There has been much press this past week, and it probably will be continuing for some time, about Rand Paul and his statements concerning the Civil Rights Act and “institutionalized racism”, as one media pundit put it. I’ve watched the sound bites of what Rand said and fully understand why the media and “blogosphere” are all a buzz. I’ve seen the editorial comments, both for and against (mostly against). Nearly all of those in the nay column have pulled the race card, just like they did with his father, and proclaim that since he is against the Civil Rights Act, at least part of it anyway from some of his “clarifications” recently, he must be racist, for “institutionalized racism” or (and I love this one) a radical. I can understand where someone may take those positions, not understanding Libertarian philosophy, and contend that Rand Paul (again like his father) is a big business corporate lackey that doesn’t understand the rights of “the little guy”.
The problem, however, is not in Rand Paul’s understanding of rights, but the misconception of rights by the public at large. More importantly, a great portion of American citizens do not understand the difference between Natural and Civil rights. I would venture to guess, at least from conversations that I’ve had with “the public at large” they equivocate natural rights and civil rights. We, as Libertarians, understand the difference and we also understand that natural rights ALWAYS trump civil rights. As Libertarians we understand that all rights are founded in property rights. Without the right of property all other rights are negated and you become the ward of the State. We also understand that civil rights are LEGAL rights that are awarded to individuals by the prevailing winds of the body politic. As such they can also be rescinded with a stroke of a pen. The civil right of an individual does not trump the natural right of another individual, conversely the natural right of one individual does trump the civil right of another. At least in a perfect world it would and I admit that this is not, nor will it ever be, a perfect world.
Now we come to it. Is the business owner any more or less the owner of the property where his/her business is located than you or I are the owner of the property where we live? If we are purchasing our home and land we are indeed the owners of the property. If the business owner is purchasing the building and the land where his/her business is located he/she is indeed the owner of the property. If the business owner, as the private owner or his/her property, doesn’t want to serve a certain segment of the population that is their right as the property owner. If the State, through the various and sundry machinations of the “Commerce Clause”, can tell a private property owner whom they can and will serve, does that not also open the door for the government to tell you and I whom we can and must allow to visit our homes?
“That’s quite a stretch” you might say. However during The Depression the “committee of nine” determined that a farmer in Ohio, Roscoe Filburn, had produced too much wheat (the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 specified how many acres of wheat could be grown) when he grew wheat for his own use. The SCOTUS, in the 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn, declared that while the one farmer’s contribution to the demand for wheat “may be trivial” it was not enough to remove him “from the scope of federal regulation where, as in here, his contribution, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial.” If they can tell an individual farmer that he can’t grow wheat for his own use because it was in violation of the AAA of 1938 and thus fell under federal jurisdiction because if others did the same it would affect national commerce (the Commerce Clause), how much of a stretch would it be to tell me that I am in violation of the Civil Rights Act because I choose not to allow certain people into my home?
These are very thorny issues indeed, as Rand Paul and the Libertarian party especially are finding out, because most people think that just because one might be against forced desegregation you must therefore be for forced segregation. The fact that one might be against BOTH never enters into their thought process.
