Rand Paul: ‘The Hard Part of Believing in Freedom’ Is Opposing Ban on Whites-Only

[cal04]

Rand Paul: ‘The Hard Part of Believing in Freedom’ Is Opposing Ban on Whites-Only Lunch Counters

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the greatest accomplishments of the twentieth-century, banning whites-only lunch counters and similar discrimination in hiring, promotions, hotels and restaurants. Yet, in a recent editorial board interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul explained why he believes that this landmark law should not apply to private business owners:

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.

Watch it:http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/19/paul-civil-rights/

After adding that he is also a fan of Dr. Martin Luther King, Paul dug in deeper, explaining that he he believes that in a “free society,” private lunch counters must be allowed to refuse service to Dr. King because of his race:

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.

For the record, here is an example of the “boorish people” that Paul thinks a free society must tolerate:

In an interview with NPR today, Paul was asked three times about his position on the Civil Rights Act, but each time he dodged giving a declarative answer. “A lot of things that were actually in the bill I’m actually in favor of,” said Paul. Hinting at what he doesn’t “favor,” Paul added that “a lot of things can be handled locally.”

[babylonsister]

1. Oh man. He just needs to keep talking; he's digging one big hole. nt

[HipChick]

I cannot believe what I am hearing..

[babylonsister]

5. And the gop and teabaggers own him! nt

[troubledamerican]

33. Why don't you believe that White Supremacy in the U.S. is alive & well?

You must not have spent ANY time in the U.S. South.

[indy legend]

42. or Indiana

[Dr Morbius]

2. I myself think a lot about freedom, and I have never found that

a belief in freedom is "hard". No one is free to do harm, Mr. Paul. That's not what freedom means.

It's hard for Mr. Paul because he doesn't understand.

[Lint Head]

3. He will soon disappear from the political scene.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. I'll donate a shovel, if he wears his out.

Keep on talkin', Rand.

[dchill]

41. Yep. I wholeheartedly agree with Rand Paul's...

right to free speech.

[Not Me]

6. I kept waiting for Rachel to ask: So you don't support any regulation

on business?

[glen123098]

7. Resturants should be allowed to discriminate.

But then they should forfeit the right to all government services such as the ability to connect their parking lot to a city road, the use of the police department and fire department etc. If their building burns down, then they are shit out of luck.

[Ed Barrow]

8. All we have to do is make sure his own words are well-publicized

Once Kentucky sees what he really stands for there's no way he can win.

[RobertPlant]

9. Rand Paul is a goldwater republican

one who takes libertarianism as gospel truth and tries to have minimal government. Like Goldwater, he wasn't exactly a racist but opposed the civil rights act. Rand Paul should realize that running on a platform like that is going to get you killed, even in Kentucky. Remember that Goldwater couldn't even win in NE, KS, OK, SD, ND, ID, UT, and WY.

[customerserviceguy]

11. After the Kennedy assassination

it was a wonder he could win anywhere. Goldwater would have had a far easier time in 1968, if he wasn't already wearing the 'loser' label.

[Quantess]

48. "Takes libertarianism as gospel truth"? Not really...

Not when it comes to gay marriage and abortion, anyway.

[customerserviceguy]

10. He's libertarian

his answers are wholly consistent with that. You can reject libertarianism as a philosophy, but you need to acknowledge that under libertarianism, countries don't go to war with other countries that don't directly threaten them, police don't spend time busting people for victimless crimes such as smoking pot, and the government stays the hell out of everyone's bedroom.

I'm not libertarian, but I do respect where they're coming from in their consistency, when they display it.

[SargeUNN]

12. Yeah they don't take care of

their people, their environment, their own security. Just a wonderful way to do and worked so well even a caveman stopped doing it.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Not saying I favored the guy

just that if you understand most forms of libertarianism, then Rand Paul's answers were consistent with it.

We're quite likely to wind up with him in the Senate. He won't be quite as obnoxious as the country-club Republicons, or the fundie Repukes, at least not in their way.

[GoneOffShore]

25. I'd actually prefer a country club Republican who is willing to compromise

to a doctrinaire loony like Ayn Rand Paul.

[customerserviceguy]

26. Country club Republicans will compromise

on anything but taxes. You can pretty much always predict where a libertarian is going to come down on an issue, and they won't be moved by bribes or threats. You have to respect that at a basic level, somehow. Too bad some so-called progressives aren't as grounded in their principles.

[renegade000]

13. There are many forms of libertarianism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

And there are also many debates on what freedom and liberty actual refer to in political contexts. The main problem I have with most self-professed American "libertarians" - who are primarily libertarian conservatives, is that they're primarily focused (either knowingly or unknowingly) on giving the wealthy and powerful more freedom to screw the rest of the population over. It's a rare sight indeed in this country when you see a libertarian that actually acknowledges such things like the fact that major income disparity leads to a LESS FREE society (they do exist, and I wish that more people listen to them instead of these idiots like Rand Paul).

[customerserviceguy]

20. Again, not saying I agree with him

but I find liberatarians of all stripes to be more consistent with their views than I do with most Rethugs.

[elias49]

15. Off the top of my head...

I think libertarians are by and large people of privilege.
In a 'melting pot' like the US, libertarianism is bound to be a failing system.

[customerserviceguy]

22. You're probably right

but I don't expect his movement to spread throughout the USA. He won an election because of his last name, that's all. He's not likely to be too convincing to others, even if he does take a seat in the Senate.

All I'm saying is that he's not going to be lockstep in every vote with the Repukes, when their positions clash with his version of libertarianism.

[RoyGBiv]

16. Well, you can say that ...

...but you can't actually say it with authority. We don't have an example of a "libertarian" nation that allows us to determine whether they go to war with other countries that don't directly threaten them, etc. Or, you may find yourself needing to redefine what "directly threaten" means. About the closest we come in American history to a libertarian mindset governing a country is that which existed under the Articles of Confederation. It was a unworkable and nearly a disaster. And we were at war basically the entire time. Now, this gets into a weird sort of philosophical debate about the reasons behind the Revolution, but if you strip away the high rhetoric about "freedom," what you're left with is not any tangible physical danger from England, but an economic danger, a "direct" economic "threat." If this is allowed under libertarian philosophy -- and there's not genuine reason to think it wouldn't be were they in power -- the scope of what is allowable in terms of declarations of war expands rather significantly from that which libertarians want as their image.

The great thing about an ideology like libertarianism is that one can claim to hold to it without ever having the burden of proving it.

[customerserviceguy]

23. You're right, I cannot think of a libertarian nation

although your idea of the pre-Constitutional American colonies-turned-states being an example of a non-viable entity is not without flaws. If we had not created the Constitution, if we had functioned effectively as thirteen (or more) independent states trading with each other due to simple proximity and common European ancestry, perhaps we would have flourished.

We'll just never know. In any case, it never happened, and that's what makes your final sentence quite true.

[RoyGBiv]

24. Certainly there are flaws ...

I did not intend the analogy as a 1:1 comparison, and we could consider several "what if" scenarios, but the fact of the matter is that the Constitution was created precisely because the AoC were so unworkable and were not creating a cohesive nation. The idea of the lack of a strong central government with robust revenue generating powers sounds nice in the context of the freedom loving rhetoric, but every time it comes close to being tested, the test falls apart. In our alternative timeline with a nation built on more purely libertarian principles, individual states may have flourished, to a degree, but even those individual states did not adhere to libertarianism internally. Had we maintained that path we would have been setting ourselves up for European style boundary conflicts ala the Middle Ages with the modifier of several European powers still perfectly willing to and capable of taking us down were they to find it in their interests.

But as you say, this has flaws for our comparative purposes here. My only point was the one you defined, summarized in the final sentence. We really don't know. Libertarian ideology is a theoretical one that, in our present environment, works well for populist purposes.


OnEdit: Spelling

[customerserviceguy]

27. Interesting, the idea that European powers would have manipulated the states

had they not united under one Constitution. It's certainly worthy of an alternate history novel, one of my favorite forms of fiction writing.

In any case, even if Rand Paul becomes Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky, there's little danger of it inspiring others to his cause. He'll just be with the Rethugs when it suits his philosophy, and with us when that jibes with his beliefs. I doubt that either side will be able to bribe or threaten him to join up with them against his druthers.

[RoyGBiv]

29. Surely that's been done ...

... although I admit I cannot think of an example off the top of my head. I too read a lot of alternate history.

One of the fanciful scenarios I gamed out (as one among several people) involved the original 13 colonies maintaining the AoC going into the era of the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic wars. That is, all else remains equal save the governing foundations of the American States. I did this in the context of imagining alterations to the timeline that led to the Civil War. The basic conclusion was that the Civil War never happens, but the United States as we know it never forms. We continue on as essentially two separate demi-nations (New England and everything else) each effectively subservient to a European benefactor. And then that gets carved up pretty severely during and after the French Revolution.

But of course, that's just one way of looking at it.

[customerserviceguy]

31. Fascinating!

I do love alternative history, good to find a fellow aficionado of it here. Of course, if the United States never forms, it is not an influence in the World Wars of the 20th Century, so they turn out quite differently, as well.

[daleo]

32. And 8 year olds are free to work in coal mines. n/t

[customerserviceguy]

36. Did Rand Paul call for an end to child labor laws?

If so, I must have missed it.

In any case, I will stand by my statement that his answers are consistent with libertarian philosophies. That's why both the reich-wing and the progressives dislike libertarianism, it doesn't fit adequately within either political ideology.

[daleo]

38. Libertarians are against government interference in business

And child labor laws are certainly that.

In my experience, libertarians are conservatives who don't like church.

[customerserviceguy]

40. While your last statement is indeed humorous

and quite probably true, they've grown to accept as settled law, things that happened a long time ago, that are against their philosophy.

It's curious why Rand Paul even mentioned this. I suspect he was trying to make some statement about liberty, and got himself caught in a 45 year old bear trap.

But it's going to play well with his targeted audience, so he did come out a winner, strangely enough.

[daleo]

43. From the article, he is ok with business owners discriminating

"Rand Paul explained why he believes that this landmark law should not apply to private business owners"

He may think it is regrettable, but he doesn't think the government should force business owners to serve African Americans at lunch counters, or anywhere else.

It plays well with misguided idealists (i.e. libertarians) and racists.

[customerserviceguy]

44. It's an issue that resonates today

While the lunch counter protests have faded into the history books, and even the last group of baby boomers doesn't remember them directly, this issue is alive and well today in another form.

I'm referring to equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, which are not a reality in most of the areas of this country. We are at the same point in that particular struggle for liberty that we were with the lunch counters and raciall politics at the time the 1964 laws were passed.

Surely, there are a lot of bigoted types out there who are saying, "Well, if the government could force businesses to treat people of color equally with that law, then they can force the same thing on us with same-sex couples." As thirty statewide constitutional votes have shown us, the majority is not quite ready to accept that, at least as it regards marriage equality.

Rand Paul's words ring as ominous with those people as they would have with racial bigots back in 1964.

[calimary]

46. But it's my understanding he DOESN'T want to stay out of everyone's bedrooms.

Certainly not a woman's - since it's my understanding that he's anti-choice. That would mean he's fine with big government as long as you can forcibly insert it between a woman's legs, regardless what her own personal wishes are.

Where I come from, that's called RAPE. Hey rand - you're supposedly a physician of some sort. Aren't you supposed to "do no harm"? Or is that another one of those pesky regulations/restrictions for which your dear little libertarian heart just can't make room?

[Quantess]

51. That's true. He wants government in peoples' pants.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

47. New rule: you don't get props for consistency when you're consistently wrong. -nt

[Quantess]

50. Rand Paul is a crotch sniffer who wants to regulate what people do in their bedrooms.

In other words, he is anti choice and opposes gay marriage.

[political_Dem]

14. Just continue to open your mouth and tell us what you believe in, Rand.

After all, you just conveyed that you look for loopholes in the law and are wishy-washy when it counts. You also say what the public wants you to say and not your true principles.

Come on. Just say what you feel. You want what the Teabaggers want: state's rights, a return back to Jim Crow law, that Kenyan Muslim out of the White House and deported back home, and that Arizona law the rule of the land.

It's not about libertarian values. It's about "getting your country back"--just like your insipid followers bleat every time the media gives them attention.

Have fun trying to cage the out-of-control masses of your "party".

[lefty2000]

17. Idealism is a great thing

But if the result is horrible, there must be something wrong with the ideal. And the result of a widespread application of libertarian principles would indeed be horrible. The purpose of civil government is not just to defend the territory, but to protect the weak from being preyed upon by the strong. One of the problems with modern America is the widespread idea that the aged, the ignorant, and the naive, are the legitimate prey of the wise guys.

I hear too many people saying things like "if people would just pay their bills, they wouldn't have their houses taken away" or "they shouldn't have been stupid enough to sign that variable rate mortgage."

The fact is, people are going to do stupid things because they don't know any better, and the fact is that people are going to do cruel and mischievous things to swindle other people out of their money, and they do know better but they do it anyway, because it is legal and they don't give a shit.

[izzybeans]

18. In a free society I am free to limit the freedom of others, in other words.

In a free society I can be a tyrant and nobody can stop me.

Fucking Randroids and their hijacking of the word liberty. The stupidity burns.

[progressoid]

21. That's some fancy footwork.

Dancing around his obvious racism.

[saltpoint]

28. Poison apple falls from poison tree.

His old man's a racist kook.

Sounds to me like junior is too.

[daleo]

30. Imagine a lunch counter that wouldn't serve the president

This guy's a loon.

[troubledamerican]

34. Now you see why they refuse to acknowledge Barack was born in Honolulu?

Stone cold white supremacists.

[MisterP]

35. isn't that the CCC's policy: we're not FOR discrimination, we're for allowing businesses to

discriminate; it's an infringement on freedom, just like the minimum wage is an infringement on workers' right to ask for as little as they want (yes, libertarians believe this)

[Kievan Rus]

37. Rand Paul just keeps putting himself in a deeper hole

[Bert]

39. Dont think I would want to live in that society

Libertarians have some interesting views, but taken in the pure form their form of government is nearly non-existent. We would basically have corporations making their own laws, private armies, a shotgun in every home and every home a fortress. No public education, no labor laws, not much in the way of laws at all. This nation would be so weak and evil someone would invariably decide to come and invade us for our own good, and they may actually be right. No man is an island and pure libertarianism is totally unworkable, tries to ignore any kind of social contract and basically creates some kind of strange jungle where everyone is out for their own selves to a degree that is almost unimaginable in a civilized society.

Not surprising this came from the son of Ron Paul, mister no public education system, flat tax rate to favor the rich and who didn't think that the civil war was really 'necessary'. Bet he would have thought it was necessary if any of his ancestors had to endure slavery for a day. True nutbag, but at least an honest nutbag unlike Reagan and Sauder.

[charlesg]

45. In a free society we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior like LYNCHING?

[gleaner]

49. I think he should keep talking ...

It shows the Republicans and the rest of the country exactly what we do not want. We do not want discrimination. We do not want a single individual or a small group of individuals telling us that any given business is more important than our tight to be human and go where we please.

He "brands" the Republican party in such a way that it will make them harder to elect. That is the only good thing that comes out of the trash he talks.

[Uncle Joe]

52. That's not freedom, Paul is believing in, that's fear.

They may be private business owners, but they're conducting public business.

Paul's approach can only lead to increased intolerance, division, fear, ignorance and hatred.

Thanks for the thread, cal.