Removing the Jim Crow laws lessened the burden of the government on people. Removing the Civil Rights Act would lessen the burden aswell.
Where is the hypocrisy? Is it because the Jim Crow laws were enacted by the states and not federal government? Remember, Paul may support state rights as a way to combat federal power, but in the end of the day he’s a libertarian and would want to decrease the power of both federal and state government.
That depends. If he said “If I were a state representative, I would have voted for repeal…” then there’s certainly no issue. If he’s saying that as a member of Congress he would have supported the feds getting rid of Jim Crow laws, then I see the issue.
However, I don’t think it would rise to the level of hypocrisy, but that may be only because I’m not a Constitutionalist, and think that philosophy is absurd and riddled with contradiction. To me, there would have bee no problem for the government to get rid of JC laws, but any increased intervention would be wrong. Again, I’m applying libertarian values, not Constitutional ones, but perhaps a case could be made that getting rid of blatantly bad laws is part of what the federal government is empowered to do? After all, isn’t the idea of the federal model supposed to be two levels of government, each motivated to act against tyrannical actions of the other? That said, today the states have no ability to do anything about federal policy, so that today, the best tactic is simply to say the feds should do nothing.
A case can be made against overthrowig the laws, since once the feds get involved, they’ll tend to do bad things. I never really followed this objection, though - the fact that they’re considering getting involved means they already have the ability. By not overthrowing bad laws, they aren’t establishing a principle of never getting involved in state affairs to do bad things, they’ll preserve that claim and the ability to do so, but simply not do this particular good thing.
Paul has been quoted saying
Do please actually quote him or give a link. Context is nice.
Furthremore, I do assume he is making the statement, as someone above said, “if I were in the state legislature” etc…
Just like his newest ad is a pro-life ad, while he has specifically stated that it’s irrelevant, as the Federal Govt doesn’t have any voice over it.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t vote against getting rid of the Jim Crow laws,” Check the video on the site for his Chris Matthews interview.
They never said what position he would be in.
Notice that the Jim Crow laws themselves violated property rights (made races have separate facilities). Hence, in repealing them, he is righting the original wrong.
I decided to add a little more on this:
The Libertarian Case for the repeal of Jim Crow laws:
Jim Crow laws “mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities…public schools, public places and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains for whites and blacks” [Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws]
From this, we see that Jim Crow laws were an infringement on private property. As such, they are immoral and should be repealed.
Note that had the laws been the opposite (mandated racial desegregation) when the private property owners had decided that they wanted segregation, that too would be immoral.
Remember, though, that government was the cause of the segregation that occurred because of Jim Crow. Government typically doesn’t need to pass a law to do what society does anyway. This suggests that society on the whole was not trending toward more segregation, but possibly towards less. Government once again has been a tool of coercion to institute the immorality of a few on the many.
I am going to go with his decades of consistency, and assume he was just expressing his dislike of the laws, not that he would act as a US Congressman to vote it down.
Since when have property rights been a concern of constitutional confederalists?
Can you elaborate, banned?
Constitutional confederalists are only interested, on the federal level, in applying confederalism and strictly defining the 10th ammendment to mean that any powers not explicitly given to the federal government are left to the discretion of states to implement. Forced segregation is not something the federal government has the power to mandate or ban under strict constitutionalism. In essence, if member states of the US want to violate property rights, a consistent confederalist has nothing to say about the matter.
That all depends on how you feel about the 14th Amendment.
I gave up on the Constitution once I realized that all right are property rights and government has the power of eminent domain with a “just” (read: government-decided) restitution.
Once the government has power over all property rights, all bets are off.
It’s even worse than that, Wheylous. The Constitution contains three clauses which, taken together, allow for any and all tyranny. They are the General Welfare Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Supremacy Clause.
I covered the General Welfare Clause here:
http://forums.terrybrooks.net/Threads?objectId=941437
Since the clause is in the preamble, it is not Congress-specific. Hence, any branch can use it!
No, I’m referring to this:
The Preamble to the Constitution has no legal force AFAIK.
Holy crap, how did I miss that?
The 14th ammendment only protects properties that are violated without due process. Also, it was a strictly anti-confederalist ammendment.
And If Paul was actually a libertarian he would stop using the Constitution as a rhetorical device, and wouldn’t support state bans on abortion or support federal deportation of non-citizens.
One of the reasons Ron Paul is against this is because he doesn’t believe governments should have any sway over such things. He believes (from my reading of his books) that the government should not force you to interact with people you do not wish to interact with. But he likewise recongnizes that the Civil Rights era was not to change society, but to change the government itself. He stands from the position that the market would eliminate the racial inequality on it’s own.
For instance, black folks had to sit on the back of the bus, why not start a bus company where they could sit where they wanted? The easy answer is that it was made illegal by the government for such a company to exist. If there was such a bus company, it would be far more profitable than ones that did not allow it, so in order to compete, they would all change their policy to include such things.
This is untrue of Ron Paul. He has publicly stated that he is pro-life, but also denies pro life legislation. He believes it to be a moral issue that is up to the individual, and not the state to decide on. He has stated that he is against legalization of it based on the same principle.
And I have never seen him comment on deportation at all, maybe I missed it. But he is a fan of free markets and American’s being competitive, so this doesn’t seem like something he would comment on.