The big news in the liberal blogosphere is from Kentucky, where a true Libertarian, Rand Paul (son of Ron Paul), won the GOP’s nomination for Senate from the Bluegrass State. After his victory, he went on the Rachel Maddow show and, according to many, put his foot in his mouth with respect to his opinions on Civil Rights.
All of this stems from, originally, a letter he sent a couple of years ago to his hometown newspaper, in which he criticized the paper for its support for the Fair Housing Act. ”A free society,” he wrote, “will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin. The Daily News ignores, as does the Fair Housing Act, the distinction between private and public property. Should it be prohibited for public, taxpayer-financed institutions such as schools to reject someone based on an individual’s beliefs or attributes? Most certainly. Should it be prohibited for private entities such as a church, bed and breakfast or retirement neighborhood that doesn’t want noisy children? Absolutely not.”
Rachel Maddow took it a step further, quizzing Paul on whether or not he’d want the Civil Rights Act rolled back in some ways. Paul stuck to his guns, indicating that while government had every right to enjoin racism in government institutions, they were wrong to think that they could impose color-blindness in private institutions. Maddow pounced, and worked really hard to paint Paul’s position as fundamentally racist.
Now, I can’t even tell you how thoroughly I disagree with Rand Paul. I think this notion is entirely ridiculous. It’s a stupid argument, but at least it’s a consistent one: government has no right to tell private institutions what to do, no matter what. Consistent, he is.
Racist, though? He’s not. He took pains on Maddow’s show to demonstrate that, and I believe him. I don’t believe, for a single second, that Rand Paul wishes ill on anyone because of their religion, or the color of their skin. He says he does not. There is no reason to disbelieve him, and the more you look at what he says, the more you know that people who attempt to paint him in that way will eventually fail. The shoe does not fit.
Rather, he can be (and should be) defeated on the basis of what he is: a Libertarian zealot who isn’t smart enough to hide that fact. I respect him, to be honest, for his seeming inability to run from his core beliefs. Honestly, good for him.
But let’s finally admit it to each other: Libertarianism is patently stupid. It really is — why can’t we just say it?
Conservatives call liberals “dreamers” and “naive” because we think government can be good. But the height of naivete is Libertarianism. The notion that, if we could just get government out of the way, people (or the invisible hand of the market) would operate efficiently and problems would fix themselves… well. It’s a sweet dream, but it’s a dream. Let’s review things that would not be here, if Libertarians had their way:
- Food safety laws. As this is in an area of my expertise, let me assure you: were it not for food safety laws, you and I would be eating poison.
- Nothing (but, presumably, “market pressures”) would impel BP to clean up the Gulf in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill.
- Fire safety codes.
- Air bags, and other automotive safety regulations.
- Etc., ad infinitum
I think the BP example is instructive: to a Libertarian, they should be able to drill where they want, and if something like the Deepwater spill happens, you and I will “force” BP to clean it up by expressing our displeasure at the pump.
Yeah, that’ll do it. I’m sure they’ll do a bang-up job. You don’t suppose that they’d do as little as they could get away with and still get some good press, do you?
Let’s not paint Rand Paul as something he’s not (racist). If they really know what his actual positions would produce, it should be enough.
