What remained would be ostracized, as ugly to the general public. The ugliness of racism would be revealed, and reviled. They say what was created by the Jim Crow laws could not exist in a free market.

[BartSimpson]

Scape Scape:

Rand Paul is saying there that restaurants should be able to refuse service to black people. I'd say that racist.

Scape, I really expect better of you than this.

Paul is saying that a private business should be free to make their own decisions, even if those decisions are offensive to the public at large. But then those businesses will face the fact that the public will boycott them for their attitude.

What's racist in that?

In the USA we let racists publish hate speech if they want because we believe in freedom of speech. Are we then racist because we merely allow bigots to speak out instead of prosecuting them as is done in Canada?

Or is it that we value liberty more than our spurious right to not be offended?

Paul is properly comparing the free expression of an entrepreneur to the free expression of an individual. It does not mean he is a racist and I am really, really surprised that you of all people would say this.

[Scape]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Paul and other libertarians believe the free market would then make individual racism not commercially viable. They believe racist rules could not exist in a commercial environment in any broad sense. What remained would be ostracized, as ugly to the general public. The ugliness of racism would be revealed, and reviled. They say what was created by the Jim Crow laws could not exist in a free market.

If that were true then why does racism exist at all? The free market is amoral and in an area where there is little variance there is a natural intolerance for difference. That too is the forces of the free market in effect. The pendulum swings both ways and without any regulations will smash clear though any imagination of preconceived right if there is no framework set up to uphold said rights.

You go to Idaho, Texas or Chicago and you make a venue that precludes the general public it will be courting the local majority. There is no way the free market will stop this because of the laws of NIMBY. If it isn't happening in your back yard and effecting your quality of life you don't care and have no stake in this. So that allows this to metastasize and become larger and more culturally acceptable to segregate. That again is the free market at work.

The moment libertarians speak out about the rights of the minority being quashed when they are facing a real an immediate peril I will lend their argument more credence. Till such time they are beetling for a cause that is suspect. I see Paul talking about BP being picked upon but I see nothing for the crab fishermen or the land owners who will end up inhering this mess.

All this talk of the pure free market will save us by libertarians is naive at best because it never take into account the shortcomings of the now or the sacrifices of the past to get to where we are today. Rather, they would slash and burn anything and everything of the constructs that got us the society we currently enjoy like it some sort of dry dock that needs to be cut away. Good-by bill of rights, so long the vast majority of the constitution and forget about improving or adapting laws and regulations for future and current malaise. It's not a mature or reasoned approach to modern day problems at all, it's Peter Pan thinking writ large.

[Scape]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Scape Scape:

Rand Paul is saying there that restaurants should be able to refuse service to black people. I'd say that racist.

Scape, I really expect better of you than this.

Paul is saying that a private business should be free to make their own decisions, even if those decisions are offensive to the public at large. But then those businesses will face the fact that the public will boycott them for their attitude.

What's racist in that?

In the USA we let racists publish hate speech if they want because we believe in freedom of speech. Are we then racist because we merely allow bigots to speak out instead of prosecuting them as is done in Canada?

Or is it that we value liberty more than our spurious right to not be offended?

Paul is properly comparing the free expression of an entrepreneur to the free expression of an individual. It does not mean he is a racist and I am really, really surprised that you of all people would say this.

Rand Paul says that a private business owner has the right to deny service based on that owners preference. Not that they are owning a gun, but that they bring a gun on their property. Not that they drink, but that they drink on their property and not that they are black, but they are black on their property.

Yes, that's racist.

[N_Fiddledog]

Scape Scape:

Yes, that's racist.

No it's not. It's the belief system which says abhorrent behavior is better regulated by the free choices of a free market. That belief may, or may not be correct, but it's not racist.

How can you not see that? I'm baffled. Do you seriously not understand? I don't believe that. So why then are you simply repeating racist, over and over again when Paul tells you clearly in black and white he doesn't support racism, and the libertarian system is supposed to hinder racism, not encourage it. It may not, just as the alternate system of regulation of behaviors deemed incorrect by a ruling elite might not be fully effective, but ideally it is supposed to be. Neither is racist, but racism does swirl about within the confines of both in spite of intent to prevent it. Which works best is not a racist argument.