I don’t think anyone cares about it terribly much. I don’t think it’s a big issue. But if you ask me what my stance on the issue is I’ll give it.
I’d like to point out that Rand Paul has been on Maddow before. He used her to launch his campaign, in fact. So I don’t think he should have been surprised at her angle, or attitude. He knew what he was walking in to.
It’s also not like Maddow was the first person to call him on the Civil Rights Act issue.
NPR did it first. He weaseled better there.
If this is actually his position, then he isn’t a libertarian, no matter what label he sticks on his forehead. “Libertarian” is what an extreme right-winger calls himself when he no longer wants to be placed under that latter classification. [This is not to say there are no genuine libertarians-hell I’d love to see the real deal actually run for Congress somewhere-if anyone here knows of some feel free to drop names]
I can find no holes in Paul’s argument.
At that moment the federal government was the good guy. My point is that discrimination against blacks has often been enabled by government - made worse by government laws that either overtly discriminated, or which gave whites an advantage through unequal application of the law.
The same is true of other government regulations - instituted to do good, they often have the effect of being perverted and controlled by people to gain advantage over others. Regulatory capture. General Electric has been kissing the ass of the government for years now, and as a result it’s doing great, with lots of big juicy government contracts. Do you know what was different between Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers? Goldman Sachs gave a lot more money to government, and employs a lot more ex-Senators and Congressmen. Lehman brothers didn’t. So… Goldman Sachs was the beneficiary of government bailouts, and Lehman Brothers got hung out to dry.
Aside from explicit laws like Jim Crow laws, the fact is that Whites in the south enjoyed a system wherein the weight of government was always on their side.
Yes, I know. I was talking about the south here. There have always been areas where blacks were free from the kinds of systematic discrimination they faced in the south. Not that they didn’t face discrimination, but it wasn’t backed by the entire power structure.
If only you were as clear about what exactly you saw wrong in my message as you are hostile. Or if only you were as good at reading the rules regarding personal attacks in Great Debates as you are at tossing them around.
I have not been arguing over your use of the term ‘protected classes’
You are complaining/arguing that those who get a protected status have an advantage. You are also arguing that businesses should be able to do discriminate against everyone equally. Not all discrimination is equal.
case in point: discriminating against people, without shirts vs race
case in point: refusing service because of looks vs discrimination against ALL blacks regardless of looks
You are speaking to motive. Motive you have no evidence of. If you want to demonize Maddow, that is your right. Just remember when you go down this road you open the door. Stick to principles over personalities and you can have civil discussion
There is nothing accurate here. It is all mostly disingenuous claptrap. You may not know what you are saying. I have given you that benefit of the doubt earlier, but remember, just because you follow a dogmatic approach or parrot rules laid out by others, you will get no free ride.
**Separating racial discrimination from discrimination based on other criteria is to belittle what exactly racial discrimination is all about. When society allows a business to refuse service to anyone it is not sanctioning hatred and dehumanization of others. When a society allows racial discrimination it suffers deeply on many levels. Even the slave holding founding fathers acknowledged this in their writings.
Using your logic, Slavery should never have been outlawed in Britain, Europe and America. We all should have waited fro the invisible hand of free society to adjust on it’s own. No social engineering here. **
Business owner, property owner, you keep jumping around. There are distinctions with differences in there that you keep demanding we gloss over or jump over.
The social construct is what we society say it is. Some of us want racial discrimination in places of business that serve the public, to be illegal. Some of us don’t.
Property is sacrosanct to some people. To others it is cherished but not at the expense of the whole of society. When there are competing principles some people will always err on the side on property over the common good.
But we are not talking about property when we are talking about the ability to make money off commerce. We are talking about commerce and it’s regulations.
I don’t think Dr. Paul is a racist, I think he is an ideologue. And he very clearly stands for a central dogma of his political philosophy, the primacy of property rights over others, the notion that private property can trump social justice. One is welcome to one’s political philosophy, though I would advise against taking one too seriously. And one is welcome to the dogma that property rights are the Crown Jewels of human rights, and the rest are merely included as afterthoughts and grace notes, but I’m agin it.
If property rights stand athwart social justice, they should be bent to accommodate. Only so far as need be, certainly, but still. One would hope that they would be bent voluntarily, as we appeal to the better angels of our natures.
Further, it could only have been done by fiat and government intervention, and for more than just overcoming that actual racists in our midst, but to offer cover for the timid. Many, if not most, white people in racist settings knew that change was coming, knew it was right. But who wants to be the first lunch counter to integrate and offend so many white patrons? But when its made a legal matter, well, they can shrug and say “Hey, its the law…” But perhaps more important, everybody does it at once, nobody has to step out of the line and volunteer.
A lot of libertarian and conservative positions and agenda depend on that central dogma: the primacy of property rights. I’ve heard some deranged persons claim that property rights are the very source of human rights, whereupon I try to make soothing noises and back away quietly to the exit. That dogma won’t hunt, but you’re welcome to it.
First, I apologized earlier. Hostile? I prefer to say strident. If you consider ‘ignorant’ an insult then maybe you are using a definition other than the one intended. Ignorant is being unaware of.
You seem to be arguing that some laws and regulations end up being abused so we should stop making laws and regulations. Using your logic, we ought to get rid of the corrupt Pentagon, Police Dept and Fire Dept. We can do better privatizing things with a volunteer market. We already know a private military would rape us more…see: Iraq and Afghanistan contractors.
I think I agree 100%
Of course, it all depends on your definition of “social justice”. I’m not going to feel I’ve been acted upon unjustly if some asshole decides he doesn’t want me at his (privately owned) lunch counter any more than I’m going to feel an injustice at not being invited into someone’s home.
Native American’s and their lives have been so heavily regulated it is not funny. The only reason they made money with casinos is because of government regulations banning them on non Native lands. Why are casinos banned? Christian conservatism.
SO what should black do. start their own nation and open up casinos?
And what if that asshole is black, and decides he also doesn’t want any of your other white friends at his lunch counter, and his clientele is exclusively black every time you walk by? How are you feeling about that?
I’d feel the same. It’s his business, just like it’s his house.
Your private home is a public place? If you don’t mind me asking,…
never mind. 
In that video posted by the OP, he never once says he’s in favor of discrimination of any kind. In fact, he says he rejects it.
Seems like Mr. Paul’s struggle to stay pure has ended. He now has campaign statements correcting his own words.
Private clubs aren’t public places either.
You are open-minded to an almost holy, saintly degree, then. To be more accurate, how would you feel if EVERY restaurant in the town in which you lived didn’t allow you to eat there, or, at best, made you sit in a separate section of the restaurant, away from the “real human beings,” where the tables were dirty, the floor unswept, and the service bad? Well, you say, then surely someone will open an integrated restaurant that will offer better service, and all of my kind will flock to it, resulting in financial gain for said establishment, and a loss to the discriminators! Except then the owner of the integrated restaurant will wake up one night to find a large cross burning on his front lawn…
No they are not. And they are regulated differently public places. I’ve attended a few private clubs over the years. Never joined. If they discriminate I have no issues with it, as I went with friends and no friends were denied entrance.
btw, early on I did make a clear distinction between public places and private places
‘Some laws’ are abused in the same way I guess that ‘some businesses’ were discriminatory. You downplay the role of government in discrimination, and emphasize the role of business, and I’m doing the opposite.
I don’t think you realize the extent to which blacks and other minorities are still oppressed by laws that liberals support. For example, the Davis-Bacon act was enacted under pressure from large, mainly white firms who were upset that black people were undercutting their wages. Today, the Davis-Bacon act basically ensures that union workers are hired for public works projects, which freezes out the poor people from employment in areas where public works would do the most good for local employment. The Davis-Bacon act is heartily defended by Democrats, because Big Labor benefits greatly from it, and Democrats are in the pocket of Big Labor.
Bringing it back around to this thread, Ron Paul has in the past spearheaded efforts to get the Davis-Bacon act repealed. If his son had been thinking a little more clearly, he might have brought this up as a counter-example of how government colludes with the powerful to shut the poor and disadvantaged out of the economy. Not only does this benefit their wealthy donors, but it makes the poor people dependent on the government. The Democrats then lobby for social aid to those same people, and gain their support. In the end, it winds up being a wealth transfer from taxpayers to union workers, with reparations paid to the minorities hurt by it. But there’s one constant in all that - the government becomes the power broker, and formerly free people become dependents on government policy.