Mr. Paul’s early rants regarding opposition to parts of the 1964 Civil Rights legislation have brought him unwanted exposure after his victory. He has been taken to task by an alert few television and newspapers reporters and he has struggled to justify his statements – such as the ones that the government has no right to enforce business owners offering services to members of all races.
Given that these sentiments are getting traction in some parts of the South is perhaps no surprise. The dark period that followed the American Civil War at Appotomax has never really been put to rest. During that time, freed African Americans were hunted down, beaten and killed with renewed cruelty that exceeded even the unimaginable days of slavery. The Confederacy may have laid down their arms against the superior forces of the North, but continued to wage war to ensure that African Americans never attain full and equal freedoms accorded to all Americans as written in the U.S. constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The waiving of a Bloody Shirt by demagogues of that time to remind audiences of the blood of the fallen was despicable. It is, therefore, unacceptable that in 2010, a candidate to the U.S. Senate brings up ambiguous arguments to justify discriminatory behavior by any segment of American society. Rights of full citizenship were hard fought. We must never allow them to be taken away.
The history of slavery is repulsive enough. To have a bright but flawed candidate such as Rand Paul question equality and find a receptive audience highlights how alert we must be to fight back.
– Carlos Wysling, Bend
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2010.
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it is the Left that typically comes out in support of free speech rights. One example that may come to mind is the always-controversial Piss Christ photograph, which features a crucifix in a jar of urine. Of course, this would be personally offensive to some, and generally disgusting to most. Then, of course, those on the Left tend to support the rights of white supremacists to speak freely. Point being: both leftists and libertarians agree that we must protect free speech, even when it is disgusting, offensive or abhorrent.
So, then, why is it that those on the Left claim that when a person exercises their free speech rights on their own personal property by disallowing another person from accessing it, this is somehow a violation of rights? It appears here that no rights are actually being violated because no one has the right to patronize a business, no more than someone has a right to trespass on someone else's property. It appears, further, that what is happening here is something that both libertarians and leftists abhor: the legislation of morality.
The constitution protects free speech–not liberals, conservatives or libertarians. Law recognizes there are limits to free speech–slander, inciting to riot, and child pornography are against the law. There is no such thing as unlimited free speech. It is an issue without a political taint.
Racial equality is a matter of constitutional law: the Fourteenth Amendment. It guarantees equal rights and equal protection to all citizens. It was used as the basis for the rejection of ‘separate but equal’ doctrine that allowed Jim Crow to prosper across the US for a half century. This, too, is not an issue that should not be tainted by political leanings.
Commerce is not free speech. It is regulated–at length, unfortunately, by federal, state, and local statute. If someone decides to invite the public to participate in a commercial activity, they cannot violate the Constitution and decide that some citizens are not able to come to the table because they are in what we call a protected class. The Constitution and the body of law governs here. Not a person’s personal likes or dislikes, prejudices, or phobias. One cannot ignore the law and go one’s own way–that is called chaos and anarchy.
Libertarians can engage in lofty philosophical arguments but the results sometimes are not logical. I saw the Maddow/Paul interview, and it was a clusterf*ck of epic proportions. He wanted to engage in an open discussion about an issue that was decided long ago. I am not talking about the ten point government fiat he was focused on with his idealistic rhetoric. I am talking about the real world practices that were the result of government’s failure to address race discrimination in public and private enterprise. The civil rights struggles and measures of the decades following the 14th Amendments passage corrected what the ‘free market’ place of ideas and practices did not. Pretending that it would have self-corrected as Rand Paul argued flies in the face of what really happened–people discriminated against others in a manner that was unconstitutional. They reinforced those practices with laws denying others their constitutional rights. Some call it legislating morality and berate and lament the results and then do the same things themselves–abortion legislation, for instance.
I find the same disingenuous arguments concerning racial profiling in regards to the immigration law in Arizona. Defenders of the law point to the part of the code that prohibits racial profiling in triumph as a de jure rebuttal to any claim that it will have that result. But the majority of Arizonans have to admit they are not concerned about Chinese, Indian, Russian, or Canadian illegals.
This is a law that targets Mexicans above all others because that is where most of the illegal immigrants are from. To claim otherwise is specious. US Citizens of Hispanic descent will be unequally treated because when they have contact with law enforcement agencies they will be asked for papers more than your average white guy or gal. De facto discrimination.
Require law enforcement to demand EVERYONE provide proof of citizenship at EVERY contact and all of the opponent’s arguments are null and void. Refuse to do so and the law is nothing more than a ‘Send them back to Mexico’ law.