Ron Paul: "I Would Not Have Voted For The 1964 Civil Rights Act"

reply to post by SmedleyBurlap


Defending freedom is not defending racism, it's defending freedom
defending human rights in prisons is not defending criminals it's defending human rights

As Ron said in the video, it all comes in the package of freedom

In my opinion this would help vanquish racism because racists will exposed

reply to post by Misoir


Yes.


reply to post by Maslo


Agreed.


reply to post by ModernAcademia


So, do you agree or disagree that people should be free to express and act on racial prejudice? More importantly, do you agree or disagree that a recurring argument in this thread has been that people should be free to act on racial prejudice?

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Don't you realize, that any time a problem arises between two people of different ethnicities, one could always use race as the issue?

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
reply to post by ModernAcademia

 

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. You agree with the arguments made in this thread, that people should be allowed to be racist? You agree with me that this is what they are saying?

edit on 14-5-2011 by SmedleyBurlap because: (no reason given)

Lol, so the government should put a gun to someones head and tell them not to be racist? That doesn't work. You can't eliminate racism by declaring it illegal any more than you can eliminate a dog barking by declaring it illegal.

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
So, do you agree or disagree that people should be free to express and act on racial prejudice? More importantly, do you agree or disagree that a recurring argument in this thread has been that people should be free to act on racial prejudice?

Private businesses should be able to do as they wish, unfortunately that may mean not wanting a particular crowd as customers.
Once this happens there will most likely be alot of vandalism and no insurance company is going to want to insure that establishment as every night the windows will be broken because of racist owners.

Now as far as acting on racism, as you know private property rights do not supersede hate crimes.

There was this woman, I made a thread about it, she pulled the scarf of a muslim woman, during for Fort Hood shootings, and now that woman might be facing a few years in jail because the muslim woman called the cops.

What are you envisioning with property rights? Racial anarchy?

Why is it always one extreme or the other? Too much Govt. or Anarchy?

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic


Generally agree, yet it is only "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" that are rights under national law. It doesn't say we have the right to health care, food, water, or clothing. We have to address that because the courts are only concerned with legality, not compassion. So on that level we have to be very precise in our arguments.

In practical terms, though, there is a national interest in preserving natural resources for example. Yet if we allow federal control of that, we must also put firm and immovable limits on that power to guard against infringements on personal property rights. Of course, we could argue that such rights are not in the Constitution either, yet if we deny the right to own property we will soon see how very lazy and unproductive people can be, as the early American settlers learned very quickly. It's a delicate balance, but personally I think it's always wiser to err on the side of less federal power.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


So, you agree that people should be able to act on racial prejudice and should be allowed to enforce segregation.

You have argued in defense of the rights of individuals to ban people from their stores because of the colour of the customer's skin.

You have defended the freedom of people to be racist.

So, WHY were you disagreeing with me when that's all I said? I didn't call you a racist, or anyone in this thread. I explicitly said that the Ron Paul defenders are defending racism, despite not being racist themselves. Why get so incensed when I say something that you agree is true?


As for those who say "you can't legislate racism away DURR," I should remind you that there's a difference between thought and action. Go ahead and think racist thoughts. When that translates into discrimination at work, school, business and so forth, THAT is the crime. Is this so hard to understand? Of course the government can tell you not to be racist. It is against the law. I assume you all think that the police should be disbanded because they are FORCING people not to commit rape and murder?

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
reply to post by ModernAcademia

 

As for those who say "you can't legislate racism away DURR," I should remind you that there's a difference between thought and action. Go ahead and think racist thoughts. When that translates into discrimination at work, school, business and so forth, THAT is the crime. Is this so hard to understand? Of course the government can tell you not to be racist. It is against the law. I assume you all think that the police should be disbanded because they are FORCING people not to commit rape and murder?

Derp. Why would any business owner want to restrict his potential customer base by discriminating against some other group? What people need to realize is that when government gets involved and forces people to associate that in itself is much more damaging to race relations. Morality and common decency cannot be brought about through coercion.

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
reply to post by ModernAcademia

 

So, you agree that people should be able to act on racial prejudice and should be allowed to enforce segregation.

You have argued in defense of the rights of individuals to ban people from their stores because of the colour of the customer's skin.

You have defended the freedom of people to be racist.

So, WHY were you disagreeing with me when that's all I said? I didn't call you a racist, or anyone in this thread. I explicitly said that the Ron Paul defenders are defending racism, despite not being racist themselves. Why get so incensed when I say something that you agree is true?

Ron Paul defenders, and Ron Paul himself, are not defending racism in regards to this, we are defending peoples' rights when it comes to private property. If someone owns the land, the building, the business and they choose to discriminate that is their problem - they will not be respected or successful and ultimately they will fail. But this is a consequence of both liberties regarding private property and poor morality (on their part).

And regarding forced segregation... the government actually did that, via laws. No one would be forcing anyone to make use of "segregated" business, it would be your choice to support them or not.

Moreover, if someone wants to hold racist views they have the right to, even if it's morally wrong. As long as no one is harmd or their liberties infringed, the government has no right to police it.

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
As for those who say "you can't legislate racism away DURR," I should remind you that there's a difference between thought and action. Go ahead and think racist thoughts. When that translates into discrimination at work, school, business and so forth, THAT is the crime. Is this so hard to understand? Of course the government can tell you not to be racist. It is against the law. I assume you all think that the police should be disbanded because they are FORCING people not to commit rape and murder?

First off, do not equate racism with rape and murder. Second off, being racist is not against the law.

What you are arguing for is ludicrous, it would be like saying we shouldn't have free speech because you might piss someone off or say something harmful.

The reality is that it is a liberty, and it is up to the individual how they choose to exercise it - some will act morally correct and some will act like asshats, but that doesn't mean it should be enforced by law.

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
So, you agree that people should be able to act on racial prejudice and should be allowed to enforce segregation.

I believe in property rights

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
You have argued in defense of the rights of individuals to ban people from their stores because of the colour of the customer's skin.

Because I believe in private business owner's rights

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
You have defended the freedom of people to be racist.

I have defended freedom

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
So, WHY were you disagreeing with me when that's all I said? I didn't call you a racist, or anyone in this thread. I explicitly said that the Ron Paul defenders are defending racism, despite not being racist themselves. Why get so incensed when I say something that you agree is true?

I don't agree with you at all, all the analogies I gave should be proof of that
I am not defending racism, I am defending liberty

I believe it's wrong to be a holocaust denier, but that doesn't mean I want to live in Germany or Austria where publicly being a holocaust denier can land you in jail.
I believe in freedom of speech and defend that freedom, that doesn't mean I am defending holocaust-deniers.
Do you understand what I mean with that analogy?

See what you are doing is you are shedding too much light on the negativity of freedom and making that negativity of greater importance than freedom itself.
A part doesn't represent the whole, the whole represents the whole while you may disagree with a few parts.

Originally posted by SmedleyBurlap
Go ahead and think racist thoughts. When that translates into discrimination at work, school, business and so forth, THAT is the crime. Is this so hard to understand? Of course the government can tell you not to be racist. It is against the law. I assume you all think that the police should be disbanded because they are FORCING people not to commit rape and murder?

a school would be a public school, public schools would not be allowed to be racist
this is about private establishments not public ones
sure there are private schools too but I don't think that would fly

Rape and murder is a crime where others are harmed physically, your analogy makes zero sense.

reply to post by The Sword
OMG!! You mean in addition to pardoning non-violent offenders and ending the drug war which disproportionately harms minorities, he'd also defend the right of blacks everywhere to refuse service to David Duke and the like?

YOU BASTARD!!

I'm not buying his reasoning here. I think he should worry more about cutting the defense budget, ending wars, ending the Fed and shoring up unnecessary pork.

Yeah...because you hear HIM bringing up, so often, how he wants to repeal the civil rights act, instead of discussing the things you mention - which are, in fact, the things HE is actually concerned about, and always brings up.

So let's see, he gets led into a political trap on a controversial subject he never really worries about and wouldn't have authority to do much of anything with even if it WERE a priority for him, where he's forced to defend his views on property rights and individual liberty - and you're willing to discount all his positive points and continue settling for other politicians who are likely to only provide more of what we've already been getting...which hasn't been working out well for anyone?

Well then, I hope you are one HECK of a Gary Johnson supporter and can get the rest of the country behind him - despite the fact that I know much less about Gary's views, I'd say he's the next best bet unless you WANT minorities to keep getting killed and locked up in the drug war, and brown people to keep getting bombed and occupied around the world.

Perhaps they'd at least be nice enough to stop spying on every aspect of your life, though...although I haven't heard anyone else promise as much yet.

Seriously, racism is ugly and stupid, but telling people what they have to do with their own businesses does nothing to end it or address its root causes, and just from what I've heard, throwing the baby out with the bathwater is never a wise move.

reply to post by ModernAcademia
I know it's not an exact parallel, but this whole debate reminds me of what Evelyn Hall/Voltaire/whoever said:

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.

It's simply a fact, you can't legislate morality or common sense - and I don't think we should. Defend the rights of individuals equally, and leave it at that. Unless we're going to make all businesses the property of the state, as well as force complete integration (not just desegregation) by seizing all children and raising them appropriately while the rest of their bigoted forebearers die off so that we finally weed racism out of humanity, the whole thing is fruitless, IMHO.

With all the good that Ron Paul has consistently proven he would do on a wide variety of issues INCLUDING racism, I think it's the epitome of myopia to damn him for a peripheral issue such as this when we have much larger and less incidental issues to be dealing with.

reply to post by SmedleyBurlap
I don't think anyone here is defending racism - it's atrocious, I know few who will disagree - but unfortunately, the Civil Rights Act did nothing to address racism itself as I mentioned in my earlier post. It merely impacted people's property rights.

It's definitely a sad fact, but US citizens have the god-given right, protected by their constitution, to believe in and act out all sorts of idiocies.

When you come up with a way to actually address racism itself, please let me know - but unless you can change hearts and minds instead of merely who can shop where, I don't think we'll see the end of it anytime soon. However, opposing the presidency of someone with Ron Paul's ideas on some issues ENFORCES one of the worst modern examples of racism and unamericanism we've got - the drug war and our military-/prison-industrial complex.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but where I live there are signs up in stores, even franchises like McDonald's, that state "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason".

I'm wondering how many people how many people that support Ron Paul on this are white???

Oh no...does that make me racist??? Well, if it does...you guys seem to think that is ok...right???


I guess we should really just tell all the african americans that lived before Civil Rights....don't worry....the free market won't allow this segregation


And I agree that this will be Ron Paul's downfall...he has zero chance of even getting the Republican nomination, besides the fact of being elected President, because of these radical views of his.

Old white man saying he is against the Civil Rights Bill = Political Suicide.

reply to post by Rockdisjoint

Lol, so the government should put a gun to someones head and tell them not to be racist? That doesn't work. You can't eliminate racism by declaring it illegal any more than you can eliminate a dog barking by declaring it illegal.

No...it isn't about eliminating racism...that will always exist. It is about making DISCRIMINATION illegal.

People are very very naive (and most likely white), if they believe "market forces" will eliminate discrimination.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
I'm wondering how many people how many people that support Ron Paul on this are white???

I'm east indian Punjabi Brown-Skin
and i'd love to see brown people not allowed here signs
this way I know where my money is going, I dont' want to eat at a racist's restaurant

reply to post by OutKast Searcher
Obviously racist Ron Paul supporters:

Originally posted by ModernAcademia

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
I'm wondering how many people how many people that support Ron Paul on this are white???

I'm east indian Punjabi Brown-Skin
and i'd love to see brown people not allowed here signs
this way I know where my money is going, I dont' want to eat at a racist's restaurant

And what money will you have to spend when the "Help Wanted - Whites Only" signs go up???


I really think you are in denial about how racist this country really is.

reply to post by Praetorius


You are kidding yourself if you think Ron Paul has anywhere close of a large following by minorities.

Unbelievable you just had to bring out some token black guys. :shk: