Try again, Dr. Paul

Since Wednesday, Dr. Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Kentucky, has come under fire for his views on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he discussed on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” that evening.

In short, Paul is of the opinion that the vast majority of the act’s provisions, which were responsible for ending institutionalized racism — that is, government-enforced discrimination — are essentially good, but that the provisions whose purpose was to prohibit private businesses from engaging in discrimination went too far.

He has said that, because the vast majority of the law is essentially good, he would have voted for the legislation and, if elected, will not work to repeal it.

Everyone should understand three things about this situation: First, Paul is doing a very poor job of explaining himself on this issue. Second, he is right to oppose the portions of the act that he opposes. Third, he is right to support the majority of the act’s provisions.

When he has been pressed on this issue, instead of answering straightforwardly and proceeding to explain his position, Paul has sounded evasive and uncomfortable, never quite seeming able to meet the question head-on or to avoid roundabout ways of answering.

By way of illustrating the second and third points from above, allow me to propose a way for Paul to improve upon his method of explaining himself.

Suppose he is faced with questions about this issue again (hard to imagine, I know). Instead of the debacle that was the Maddow interview, I’d hope the exchange might go something like this:



INTERVIEWER: Dr. Paul, should a restaurant owner have the right to prohibit blacks from entering his establishment?

PAUL: Yes. Now, I hope that since I’ve given you a yes-or-no answer to your yes-or-no question, something you know is rare from a candidate for political office, you’ll allow me to briefly explain my position.

INTERVIEWER: Of course.

PAUL: Thank you. Well, it’s fairly simple, really. Politically speaking, I believe first and foremost in every person’s inalienable right to life. The right to life is meaningless without the right to liberty, so I believe in the right to liberty as well.

Now, since an important aspect of the right to liberty is the right to peaceably assemble, a right protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, I believe in that, too.

Freedom of assembly, of course, implies a right to choose the people with whom you wish to associate and those with whom you wish not to associate.

Another important aspect of the right to liberty is the right to property, a right protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

With these two rights in mind, any fair-minded person must acknowledge that people seeking to eat a meal at a restaurant have a right to discriminate based on any criteria they please among the restaurants available. If they like Italian food, they can eat at an Italian restaurant. If they are ignorant and irrational enough to dislike Hispanics, for instance, they are free to avoid establishments owned or operated by Hispanics.

By the same token, we must acknowledge that private citizens who own a restaurant should have a right to discriminate among potential customers based on any criteria they please — even though it is extremely obvious that banning certain groups of people from your business based on irrelevant characteristics like race is not only remarkably small-minded but also bad for business.

Now, the reason it’s OK to prohibit the government from discriminating on any irrelevant basis — as opposed to relevant ones like job qualifications if you’re applying for a job — is because government discrimination against any one group in the public sphere is a violation of individuals’ right to participate in their government and to use the public spaces made available by government.

I’ll just conclude by reiterating what I have tried to explain repeatedly about tolerating racism and other bigoted attitudes. Just as freedom of speech has no force if we abridge racists’ right to say awful things, so freedom of assembly and property rights have no force if we abridge bigots’ right to embarrass themselves and hurt their businesses by excluding people because of their race.



Such a statement may not be what nervous GOP strategists have in mind, but it would, at least, be the truth.


E-mail: jarlower@indiana.edu

Editor's note: Additional content related to this column can be found on the Sample Gates Blog, at idsnews.com/samplegates