A member of the New York City Campaign For Liberty published a response to an article that appeared on the Huffington Post a few days ago. I felt like it was worth publishing here for all the kiddos to read to help better defend themselves as you all are no doubt being asked constantly about the Civil Rights Act as it pertains to libertarianism.

Before you read his response, I felt like this quote by Fredrick Douglass basically sums up his entire argument:

"In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us... I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! ... And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... your interference is doing him positive injury."

Here's the article response:

The liberal attack on Rand Paul has begun in earnest. I’d like to take two people on at once, Rachel Maddow and Bart Motes. Mr. Motes lovingly calls Maddow a genius because she embarrassed libertarianism once and for all!

Yes, Bart Motes and Rachel Maddow have discredited libertarianism in its entirety. And what’s more, they did it in 20 minutes while not even touching on any true arguments about libertarianism. Just look at Motes’ opening salvo in his article today at the Huffington Post:

“It's the genius of Rachel Maddow that in a simple twenty minute interview with Rand Paul she was able to expose the essential problem with libertarianism. It provides no solutions except the one your mom offered to hitting your sister: ‘don't do it.’”

Did anyone else just have an epiphany? Didn’t think so.

Apparently Mr. Motes thinks inviting a recently elected Republican Senatorial candidate (who is neither as eloquent nor as capable as his father at this sort of thing) on Ms. Maddow’s show and demonstrating his inability to express a coherent and valid response to the civil rights question means there is no coherent and valid response to the civil rights question from a libertarian perspective.

This sums up the basic rubric by which liberals gauge the philosophical merit of any weltanschauung other their own: well, you didn’t just prove me wrong, so you’re totally wrong, and anyone who thinks like you is wrong, and Obama is right about everryyyyyything, you racist pig.

Wow. What an excellent way to judge the value of your own belief system: talk to someone who isn’t great at televised repartee and when they do poorly declare the battle of ideas over and won.

Fortunately, there are people like me who don’t take this sort of thing lightly, and can actually express a coherent and valid argument for opposing civil rights legislation. But not because the intent behind the legislation is evil, but that the only way to enforce such a law is itself as bad a control of individuals as institutionalized racism.

I should mention at this point that taking issue with civil rights legislation does not make someone automatically racist, however much a liberal would like you to believe it to be true. This is also the case made against Tea Partiers and Libertarians in general when they criticize Obama: that it is the result of explicit or latent racism, and nothing more. In this way liberals never have to address serious criticism of their beliefs.

Frantically casting insults at one’s intellectual opponents is the habit of a man who believes in a bankrupt set of ideals.

Just to be clear, what I’m really trying to say is… the answer to any criticism of civil rights legislation is not an ad hominem attack on the critic, nor is it simply enough to claim without any evidence whatsoever the world would be a terrible, horrid, racist mess without it.

Behind door number one, a racially peaceful society! Behind door two, Klansmen everywhere!

Liberals like Motes would like you to believe these are the only two alternatives in all of human existence here in the old US of A. This is part of the claim I’ll be addressing time and again below: that the government solved the problem of racism, and without civil rights legislation, no advancement of mankind was possible.

I posit an alternative, libertarian view: civil rights legislation was the culmination of racism working itself out in society, and was a way for government and its soothsayers to take credit for something that was already set in motion by the very people government was oppressing during the early part of the twentieth century and during the civil rights era and beyond.

Another movement co-opted by the establishmentarianites.

But back to the task at hand. Why don’t we pick through Motes’s article line by line?

“The Pauls oppose the war in Iraq not because they view it as an immoral venture, but because it represents yet another government expenditure.”

Awesome. Pauls! Anyway, this guy is a goofball. Let’s follow the logic: libertarians believe taxation (and thus government expenditure) is evil because it requires aggression against individuals who were otherwise peacefully living and let live.

(Of course Motes will respond, “No they won’t! They’ll be racists! Society would be chaaaaaooooooos,” and thereby justify taxing people who aren’t actually doing that in reality, but in his potentially-extant alter reality. But I digress.)

Yet, according to Motes’s interpretation, libertarians somehow hold the contrary belief that once this aggression known as taxation has passed, they hold no opinion of what further evils may be perpetrated given the funding obtained via the initial aggression against otherwise peaceful people. In other words, libertarians believe withholding money from a paycheck is evil, but blowing up little brown children is OK because, hey, it’s not like someone’s stealing their money all over again.

This all means liberals are the true anti-war people! Obama is the Nobel Peace Prize winner who just so happens to order drone missions into Pakistan that may or may not kill entire families. Oh, right, it’s not like he meant to do it. He’s not Bush or anything.

Contrary to what Motes may believe, the anti-war stance libertarians hold follows from the same non-aggression principle by which they justify their anti-tax stance. In other words, libertarians are pissed off because they’re getting robbed, and what’s more, it’s to fund the killing of little brown children!

“The Iraq War and Social Security are both equally bad by libertarian logic because they misallocate your tax dollars.”

Again, we see Motes trying to put words in the philosophical mouth of the entire libertarian movement. He’s basically saying, “You all believe what you believe in because you are against spending public funds on things you disagree with, and that’s that.”

No, Motes, no we don’t. You do. There is no philosophy behind what liberals believe other than: we take from you to do what we think is right. This taking is justified by what we are going to do with your money.

You believe what you are doing with my money is right. I don’t. Yet your opinion about what you are doing with my money somehow justifies your further opinion that taking my money to do this other thing we disagree about is just dandy.

“The Civil Rights Act and the war on drugs both restrict our freedom, whether it be to abuse blacks or narcotics.”

Ah ha! Without the Civil Rights Act people would use (or would have used) their freedom to abuse blacks! Only the Civil Rights Act could have stopped the abuse of blacks! How abusing blacks is not somehow covered under other crimes against person and property I don’t know.

But the liberal definition of abuse of blacks also includes three other varieties of despicable behavior: not enforcing laws against the actual physical abusers of blacks, enforcing laws that discriminate against blacks, and not wanting to associate with blacks in any way on your own property. The first two deal with the res publica, whereas the third has to do with private behavior. It must be obvious at this point that I contend the first two are actually criminal while the third is not despite its having been criminalized by civil rights legislation.

“Libertarianism is, at its base, a religious reaction to an age dominated by large institutions in an interconnected world. Given that we all have one issue or another that we wish the government would leave us the heck alone over, libertarianism's appeal is… It provides the comforting fantasy that we are all rugged individualists who personally pave our roads…”

And the “libertarians are utopian dreamers” calumny rears its ugly, hackneyed head. At some point in a conversation with a liberal they will remind you that people are bad and have been bad throughout history and you’re just a crazy utopian who thinks living without government coercion in multiple spheres will just lead to chaos, death, and inefficient roadways populated by the tented poor.

So, let’s see. The utopians in the room are the ones who realize how bad people are and don’t want to give them violent power to coerce one another while the realists concede people are bad but will readily grant almost unlimited power to the government (made up of people, not the people, just people) won’t lead to trouble somewhere down the line. Really?

The typical response is, “Is it really all that bad? Look at how good a life you lead, how comfortable you are. Yet you go on talking about how terrible the government is as if we live in some sort of totalitarian society. Grow up, pay your taxes, and take stock of reality.”

Three responses that immediately come to mind when I hear this crap are: 1) Have you ever considered how it might be better without government, rather than granting it full credit for the advancement of mankind? What if government didn’t recognize slavery at any point? Ever consider that?

2) You may consider it a wonderful place to live, but I disagree. You simply stating it’s a wonderful place to live does not in fact make it a wonderful place to live, nor does it justify making me live according to your rules (as long as I do so peacefully without aggressing against anyone). Nor is there any merit to your unsubstantiated belief (and rather utopian opinion) that we live in Die Beste aller möglichen Welten because the federal government does what it does.

3) Is your line for success really at least not being totalitarian? “Well, as long as we’re only being a little immoral, hey, what’s the diff? LOL.”

“In this world, it doesn't matter if the Civil Rights Act never passes, because black Americans will make their own way. Never mind if they can't buy the medicine their children need, or if they are barred from private institutions of higher education (which should be the only ones around, since government shouldn't be in the business of education), or their right to travel is restricted due to fear of violence by extremist racists.”

Hmmmm. Why is it again that blacks have it so bad in the United States? Oh yeah! The ownership of blacks was recognized as legal by the government! Not all the governments; Massachusetts and other states outlawed it well before the Civil War.

Nevertheless, you can blame the government for making it so bad for so long. Why? Because the government was made up of all those bad people liberals warn us against. People who believe the ownership of others is good. These are not libertarians. Although, I’m sure Motes would try to convince us otherwise by stating libertarians don’t really care about institutionalized slavery as long as government dollars are not allocated thereto.

So apparently Motes lives under the delusion that blacks can all now magically buy medicine their children need and that they have equal opportunity to enter institutions of higher learning. Utter balderdash. Who’s the utopian? It’s kind of funny that he mentions the public education system in the same paragraph given the failure it has consistently achieved in decreasing the black-white test gap or reducing the black-white unemployment gap.

What!? What!? WHAT!? Why would public education have any effect on the black-white unemployment gap!? We all know this is exclusively the result of racism and nothing more!!

Just yell racism! That’s a liberal’s favorite audible when they notice the defense has something coming. Is someone saying the public education system is failing to educate blacks so as to prepare them better and make them as a people better educated? Racist!

Motes mentions public education for a reason. He’s not a dope. He’s implying that without public schools around (and without civil rights legislation), blacks would be in a destitute state, unable to fend for themselves. Mere babes in the woods of a white-dominated world.

Again we see the almost mythological aggrandizement of the modern federal state. It is responsible for the very advancement of an entire race of people. It ended segregation, it engendered hope and good feelings amongst its citizens, it solved every single one of our problems! Who’s the utopian again?

I suppose my following argument could be summed up best in these words: the civil rights act did not pass and change society, society changed and therefore the civil rights act was passed.

The Civil Rights Act wasn’t the genesis of racial equality in the United States (although many say it expedited the process, I also have a problem with this). Black people were the genesis of racial equality in the United States. Just as Malcolm X had prescribed. It was their will to power, the will to stand up and fight against tyranny perpetrated by men with or without the aid of the state.

“I think it is a mistake for Paul to note his problems with the Civil Rights Act without also acknowledging the misuse of libertarian and states' rights positions in the defense of organized racism.”

This fits in the second category of abuse of blacks described above: the use of state force to institutionalize racism. How the use of state force to physically abuse individuals and deprive them of their human rights can be included in any libertarian and/or states’ rights position I do not know, nor does Motes mention. As previously stated, libertarian philosophy does not revolve around taxation and government expenditure, no matter how much Motes would like to shove those words in its mouth.

The non-aggression libertarians believe in follows not from the fact that a public entity is doing the aggressing, but that the aggression constitutes an injury of an individual by other individuals. In other words, it does not matter if one person on his own decides to steal from someone or ten people take a vote and decide it’s alright, it’s still stealing. One person physically assaulting someone is no better or worse than ten people getting together and physically assaulting someone, irrespective of any vote that may have preceded the assault.

Libertarians simply do not believe institutionalizing racism, or depriving people of the fruits of their labor, or allowing physical abuse of these same people, is in any way OK.

And who cares if anyone pays lips service to libertarian ideas to justify harming blacks? They’re not libertarian, nor do their beliefs discredit actual libertarian philosophy.

“What's more likely is that Paul suffers from the same historical amnesia with which most Americans find themselves afflicted, in which the lynchings of yesteryear pale in comparison to the indignities of affirmative action today.”

Oh yes. The “you don’t really care about black people” hypothesis. The same as the “you don’t really care about Jews” hypothesis that follows any expression of disagreement with anything the Israeli government ever does.

Motes is basically saying people don’t remember how bad blacks had it, therefore they don’t really understand the history behind why civil rights legislation was necessary in the first place. This is similar to the “it’s a black thing” hypothesis I hear from time to time. While compelling it falls short of addressing the serious issues people have with civil rights legislation.

Listen, even if you disagree with it, civil rights legislation was just necessary, OK!?

Well isn’t that just the best darned reason I’ve ever heard for changing my mind!?

Again we see an attempt to simply give the Civil Rights Act (and the rest of the government) all the credit for changing society as a whole, rather than recognizing the Civil Rights Act itself was, although too far-reaching, the result of an enlightened change in individuals’ thinking during the course of the second half of the twentieth century.

On to the Maddow interview. At one point she pointedly asks , “And should Woolworth's lunch counter have been allowed to stay segregated? Sir, just yes or no.”

A commenter on her blog wrote, “His position, as I understand it: I don't like racism, but if someone wants to run a business in a racist way, the government has no right to stop that behavior.”

Both statements make the state-glorifying assumption that the government is in the position to allow private individuals to withhold association with other classes of people, and further, that only government could stop that behavior.

As if a Klansmen could open a wood cross shop in Harlem and prosper. But that’s me being extreme. It’s certain that the market would not prevent all discrimination against individuals from taking place. But, 1) it’s not like the government did any better, and; 2) it is not only unnecessary to prevent all racism from taking place, it’s impractical and immoral.

This is where a liberal [generally flips out against me]. I think it’s funny Motes refers to libertarianism as some sort of religious belief. How is modern liberal thought not just another of many ontological systems that make normative claims regarding the relations among men? Liberals believe it is OK to take from one person to give to another because it gives the latter person more stuff, stuff they believe that person would most certainly lack.

Yet a liberal is bankrupt because he claims he make no philosophical claims at all, but that it is the practical thing to do and not really all that harmful for anyone involved. But within that statement resides a reliance on a fact taken on faith: they are the arbiters of what is practical, what is just, and what really constitutes harm against people who claim they are being harmed.

It is this same arrogant assumption of authority that allowed slavery to take place. Slavery didn’t really constitute harm because it wasn’t against people anyway. But liberals believe they take the power and wield it for the cause of good, unlike their historical counterparts. I digress.

But this is not the case with every point, and most certainly not the case for the civil rights question. In this instance, liberals are claiming what they are doing comes from principle and not because it is the outcome of some pragmatism. It is OK to control people and their behavior in the name of a greater cause according to the liberal.

Contrary to the terrible nightmare liberals would have you believe a libertarian society would resemble, you have to remember what preceded the civil rights era and the attainment of greater equality of blacks was centuries of government tyranny over a race of people. And by government I mean a group of bad people who justified doing bad things to people because they themselves approved.

So let’s look at my hypothesis again, that society was already changing, and that civil rights legislation was non-essential to the advancement of society. What happens to a business that doesn’t have state approved, sanctioned, funded and institutionalized racism? It probably goes out of business, definitely in today’s business world.

But many businessmen did not stop being racist because of the Civil Rights Act. Society was already changing, and so were their customers. At this point a liberal will say I’m living in a fantasy dream world, that racism did not simply die out because businesses needed to retain profits. Well, of course not. Racism died out to a greater extent because people demanded it become extinct. But liberals would have you believe this was all the result of enforced desegregation.

So what about the racist businesses government fails to weed out? Should they be allowed to remain racist? My answer? What do you mean by allow? Why do liberals get off the hook without ever answering the question, “What gives you the right to dictate who people associate with?” You might get a, “Well government makes those decisions all the time.” Or a “Racism is just wrong.” But you never get a, “I just want to control people so they live according to how I think the world should look.”

Why didn’t Maddow ask Rand Paul the question, “Do you think a Jew or a Black has the right to deny service to a neo-nazi in full Third Reich Regalia?” She would have to admit, if she were operating on principle, that, yes, she would say it is wrong for this type of discrimination to take place. But I doubt very much a liberal would make any sort of judgment from a principled position.

It is more likely that she would say without any explanation that it is OK to discriminate against racists, but not for racists to discriminate.

So should the Woolworths counter have been allowed to remain segregated? No. But not because the government decided it. This is just one group of people telling another to live like they are, ignorance be damned. Woolworths counter would not have been allowed to remain segregated even without a civil rights act, because that act did not create the forces in society that would have otherwise demanded the desegregation. It was a result of these forces.

Which is why I think it’s absurd that Rand Paul even suggested he would be against repealing the Civil Rights Act. As if the world would come to a grinding halt and reorganize to be as racist as possible in as short a time as possible. You know what would happen if we repealed the Civil Rights Act?

Nothing.

-Drew Rushford