Ron Paul criticizes the 1964 Civil Rights Act
By Virginia SmithJanuary 2nd, 2012, 1:30 pmComments (25)
Traditionally, if you're trying to bounce back from charges of deep-seated racism, it's not a great idea to come out swinging against Civil Rights. But no one ever said Ron Paul was traditional, and thus, his new criticisms of the generally popular Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This weekend, Paul griped that the act, which ended Jim Crow laws, "undermined the concept of liberty" and "destroyed the principle of private property and private choices." He went on:
"If you try to improve relationships by forcing and telling people what they can't do, and you ignore and undermine the principles of liberty, then the government can come into our bedrooms. And that's exactly what has happened. Look at what's happened with the PATRIOT Act. They can come into our houses, our bedrooms our businesses ... And it was started back then."
In case it wasn't clear enough, Paul also voted against a 2004 resolution "recognizing and honoring the 40th anniversary of congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," the only member of the House of Representatives to do so. I know, right? Surprisingly, though, he did go on to make a few somewhat sane comments about institutional causes of discrimination:
"The real problem we face today is the discrimination in our court system, the war on drugs. Just think of how biased that is against the minorities. They go into prison much way out of proportion to their numbers. They get the death penalty out of proportion with their numbers. And if you look at what minorities suffer in ordinary wars, whether there's a draft or no draft, they suffer much out of proposition. So those are the kind of discrimination that have to be dealt with, but you don't ever want to undermine the principle of private property and private choices in order to solve some of these problems."
Well, that part about the war on drugs actually does make some sense. But seriously, even if you subscribe to Paul's particular brand of short-sighted, hardcore libertarianism, aren't there maybe, just maybe, greater injustices in this world to rail against than Civil Rights? Only a thought.
Commentarium (25 Comments)
I can see what you're trying to get at, but let's use our heads... do you think he's actually against the root cause of the Civil Rights act, or the removal of liberties that came along with it in some ways. I'm not for the Jim Crow laws and there was plenty in that act that did a lot of good, but like any other act in congress, it had a lot of pork that took away a lot of liberties and forced a lot of other ideas down some people's throats. So no, Ron Paul still not a racist... I'm still not voting for him, but use your head and think of some actual stuff to give him grief on.
Someone has a lifetime subscription to "Daddy Issues" quarterly.
Jeff - you're a moron.
Ignore my previous statement. It wasn't @Jeff. It was in response to a (now removed) comment by a person purporting to be female and informing us she would indeed have sexual relations with Ron Paul, but not vote for him.
What is that? Why do comments spontaneously disappear from this site even when they aren't particularly offensive or contentious? What is that?
Because this is a site run by a private company that makes money by selling subscriptions and selling ads. We delete anything we want to. Hell, I'm a monkey and even I understand that..
Oh cool, I get it. Does this site also sell subscriptions to "Daddy Issues"? I'd like to sign up but I can't find that anywhere?
Don't see why so many people across the political spectrum like this guy; he is perhaps the most dangerous candidate ever.
In context of his point, I see nothing wrong with him not agreeing with every single aspect of that bill. It might be a good idea for anyone campaining to steer clear of such toxic issues though. Sorta like saying "bomb" on a plane; it doesn't mean you're evil, but still that conversation can wait until later...
That's the thing about Ron Paul, and the ACLU and some other people and organizations that manage to piss off everybody at some point or another: they really do stick to their principles, even when that makes their opinion deeply unpopular. I disagree with Ron Paul on a lot of things, and I would never vote for him because as much as I admire the ideological cohesion of his position, I think running a country does call for concession and compromise — but he is damned consistent, whether it's legalizing heroin or allowing people the right to discriminate on the basis of race within their business.
And I find the argument that his stance on this issue somehow means his stances on other issues disappear ("You're really fighting against civil rights when there are other things to talk about?"), as always, wholly asinine.
It isn't clear whether his position is even ideologically cohesive. Consider his stance on abortion. He isn't interested in protecting a woman's right to choose what happens to her body, which is a pretty fundamental liberty if you ask me. Now he might just be confused about the role that a woman's liberty rights play in the abortion debate, but that wouldn't be particularly admirable from a libertarian either.
Not sure where you get that it's a fundamental liberty. There is nothing in the Constitution that addresses abortion one way or the other.
Well, the courts have developed tests for fundamental liberties that are not mentioned explicitly in the text of the constitution. However, you might be right about Ron Paul. He may hold the view that any behavior may legitimately be prohibited by the states unless a right to engage in that behavior is explicitly afforded by the constitution. In that case, he is simply not a libertarian at the level of political philosophy. On that view, prohibition of the sale of contraceptive devices, possession of marijuana and of interracial marriage would all be legitimate. Either way, there is little to admire in his views.
I think the libertarian view is that, regardless of constitutional prohibitions, government should act to minimize its involvement and interference in private lives. In this respect, Paul deviates from pure libertarianism, which would hold that it's not the government's business regulating whether you reproduce or not.
As for the philosophy as a whole, coherency is not a sufficient value to make it worthwhile. The philosophy exalts property rights and market solutions over human rights. It overlooks the fact that property distribution does not exist in a vacuum -- government interference has created a good deal of income and opportuntiy inequality, and thus government has an obligation to redress those inequalities. In the context of the Civil Rights laws, remember there were 300 or so years of slavery authorized and enforced by the government, followed by 100 or so years of Jim Crow laws. That's 400 years of legalized, de jure discrimination that vastly affected property distribution. The Civil Rights Act is less than 50 years old. Do the math, and there's still a lot more that government can and should do to ensure equality of opportunity -- not of result, simply of opportunity.
I'm not saying that coherence is a good enough reason to put something into action -- I didn't go into it at length, but I do think libertarianism would be pretty dangerous put into action and, as you said, simply pretending that everyone exists on an equal playing field does not make it so. But I think there is a value, a worthwhileness, in ideological coherency, even if only to show us as a society that our ideals -- liberty, security, whatever they may be -- do not stretch as far as, perhaps, we believe they do. (I doubt many of the Ron Paul supporters who cheered at his uninsured campaign adviser's death would have applauded legalizing heroin or his foreign policy positions, and I'm sure many of the democrats that jumped into his boat when he was decrying the war in Iraq would be appalled to read this critique of the Civil Rights Act.)
@completely: Agreed.
Uh, prof. Please don't kiss my ass like that. Given your cred here on the Hooksexup (the "pwned factor"), it doesn't help me.
That wasn't me, fyi.
I don't see how the quotes included in the article reflecting anything about Civil Rights. I sense bias too. Where's the point?
Keep looking! You can do it! Just sound out the hard words.
Oh, OK, thanks mm. Er... umm... OK, here goes... uhm... ehm... ehm... isss... at.... roll. Hmm. Still doesn't make sense. Sorry, I'm not terribly clever. Could you please help me?
I also hate how the law makes it illegal to kill people. WHERE ARE MY LIBERTIES?
You have all your liberties.... oh, if you are wealthy. Sorry, forgot to mention that minor detail.
Let's say I run a purple paint company and I say we need to paint all trees purple to end racism. You'd say, "Huh? No way. What does painting all trees purple have to do with ending racism?" Then I call you a racist.
Ron Paul is more of a "constitutionalist" than a "libertarian" if you folks insist on having labels to understand what a person believes in and stands for, which is, in my opinion, like reading a summary of a book and claiming to have read the book in it's entirety. He criticized the act on the basis of it being federal legislation. The Constitution clearly states that whatever it doesn't (or didn't originally) cover is left to the individual states to govern.
The same goes for abortion. Ron Paul stands for individual liberty, born or UNBORN. A mother's choice to kill her baby is seen no differetly than one's choice to kill their neighbor; it is a violent crime, and punishments for such are governed by the states.
When you try to categorize the thoughts and expressions of even a single human being with a label and put it in a box, you are only insulting your own intelligence and abilities to more widely observe such and form reality-based opinions. The universe doesn't exist in such a box.
Now you say something