Rand Paul And The Civil Rights Act

Senate candidate Rand Paul engages in some theorizing about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with Rachel Maddow and a Kentucky newspaper.  He is mostly supportive, but opposed some of the bits requiring private businesses to modify their practices:

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

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.

INTERVIEWER: But?

PAUL: You had to ask me the “but.” I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.

...

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

PAUL: I would not go to that Woolworths, and I would stand up in my community and say that it is 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 have too, for example, most good defenders of the First Amendment will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things. . . . It’s the same way with other behaviors. In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior.

Let me just note that sometimes regulations can be empowering.  As a theoretical matter, it may be that free choice leaves each of us at a local hilltop on the grand utility-maximization curve, but not at the global optimum. And circumstances may be such that no one person (or small group) can plausibly make the (metaphorical) trek across the valley to the global optimum, but all could move there under the force of law.

So for example, back in the South it may be that no one idealistic white businessman can afford to integrate his establishment - he may gain some (mostly poor) black customers as well as the friends and relations of Atticus Finch, but lose many others to a possible (probable?) white boycott.  Letting the free market sort this out could have taken generations.

For examples closer to home, consider Bloomberg's ban on smoking in restaurants.  The argument is that now everyone enjoys smoke-free restaurants where we can actually smell the food.  So why, if the ban is so popular, weren't there a plethora of smoke-free restaurants prior to Bloomberg's law?  Such a restaurant could only survive on knowlegable (and repeat) customers; folks won't be going to a restaurant with the boss or the out-of-town guest if they aren't sure about who enjoys a cigar or cigarette after a meal.

The French are making the same argument with their burkha ban - this will, they say, empower Muslim women currently constrained by social and religious pressure.

I see that Bruce Bartlett is saying the same thing, more succinctly.

IF RICHARD EPSTEIN IS WITH ME...:

"To be against Title II in 1964 would be to be brain-dead to the underlying realities of how this world works," said professor Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago. "In 1964, every major public accommodation that operated a nationwide business was in favor of being forced to admit minorities." National chains, he explained, feared desegregating in the South without the backing of the federal government because they feared boycotts, retribution and outright violence.

Comments

[anduril]

Isn't this what blacks already think all Republican voters are really, secretly, deep down like? Personally opposed, but if you're dying of thirst I won't help you get a glass of water from a private business that refuses you? It would violate some sort of important principle.

[Clarice]

I agree with Bartlett, he should say immediately that he erred and explain NOW.

[anduril]

"In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior."

My sentiments exactly.

[Cecil Turner]

I agree the market won't necessarily fix these sorts of problems. And Bartlett makes the case more succinctly, but as a commenter points out, he conflates (or neglects) the effect of laws that institutionalized racism at the time. Barring the government from abetting those practices (the part RP approves of) may well have yielded a different result.

In any event, his desire to keep government out of private business transactions is defensible on both moral and legal grounds. But I wish he'd kept his mouth shut. (And I also wish Trey Grayson had gotten the nomination.)

[Ignatz]

--So why, if the ban is so popular, weren't there a plethora of smoke-free restaurants prior to Bloomberg's law?--

Can't speak for NY, but in CA prior to any blanket ban there was a plethora of smoke free restaurants.
Guess this where my libertarian stripes part company with conservatives, but it seems to me Paul has it about right.
A more restrained CRA limited to public discrimination might have taken generations to work itself out or it might very well have led quickly to a working out that didn't include racial quotas, black regression through victimhood and the other pathologies associated with government overreach.
As one commentor at Bartlett's site and Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have pointed out many times, Bartlett etal are dead wrong to claim that blacks did not make progress until Brown and CRA. In many ways they have gone backwards since then.

[Without that right, one's a slave.]

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.
=====================

[bunkerbuster]

Paul's right on this, of course, and I give him credit for trying to make the argument and live with the consequences.
What a breath of fresh air against faux libertarians (90 percent of Republicans) who spin rhetorical castles out of "freedom," then pivot straight into how devoted they are to letting the government decide who can marry, whose religion deserves opprobrium and who the police can accost at will.
Like his father Ron, Rand might well be the greatest foil for Democrats.
He's obviously intelligent, so I do wonder why he didn't spin the question this way: I recognize the essential importance of liberty, but I have no sympathy for any business that manifests racism. But if an African American lawyer wants to hire an African American architect, who is the government to say he's breaking some law. or somesuch...
Republicans, it seems, tend to deliberately avoid these kinds of arguments, because, at bottom, they actually want to signal -- but not say, of course -- that, at bottom, they are with the powerful and established and against the weak and vulnerable.

[Jane says obamasucks]

I'm with Paul too Ignatz. When the world decided that it had to give a leg up to women I was a little surprised because all I could think was: "discriminate against me at your peril" I expected people to want and need my business. I still feel that way and I wish others would too.

[Clarice]

Ignatz, Jane---I think you both have principled positions that are very hard to deal with in the course of a campaign. Paul was unprepared and didn't answer as clearly as he should have, I still think he ought to clarify.

[anduril]

America is facing some pretty serious problems, and Rand Paul wants to have a national conversation on race--specifically, on why white people should be allowed to keep black people out of public accommodations. Please! I see no great principle here. If the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution, then I say it's a shame that idiots drove the majority of right thinking people to say: enough, no matter what the Constitution says! If blacks are good enough to die for this country then they're good enough to shop in this country on the same terms that white people do. And vice versa.

[bgates]

I'm not sure how I would have voted on a bill that passed four years before my parents met.

I'd like to ask one thing to anybody who insists the CRA remain in its current form forever: is opposition to the draft just code for an attempt to revive Nazi Germany? The draft was an infringement on personal liberty, as are aspects of the CRA. The draft arguably played a greater role in destroying the Nazis than the CRA played in destroying segregation.

I imagine the response would be that it's stupid to keep laws on the books out of paranoia over a threat that vanished decades ago.

[Danube of Thought]

Paul--unfortunately, like his father--is an example of libertarian ideology taken to a logical but unacceptable extreme. I'm sure that in his heart of hearts he thinks all highways should be privately-funded toll roads.

As of today he leads his Dem opponent by over twenty points, but I doubt that will last.

[Danube of Thought]

And by the way, on this Blumenthal character: I'm pretty sure that not only was there something about wife-beating in there, but I think I recall a DUI as well. It's all a bit foggy...

[MarkO]

Blumie lied when he said he he had a DUI.

[anduril]

Beautiful. Telling store operators they have to serve blacks just like any other citizens is transformed into giving blacks a "leg up."

[Clarice]

Harry Truman as I recall was adamant that he would serve any customer he chose and refuse anyone he chose.OTOH by EO he de-segregated the military on moral grounds and probably did the most to integrate America.

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN for one of two companion cases upholding the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[anduril]

I could understand if Paul had taken a principled stand on equality before the law, decried legalized discrimination, interpretations of the Civil Rights Act that lead to those results, but I have no sympathy for the idea that anyone has a Constitutional right to treat his fellow human beings like dirt--and should have government force to back him up. I suppose black police should enforce that right, too?

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN for the other one of the companion cases.

[bunkerbuster]

We see the same thing with immigration, of course. How easy would it be for Republicans to vanquish all allegations of anti-Latino sentiment?
All they have to do is say they favor amnesty for any illegal worker that provides testimony leading to the conviction of his employer.
If employers knew any illegal could rat them out, and get amnesty, how many would be willing to take the risk just to cut their labor cost? You'd have to be crazy to hire anyone who couldn't prove legal residence under those circumstances. And when there's no jobs, there will be very, very few illegal workers. Problem solved.
Republicans wouldn't do that, of course, because their political appeal on the issue is based on whipping up anti-Latino sentiment. It's all about white people who feel put upon and it's especially essential to the GOP formula because, while they want to project the idea that they favor the powerful over the weak, they also know need the votes of weak, vulnerable white people. So having someone even weaker and more vulnerable than your working-poor white person is essential to the GOP's political formula, and one of the main reason libertarianism is the last thing the party can actually stand for...

[Extraneus]

I rarely watch TV, and always skip past MSNBC, even more quickly when I see Rachel's mug, but I happened to see that interview last night, and I thought Paul was principled and I didn't find myself disagreeing with him.

He made the argument that Maddow's gotcha position was consistent with outlawing any establishment's freedom to restrict firearms from their premises, which she was lamely unwilling to concede.

His basic point was that freedom means that free people are free to have abhorrent positions, say abhorrent things, etc. In the case of racism, government, after passage of the Civil Rights Act, cannot.

Tough to handle in a sound-bite, but I didn't think he came off as intellectually dishonest, insensitive or bigoted. In particular, he said he wouldn't support Wollworth's or give them his business if they refused blacks.

[5yearterm]

He's a legacy like O. Son of informant, CIA legacy gets all the good stuff like Harvard Presidents, etc. He's not wanted by them, so he'll go with bars have rights, like to throw people out. Someone who goes along with all that legacy shit like jobs, Harvards, presidents and stuff is wanted.

He should have explained that drinking and smoking are bad for you and everyone around you and this should be stopped. He should make those illegal in his State and get elected to Presidents and stuff. 100s of millions of votes there. Dope is still illegal.

[earterm]

The burka stuff makes no sense. You come into my store with a mask on your going to get shot, beaten, stabbed and thrown out. I'll apoize after I feel safe.

[Danube of Thought]

A response to Paul that (I think) would not traduce libertarian orthodoxy is that a racially integrated society, like an educated one, is a public good that should be publicly enforced--like the institution of private property. The scope of "enforcement" raises some issues, but none of these questions is resolved by resort to a cookbook in which the exact recipe is found.

The difficult cases--for me--were not those involving public lunch counters or public housing. The reach into the activities of private clubs seemed a bit of a stretch, as when the California Club was forced to admit women. It was not smart to exclude them, and I have no doubt there would be many female members today even without governmental coercion, but the state felt the need to flex its muscles. Not the end of the world.

[anduril]

What a great idea--let's have a national conversation on keeping blacks out of our stores, instead of on Obamacare, or terrorism, or immigration (yes, blacks are hurt by illegal immigration), or jobs, or bailouts. What a freaking moron.

[Thomas Collins]

The 1964 SCOTUS decisions focused on whether Congress had power under the Commerce Clause to prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations. In the Civil Rights Cases (decided in 1883), SCOTUS, in invalidating the Civil Rights Act of 1875, ruled that Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment didn't empower Congress to regulate non-State behavior. Said Section 5 provides that:

"The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article [the 14th Amendment]."

In my judgment, Section 5 of the 14th Amendment is better read as a broad grant of power to eliminate the badges of slavery, including without limitation empowering Congress to prohibit racial discrimination in places of public accommodation. I think that Congress in 1964 focused on the Commerce Clause power to avoid the question of whether the holding in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases as to the scope of Congress' Section 5 power should be overturned.

See LUN for the dissenting opinion of the first Mr. Justice Harlan in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases. This dissent argues, in my view convincingly, that Congress had the power under the 13th and 14th Amendments to prohibit racial discrimination in places of public accommodation.

[anduril]

Yo! Earth to Collins! It's not about the Constitution--it's about preserving a distance between "us" and people with yucky black skin.

Clarice, what a hypocrite you are. Like you really believe that libertarian bullshit.

[Danube of Thought]

Concerning the authority of the state, take a listen to this audio of an encounter between a Canadian and his wife crossing into the US.

I feel a little ambivalent about it. The customs guy offended the hell out of me at the beginning, but I found myself wanting this smart-ass to get his comeuppance. Shame on me.

[Army of Davids]

Who is Yuri Bezmenov?

[narciso]

Fmr, KGB involved in the dezinformatiya and other propaganda operations who shows how the
media, academia have systematically undermined
society

[Richard Aubrey]

I did the civil rights thing in MS 67 & 68.
I can't say where things would have gone, but there were integrated retail establishments--as the law required--when I was there and I saw no ad hoc racist adjustments like double-pricing or ignoring the black customer.
IIRC, it was the English, so to speak, who opposed apartheid in SA because it cut them out of customers. The Afrikaaners, mostly agricultural, didn't have that problem.
Incidentally, in Marshall County, where I worked, a black sheriff--the big guy, not a deputy--was killed in the line of duty and there is a memorial to him in the county building.
So a black guy could be elected sheriff in 1987, which meant he was somebody for some years prior to that in order to have name recognition.
Turns out he was, iirc, coroner who hammered a case where a cop shot a black without cause and covered it up. Sparked the Byhalia boycott.
I would not have guessed things were moving that fast.
It pays some of us, those who went south and those who didn't, to insist on the horror of the situation, unrelieved by any prospect of change.
It gives us more creds, and it justifies punitive legislation and enforcement.

[Thomas Collins]

I have found the full text of Mr Justice Bradley's majority opinion (it was an 8-1 decision), and Mr. Justice Harlan's dissent, in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases. I believe Mr. Justice Harlan eviscerates Mr. Justice Bradley's majority opinion, but folks can decide for themselves.

The reason I post these items is my belief that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is constitutional under the Civil War Amendments to the US Constitution. Thus, whatever one may think of the Commerce Clause arguments, I think upholding the 1964 Civil Rights Act was the correct result.

Constitutional matters aside, I believe the Civil Rights Act of 1964 sets forth appropriate restrictions on discrimination in places of public accommodation. The statute is quite consistent with the notion of government setting forth the framework in which a free market system operates (see Hayek).

[Like Sisyphus, he'll push his moral outrage back up to the top of the hill.]

Hey, let's think about refusing service to anyone wearing a burkah. Hey, maybe we won't even let them in the country.
==================

[anduril]

Hey, maybe we won't even let them in the country.

Now you're starting to make some sense. Some people aren't as smart as you are--can't distinguish between discriminating against fellow citizens and letting the whole world into the country.

[bgates]

a racially integrated society, like an educated one, is a public good that should be publicly enforced--like the institution of private property

Good news, then - we finally have a government that promises to do as well with the third item on your list as its predecessors have done with the second. So who would want to deny it an equally large role in implementing the first?

[sbw]

As a newspaper publisher, I can refuse any advertisement and give no reason for it. I cherish that prerogative.

I am dead set against some do-gooder deciding that because he or she has a simple majority it somehow justifies one becoming, for instance, the fat police, taxing my soda, or telling me I must do business with someone. The best government restricts what it imposes.

With my position at least minimally out there, the problem with Rand Paul's answer is the question. This is not 1964 and it is a [typically liberal and progressive] mistake to telescope time and claim some moral high ground 45 years later.

I would that Rand had said, "This is today, not 1964, and the problems we face are different. I don't believe someone today deserves special privileges by claiming ancestral victimhood. After all, one person's ancestor may have been wrongly enslaved, but my ancestors paid a horrifying price at Gettysburg to free them yet I don't claim to be a victim. We cannot be held hostage to history. We can only learn from it."

Besides, I am more likely not to serve someone because they are a thoughtless ass, regardless of skin color.

[Thomas Collins]

Anduril, it is not only about the Constitution, but the Constitution is certainly a key factor in this discussion. In addition, although I'm sure Clarice is quite capable of speaking for herself, the statement that a position is principled is not an expression of agreement with a position (whether based on libertarianism or otherwise).

I must make a concession to you, anduril. This is not the first time the phrase "Earth to Collins" has been directed at me. :-))

[anduril]

Russel Crowe's Robin Hood Is Powered By Linux
Submitted by Muktware Bureau on Wed, 2010-05-19 04:57

10diggsdigg

Robin Hood meets Linux. What else could be a better metaphor?

Colorist Stephen Nakamura of Santa Monica-based Company 3 used DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci 2K high-end Linux systems for all the color grading work on Universal Pictures’ epic action-adventure “Robin Hood,” starring Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, directed by Ridley Scott and produced by Oscar winner Brian Grazer.

“The grading of Robin Hood was a very exacting process, and Resolve gave us the power and feature set that we needed. I could not have done the work the way I did it by using any other system.”

Hmmm. Cate Blanchett? Is there an editor in the house?

[You really are very funny.]

Touche, anduril, but remember, sometimes there are distinctions without a difference. Sure there's a difference, here, but some of the point withstands the difference.
==============

[A free press is anathema; it's a good thing we don't have one.]

sbw, I suspect a progressive 'fairness doctrine' will take that prerogative from you.
==============

[anduril]

Paul was unprepared and didn't answer as clearly as he should have, I still think he ought to clarify.

Posted by: Clarice | May 20, 2010 at 05:41 PM

If you believe that, I have a bridge...

[Instead, we strut our poor part.]

During my first six months blogging I went round and round repeatedly with a marvelous libertarian with the name of Robespierre. The logic is unassailable; the vision is superhuman.
==================

[anduril]

BOTW notes that "it wasn't the first time Paul was asked the question." So, he just hadda say that.

[Thomas Collins]

In his dissent, Mr. Justice Harlan states what I believe should be the dispositive principles with respect to this issue:

"Today it is the colored race which is denied, by corporations and individuals wielding public authority, rights fundamental in their freedom and citizenship. At some future time, it may be that some other race will fall under the ban of race discrimination. If the constitutional amendments be enforced according to the intent with which, as I conceive, they were adopted, there cannot be, in this republic, any class of human beings in practical subjection to another class with power in the latter to dole out to the former just such privileges as they may choose to grant. The supreme law of the land has decreed that no authority shall be exercised in this country upon the basis of discrimination, in respect of civil rights, against freemen and citizens because of their race, color, or previous condition of servitude. To that decree -- for the due enforcement of which, by appropriate legislation, Congress has been invested with express power -- everyone must bow, whatever may have been, or whatever now are, his individual views as to the wisdom or policy either of the recent changes in the fundamental law or of the legislation which has been enacted to give them effect."

[narciso]

It's little wonder you don't understand strict and intermediate scrutiny, that stems
from the distance between 1883 and the Civil
Right Act. Paul didn't think through this question, which might augur badly for him as
a candidate.

[bgates]

I would that Rand had said, "This is today, not 1964, and the problems we face are different."

"Certainly the offenses against blacks that were enshrined into law by white southern Democrats were the worst thing any government in this country has done. The very worst thing was slavery, which was imposed by white southern Democrats and fortunately destroyed by the first Republican President. The next-worst thing was the system of Jim Crow set up by later generations of white southern Democrats despite the best efforts of Radical Republicans to combat it. By the 1960s, the post-slavery oppression of blacks had gone on for a hundred years, and it is true that the coalition of Republicans and some northern Democrats who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 helped to destroy institutionalized racism in the south, which was a very good change. But in the years since, the south has grown steadily more Republican and less racist. Today racism and segregation are even opposed by white southern Democrats, the demographic which was always the driving force behind those evils."

"So why dwell on the terrible, truly awful things that were done to black Americans by Democrats all those years ago?"

[anduril]

I'm gonna go soak my head, so I'll leave you with a question--who wrote this:

Perle was debating Flynt Leverett, and devoting most of his effort to debunk Leverett’s argument that a productive deal could be worked out with the current Teheran government, as useful and strategically necessary as Nixon’s opening to China. But Perle’s main focus is “regime change”—doing to Teheran what we did to Baghdad.

Perle talked much about sanctions. But honestly, it’s hard to conceive that “biting sanctions” backed by no other powers in the world besides Israel and the United States Congress would have much chance of fomenting “regime change” in Tehran. So the real option is military. Perle can’t count on a single American general to talk this up as a desirable idea. But here’s the trick: Israel can get the ball in motion. A former ambassador asked Perle what the United States could do if we became convinced that Israel was about to launch an attack on Iran.

His answer is revealing: “I would hope that if we became persuaded that the Israelis were about to act, whatever we thought of the wisdom of that action, we would consider that the worst of all possible outcomes would be a failed Israeli action. And we would therefore do what we could to see that it didn’t fail. You can change policy very quickly. . . you did not want it to happen, but now it’s gonna happen and suddenly you recalibrate. At least I hope you recalibrate and in the event we might reconsider whether our opposition, carried forward, is helpful or harmful.”

You have to respect Perle for making this all sound wonkish and practical. But it really is kind of breathtaking. The United States should abrogate its own powers of decision-making in an area with tremendous implications for its own physical and economic security and cede them to the current government of Israel—a far right government which includes fascist ministers in key posts. Failure to do so— behaving like Eisenhower for example and telling the Israelis to get the hell out of Suez or their allowance would be cut off-- would be “the worst of all possible outcomes.”

Perle is more or less mouthing the lines of Professor Groeteschele in the movie Fail-Safe: “our morals would never have permitted us to launch a first strike, but now that one is in motion, we must take advantage and launch a full scale attack.” But in this case, Bibi Netanhayu gets to play the role of the electronic malfunction that gave the mistaken first strike orders to a bomber command and decide for himself whether to plunge the United States into war. Why? Well of course because “the worst of all outcomes” would be an Israeli attack which doesn’t achieve its goals!

[A poor part, nonetheless.]

er, I guess, TC, we strut and bow.
================

[You should know better.]

It looks like you're going to go soak your head in straw, anduril, 'cuz that's a strawman.
===================

[Oh, well, go on, n.]

Now I have to understand strict and intermediate scrutiny? Please say it didn't have to come to this.
==================

[MarkO]

Paul was born in 1963. For him, like Obama, it is all theoretical. That is no excuse for stupidity. At least there are enough of us left alive who can remember the difference between this country before the Civil Rights Act and after. Honest to God.

[narciso]

Do we want Iran to have the bomb, if the answer is no, than we or the Israelis have
to act, if we see the dowsides of them having
the bomb greater than any actions taken toward
that goal. Leverett is a toady who rationalizes the Pasdaran regime, lock stock
and barrel, in that case, I stand with Perle

[Strawman Cometh]

he is a fool who is suffering from the foolish consistency syndrome that affects all libertarians.
word

[Clarice]

And Finklestein is a known anti-Israeli. But of course.

In any event--Paul has issued a clarification:

"Bowing to the reality that this has become an ugly national story, Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul released a lengthy statement on his views about the Civil Rights Act. (He was performing surgery earlier today, unreachable by reporters.)

"As I have said in previous statements, sections of the Civil Rights Act were debated on Constitutional grounds when the legislation was passed," says Paul. "Those issues have been settled by federal courts in the intervening years. My opponent's statement on MSNBC Wednesday that I favor repeal of the Civil Rights Act was irresponsible and knowingly false. I hope he will correct the record and retract his claims."

I can't decide whether Paul has benefited or been hurt by the change of focus from the original story -- whether his opposition to basically any federal intervention in business practices meant he opposed the Americans With Disabilities Act, opposed FDA regulation of food, etc. Instead, this has become a fairly tired "is candidate a racist or isn't he?" story -- one that Paul thinks he can deflect."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/rand_paul_explains_himself_civ.html>Every Dem campaign is the same, isn't it?

Next,on the macaca express.......

[Danube of Thought]

we finally have a government that promises to do as well with the third item on your list as its predecessors have done with the second.

I didn't make a list, so I'm guessing that by the third item you are referring to the institution of private property. It has been publicly defended in this country (see, e.g. the police forces and the courts) since the founding, principally at the local level.

I further guess that the second item is public education, which was handled just fine by local public school boards, at local public expense, for about 150 years.

When you talk about our finally having "a government" that is doing this, that or the other, you appear to mean exclusively the federal government. I don't, not by any means.

So who would want to deny it an equally large role in implementing the first?

I assume you are talking about the federal government's role in integrating the society. I would just point out that at the time it intervened to do so in 1964 it had played virtually no role in either of the other two activities, so its performance in those two, although miserable (at least in public education; it doesn't play much of a role one way or another with respect to private property), doesn't tell us much about whether it was wise or competent in its enactment and enforcement of civil rights legislation.

[MarkO]

I don't want Iran to have the bomb, but Obama and Clinton do. Now what?

You do realize that it will happen, don't you?

Even if Obama wanted to intervene, he would likely foul it up just like Carter.

[Janet]

I would vote for Rand Paul over Rachel Maddow any day.

[narciso]

Very likely, that's why the Israelis would have to do it, sadly too many refuse to understand that there would only be "General
Ripper's in charge of the situation in Iran

[Janet]

I went and got an Arizona lapel pin today to go with my flag. Our Congress is a disgrace. Maybe a "reporter" like Rachel Maddow could put the President of Mexico in the hot seat...
Support Arizona!

[Porchlight]

IIRC Paul's position is the same as William F. Buckley's at the time.

[anduril]

So, Paul thinks parts of the Civil Rights Act were unconstitutional, but he doesn't want to repeal it? Is that sensible? Will that make the media change the subject?

[Extraneus]

During the interview, Paul noted multiple times that of the 10 articles in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he was strongly in favor of nine. I don't know them, and can't look them up at the moment, but it wasn't the Act that he was taking exception to, just the one section that related to private individuals.

[Pagar]

"Maybe a "reporter" like"
More likely she would try to give him blank voter registeration papers.

IMO, the entire attack on Paul is the leftists determined to bring down any one who is not running as a Democrat.

"(He was performing surgery earlier today, unreachable by reporters.)"
A person with a useful skill, Obviously not anyone the leftists want making laws.

[anduril]

Interesting blog: Rebranding Israel as a state headed for fascism. Seem's appropriate to cite this in a discussion of civil rights. Note that there are Jews in Israel sticking up for the underdog, just as there were Jews in the US civil rights movement. Here's the part that caught my eye:

At the weekend, Israeli police riot troops waded into a thoroughly non-violent sit-in near the entrance to this East Jerusalem settlement zone, where Palestinian residents were expelled by Israeli court order, to allow their homes to be taken over by Jews.

What was curious here was not the neck-wrenching brutality of the Yasam riot police in their gunmetal gray uniforms, bristling with assault rifles, clubs, tear gas and helmets, arrayed against the demonstrators, most of of them Israeli Jews, some of them well past retirement age.

What was surprising was not the fact that several burly officers, seeing a young Reshet Bet (Israel State Radio news) reporter - his microphone clearly and unmistakably marked, interview one of the seated demonstrators - jump him and drag him away in a headlock to a police custody van.

In the end, what was peculiar was that the police seemed so entirely bewildered, so completely lacking in clear orders, left on their own to decide how to proceed in an arena of hair-trigger sensitivity. Fascism with a confused face.

Here's the author's bio:

Bradley Burston is a Haaretz columnist and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com which publishes his blog, "A Special Place in Hell."

During the first Palestinian uprising, Burston served as Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, and was the paper's military correspondent in the 1991 Gulf War.

In the mid-1990s he covered Israeli-Arab peace talks for Reuters. In 2006, he received the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Mideast Journalism, presented at the United Nations.

A native of Los Angeles, Burston moved to Israel after graduation from Berkeley. He was part of a group which established Kibbutz Gezer, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Burston served in the IDF as a combat medic, later studying medicine in Be'er Sheva for two years before turning to journalism. He is married and has two daughters.

[Danube of Thought]

I shared Buckley's view in 1964. We've all seen and learned a lot since then, and I've changed my mind.

[narciso]

This comment seems indicative, of the truth;

live in Israel and what he writes obout , is like he is writing about a DIFFERENT country. Burston has became like Ilan Pappe, Gideon Levi and Amira Hass . All Professionals Israel Bashing ... Making a living from hating Israel. All of you should go and work for your living instead of writing nonsense.....

Now even Jeffrey Goldberg has realized this is a war for '48, not '67, and your argument
seem increasingly drawn from those who would
have been at home, at the intersection of
Millonya and Fontanka street in old St. Petersburg

[Porchlight]

DoT,

Understood, and thanks for the response. I just wanted to point out that it is - or was, anyway - a view not wildly out of the conservative mainstream.

[Carl Pham]

I'm totally with Paul, and couldn't care less about Maguire's weak-minded argument.

Whatever social utility there may be in freeing up black folks from private discrimination pales to insignificance besides the lunacy of empowering the government to dictate how we behave in private settings. From this malignant marriage of Reconstruction and Progressivism directly comes the Mommy Knows Best interfering government of today.

Everybody discriminates, and is discriminated against. Single fathers are persona non grata on kindergarten playgrounds and brutally discriminated against (vis-a-vis married fathers, and in contrast to single mothers) in tax law. Muslims running tiny Middle Eastern shops may give favors to fellow Muslims and overcharge Jews. Korean immigrant waiters may spit in the soup before they serve it to Japanese businessmen. Harvard graduates in the civil service may discriminate against applicants with degrees from Penn State.

And on and on and on. It's human nature to like and dislike certain people for a bazillion seemingly (and often factually) irrelevant reasons of skin color, ethnic background, physical appearance -- try being ugly or fat -- sex, national origin, cultural background, manner of speech or regional accent, and so forth. To imagine we can legislate all of this away -- that the cost of attempting to control the private opinions of each of us according to the will of the majority of us -- is insanity worthy of some Madeleine L'Engle nightmare planet.

The best we can do is prohibit discrimination from public transactions, on the grounds that we are all equal before the law (if not possibly in each other's private opinions), and because this, at least, is plausibly enforceable without destroying the concept of individual liberty and freedom of conscience.

[bgates]

I didn't make a list, so I'm guessing that by the third item you are referring to the institution of private property.

You didn't put "third item" in quotes, yet I am able to discern that you are referring to my use of that phrase. Looks like we're both geniuses.

When you talk about our finally having "a government" that is doing this, that or the other, you appear to mean exclusively the federal government. I don't, not by any means.

Since we live in different states, the only government we both have is in fact the federal government. I had thought that the use of the term "our government" in the context of a discussion about a federal law would have made that perfectly clear anyway. It's true that other levels of government have done many things for a long time. So what? It's also true that the federal government (of the United States of America, in case it's not clear which government I'm talking about) hadn't yet in 1964 done the damage to education that it has to date, so its failures in that arena could not have been considered in 1964. (Likewise with federal control over the production and distribution of wealth - here it's done much less damage than in education, but the current federal government appears to want to make up for lost time.) Since it is not 1964, I'll consider its failures when wondering whether it's the appropriate vehicle to achieve the good of a racially integrated society.

[Extraneus]

First they make a big deal that Paul is a "Tea Party favorite!" Then the go after him using Alinsky #4. ("Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.")

Just a strategy to take the Tea Party people down a peg.

[narciso]

Actually I think that's Rule 12, pick, polarize, isolate I believe, Ex,

[squaredance]

How comic and pathetic that you folks think that either the black race or the nation are "better off" than they were before passage of the CRA. I truly doubt that you "remember what the country was like before the CRA". More likely you are just reflexively buying into the whole false narrative.

The democrats destroyed and independent black culture and middle class. We say the "talented" tenth"? It is more like the "talented 2%", and most of them have made it by being part of the democrat Nomenklatura not by their own merits. Think not? go have a look at the pathetic incompetents that now inhabit the WH or the DoJ. Have a gander at our Attorney General. That such people wield by such power is the mark of decadent, deluded and near suicidal nation; to imagine that this is an "improvement" or "progress" is as stupid as it is insane.

How sad that you imagine that this is a case of "misguided, libertarian purism". You grandfathers would have know that it is nothing of the sort.

This nation was a infinitely better place in 1950 than it was in 1970 or is today. It was indeed another country--it seems another epoch. It is the America that most of us would see restored. If you transported any American, one of any race, back to that time they could scarcely believe the wonderful, free and prosperous society, nation and civilization we were then. It would both shame and confuse them.

In fact the CRA is unconstitutional. Beyond that, It is none of the the federal governments business what you do with your property. They have not the moral authority. To wrap one faction's war against another faction in the cloak of morality, particularity when that party is a bunch of Trotskyites, has nothing whatsoever to do with "morality" or "civil rights".

In fact, the whole civil rights movement has been a disaster for this nation. It has not raise one race to that of another but lowered one race to that of the "oppressed" race. It has lead, in part, to the destruction of standards, morality and institutions across the board. The collapse of our educational system and the ascendancy of the Hard Left, their "march through the intuitions", has been enabled by this. And it all in the end was wholly cynical of them too. The prize was tyranny and slavery, not "equality", as many of you here are about to discover.

I do not know why you are sitting around congratulating yourself on the "moral triumph" of the CRA when in fact it may well have opened the door to the loss of the Republic.

As with abortion, feminism and gay rights, "civil rights" agitation was one of the main tactics of the Soviet direct action cadres against this nation, and this much predates than the Cold War. Indeed, Stalin use "Civil Rights" internally in the USSR to destroy Russian Society and traditions, and used it as an excuse to uproot political enemies and troublesome "peoples". It is part and parcel of Cultural and Political Marxism.

You people call you conservatives, but once again, you prove you are not. You are clueless to your real history, the real political history of the 20th century and the war that is upon us now--a war that we are losing. You still buy into the left wing narrative.

There has been no race as pampered as succored or catered in the history of this nation as black Americans these last 50 years. What have we got for it?

The ascendancy of a viper pit of Gramscian traitors, that is what. The near destruction of the USA as a world power, that is what. What may well be the final destruction of all the wealth built up over generations and the destruction of the means to rebuild it, that is what.

You you all still mince and regurgitate the whole vile lefty narrative, it is so inside your bones that you cannot not see how deeply they have corrupted you.

Get clear about it for your civilization hangs in the balance. Wise up.

[Extraneus]

As for this "they didn't read the Arizona law" bs, it's just a strategy to guard against the logical next question.

"Then you know that racial profiling is prohibited in the law, don't you?"

Their position is so untenable that they find it better to claim ignorance than be pinned down by facts, embarrassing as that is.

[narciso]

Yes we know that the Communists used civil rights originally for their own purposes to create an independent region, but the puerile
arguments from 1896 on, earlier if you read
the Harlan dissent

[narciso]

(cont) made that much more possible, with Plessy, being particularly disingenuous, Wilson's additions didn't help things any

[sbw]

Square, that was a stylish rant.

When I parsed the diplo-speak, distilling ambiguous generalities down to their substance, I can't see that you actually said anything. It seemed a call to action absent a compass. Please hit the reset button.

[qrstuv]

Well, squaredance, I would argue that one of the fundamental rights in our society is the right to vote, and I believe it is a matter of fact that the white majority in certain states was depriving blacks of that right, via mob rule.

Addressing *that* was the correct thing to do.

I don't know about the rest of the parts of the CRA.

[narciso]

So, they are using the cartoons as an all purpose rationales, even though he was wreaking havoc two years before, in the LUN

[Threadkiller]

Get clear about it for your civilization hangs in the balance. Wise up.

I am new here so sometimes I will touch a hot stove, even though I have been told, "the stove is hot."

This seems like you have found a great deal for us so called conservatives to improve upon. Besides "wise up", do you have a plan?

[Pagar]

Hot Air site brings us the latest US government official who refuses to do his Job.

"Ice Chief-We might not process illegals referred to us by Arizona"

Insane!

[DrJ]

Besides "wise up", do you have a plan?

None that has ever been stated. Squaredance's posts, and anduril's, are ones where I simply Scroll On By (SOB).

[narciso]

Btw, the media is glorifying Ramon Illyich Sanchez, Carlos, at Cannes, the attempted
LUN was about Al Quahtani in the Boston Globe

[Danube of Thought]

I had thought that the use of the term "our government" in the context of a discussion about a federal law would have made that perfectly clear anyway.

Actually, you didn't use the term "our government," but never mind. And when you say "we" finally have a government, I'm unable to be certain that you mean "you and I" any more than if Nancy Pelosi or David Paterson were to say it.

You may well have been discussing only a federal law, but I would have thought it was clear from my discussion of public education and the protection of private property that I was not. I was discussing the question of the appropriate roles of man and the state.

Since it is not 1964, I'll consider its failures when wondering whether it's the appropriate vehicle to achieve the good of a racially integrated society.

Be my guest. Seems you're a bit late.

[narciso]

So two years ago, the other Charles Johnson was writing this, in the LUN

[bunkerbuster]

The ``if you don't think Iran should have the bomb, you must attack'' formulation is a moronically false dichotomy.
The only serious debate is over HOW to stop them, not whether to and, more specifically, how much is it worth.
Is it worth starting a third U.S. war in the region? Is it worth 10 or 100 or 10,000 U.S. lives?
The people who stamp their feet and insist that if you don't like the idea of invasion, you must like the idea of an Iranian bomb are no more thoughtful than children who insist that if you decline to buy them candy, you must hate them.
The world is full of security threats and there is nothing unique about Iran getting the bomb.
If we look at recent history, we can see that it isn't circumspection in the face of these threats that gets us into the most trouble, it's the blank-check mentality that puts some or other narrow geopolitical goal beyond common sense.
In the Reagan era, that goal was ousting the Soviets from Afghanistan. To do that, we weakened Constitutional government at home (operating in secret and in collusion with ruthless foreign tyrannies), while fomenting the birth of modern fake-religious gangsterism in Afghanistan via support for the self-described radical Islamists who would later attack us on 9/11.
But that's not all, alas. Along the way, the Reagan administration blocked efforts to sanction Pakistan for developing a nuclear weapon, only because Pakistan, while controlled by an Islamist despot, was the cloak for our dagger in Afghanistan, delivering the stinger missiles, etc. that helped bin Laden and his ilk defeat the Soviets.
Now that Pakistan's nuclear technology has seeped into Iran -- and probably North Korea, Algeria, Morocco and Saudi Arabia as well -- all the wingnuts can think to do is demand ANOTHER blank check for more of the same, just as they did with Iraq (the government of which is surely to soon become another determined foe of Israel). Are they ignorant of how Iran got the technology in the first place, or in denial?

[matt]

do I hear echoes of the John Birch Society in Rand Paul and his father?

Jim Crow was a disgrace, and while "right to refuse to serve" is legitimate, it is no excuse nor should it be a shield for racism. The Selma boycott should have taught that lesson in the Deep South, but it really didn't.

[anduril]

Great headline from AP: Rodent scurries by as Obama lauds Wall Street vote, and Drudge notes that Obama didn't take questions from the Rat, either.

Squaredance's posts, and anduril's, are ones where I simply Scroll On By (SOB).

Heh. Took him 45 minutes to modify his 10 previous variations on the same theme and come up with that. What a life! Hey, there's wisdom in sticking with what you're good at.

[narciso]

So, apparently the Russians can be lauded for having a more draconian drug policy than us,
in the LUN. I thought they were in favor of
the Northern Alliance

[Cecil Turner]

During the interview, Paul noted multiple times that of the 10 articles in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he was strongly in favor of nine.

He was an idiot for talking about the CRA to the Courier Journal, and a double idiot for talking to Maddow about it afterward. Most of the things he said are defensible, especially the part where it's moot and a bit of a red herring. (Which of course is a good reason not to be talking about it.)

That said, this is a Kentucky senate race, not an MSNBC poll. I doubt it hurts him much, and in fact a national gotcha campaign might well backfire. It works better as an anti-Tea Party campaign (and even that is a two-edged sword).

[narciso]

Yeah, the Bingham family paper, one of them went native with the Iraqi insurgents for a while, were never going to give him a fair
break. Maddow supposedly has D Phil from Oxford, but there is no indication of it, unless the rot there has really set in

[Neo]

Obama sought to show that he, too, is fed up with his own government's failure to fix a system widely seen as broken.

Obama appears to be losing Obama LUN

[Porchlight]

Obama sought to show that he, too, is fed up with his own government's failure to fix a system widely seen as broken.

Reads like the Onion, but then so do most AP stories these days.

[Captain Hate]

Damn Neo, you can't make this up. Arizona and other states have problems because the Feds won't enforce the law, so the solution is for the Feds to come up with new laws.

I don't even think Lindsey Graham and McCain are that stupid.

[Clarice]

I really feel I am living in some Alice in Wonderland upside down, illogical, crazy place.

[narciso]

'bearded spock' Clarice, or my recent favorite, Fringe with the zeppelins

[Threadkiller]

"I don't even think Lindsey Graham and McCain are that stupid."

Wanna start a pool on how long before they disprove you?

[Captain Hate]

Well threadk, McVain's up for re-election and has to pretend to be a conservative for a while before he starts stabbing us in the back again. And without McLame's support Lady Grahamnesty is usually afraid to do anything.

Eh, who am I kidding? If you start a pool I want to have the following day as my choice.

[Danube of Thought]

Roubini says stocks will drop another 20%. Great.

[bgates]

Actually, you didn't use the term "our government," but never mind.

Ha! Got me there.

And when you say "we" finally have a government, I'm unable to be certain that you mean "you and I" any more than if Nancy Pelosi or David Paterson were to say it.

If one of them said to you that "we" have a government, what else could "we" mean?

You may well have been discussing only a federal law, but I would have thought it was clear from my discussion of public education and the protection of private property that I was not.

Since your discussion was framed as a response to Paul's comments about a federal law, no, it wasn't.

Seems you're a bit late.

Was the cutoff back at 6:12?

[Melinda Romanoff]

Cap'n-

Oh, yes they are. Never, ever, underestimate the power of the camera grabbers.

narciso-

I need a better history lesson, or spelling, because I don't know what district or prospekt you are referring to on the Fontanka. The family houses are still there but under different management, as you might imagine. Just don't mention Yusupovs, Felix was, ahem, a bit different.