Stossel: Freedom of Association
Kudos to John Stossel for pointing out that 8 of the 10 provisions of the Civil Rights Act outlawed government mandated discrimination. The problem with the CRA is the other two provisions forced mandatory association.
I'm certainly with Stossel and Rand Paul on this one.
Labels: Rand Paul
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:15 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
"John Stossel slapped by wrestler" is worth googling, if you want to see him at his journalistic best.
So Fred is a "Friend of Lester Maddox."
Lester Maddox was a little man who made some big headlines with his big axe handle in the Deep South in the Sixties.
Lester Maddox threatened to knock the brains out of any black person who dared to come into his restaurant.
Lester Maddox carried the axe handle around so the media could take pictures of it.
It was HIS restaurant after all. And he hated black people.
Lester had never heard of "public accomodation." He thought he had a God-given right to keep "the nigras" out of his restaurant.
And Fred agrees with Lester Maddox!
Wow.
Fred, you are a hoot!
Maybe. I don't know that I'd call him a friend since I've never met the fellow, but I respect his right to do business with whomever he wants and NOT do business with those he doesn't want to.
I actually find it frightening that so many on The Left think people should be forced to associate with those they don't want to associate with. To me, the freedom of non- association is just as important as the freedom of association.
Hmm. A white only cafe catches fire and a fire truck pulls up driven by a black person. Should the black person just drive away? Does the black even have the right to enter and fight the fire if the owner has chosen not to associate with blacks?
During the fire, the white owner has a heart attack, does the black ambulance driver have the right to leave the white guy behind? Can the black emergency physician have the right to not treat him?
Fred would be happy in Alabama.
As with most libertarian positions, this one on the freedom to discriminate is a predictable and convenient view for whites in the U.S. - when you don't ever experience the power of racism, and you don't have much empathy for people who aren't you, you don't see such individual attitudes as a social problem, even when those individual acts inevitably become enshrined as majoritarian institutional practices (see the recent targeting of brown people in AZ). I used to see it all the time in my students, but thankfully I often saw them grow out of that ego-centric phase when they honestly engaged with the nuances of such positions. The fact that this discussion is re-emerging out of a political campaign in the U.S. South, where images of that distressing-but-predictable behavior eventually prompted the nation as a whole to address the institutional problems that arise from those biases is probably not such a bad thing. Thanks for raising the issue, Fred.
Ethnic bias and discrimination exist all over the world, and race-based prejudice and stereotyping seem to be natural human tendencies. Because these are so natural and nearly universal, one might assert that they are acceptable and that government has an obligation to defend them as natural rights.
The problem comes when the lives and rights of individuals are harmed by decisions others make about them based on identifying them as members of some group. When we think we know something about an individual because we identify that individual as a member of a group, we are often wrong, and we often treat that individual unfairly--we are less considerate of that individual's rights than we would like for others to be of our rights. We trample on the rights of others without even knowing much about them. Our governmental institutions must not ignore the rights of our fellow citizens any more than it can ignore our rights. As "Libertarians" we should be dedicated to "liberty and justice for ALL," not just ourselves and those who superficially resemble us.
Joe Erwin
(A Humboldt native living in Pennsylvania)
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