sophiaserpentia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiaserpentia) wrote2010-05-20 05:26 pm
sophiaserpentia) wrote2010-05-20 05:26 pm
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So, Rand Paul, Republican candidate for the Senate from Kentucky, is not a racist but does not agree with the civil rights acts of the 1960's. His argument is that when the government tells businesses that they cannot refuse service to someone on the basis of race, it's a government intrusion equivalent to a takeover of ownership.
So, let's go back in time to 1963, before any of these acts were signed into law. Segregation is the law in much of America. The controversy over Brown v. Board of Education is still fresh and heated. Jim Crow laws are still on the books. Poll taxes are still used to deny registered blacks access to the ballot. Many places had "separate but equal" facilities. Police were siccing their dogs on black high school students and spraying them with fire hoses. Martin Luther King, Jr., was in a Birmingham jail.
How do you bring about equality? How do you do away with the injustice of prejudice, violence, murder, and economic disparity? Wishing didn't make it so. Our country started down the path of righting these wrongs by passing civil rights laws and ratifying the 24th Amendment to the Constitution. These laws, along with Supreme Court rulings, set the tone for discourse about race which made it clear that discrimination was neither acceptable nor legal. It hasn't solved the problem, but we could not have achieved the progress we have without those laws. Wishing was not going to make it so.
Paul draws a distinction between changing the government's treatment of people of color, and mandating the way private businesses, even those which are effectively public accommodations, are to conduct themselves. Opponents of racism, he feels, should have guided businesses towards change by voting with their dollars -- the old Libertarian saw with no basis in reality, because you can't count on change to come about in this way. Wishing doesn't make it so. Government intervention may not be an ideal approach, but it works.
So, let's go back in time to 1963, before any of these acts were signed into law. Segregation is the law in much of America. The controversy over Brown v. Board of Education is still fresh and heated. Jim Crow laws are still on the books. Poll taxes are still used to deny registered blacks access to the ballot. Many places had "separate but equal" facilities. Police were siccing their dogs on black high school students and spraying them with fire hoses. Martin Luther King, Jr., was in a Birmingham jail.
How do you bring about equality? How do you do away with the injustice of prejudice, violence, murder, and economic disparity? Wishing didn't make it so. Our country started down the path of righting these wrongs by passing civil rights laws and ratifying the 24th Amendment to the Constitution. These laws, along with Supreme Court rulings, set the tone for discourse about race which made it clear that discrimination was neither acceptable nor legal. It hasn't solved the problem, but we could not have achieved the progress we have without those laws. Wishing was not going to make it so.
Paul draws a distinction between changing the government's treatment of people of color, and mandating the way private businesses, even those which are effectively public accommodations, are to conduct themselves. Opponents of racism, he feels, should have guided businesses towards change by voting with their dollars -- the old Libertarian saw with no basis in reality, because you can't count on change to come about in this way. Wishing doesn't make it so. Government intervention may not be an ideal approach, but it works.
no subject
> and economic disparity?
Firing squads?
you know the tune
I'd smash their fucking skulls in,
I'd smash their fucking skulls in,
all over this laaaand...
~M~
no subject