Sam, I agree with you that Rand Paul is off base in his remarks about the Civil Rights Act, but I have a few quibbles about the way you make your argument. (I see that when you aren’t going after Ayn, you are going after Rand with equal intensity. Young libertarians seem to love the Rands as much as young collectivists seem to despise them!)
Now I expected you to find fault with Rand Paul’s lukewarm remarks on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as I did. But why stretch your case, and your credibility with readers, by asserting that he is a racist? I think the charge of racism reflects an extreme and ultimately untenable view of what constitutes racism, and what separates racism from legitimate political disagreement based on underlying principles. This part of your post, in which you criticize “conservatives” and “over-polite liberals,” is especially puzzling to me:
But if we can’t say it’s racist to oppose the de-institutionalization of racism, then we’re pretty much saying that you’re only racist if you wear a white hood,” this is what I meant. If racism is a “stain on the soul,” then almost nobody can be accused of being a racist, because we can’t reliably look into people’s souls.
If racism is solely or even mainly defined as an action, then the Oxford English Dictionary must be written by “conservatives” and “a fair number of over-polite liberals,” because it primarily defines “racism” as a belief. (For that matter, Wikipedia too.) Here are both OED definitions for racism:
• noun 1 the belief that there are characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to each race. 2 discrimination against or antagonism towards other races.
Those Brits do always strike me as a tad over-polite. But regardless of the primary definition, do you at least acknowledge that there are principles at stake in government efforts to curb racial discrimination? That it is possible to oppose a policy intended to reduce racial discrimination without being racist? Can’t you oppose racial discrimination, and support racial equality of opportunity, but still have legitimate qualms about State coercion of voluntary associations, individuals, and businesses? Suppose the government could reduce racial discrimination by instituting some kind of mandatory racial sensitivity training. Clearly it is not racist to find fault with such a policy.
And surely you do not agree with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs when he says that a discussion of the principles underlying an act of Congress has “no place in our political dialogue.”
If I had to speculate, I’d say that Rand Paul probably has a deep commitment to libertarian principles, if not a deeply nuanced understanding of how something like the Civil Rights Act might be consistent with Nozickian theory or the writings of Julian Sanchez, and felt that he might risk infidelity to some of these principles by endorsing every provision of the Civil Rights Act without any hesitation. It’s not as juicy a story, but I think you really need to have near-zero confidence in Rand Paul as a man of some principle, or a warped understanding of racism, to conclude that his remarks or his libertarian views are racis.
Finally, for what it’s worth, you say in your original post that he is “against the Civil Rights Act,” which is not really accurate; his statements then and now indicate the rather different conclusion that he is not unequivocally for every provision of the Civil Rights Act. His official position is that he supports the Act, and would have supported it at the time. This might be nitpicking, but since you phrased the title that way specifically to prompt a response like this, I couldn’t help but take the bait.