Clayton E. Cramer: Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
[Clayton E. Cramer is a software engineer and historian. His sixth book, Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nelson Current, 2006), is available in bookstores. His web site is www.claytoncramer.com.]
The news media and blogosphere are all abuzz about Republican Rand Paul’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited businesses from discriminating against customers based on race or national origins. I confess to having conflicting reactions to Dr. Paul’s principled opposition to big government....
One could make the case that CRA64 was necessary to break a longstanding government policy of encouraging – even requiring – racial discrimination. It wasn’t just state governments, either. The federal government, starting with President Woodrow Wilson, segregated government offices and stopped accepting blacks into the Navy except in menial roles. In the 1930s and into the 1940s, the Federal Housing Authority, which subsidized the growth of suburban housing, strongly encouraged developers to add racially restrictive covenants to deeds – keeping some neighborhoods all-white by law.
Would free markets have been enough to break this long history of governmental force in support of racism? I would like to think so – but I also know that the libertarian solution requires a population of rational actors prepared to look out for their own economic interests. You let me know when you find a species that fits that model....
As I said at the beginning, I have conflicting feelings about antidiscrimination laws. Racism is offensive and contrary to scripture. Big government worked long and hard to create the level of racism against blacks; a certain amount of big government trying to eradicate it has a certain rough justice to it. But where does this end? Can government prohibit employment discrimination against people with facial piercings? Santa Cruz County, California, passed such an ordinance a few years ago. Is it “unfair” for restaurants to discriminate against people that haven’t bathed in weeks, and refuse them service? How dare they put up discriminatory signs like, “No shirts, no shoes, no service.” Why should a fashion modeling agency be allowed to discriminate against the obese and ugly?
Sensible libertarians acknowledge that a free market is not enough to end all racial discrimination — and that a certain amount of it is the price we pay for living in a free society. This is a fine argument to make as an abstract principle – but it isn’t a path to political victory.
Read entire article at Pajamas Media
The news media and blogosphere are all abuzz about Republican Rand Paul’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited businesses from discriminating against customers based on race or national origins. I confess to having conflicting reactions to Dr. Paul’s principled opposition to big government....
One could make the case that CRA64 was necessary to break a longstanding government policy of encouraging – even requiring – racial discrimination. It wasn’t just state governments, either. The federal government, starting with President Woodrow Wilson, segregated government offices and stopped accepting blacks into the Navy except in menial roles. In the 1930s and into the 1940s, the Federal Housing Authority, which subsidized the growth of suburban housing, strongly encouraged developers to add racially restrictive covenants to deeds – keeping some neighborhoods all-white by law.
Would free markets have been enough to break this long history of governmental force in support of racism? I would like to think so – but I also know that the libertarian solution requires a population of rational actors prepared to look out for their own economic interests. You let me know when you find a species that fits that model....
As I said at the beginning, I have conflicting feelings about antidiscrimination laws. Racism is offensive and contrary to scripture. Big government worked long and hard to create the level of racism against blacks; a certain amount of big government trying to eradicate it has a certain rough justice to it. But where does this end? Can government prohibit employment discrimination against people with facial piercings? Santa Cruz County, California, passed such an ordinance a few years ago. Is it “unfair” for restaurants to discriminate against people that haven’t bathed in weeks, and refuse them service? How dare they put up discriminatory signs like, “No shirts, no shoes, no service.” Why should a fashion modeling agency be allowed to discriminate against the obese and ugly?
Sensible libertarians acknowledge that a free market is not enough to end all racial discrimination — and that a certain amount of it is the price we pay for living in a free society. This is a fine argument to make as an abstract principle – but it isn’t a path to political victory.