Last night on her show, Rachel Maddow interviewed Dr. Rand Paul, the recent recipient of the Republican nomination for Kentucky's upcoming senate race. She (rightly, I think) told him that the media was going to get hung up on one specific issue--his statements about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, he alluded to the idea that business owners should be able to set their own rules for the patrons they serve.
The whole debate was fascinating and I applaud both Rachel Maddow and Rand Paul for their civil disagreement. (Video is below...and I highly recommend it.) Considering Dr. Paul's argument, I wholeheartedly support a business owner's right to bar patrons wielding guns from entering the premises. Likewise, I think the anti-smoking laws as applied to private businesses are ridiculous--if a bar or restaurant owner wants to cater to smokers, then those of us who don't like to smell like chimneys simply shouldn't patronize the establishment. And it's the same with seat belt laws. I wouldn't dream of riding in a car without a seat belt, but some knucklehead's choice not to wear one doesn't in any way affect their ability to drive.
Rachel kept trying to get a clear, concise answer from Dr. Paul clarifying his statements about the part of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits a business owner from barring clientele based on their race. Dr. Paul wouldn't give her a simple answer. But instead of a concise answer, he kept repeating platitudes to the tune of "I abhor racism, but the first amendment protects the numbskulls' rights to say offensive things."
While I agree that for the first amendment to work, we have to allow assholes their (ahem) assholery, essentially he was avoiding making a statement his opposition could use as a sound bite to call him a racist. Which makes sense politically, I guess. He's saying that no matter how abhorrent the idea of racism, the first amendment protects the rights of a racist to be a racist...and a racist business owner should be able to express that racism by limiting access to his business. Just like an anti-gun business owner should be able to bar guns from his establishment.
But when it comes to barring someone from a business because of their race, the government has a responsibility to step in.
What Dr. Paul fails to mention is that gun ownership (along with smoking and wearing seat belts) is a choice. Race is not. There's an idea that "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins"--the idea being that your freedom of expression ends when you impinge on another person's well-being. You can be a racist in this country, but not when it encroaches on someone else. You can be a sexist in this country, but not when it becomes sexual harassment. Business owners can bar people from entering the establishment based on modesty (No shirt, no shoes, no service)...they can toss people out for behavior deemed inappropriate...and until 1964 they could prohibit patronage based on race. But one of these things is not like the others. And the government rightly stepped in and corrected that.
Rand Paul spins a pretty argument--one that on the surface appeals to staunch defenders of free speech. But until Dr. Paul acknowledges that it is a perversion of the first amendment to use it to justify the creation of "whites only" establishments, this issue will continue to dog his campaign...and may cost him the election.
Cancellation...
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2 comments:
Not wearing seat belts and easy access to smoking (and second hand smoke in buildings) both cause everyone's health and insurance costs to go up, which is why state and/or national laws address those kind of things. The concern is the overall cost benefit to everyone, which frankly, individual businesses don't care about.
That's why people like Rand Paul are way too idealistic in their thinking. It's much more complex than he realizes. It's not as simple as not patronizing one business. Think of how large and interconnected businesses in the U.S. are. For example, if a chain restaurant serves spinach with dangerous bacteria in it and people get sick or die, do you think it just hurts that one chain? No. The spinach came from a distributor who gets spinach from several farms who trade through many distributors to many restaurants and it's almost impossible to trace where the bacteria came from. So in the meantime people are terrified to buy spinach from any restaurant or grocery store. And it hurts ALL the farms and ALL the restaurants and ALL people who distribute spinach. Do you see how complex it is?
And if a street vendor who runs a small business sells some cheap product and rips people off, do people just stop buying from that one street vendor? No. They start to distrust ALL street vendors. Every business suffers.
As for barring races from businesses, we've already experienced that in history and know how it works, so trying to go back to that day is utterly ridiculous. Segregation never has worked in business for the businesses or anyone else. Laws should be set to protect both the businesses and the clients from being mistreated either through poor products or abusive behavior. If the economy is to grow and if businesses are to do well, people need confidence in the consistency of businesses. They need to be able to know they can walk into ANY business and be treated fairly no matter what their race or sex or whatever. And they need to have confidence that the products they are sold will be a fair exchange. if you leave it to individual businesses and take away regulation, the confidence diminishes and all businesses suffer.
Thanks Mir, I always enjoy your comments. I think there's a fine line between individual liberty and public welfare that we as a nation need to tread carefully.
The Public Health/insurance premium arguments in favor of stricter smoking regulations and seat belt laws can easily be applied to other facets of our lives - junk food, alcohol, couch potato-itis. Those of us who tend to lounge around all weekend eating garbage and watching TV also significantly contribute to higher insurance premiums. Yet besides the minor irritations of paying a slightly higher sales tax, I'm not significantly restricted from engaging in these woefully unhealthy practices--often in public establishments.
While I think limits on public smoking--especially in or near publicly spaces--are appropriate, I do believe a restaurant or club owner should have the right to decide whether smoking is allowed in their establishment...and customers have the right to choose not to patronize a business that doesn't cater to their tastes. Frankly, I don't like smelling like an ash tray, so I'm more likely to stay away from a business that permits smoking. And while people who choose to patronize smoking establishments are exposing themselves to health risks, as long as cigarettes are legal in this country the choice whether or not to allow smoking in a bar is something akin to a dress code at a restaurant. If I'm hell-bent on not wearing a tie, what right do I have to expect everyone in a "suit and tie" restaurant to take off their ties? You know, under the right circumstances a necktie could conceivably hurt or kill someone, effectively raising our insurance premiums... ;-)
Granted, the smoking issue is more complex than wearing necktie...even though learning to tie a necktie is kind of a bitch. But both are choices. Smoking, while foolish, is a perfectly legal choice. The color of a person's skin is not. Our constitution has been updated to allow equal protection under the law for all US Citizens. And Rand Paul's argument that institutional discrimination based on an immutable characteristic is an expression of free speech protected by the first amendment...that's naive, offensive, and a blatant distortion of constitutional principles--ironically for no real reason. Dr. Paul says he's not in favor of racial discrimination, so why distort the constitution to allow for it in our businesses?
Yes, the questions are complex, and ultimately I think Rand Paul is politically shooting himself in the foot with his oversimplified "academic" arguments.
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