MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Race, liberty and Ron Paul
By artappraiser on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 2:37am |Opinion by Michael Lind, Salon.com, Jan. 3, 2012
[....] By equating the Civil Rights Act, which expanded American civil liberty, with the Patriot Act, which reduced it, on the grounds that both are federal laws with sanctions, Ron Paul displays the moral idiocy of someone who declares that a person who pushes a little old lady out of the path of a bus is just as bad as a person who pushes a little old lady into the path of a bus, because both are equally guilty of pushing little old ladies around.
Like other libertarians, Ron Paul does not understand American values. The American experiment is an experiment in creating and maintaining a democratic republic, not a minimal state. American political culture is founded not on the theories of Ayn Rand or Ludwig von Mises but on the reasoning of natural rights theorists like John Locke [....]
URL:
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/03/race_liberty_and_ron_paul/singleton/
- 2612 reads
Comments
Thanks for this. It's another excellent piece on Ron Paul's issues with race. Ironically, the two dagbloggers who have most convinced me about Ron Paul's problems with race have been his two biggest defenders. In trying to find the context they kept insisting was missing from the "couple of sentences" that were in his newsletters, I discovered that the context only made things even worse.
by Verified Atheist on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 12:27pm
You seem to miss a lot of context still.
When the Civil Rights act was passed, it was claimed that there would be no busing - but 2 years later, the busing of kids started.
The expansive use of the Interstate Commerce Clause is Paul's biggest gripe. It's used to shut down state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries, for the states to adopt 55-mph speed limit & 21-year-old drinking, and now a variety of federal incursions into state & personal privacy related to the Patriot Act.
Now there are parts of the Civil Rights Act that were entirely about federal facilities, so non-controversial.
Where I'm not completely convinced about Paul's argument is I don't see a proper path to control discrimination within the Constitution, and he doesn't go into enough detail to know if he does. He rails against quotas, and I somewhat agree, but as a practical matter, what's the alternative? He talks about relying on the courts - certainly Thurgood Marshall & the NAACP made some headway via focused precedent-setting court cases, but from what I see, all at the federal level, many using the 14th amendment's Equal Protection Clause.
I can sympathize with the view that the commerce law opened up a can of worms for a number of threats against personal freedom. What I'm not sure I see is whether the 14th Amendment or some other avenue could have assisted at state level the endemic discrimination in private facilities from motels to restaurants to theaters, or whether Paul thinks blacks could have just made do with lessened access because that was the prerogative of white business owners. (The Civil Rights Act allowed discrimination in private "clubs", so it wasn't a complete diktat, but the feds might have been able to do more to force states to not just provide judicial support for states but pro-active executive enforcement of Equal Protection rights.)
However, to Paul's credit, he does identify a number of factors such as drug prosecution that play a huge role in undermining Blacks' status in the country. He specifically mentions the "flawed court system" along with military, and I'd be greatly curious to hear him expand more on what fix for that flawed court system he thinks would have helped.
What bothers me is that people who supposedly support personal freedoms can't look at the tradeoffs of the Civil Rights Act and identify that there are tradeoffs, or contemplate at all whether any alternate routes might have better maintained everyone's rights and made a smoother transition to a multi-racial society. What bothers me is people can't just simply debate the issue, with some real elucidation that could be useful for 2011, but instead just have to label Paul a whack job without actually thinking through a complex issue.
by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 2:29pm
I'm waiting for a Paul supporter to explain how the Civil Rights Act impinged on anyone's "liberty," or "freedom," or what have you in any meaningful way, unless, of course, you mean the freedom to discriminate (e.g., deny public services or places of public accommodation) based on race.
To turn Paul's argument back on him, if you hate blacks that much, move so far away from them that can't infect your public restrooms, your restaurants, or your schools. If blacks live in your community, then you simply shouldn't be allowed to post signs on a business restricting their access, or gerrymandering school districts to pen them in substandard all-minority districts.
Oh, and the stuff about the drug war and other broad uses of the Commerce clause are largely irrelevant attempts at distraction from the questions raised by Paul's opposition to the Civil Rights Act. Since Paull supporters are so fond of using his rhetorical opposition to the war in drugs as proof that he is not a racist, I would just note that he same political impulses that led to Jim Crow in the South and urban ghettoes in the North is behind the imbalances in the enforcement of federal drug laws. And I think it's a fairly easy argument to make that these disparities would still exist under the much less federalized criminal justice system that Paul envisions.
There is no such thing as an absolute right; if society is to function, then competing rights must be balanced against one another. For self-proclaimed leftists to continue to argue that the right to discriminate based on race deserves the same amount of deference as the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of race is really quite bizarre.
by Ethanator on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 3:55pm
Then why is he ranting as he was in Iowa about the UN looking to take everyone's property away? This is driven by the fear of Charter 21 that came out the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 and the use of sustainable development (what an awful thing!) to impose a seizing of everyone's private property. Either Ron Paul really believes this or he is just playing on the paranoia about the One World Order in the same manner that Cheney and company played on the terrorist threat to amp of fear in this country.
But to your point:
I can only speak for myself, but I acknowledge there are trade-offs - but there are trade-offs with any law. By its very nature, a law restricts the actions of someone - it says you can't do this or some one must be allowed to do that.* And this is the case whether the law is made by the federal court or local city council. If you don't want trade-offs, then you have to have society stop making laws. Affirmative action is probably the best example, and the one society todays struggles with most intensely. The trade-offs are quite clear, there will be specific individuals who personally have adverse consequences in order the society as whole to reap the beneficial facets of this legislation. Most people I have seen debate this from the pro-Affirmative Action side do not deny these adverse consequences. Some, however, will deny the significance of those adverse consequences, or minimize them to such an extent that it is implicit they do not merit consideration. But that is different then denying no consequences.
The same goes with everything related to the Civil Rights Act - the debate is what significance do the adverse consequences (the trade-off) have, how shall the adverse be weighed against the benefit.
*I mean who is the city to tell me that I have to pick up my dog's poop off the sidewalk or have to keep it on a leash at a park my tax dollars were used to build and maintain?
I wouldn't say Paul is whack job - in the sense that he is some demented soul - rather he has adopted consciously and subconsciously a framework and understanding that is detrimental to this country. His stance on private property rights, all other things aside, make it so in my opinion.
Moreover, the fact that I don't see any serious detailing of this other alternative route to social justice says a lot to me. All that is offered is a taking away of what has been developed, which amounts to a return to the way things were, a way which led to the need for such intervention in the first place.
by Elusive Trope on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 4:48pm
Your emphasis that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not without a cost is worthwhile to consider. Goldwater illuminated those trade offs when he deemed the Act unconstitutional at the time. As matters of law, the exchange should be understood as broadly as possible. But as a child growing up because of what that Act made possible and necessary, I can only say thank you: This world is a better place because we let those changes happen.
The resistance to change also plays a part in why the laws needed to make things better are not perfect. I hear none of that language in the Ron Paul description of what happened. So what is that? That silence. Stretching out like a cat.
by moat on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 7:50pm
You're welcome. In the one comment I made on it, on the infamous big thread here, I guess I was trying to say "context is all here," but poorly. Partly because Ron Paul is pretty damn principled about his beliefs, too, it's not a passing fancy with him. But I think Lind gets at the heart of it all so clearly, even for those who don't agree with Lind.
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 3:58pm
Michael Lind does a great job of exposing the theoretical underpinnings of Ron Paul's brand of government without resorting to calling Ron Paul a racist himself. As Lind points out, he may be, but that is not important. Getting into arguments about whether Ron Paul is or isn't a racist tends to miss the point.
Key to that point is the rest of the second paragraph posted above:
This notion as to the inherent tyrannical nature of the military and police is what I would call the dark side of the anti-authoritarian thread in America's liberal or progressive wing. It is one of the main reason that Ron Paul appeals to some on the Left, if only at a gut level. Yet whether it is a libertarian or a anarchist spouting this perspective, it is non-aligned with the traditions of political thought in this country.
As the same time, Michael Lind also points out the significant difference (and it is very significant) between libertarians and anarchists, a difference which highlights why no one who considers him or herself a liberal should seriously support Ron Paul (and lets remember that even Pat Buchanan was against the idea of invading Iraq):
Libertarians in the end do not have a problem with the state and law enforcement structures. They just see it as enforcing laws rights specifically of property owners, just like it used be with the landed individuals controlling everything (I could also point out that they all happened to white males). People like Ron Paul I would assert wouldn't be having a problem with the federal government if they were behaving in this manner. And once the states (or counties or cities) tried to do this, once the federal government was removed from the picture, the Ron Pauls of the country would go after them (which they already have done actually).
All the focus on Ron Paul and racism around the issue of private property rights has in some way blurred the extent of the consequences derived private property rights. The focus is one the private property owner having the right to not serve some group, but these rights apply equally in terms of development of that land. If the owner happens to own a mountain with a lot of coal beneath, the feds, or the state, or any other governmental body should not have the right to impede that individual (or company) from removing that mountain to get out of the coal (as well as the pollution of streams and rivers). If mere citizens attempt to interfere with this extraction as mere citizens, then the government that does exist should take steps to remove them.
So Ron Paul may actually be not a racist and tree hugger, but the system of government he proposes is the system that not only would allow for the landed individuals and companies to perpetuate and institutional racism (or sexism or homophobia or...), but also to expand the unsustainable environmental policies of the industrial age. Forget about growth management.
by Elusive Trope on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 1:39pm
Of course, an important difference between libertarians and anarchists (in addition to the ones IBB pointed out on his blog) are that the anarchists never pretend that their views are aligned with the traditions of political thought. I presume that if asked, they'd point out that these are the same traditions the allowed slavery and the virtual extermination of the original inhabitants of this country.
by Verified Atheist on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 2:09pm
Trope's point, as usual, eludes me in the verbosity, but I know one thing for sure.
If that old lady Mr. Lind mentions in AA's link, is hit by the bus, it will be a liberty luvin' guvment grousin' Rand Paul supporter who will be the first to start stomping on her head.
by NCD on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 2:21pm
Sorry that I don't speak in bumper stickerese. If you would like I can give you a paragraph by paragraph breakdown so you can follow my thoughts on this matter.
by Elusive Trope on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 4:51pm
bumper stickerese
Trope, friend of my youth, pause and reflect....do you think it would really impact your oeuvre negatively were you to, shall we say, tighten it up a taste?
by jollyroger on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:24pm
There is a difference between tightening up one's writing - and, yes, if I spent doing two or three drafts for my comments before posting, I probably could tighten it up. Of course this is just a comment on a comment thread, and I doubt there are many folks here you spend developing their response with that much attention.
I made have written a long comment, in that there were more than two paragraphs. But if one want to show me the excessive redundancy in what I wrote? There are couple different points being made in the comment, so maybe you would prefer that I break this up to into three comments or so. Maybe this why my point eludes you - you were thinking I was attempting to make one large point, rather than a series of points.
Maybe you could point out a particular paragraph in which the point eludes you. This might help me tighten up my verbosity, since from my perspective it seems pretty clear what I was driving at in each paragraph.
Or maybe you just being hyperbolic by saying my point(s) alluded you, and just have something against comments that are longer than than a couple of paragraphs.
Peace,
Trope
by Elusive Trope on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:42pm
Alas, too subtle and too specific by half.
I was only privy to NCD's crack, and your rejoinder, and had thought by the use of "oeuvre" to embrace the concept of your wider postings, not the specific arguments to which NCD's rejoinder were directed.
I had not read them. (possibly as an artifact of my famously-almost-managed-by-aggressive-amphetamine-treatment A.D.D., I generally eschew long paragraphs--I'll read any length of post, mind you, but not big paragraphs...)
by jollyroger on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:59pm
well - as it might be apparent, I made the mistake of thinking you comment was from NCD.
I would admit that my proclivity is to use more words than less words. But I do find it intriguing that it seems at times it is my writing approach people feel compelled to critique when, lets face it, just about everybody is not writing masterpieces, whether it be blogs or comments, whether here or across the blogosphere.
Believe it or not, I have been through a writing program, and have gone through my share of workshops, having my writing torn apart along with everyone else. So, I am aware of numerous things with everything I write where, if I spent the time, I could tweak or eliminate or etc. to make it better. But my intent at this time leads me not to go that distance. Maybe I should. That I don't is my choice.
What does sort of get in my craw is when people seem to be making some hyperbolic snide remark about my writing or anyone else's which is motivated by a difference in opinion. In other words, they don't make the same comments to those with whom they are seeing eye to eye on an issue. In these cases, all is forgiven, and even celebrated as part of the idiosyncrasies and diversity of personalities on the web.
Well, now I will get off the soapbox (for now).
by Elusive Trope on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 6:46pm
by Verified Atheist on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 7:10pm
Bringing up anarchists in this context reminds me of some of my own puzzlemenat about modern anarchist theorizing. Some of the examples Lind uses do serve just as well for thinking about it. If a group of people in a certain geographic area choose to be racist and enforce it, like a mini Jim-Crow-like situation, what the heck do anarchists propose to do about it? Is it like libertarianism, where if you don't like it, just move to another area where people are more to your liking? Or is the "utopia" supposed to be constant vigilant violent revolution all the time?
The former is what happened when Dan Kervick went to his first OWS meeting in New Hampshire, as I see it. There, as he described it, some strident "live free or die" folks had the majority control of the group, seemed to think of Dan as having extreme socialist views out of their mainstream; one even commented on Dan's thread about it. As I see what happened then is that Dan basically did just go somewhere else, to find others more in agreement with him, in a virtual sense.
So the anarchist solution is bascially nomadism to find your own tribe to live with?
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 2:54pm
The image of nomads looking for their own tribe reminds me of the often made comparisons between Hobbes' natural state of war (between man and man) and Rousseau's idea of the Noble Savage as a natural condition that Civilization buried alive. Many comparisons between the two views concern themselves with how "war-like" humans are by default. For me, the more interesting comparisons are not about our essence but look at how differences between people are sorted out in a society in real time.
Rousseau's vision suggests that there is a "natural" way that matters got sorted out that did not require the artifices built up over centuries. Hobbes takes the position that any kind of sorting out not decided by direct conflict between individuals is an artifice. The Leviathan, if you will.
Libertarians of the Ron Paul variety want to have their cake and eat it too. They run to Rousseau when they feel the burden of others is too heavy to bear and they run to Hobbes when gangs form up in front of their place of business.
The anarchists may suffer from a similar lack of coherence about their founding principles but they at least acknowledge that success in removing the constraints they object to means there is no guarantee about might happen next.
by moat on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 5:25pm
This is a very helpful comment. That is all I have to say.
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 5:29pm
I agree that it was a helpful comment. Of course, I have something more to say.
The comment reminds of a previous thread (or two?) in which the discussion led to, in order to keep this short, the natural (evolutionary) tendencies in humans to both cooperation (the social necessity for our survival) and aggression (the violent necessity for our survival). The debates tend to revolve around which one of these is the primary or core tendency, when the reality may be that both are equally present. In this regard, society has been driven (along with acquisition of symbolic thinking) by the struggle between the two tendencies that have served beneficial purposes.
(there also the other debate regarding these tendencies residing in one or the other gender/sex).
by Elusive Trope on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 5:47pm
Of course, I should have said that is all I have to say for now.
It is impossible to just walk away from such quality input. One thing it caused me to do, what popped into my head, talking about homeless nomads and tribes and such, and then thinking on nations and federations, and American Revolutions and such, and who got to vote after joining Revolutions and such, and who actually were those Southern rebels and such, was to check out the history of the meaning of this term Landed Gentry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landed_gentry
Ah, lookie the ties between class and real property, real property and class, starting around the birth of capitalism, the Renaissance, and western empires, not to mention the printing press. How does a commoner become noble as it were (if not born a noble,) a gentleman. A man's home is his castle. Ain't got no home? King of nothing. How dare those Yankees throw away all these ancient property rights.
But wait, let's take a look at the link here
The most stable and respected form of wealth is land, and great prestige and political qualifications were (and still are) attached to landownership. Owning land was a prerequisite for suffrage (the civil right to vote) in county constituencies until the Reform Act 1832; until that time, Parliament was largely in the hands of the landowners.
which among other things says, my bold:
The Act granted seats in the House of Commons to large cities that had sprung up during the Industrial Revolution, and took away seats from the "rotten boroughs"—those with very small populations. The Act also increased the number of individuals entitled to vote, increasing the size of the electorate from about 400,000 to 650,000, and allowing a total of one out of six adult males to vote, in a population of some 14 million.
Then I go to the "Rotten boroughs" link; just another example of why I do so love our mother tongue:
A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within Parliament.
Ah: one man, one vote, property and power be damned.
1832 did you say?
Let's see:
Following Jefferson, Jackson supported an "agricultural republic" and felt the Bank improved the fortunes of an "elite circle" of commercial and industrial entrepreneurs at the expense of farmers and laborers
Egads, look at this, how old is Ron Paul, really, anyways:
Democratic cartoon shows Jackson fighting the monster Bank. "The Bank", Jackson told Martin Van Buren, "is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!"
Nuff sophistry for now
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 8:01pm
Andrew Jackson is the perfect comparison; A landed gentry fighting another set of elites in the name of the common man in order to maintain the privilege of his class.
The cartoon is excellent. I particularly like the way a tentacle is wrapping around Jackson's ankle.
by moat on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 1:07pm
I just started reading (finally) Guns, Germs, and Steel and in the first chapter (I think) Diamond talks about how with the Polynesians, island size often determined how war-like they were. In New Zealand, a fairly large island with lots of resources, people spread out and fought over the resources. In the Chathams, a small island only capable of supporting about 1,000 hunter/gatherers (and too cold for the crops that the Polynesians had previously learned to grow), the Morioris had to cooperate to survive. They became a very peaceful people, which meant that they were easily dominated when the New Zealand Maori finally invaded them.
by Verified Atheist on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 7:07pm
Thank you for making me feel guilty that it is still sitting and waiting in our library unread by moi.
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 8:29pm
library
Surely you mean kindle? Ah, I loves me some an antiquarian...
by jollyroger on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:27pm
Don't carry the literal meaning of my usage too far. While the mountains of books are real, they do not have a room of their own, that part of the meaning was virtual. Not that they don't threaten to take over every single room in the house. So far the stairs are still free of them, but not the little garage. Matter of fact, if I do get inspired to read that book, it might take me a good half hour to find it.
by artappraiser on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:51pm
I took only the "libr" part for fact, and correctly inferred that you are a fan of legacy media.
I have cut myself loose from the cartons and the twine that are the lot of those who consort with paper and bindings.
by jollyroger on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:53pm
But you are less nomadic than I.
by jollyroger on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:54pm
Font size, also...
by jollyroger on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:54pm
What's wrong with Hobbits?
by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 2:47pm
I just think Lind's points do a good job of really clarifying. One can disagree with him that the USA was founded upon Lockean principles uber alles. You can also look at the American revolution as marriage of convenience between states, not all necessarily so hot on Locke as some of the founders, until the Civil War finished the job (hence voting rights started out with property owners, that was part of what sweetended the deal.) But the American libertarian preference for property rights uber alles really does drag you back into American Civil War territory; "states rights" to property, like slaves, but also just the old rural landowner's ways, was the cry of the South's big property owners, against the industrial urban north moving on to a true new world, not just the old one liberated from a parliamentary monarchy That's why he ends up quoting Lincoln.
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 3:12pm
This notion as to the inherent tyrannical nature of the military and police is what I would call the dark side of the anti-authoritarian thread in America's liberal or progressive wing
Oh I noticed you suggesting this just a little bit in your blogs about OWS.
This is really going off thread but since you raise it I'd like to ramble on it a bit.
I don't know if I would go so far as to call it a dark thread in America's left. Mostly I think it is just one result of romantic attachment with revolution and you find it worldwide. It is also often found in young people in a particularly idealistic phase, and it is something also noted with some great characters in fiction over the ages.
When it really starts to irk me is when I see the people who seem to get positively excited, almost joyful, over the possibility that maybe this time the police will go too far in reaction and everyone else will get angry and we will get some better mojo going here. When it's like they are hoping and praying that authorities will act fascistic enough to anger other people.
I don't think those are all the romantic revolutionary types, rather, it's a subset of them. I must say I agree that those really are "dark side" people, they are not people of any one political persuasion, but I do think they have a problem that causes a lot of trouble in the world. To me, that's revealing a passion for discord and fighting that's very similar to that of the worst gung-ho military killing machine or the nastiest cop. I think it has something to do with testosterone or some other androgen. This is where I sympathize with "if women ran the world" arguments, (omitting "androgen women.") I see it in one brother who always wanted to be a cop; he also "played army" 24/7 as a child, worse than Michael Richards famous "battle boy" skits The rest of us in the family secretly always thanked god they had psychological testing at all the cop jobs he applied for that caught his androgenic problems and he never got to be one even though he had a college degre in criminal justice.
It's more "please someone, save the world from angry young males," that's what I think when I see what you're talking about, not the dark side of any political movement.
BTW, I very much dislike AdBusters's running protestor silhoutte logo for the OWS movement for related reasons; to me it reads like a dog whistle to angry young males, and I mostly when I see it, I think: thank god it hasn't worked so far as seemingly intended by the artist.
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 3:52pm
This is the dark side I was referring to. In order to cater to those like NCD who think I was already being to verbose, I avoided go into more elaborate detail on this matter. It is primarily driven by angry young (and some old) males, although I have met a few of those women who were just androgen driven as their male counter-parts.
The problem is that in many of the activist groups, it is these angry young males who tend to rise up to be the "coordinators" because no else has the same passion to hold the bullhorn and give directions to other people. Most of the internal discord I have experienced in activists circles stem somehow back to the angry young males stepping on toes in their drive to be the alpha male of the group.
I was not intending to paint all political movements, groups or activists as exhibiting this dark side, just merely it does exist. In part, my comment was a means to harken back to my take on OWS, and is in an further utterance of the notion I wrote about in my blog The Liberal Conundrum and Ron Paul.
I was also say that for some it is that romanticizing of revolution, which is indeed not just an American Left thing, which leads some getting positively excited about things going over the edge. I, too, would say I have romanticized the "struggle" from time to time, and it is in and of itself not necessarily an awful, awful thing. But when you put some people who have a serious romanticization of the "struggle" with some angry young males leading the way, it can be, if not a dangerous mix, at least a not very effective one.
And I completely agree with you about the Adbusters logo. If nothing else it projects the protesting for protesting sake, which is exactly where so many of the angry (daddy didn't love me enough) young males political thought patterns tend to be centered upon.
by Elusive Trope on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 4:21pm
people who seem to get positively excited, almost joyful
The use of "people" shows your good breeding and restraint...
by jollyroger on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 5:31pm