Only to the extent it repealed Jim Crow laws. What it mainly did was outlaw private discrimination by property owners.
I’m speaking in a context of de facto evils.
What precise evil did the CRA correct? If you say “racism” I don’t think you’ll have proven your point, since that is not a state-caused evil.
Sigh…
I didn’t say that the CRA corrected any evil. I said that the CRA aimed to correct an evil act of government - that being any act at all. And no, the evil is not racism; it is state sponsored racism; collectively sponsored racism. Where you either bind yourself to the racists, or perish - examples of this are numerous.
To say that the southern experience was anything “libertarian” is just stupid. It began with a feeling of defeat after the war of southern independence and took root in racism.
Ok, I misspoke. Now, what do you mean by “bind yourself to the racists”? Look, I remember Roderick Long coming out in support of the French protestors, on the grounds that the state had already destroyed the protections young workers had in the market, and now they needed some protection. Long convinced me that time. But when you come to something like “state-sponsored racism” and your instance of it is my restaurant, I’m not as convinced.
By the way, I realize you are not supporting the CRA, but also not denouncing it. However, given your arguments about it, it sounds to me like the CRA would fall under your “reformist” category - that is, attempts to reform state-caused evil without undoing the state. So shouldn’t you be denouncing it, as you denounce other reformist efforts?
He’s not only not denouncing it, he’s denouncing denouncing it. And the CRA isn’t “reformist” in that it unnecessarily increased the size of government. While I’m still using the word “denounce”, he denounces tax cuts as counter-revolutionary but he won’t denounce this!
The Jim Crow laws were a reaction to Radical Reconstruction but that was a small part of the picture in 1968. What got Title VII passed was discrimination by private business, refusing service to blacks at lunch counters for example.
It seems to me that minorities would not want the services of racists anyway. And the only reason they had those pro-discrimination laws to begin with is that the free market destroys racism, because missing out on a buck is missing out on a buck… regardless of if its hiring more productive minorities (even if at lower wages initially sometimes from skill and education inequality) or serving minorities that have money to burn the same as whites. Remember that Lincoln wanted colonization for the purpose of preventing blacks from pushing whites off their pitchforks. This same “threat” exists all the time in the free market.
“No one can give you freedom, equality or justice. If you are a man, you take it…”- Malcolm X
Well, obviously you come out against the CRA, because you are against all state action.
Don’t be so shy. [:)]
Sigh… That’s not the issue. I happen to believe that most people won’t discriminate because most people are not racists. I also happen to believe that the government is the cause of this particular form of racism in the south, both de jure and de facto.
I do not support the CRA because it is an instance of state action. I do not denounce the CRA, however, as it’s absence causes state sponsored racism to continue. I don’t believe that states can ever solve problems with action - even if that action is intential misaction.
Not in the sense that you mean.
In the sense that you mean, denouncing it - as Ron Paul does - is a form of state action. As long as the state exists the matter is not pure and possesses only moral ambiguity. I take no position on it because I reject the framework; I reject the premise of the state.
No, because the no-CRA appears to be a form of state action itself - that is, allowing state action to continue.
This is why it’s called a [b][u]paradox![/b][/u]
How charming. Care to elaborate on this notion of “evil” for the benefit of unwashed heathens?
Btw, it should be noted exactly what he has to say about CRA rather than saying he is “against” it.
This is from 2004:
Last week, Congress hailed the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The heroic Ron Paul was the only member of Congress to vote No. Here is his statement. ~ Ed.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.
This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.
Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join the sponsors of H.Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting raced-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H.Res. 676.
Umm… Extortion, injustice, and idolatry (the state assuming role of God).
Micah 3 1:12
edited
What do you think of Nehemiah 13?
1 On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people, and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever come into the assembly of God, 2 because they had not met the children of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing. 3 So it was, when they had heard the Law, that they separated all the mixed multitude from Israel. …
23 In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. 24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according to the language of one or the other people.
25 So I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves…
28 And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I drove him from me.
29 Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.
30 Thus I cleansed them of everything pagan. …
Remember me, O my God, for good!
It is worth pointing out that the black communities in the south right after construction were starting to open their own businesses and gain more wealth through voluntary means. What freaked out alot of white southerners was that their businesses were in competition with the former slaves. Also what angered the southern whites even more was that the black community was doing alright and was not dependent on them any longer. I read this in of all places a state college history book!
Jim Crow laws were perfect to knock the african american community down. One thing was artificial market saturation. For instance the cost of having one store or factory cater to one ethnic group instead of mixing them together shot costs up, making african americans dependent on white businesses. If you had to choose between which group to cater to OR to hire your best bet would be on the majority group and this would all be to the jim crow zoning laws raising the cost of the facilities and production.
One example is a law dealing with factories that demanded segregated stairs, bathrooms AND work areas for the same job! So why bother even hiring minorities if that was the cost. These costs kept many national businesses from setting up shop in the South. Not to mention racist zoning boards tacking all sorts of fees onto those businesses that did not comply and of course if that failed good old extra legal violence (with the police in on it) did the job.
Niccolo, what is your dilly-o, man? You need to take a chill pill. What is an “intolerant sentiment”?
Ron Paul is right on CRA. You can never, ever make up for previous injustice by further injustice. You must destroy the original unjust circumstance… but what’s done is done. You can never go back, and any attempt to do so will merely create endless cycles of injustice.
Finally, what is “vulgar libertarianism”. I see you throw that around, I guess because you have pure, good-mannered libertarianism, although it seems like you are more abrasive in your style than genteel.
Wiki it:
Vulgar libertarianism, a term coined by mutualist author Kevin Carson, refers to an ideology that utilizes the ideal of a free market as the basis for defense of economic equality.
In Studies in Mutualist Political Economy, Carson asserts that,
“The ideal ‘free market’ society of such people, it seems, is simply actually existing capitalism, minus the regulatory and welfare state: a hyper-thyroidal version of nineteenth century robber baron capitalism, perhaps; or better yet, a society ‘reformed’ by the likes of Pinochet, the Dionysius to whom Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys played Aristotle.”
The term is most frequently employed by libertarians and anarchists who favor a free market, but reject corporatism.
A bit off topic though.
Well, Hell, I think we ought do away with corporate personhood! I don’t really see how that definition relates to what he’s complaining about, though. I don’t see how being against the Civil Rights Act makes you a corporatist.