# Libertarian Topic of the Week 1: Civil Rights **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 14, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118 "2014-04-14T23:19:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/181 "2014-04-16T07:11:16Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > That’s the compromise. He can exclude you for being boorish, but he can’t exclude you on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin, etc. We have set certain arbitrary boundaries upon the shopkeeper’s ability to regulate his own business. Yes. This is inconsistent with libertarianism, but I consider it a good thing overall for society. To my knowledge, I’m agreeing with you on just about everything, I’m just trying to clarify things with **Nemo**. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’m not saying it’s a right. I’m saying it’s a freedom. And it is. > > _“Freedom means the ability to control your own actions and property without outside interference from others”_ But you’re cutting out he _absolutely crucial_ qualifier that **Shagnasty** threw on there: “as long as your actions fall within your sphere of control and do not directly harm others”. Without that, the definition of freedom fails miserably, and I think we can all understand that. Without the qualifier that your freedom is limited by the freedom of others, no definition of freedom can make any sense. Otherwise we get absurd scenarios where we have to judge between my freedom to do whatever I want and someone else’s freedom from bodily harm when I shoot someone for no reason beyond “I felt like it”. > [@](#): > > Of course, there are other freedoms. And the restaurant owner might want to have the freedom to pick which customers he lets into his restaurant. If a person wants to eat in a restaurant and the owner doesn’t want him to eat there, their freedoms can’t co-exist. That means you have to pick out who gets the freedom and who doesn’t. Except that in libertarianism, _you do not have the freedom to impose yourself on the private properties of others_. It’s really that simple. You don’t have the freedom to force him to serve you. This is not any sort of inconsistency within the system; it’s simply a result of the system we both don’t agree with. So this: > [@](#): > > All systems have to do that - even libertarianism. But libertarianism often falls into denial about it. When it picks which freedom it supports, it then redefines the other freedom it didn’t support. It declares that wasn’t really a freedom and then says _“See? I never deny any freedom. That thing I just denied wasn’t a freedom at all.”_ > > To me this is just duplicity. This is simply false. I don’t like the conclusions of libertarianism, but let’s not pretend that it’s being dishonest or duplicitous. It’s simply that you are not understanding how freedom works within the system. And given that not only libertarians, but numerous people hostile to libertarianism (myself included) have told you this multiple times, you should really check again to make sure you’re in the right. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/182 "2014-04-16T07:37:08Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > But you’re cutting out he _absolutely crucial_ qualifier that **Shagnasty** threw on there: “as long as your actions fall within your sphere of control and do not directly harm others”. Without that, the definition of freedom fails miserably, and I think we can all understand that. Without the qualifier that your freedom is limited by the freedom of others, no definition of freedom can make any sense. Otherwise we get absurd scenarios where we have to judge between my freedom to do whatever I want and someone else’s freedom from bodily harm when I shoot someone for no reason beyond “I felt like it”. I didn’t ignore it. I specifically addressed it in my post. I think this exchange illustrates what the central issue is here: > [@Bone](#): > > Refusal of service in either example does not curtail anyone’s freedom because it never existed in the first place. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t accept your argument that no freedom exists to be denied. There are plenty of people eating in this hypothetical restaurant. So apparently they’re free to eat there. So the thing that those white people have that the black people don’t have? That’s the freedom that you’re arguing doesn’t exist. Bone and Shagnasty are using different definitions of freedom than I’m using. (And I think more people would agree with me definition than theirs.) Bone even said this: > [@Bone](#): > > This is the way the word is used in the context of this thread and in the context of the libertarian ideal. They’re saying their system guarantees absolute freedom. But to accomplish this, the freedom they’re talking about is much smaller than the freedom I’m talking about. My system may not guarantee absolute freedom. But the partial large freedom I’m guaranteeing is bigger than the absolute small freedom they’re guaranteeing. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/183 "2014-04-16T09:07:09Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Let’s put it another way. Suppose we repealed Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and randomly assigned 50% of the restaurants in the US to post “We Don’t Serve Blacks” signs and the other 50% posts signs that say “Everyone Welcome”. > > Which of those two groups would “come out ahead”? In most of America, the bigoted restaurants (yes, I know a restaurant can’t be bigoted…) would suffer. But in parts of America, they would thrive. In fact, in parts of America, were it allowed, I believe that bigoted restaurants would be mostly welcomed. In short, we would see the return of sundown towns. Not everywhere, but in enough places to matter. We would see a return of guidebooks that tell black people where they can safely stop for the night. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/184 "2014-04-16T11:49:00Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So, I’m gay. There’s a lot of people out there who want to discriminate against me on that basis. As it happens, there are laws in California that protect me from that. Libertarians believe that those laws shouldn’t exist. Why should I support that idea? Eliminating those laws is just going to make things marginally more difficult in my life, and I’m not seeing an upside for me out of it. I mean, I guess I’d then have the freedom to discriminate against people for their sexuality, but I don’t _want_ that freedom, and would never use it if I had it. > > So, why should I be libertarian on civil rights issues? How is that a remotely rational decision for me? The government could not discriminate against you. SSM would legal at the federal level and in the states. You could be married in CA and move to another state and have your marriage recognized. Now, keep in mind that for a Libertarian Government to exist, the people would have to be largely Libertarian. Have you met many Libertarians that want to discriminate against you? Sure, there would still be people who wouldn’t want you to patronize their business or to hire you, but would you want to patronize a business owned by homophobes or work for someone who was one? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/185 "2014-04-16T11:51:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Sure, there would still be people who wouldn’t want you to patronize their business or to hire you, but would you want to patronize a business owned by homophobes or work for someone who was one? If the alternative is not eat because no restaurant in the town will take me, or have no job because no one in the town will hire me, then yes. So basically, I think it’s extremely likely that, without such laws, sundown towns would return. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/186 "2014-04-16T11:55:35Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > In most of America, the bigoted restaurants (yes, I know a restaurant can’t be bigoted…) would suffer. But in parts of America, they would thrive. In fact, in parts of America, were it allowed, I believe that bigoted restaurants would be mostly welcomed. > > In short, we would see the return of sundown towns. Not everywhere, but in enough places to matter. We would see a return of guidebooks that tell black people where they can safely stop for the night. I disagree. I think there might be a few “sundown towns” here and there, but NOT enough to matter. I can’t imagine any town other than some small backwater being such a town. Keep in mind, too, that a Libertarian government must be democratically elected. In that case, you’re going to see most of the people ascribing to Libertarian beliefs. My experience is that people who are members of the Libertarian Party are rarely racists. That is something I left out of my hypothetical. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/187 "2014-04-16T11:56:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > My personal opinion is we wouldn’t go back to the Jim Crow era. There would be some people who would discriminate against ethnic groups they don’t like. But overall, several decades of enforced anti-racism has reduced the amount of inner racism people feel. Most people now accept people who are different from them in a way that they didn’t a couple of generations ago. > > To some, this might suggest that we don’t need to enforce anti-discrimination standards anymore. But to me, it’s evidence that enforcing anti-discrimination standards is working and we should keep doing it for that very reason. Why stop if we’re moving in the right direction? Not that I necessarily disagree, but I think the answer to your question is that government should apply as light a hand as possible in order to achieve any goal. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/188 "2014-04-16T11:57:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > My experience is that people who are members of the Libertarian Party are rarely racists. That is something I left out of my hypothetical. My experience is quite different. I’ll modify the hypothetical, if that’s okay. Suppose that I’m right about the return of sundown towns – let’s say they’d be moderately prevalent in the South (like 1 out of every 5 to 10 communities), and more rare outside the South (like 1 out of 50 communities). So not the norm, but still common enough that minorities are regularly seriously inconvenienced (and occasionally assaulted). Would you still support the repeal of the protections being discussed? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/189 "2014-04-16T12:01:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > My experience is quite different. That’s odd, since equal treatment is explicitly part of the party’s platform, at least in the US. Are you in the US? Are there any Libertarian racists on this MB? Not that that is a scientific sample, but if we’re talking about people in a group being racist, it would be good if we could point to some who actually are. If you were a racists, why wouldn’t you join one of the parties that promote racism rather than one that does not? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/190 "2014-04-16T12:04:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s odd, since equal treatment is explicitly part of the party’s platform, at least in the US. Are you in the US? Are there any Libertarian racists on this MB? Not that that is a scientific sample, but if we’re talking about people in a group being racist, it would be good if we could point to some who actually are. I grew up in Louisiana, served in the Navy, and now live outside of DC. I’ve known lots of libertarians. I think a little less than half of the white libertarians I’ve ever known were racists. Not violent Frazier Glenn Miller (who, I’ll note, seems to be an obsessive Ron Paul fan) types, but still folks who preferred to keep to ‘their own kind’, regularly made racist comments (and used racial slurs), and assumed that those around them shared their attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/191 "2014-04-16T12:05:20Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > If you were a racists, why wouldn’t you join one of the parties that promote racism rather than one that does not? Because most racists don’t think they are racists, and most racists understand that public racism is not tolerated in most places. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/192 "2014-04-16T12:07:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I grew up in Louisiana, served in the Navy, and now live outside of DC. I’ve known lots of libertarians. I think a little less than half of the white libertarians I’ve ever known were racists. Not violent Frazier Glenn Miller (who, I’ll note, seems to be an obsessive Ron Paul fan) types, but still folks who preferred to keep to ‘their own kind’, regularly made racist comments (and used racial slurs), and assumed that those around them shared their attitudes. These people were members of the Libertarian Party? There are lots of self professed “libertarians” who are, in reality, more like survivalists or extreme economic conservatives, but who do NOT ascribe to the social beliefs of Libertarians. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/193 "2014-04-16T12:07:57Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > My experience is quite different. > > I’ll modify the hypothetical, if that’s okay. Suppose that I’m right about the return of sundown towns – let’s say they’d be moderately prevalent in the South (like 1 out of every 5 to 10 communities), and more rare outside the South (like 1 out of 50 communities). So not the norm, but still common enough that minorities are regularly seriously inconvenienced (and occasionally assaulted). Would you still support the repeal of the protections being discussed? If you’re a black family that runs out of gas and you have to walk 20 miles to find a station willing to sell you a can and gas to put it it, I’d say you were pretty seriously inconvenienced. The Civil Rights Act was passed because the free market simply didn’t address the problem and the free market would revert right back to sundown towns the instant the CRA was repealed. Luckily for us, a libertarian government will never exist because libertarians will forever be a tiny insignificant minority. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/194 "2014-04-16T12:11:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Because I have a lot of respect for you as a poster… You know what? I’m being bombarded with questions from 15 different sides, and I’m doing my best to answer questions with the time I have. If someone has a problem with the way I’m doing it, they can open a Pit thread. > > Big picture, I’m trying to create a framework where we can have a reasoned discussion of Libertarian ideas. If someone thinks he can do a better job, then they are welcome to try. Fair enough. I apologise for casting aspersions on your posting. [QUOTE=John Mace] That’s funny. I thought the people who would come out ahead, economically, are the ones who don’t discriminate. Don’t they have a larger customer base? Or did you mean something else by “come out ahead”? Do you think that restaurants today with “we don’t serve blacks” would come out ahead compared to restaraunts that serve all customers? [/QUOTE] I wouldn’t say that those who discriminate have a necessarily smaller customer base, no. For one thing, there’s ignorance of discrimination. If, as others have pointed out, their reaction to this is just to spit in the burgers of every person they don’t like, they might well not find out about that. There’s the question of what the local demographics as far as agreeing with the discrimination are like. There’s the ability for others to provide alternate services - it’s brought up fairly often, but the need for an alternate service doesn’t always translate into the creation of one. There’s inertia of the product you have experience with; if Microsoft declared themselves anti-whoever tomorrow, they’d lose market share I have no doubt, but not as much as would a company that didn’t already nigh-control the market share. But fundamentally, “coming out ahead” isn’t important as a standard. It’s whether they can continue to do business. People are not rational to the extent that they will, guaranteed, realise they’re doing less business with their discriminatory principles in place and change them for the sake of the cash. I mean, flip it around. Imagine we have a car company that is incredibly discriminatory towards one group or another. They refuse to sell to that group; they refuse to hire that group, and they make that very well known. However; their product is the best on the market, and best for value. By the same standard that would say the business owners would ignore their principles and go for the extra value, likewise, it would indicate that consumers would ignore their principles and continue to buy the best product available to them. If that’s not the case, then it would show that people (and the market) aren’t inherently or assumably rational. If that is the case, then it’s easy to show how the libertarian marketplace can be discriminatory and successful; just run any principle up against the market itself, where it would lose. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/195 "2014-04-16T12:14:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > These people were members of the Libertarian Party? There are lots of self professed “libertarians” who are, in reality, more like survivalists or extreme economic conservatives, but who do NOT ascribe to the social beliefs of Libertarians. For what it’s worth, i’ve seen Americans online (as i’m in the UK) ascribe to what i’d consider libertarian principles and be fairly wildly racist, too. I couldn’t tell you whether these were members of the party, though, but the philosophy was there. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/196 "2014-04-16T12:24:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > These people were members of the Libertarian Party? There are lots of self professed “libertarians” who are, in reality, more like survivalists or extreme economic conservatives, but who do NOT ascribe to the social beliefs of Libertarians. They called themselves libertarians. I don’t know what party they supported. Most of them, including the racists, strongly supported Ron Paul. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/197 "2014-04-16T13:14:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Of course, there are other freedoms. And the restaurant owner might want to have the freedom to pick which customers he lets into his restaurant. If a person wants to eat in a restaurant and the owner doesn’t want him to eat there, their freedoms can’t co-exist. That means you have to pick out who gets the freedom and who doesn’t. If after all of this discussion this is how you’ve interpreted the principle of libertarianism then I suspect you will never actually understand the point. Good luck to you. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > My experience is quite different. > > I’ll modify the hypothetical, if that’s okay. Suppose that I’m right about the return of sundown towns – let’s say they’d be moderately prevalent in the South (like 1 out of every 5 to 10 communities), and more rare outside the South (like 1 out of 50 communities). So not the norm, but still common enough that minorities are regularly seriously inconvenienced (and occasionally assaulted). Would you still support the repeal of the protections being discussed? I would. I don’t think it would happen but the point of repealing those protections is not to offer solace to racists - it’s to get government out of commerce. The fact that it would also allow businesses to behave badly in some respects is a side effect. Much like we allow people like Fred Phelps to protest, or the KKK to march, or NAMBLA to do whatever the hell they actually do, business would be allowed to do certain things that are bad because the principle of getting government out of business is the goal. Free speech is so cherished that we defend everyone’s ability to exercise it, even poorly. Getting government out of business and a net increase in individual liberty is valuable enough to suffer the bad actors. Yes allowing certain racists to prosper is a bad result, but there are plenty of other good results that flow from this concept. Hopefully that makes sense whether you agree or not. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/198 "2014-04-16T13:43:54Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I would. I don’t think it would happen but the point of repealing those protections is not to offer solace to racists - it’s to get government out of commerce. The fact that it would also allow businesses to behave badly in some respects is a side effect. > > Much like we allow people like Fred Phelps to protest, or the KKK to march, or NAMBLA to do whatever the hell they actually do, business would be allowed to do certain things that are bad because the principle of getting government out of business is the goal. Free speech is so cherished that we defend everyone’s ability to exercise it, even poorly. Getting government out of business and a net increase in individual liberty is valuable enough to suffer the bad actors. Yes allowing certain racists to prosper is a bad result, but there are plenty of other good results that flow from this concept. > > Hopefully that makes sense whether you agree or not. I understand what you are saying here, but you are also saying that the return of sundown towns is an acceptable consequence for you. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/199 "2014-04-16T13:51:24Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I understand what you are saying here, but you are also saying that the return of sundown towns is an acceptable consequence for you. I think it would be near impossible to create a sundown town without the cooperation of the government. I think once you get the government out of the discriminating business, your greatly weaken the ability of the private sector to do so systematically. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118/200 "2014-04-16T14:02:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think it would be near impossible to create a sundown town without the cooperation of the government. I think once you get the government out of the discriminating business, your greatly weaken the ability of the private sector to do so systematically. I disagree, at least with regards to the Federal Government. And I think it’s very likely that in some communities, the local government would tolerate (or even informally favor) unwritten sundown policies. All it needs is most of the community to agree that they don’t want x minority to be served at restaurants/hotels/etc. If the specific title of the CR Act is repealed, I think it’s very likely that a significant number of racists would band together, including moving together, to dominate some number of small communities and reinstitute sundown-like unwritten rules. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-topic-of-the-week-1-civil-rights/686118.md?page=11)