Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act with Martin Luther King in the background. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Many people recoiled in horror when Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for Senate in Kentucky, was brought on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to explain why he had criticized the Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act is a broad term, but he meant the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law in question was introduced by President John F. Kennedy. After his assassination, President Lyndon Baines Johnson made it his top priority.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
There had actually been previous civil rights legislation entitled Civil Rights Act, but we shall focus on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for the time being. (In case you were curious, there are actually eight laws with the title Civil Rights Act.) After two Civil Rights Acts were passed, one in 1957 and one in 1960, President John F. Kennedy authored a Civil Rights Act and sent it to Congress in 1963. Upon his inheriting office, President Johnson saw to it that the bill would pass.
What the bill did
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 expanded on provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and added a few things of its own. Essentially, any business engaging in interstate commerce cannot discriminate against anyone on basis of race. The government has jurisdiction over interstate commerce, though a business refusing to take payday cash from a customer on a racial basis is pretty stupid.
It does allow for some private entities to discriminate without explicitly defining what exactly private means, giving broad latitude there. The act also ensures more protections against voter discrimination, and makes it easier for civil rights oriented lawsuits to be brought into courts. It made it allowable for the Attorney General to sue anyone in breech of the statutes.
Will Rand Paul rue opening his mouth?
What Rand Paul objected to was Title II. When the bill was passed, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater objected to the same provision, saying “You can’t legislate morality.” (Considering some of the other laws passed through Congress and some laws still on the books, they can’t legislate morally either.) Title II was the provision about commerce, but it grants exemptions to certain private groups, without explicitly defining what that means.
The basis of Rand Paul’s objection
The concern Rand Paul has that a certain provisions of the law may open the door to the stifling of free speech. Granted, at times we have to endure speech that is utterly hateful and odious, but it must remain free for good reason. He also has gone on record that he would not vote to repeal it, and that he despises segregation and racism, according to the Wall Street Journal. Granted, he may be saying that just because he got busted.
Rand Paul needs to focus on what truly is important….getting rid of the Federal Reserve. Every time he shoots his mouth off with Libertarian drivel he just discredits himself even more.
When you gain political capital you focus it on an important issue. You don't go around defending oil companies or criticizing people for demanding human rights.
The media is looking to discredit Rand Paul because he won. A common practice by the left. Ever wonder who the media is? Who owns the newspapers and TV???
Rand Paul is generally correct although the law says he isn't. But the law can be an a**, as this has been made evident throughout human history and today in many parts of the globe. What Paul needs to spell out is that there are more moral ways to combat racial and other insidious discrimination than passing laws against freedom of association.
When a shop, store, restaurant, etc., is opened, the "reasonable person" implication is that business from anyone who is civilized is invited! So to turn someone away without valid reason would be to go back on that invitation. However, one has the right in a free country to spell out some restrictions on who may do business in one's place. But these must be fully disclosed up front, right at the place of business. "No men allowed" or "No African Americans allowed," etc. One's property rights imply this right. Free men or women may not be barred from setting such restrictions, even if they are insidious, irrational. After all, churches set them all the time, as well as clubs (bridge, golf, ping-pong, etc.). Some of the restrictions that will be set will be wrong, offensive, racist, sexists, etc., others will make sense. (Why may only unmarried men become RC priests?)
So what is needed is full disclosure to modify the implied invitation extended to everyone to come do business. Then there is nothing objectionable since no one is owed business from anyone even if badly wanted for it.
The demagoguery surrounding Rand Paul comments is deplorable. The man in no way suggested businesses should be allowed to deny services to black people or anyone else. Can there be anybody who really believes that could happen at this late date? Paul could’ve just said “yes” or “no” or whatever (I forget how the reporter's question was phrased), but he decided, unwisely perhaps, to pursue the question down to the principle involved, which is the sanctity of private property in a free society. Are black people denied entry to Ku Klux Klan meetings? Yes. Is there something wrong with that? Not in principle – the marketplace of ideas long ago rendered its verdict on the Klan, which is now among the most irrelevant of dingbat groups. Do the Boy Scouts have a right to exclude gay men from being scoutmasters? As a private organization, of course. Does the government have a right to, for example, enforce Jim Crows laws, as it once did in the South? No way – which was Paul’s point. It’s also worth pondering what would happen to any business that denied access to a significant swath of the paying public because of some Neanderthal concern with the color of its skin. There are always plenty of competitors happy to welcome that rebuffed clientel.