Rand Paul, the GOP’s new Senate candidate for Kentucky and teabagger favourite, has run into some controversy over his somewhat, um, atavistic views with regard to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When Rachel Maddow tried to pin him down about his views on the CRA on Wednesday night, things went a little sideways:
Watch how he studiously avoids the question, to the point where he even ignores Maddow’s frustrated request for a “Yes or No” answer:
Paul appears to be an extremely doctrinaire libertarian: government doesn’t get to fuck with private business, dead stop. If a restaurant owner wants to pull a Lester Maddox on one of his would-be customers,
apparently in Paul’s view the world is turning as it should.
I tend to think most libertarianism is somewhat more nuanced than Paul’s absolutist version. I have a distinct libertarian streak myself, but there’s no way I could ever convince myself that a minority person being driven out of a restaurant at the end of a gun and an axehandle, or even just being refused service, is a scene that has anything to do with what I’d call “liberty”… it looks more like authoritarianism to me. Tyranny of the majority.
But Rand Paul entertains no such nuances, and his candidacy is turning into a shitstorm of massive magnitude for the GOP. The Dems must be celebrating… I give it until July before he resigns.
Or maybe not, and won’t that be interesting.
UPDATE: The Invisible Hand can fix a lot of things, but it can’t fix Stupid. See?
This is why the part of the CRA that addresses private businesses is necessary. Bigotry isn’t a commodity that waxes and wanes according to supply and demand — the supply creates its own demand, because there is no shortage of Teh Stoopid out there.
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unrepentant old hippie 
Best thing to happen to US progressives since Palin. Paul/Palin for 2012? One can only hope.
Ooooh, looks like Rand is really raking in the dough.
Well, there’s a SCOTUS debate coming up, and that will suck a lot of the news oxygen out of the room, so to speak.
I had thought that the fervor over Arizona’s legislation might die down some, and that has indeed happened.
It is likely, it seems to me, that Paul will be able to steer the focus to other issues.
Surely he is going to be asked a lot of questions designed to tease out a controversial answer (where do you stand on anti-Semitism, that sort of thing). If he handles that sort of thing well, the news crews and commentators will scurry off to other house-afire “issues.”
We’ll see; we’ll see.
It sure would have been interesting if he had been a little more prepared, and answered something like, “Well, there is a sitting Democrat Senator, who filibustered the CRA of 1964. I’d like to hear his answer to these questions… Wouldn’t you, Rachael?” Or maybe, “You know, it’s interesting: The majority of the Democrats in the Senate at that time voted against the CRA; it was passed largely by Republicans. Yet people in the media keep trying to paint the Republicans as the ones with an inferior position on race relations.”
In that way he could use the probes of himself as a launching pad to inform people, and deflect some of the focus from himself. (That is what politicians do, after all.)
Palin/Paul, sharing the same pair of pants.
Good morrow, all!
There is simply no way to make racism respectable, anymore than lipstick on a pig.
Brian: The Democrats of 2010 are not the Democrats of 1964, anymore than the Republicans are the same. Both parties have watched society change, and have chosen far different approaches to such change.
After all it was a Republican president who signed the Eamncipation Proclamation, and there was some talk that Lincoln still did not like black people.
Racism, of any kind, anywhere, in any direction (how do you suppose the Chinese, with their much older civilization, view the upstart whites of the world?) is still an unacceptable viewpoint. It contributes nothing to the advancement of mankind, never has, and never will.
There will be many people who will agree with Rand Paul. But then, the world is flat, the sun revolves around us and children are delivered by the stork…right?
This is progress? – CTZen
Jymn
Oh please please please PLEEEEEASE… 😆
However, given that Palin as governor of Alaska passed a bill forcing oil companies to share their profits with Alaskan citizens (giving every Alaskan a cheque for $1300 a year), I don’t think they’d be on the same page wrt economic policy. IIRC, that’s also known as “socialism”.
Rob F – Ha! Haha! Well, maybe he would get along with Sarah Palin after all.
Brian
I think he took his hands off the wheel for too long and someone else grabbed control. This thing has a life of its own now, and the Dems will flog it to death.
Which in a way is kind of too bad, because Paul might have some interesting things to say on other issues, but this will dog him. He can try to backpedal as much as he wants (and he’s already started), but he said what he said about the CRA and people generally regard that view as somewhat bizarre, or at the very least, unrealistic.
Sure, he’ll get a lot less attention over the next few weeks, but then when the election campaigns start ramping up for real it will come back to haunt him.
You’re right though, during the interview he would have been smart to mention Byrd. Although knowing how good an interviewer Maddow is, she probably already had an answer prepared for that one.
Toe
Or the same cup of tea, whatever the case may be.
CTZen
Oddly, I don’t think Rand Paul is a racist, per se. He’s just an extremely hard-care libertarian, and speaking from a position of privilege that blinds him to how unrealistic some of his views are.
In some ways I’d agree with him about government and private businesses — if a store wants to sell booze or stay open all night, it shouldn’t be anyone’s business but the owner’s. But bigotry doesn’t end at one store or restaurant — it’s a systemic illness that infects the entire community where it’s accepted. The invisible hand won’t fix it. If it could, it would have done so long before the CRA.
I know some of these uber libertarians and they are the most screwed up people in the world,, most aren’t hateful but just so damn deluded that personal freedom trumps everything that a normal political conversation turns into a quagmire or irrationality
Stop signs are coersion by the state
Food labeling laws are violence against privately owned companies.
You can’t regulate hate.
yada yada,
The all powerful market will behave ethicaly without government oversight
In some ways they are more annoying than the Christian right, at least the Jebus freaks eventually realize they are being mocked and go away.
Paul knew exactly what not to say, “people can act racist, hateful and refuse service if they choose” but he does believe it, yet I also believe he would not do such a thing.
Libertarians live in a self imposed mental utopia where everyone has perfect knowledge, abhores the use of force and respects personal rights as much as they do and are perfectly rational, this is where their ideology falls apart. People have none of these.
ah, the race hustlers are out in force…Rachael Madcow and Cornholio. They could find racism in a ham sandwich.
Rand Paul simply does not want the government to have that much control and I agree with him. Get your stinkin noses out of the affairs of private businesses. This is America after all, not Cuba or Canada.
JJ, he’s no libertarian. He’s against the right to abortion, he’s against the right to marry.
This is merely using libertarian words to enable racism.
Jasper, you festering pustule, get your fucking nose out of OUR private business. Stop trying to impose your twisted, so-called morality on other people against their will.
There’s no such thing as a “private business”. All business, as business, acts publicly — actions taken by a business affect at least those immediately surrounding, and also (potentially) the larger world. The issue is where we set the threshold of personal control and public control, particularly which kinds of (consequences of) actions a business takes should be within the sphere of personal control and which should be within the sphere of public control.
I think that when actions have racist consequences, most people are willing to put that within the sphere of public control — it’s the kind of consequence that is public business. By contrast, when actions have classist or ageist consequences, most people are willing to put that within the sphere of private control — it’s the kind of consequence that is only the business of those immediately involved. (Not defending either of those, BTW; just observing.)
So, what Paul (and people like Paul) needs to do is explain why racist consequences of actions aren’t something that the public should be interested in controlling. I don’t see how that argument could be made without appealing frankly to some sort of “majority is always right” principle — since racism doesn’t negatively affect the interests of the majority, it shouldn’t be touched by public authorities. Since this principle is essentially a statement of mob rule, it raises serious questions as to how much of a “libertarian” Paul really is.
Well the apple never falls far from the tree, does it? Anyone recall the controversy over the newsletters Ron used to write? Sins of the father I guess.
GAB
OTOH, socialists live in a mental utopia where everyone is entitled to be looked after by the state from cradle to grave, debt and deficit be damned, and the government always knows better than the people themselves what’s good for them and will throw anyone who disagrees in jail.
I’m only (half) kidding, but just trying to illustrate that there are many shades of gray between Rand Paul and Karl Marx, and that is where the vast majority of libertarians (and socialists) actually fit in.
The people you’re talking about aren’t very mature and I really don’t think they represent the majority of libertarians. There are plenty of Glenn Greenwald-style libertarians who favour free markets, personal liberty and *restrained* government but also recognize that the state has a role to play in keeping vultures from picking everyone’s bones clean (see Wall Street).
Jasper
Another brain fart from Jasper.
So tell me, Oh Great Defender of the Free Market, how much money did the unregulated casino known as “Wall Street” steal out of your 401k?
And furthermore, would you feel the same way about the CRA if it was Catholics that were being discriminated against?
RB – Yes indeedy, I just looked at his Wiki page for the first time and wow.
I hate to do a “no true scotsman” thing, but IMO no true libertarian can be opposed to marriage equality. It is just nobody’s business but the couple’s.
Ditto but slightly less emphatically for abortion — I’ve seen libertarian arguments against abortion that are based on the fetus having its own individual rights. (The argument falls apart because it pits the rights of one against the other, and the existing person has to prevail over the potential person, but I can at least comprehend it even though I don’t agree. Not so with marriage equality, that is cut and dry.)
Both of these views are more authoritarian than libertarian, so I don’t know how he justifies them.
ADHR
In the Maddow interview, he keeps returning to the issue of free speech. He seems to think that businesses being able to refuse service on the basis of race has something to do with free speech, which is a real stretch, IMO. Business owners are still free as individuals to go stand on a street corner and blather about whatever they want, but the businesses they own aren’t people and don’t have the same rights.
(Or maybe not, since the Citizens United ruling. But I digress…)
I think Paul believes that the market will take care of everything — if people find a store owner’s views abhorrent, they won’t patronize his store, he’ll go broke, problem solved. Unfortunately, what would more likely happen is the other way around: all the local bigots would patronize the store, the owner would thrive and open a few more locations, other store owners follow suit, and before you know it a whole community/city/state is infected with systemic bigotry.
ETA:
Good point. What he advocates is tyranny of the majority.
MoS
For sure. Ron Paul is a fetus fetishist of the highest order, although his views on marriage equality are a little murkier than those of his son. He seems to support it(?)
“So tell me, Oh Great Defender of the Free Market, how much money did the unregulated casino known as “Wall Street” steal out of your 401k?”
20k
“And furthermore, would you feel the same way about the CRA if it was Catholics that were being discriminated against?”
yes.
Every “libertarian” I’ve met in person is simply a privileged rich person wanting more deregulation so that they can
earn more profitrape and pillage the environment, the financial markets, our health care system, or other people.Every
Single
One
(Mind you, I live just outside of Calgary so I may be at the center of the density pool here)
Most of them were forced birthers too.
To my experience, libertarianism is just another word for authoritarianism. More freedoms for me, fuck everyone else. I’m not sure how it’s done in other parts of Canada.
Bleatmop, I’m more of a libertarian than anything else, and I can assure you that I’m neither rich nor a forced-birther.
The kind of person you’re describing is more of an autocrat than a libertarian, I think. Libertarians don’t want to rule others any more than they want to do the ruling.
Like most political philosophies, there’s theory, reality and claiming a title you don’t merit.
I think it’s fair to say that most people who claim to be libertarians are nothing of the sort, and that’s universally true of those who arrive to their libertarianism by finding the mainstream Republican or Conservative party too left wing. I’ve yet to encounter a single one whose libertarianism doesn’t boil down to:
1. No cap on even the worst excesses of capitalism
2. No cap on even the most extreme bigotry
3. The most extreme social conservatism imposed on individuals on issues like drugs, abortion and same-sex relationships.
(Some will avoid the latter by claiming to be in favour of “getting the government out of the marriage business entirely” which is another way of saying, “I’ll avoid the issue of same-sex marriage by instead proposing not be addressed until such time as we completely change society.”)
“I’ve yet to encounter a single one whose libertarianism doesn’t boil down to:
1. No cap on even the worst excesses of capitalism
2. No cap on even the most extreme bigotry
3. The most extreme social conservatism imposed on individuals on issues like drugs, abortion and same-sex relationships.”
I’ve always defined libertarian as one who advocates freedom from control rather than freedom to control. And as one who thinks that such anomalies as racism and profit-gouging will have a very short natural lifespan if we simply leave them alone to die off, because the majority of the population will not support them in any way and will not allow them to feed.
Libertarian types often like to use that political compass with the two spectra and the four quadrants. Based on how they act in the US, I conclude that this is misleading because libertarians (American at least) don’t act like they think the economic and personal spectra are of equal importance. The problem is that when push comes to shove, libertarians inevitably focus solely on the economic part and completely ignore the civil liberties part of it, almost always voting for a bunch of big-government statist reactionaries.
Jasper
I know the feeling. Any you’re happy with this?
I am decidedly not happy about having been forced to pay for the Moet et Chandon, Peruvian flake and private jets enjoyed by the greedheads of Wall Street. IMO it’s even worse than socialism because only the losses were socialized. Fuck that act.
Whatever you say.
Bleatmop –
Until the financial markets screw them, then they’re generally singing a different tune.
Janus
I may be confused here, but are you saying the deregulation of laws surrounding those things will make them go away?
JJ – Indeed they do sing a different tune. I find it funny that the market crashes were as a result of neo-liberal (libertarian) Chicago school of economics thinking. Alan Greenspan was their idol until the markets went to shit.
Janus – We may be on a similar page politically. My ideology might best be described as “GretaGarboism”: I vant to be left alone! 😉
But I’m not so aure about this:
Human nature has a dark side that not everyone has the reason or intellect to prevail over, and bigotry is part of it — fear of “the other” etc. I have a hard time believing it goes through some kind of “die out” process without external pressure, which unfortunately, can usually only be brought to bear by the state.
Price-gouging and other economic ripoffs are another story.
Bleatmop – Even Greenspan admitted he made a mistake to trust a completely unregulated free market to police itself.
It’s a nice thought, right up there with unicorns that shit rainbows. I favour free markets, but without accountability they turn into big casinos. (In some cases, people would have been better off taking their retirement savings to Vegas, at least they would have gotten a few free drinks while they were losing all their money.)
The fact is that business, large and small, has a long history of overt racism until forced to stop by law. It’s always easier to go along with bigotry than it is to stand against it.
The idea that an unregulated market will make racism and other forms of bigotry disappear is utterly unsupported by fact. I grew up in Montreal. 60% of the population French-speaking then. You’d think it would just be common sense to have bilingual signs, right? Wrong. Business had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, by force of law into putting up bilingual signs. Sometimes bigotry is so persavice it will even be used against a majority – as women are well aware!
“You’d think it would just be common sense to have bilingual signs, right? ”
No, I do not. Go to another store that has bilingual signs. You didn’t work or pay to build up and start that business, so keep your nose out of it.
JJ – How kind of him to finally admit his mistake after stepping down from the Fed years earlier and after his policies created the near destruction of the western financial markets. In the mean time, his policies are still in effect.
RB
When I was buying media for Montreal, I used a 70/30 French/English split (it was an even higher French ratio in places like Quebec City, and higher still outside of the metro areas). Given the huge majority of French-speaking citizens, and that French is just as much an official language of Canada as English, it seems like cultural chauvinism to not have signs in the language spoken by the majority. One doesn’t even have to understand Quebec culture to *get* that (although it helps — two solitudes and all that).
In downtown Vancouver, since the mid-80s there have been street signs and store signs in Chinese. It’s interesting to note that none of the pressure for this came from the government, but just because it’s good business.
I think though, given your youth, you’d have been media buying after language legislation changed the way business was conducted in Quebec.
I’m always amused though, by little islands of signs in other languages. I always wonder how the people are supposed to have arrived there. You know? Navigate through an ocean of English to find a sign in Cantonese that says “Cashier.”
It’s shocking to me that the Toronto Transit Commission has virtually no signage in any language but English. I’ve used subways in Rome, Barcelona, Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong, all of which had signage and maps in English and other languages as well. The TTC website does say “Multi-Language translations coming soon.” How handy it is to know that even though there’s no way to decipher a system map in the station if you don’t speak English, someday soon you’ll be able to do it online.
“I may be confused here, but are you saying the deregulation of laws surrounding those things will make them go away?”
Not exactly. no. The atmosphere is which we currently live will not allow such a simple solution to take hold. We would have to dismantle everything and refuse to start over.
But here’s a short — and possibly unsatisfactory — scenario:
If there are ten grocery stores in a town and one is owned and operated by a racist, then those of us who don’t like racism will not shop there. Likewise, those of us who are racists, but don’t want to be identified as such, will not shop there. And you can be that those who are targets of racism will also not shop there. So who’s left? The small percentage that are willing to be known as racists, and who will be shunned and avoided by everyone else.
How long would such a grocery store realistically be in business?
And then what do you think will happen to the racists who have no place to go for their groceries?
I said it was short. But to get there, you pretty much have to start at the beginning and not go anywhere with social laws. Rely on the people to decide for themselves.
Sorry Janus, but it’s far too well documented, in far too many societies, that your little dream of the marketplace solving discrimination is just that – a dream.
It’s never, ever happened. Not once. But it’s happened over and over and over again that governments have indeed had to bring in non-discrimination laws, not because they particularly wanted to, but because the market DID NOT WORK.
The one thing that REALLY pisses me off about so-called “libertarians” is the way they’re so willing to experiment with other people’s lives.
“The one thing that REALLY pisses me off about so-called “libertarians” is the way they’re so willing to experiment with other people’s lives.”
LOL. I don’t think it’s the libertarians but liberals who like to try social experiments.
RB
Not that I have anything to add, I just so seldom get to see that statement 😯
🙂 8)
But seriously, I got into advertising in the late 70s, so the Quebec signage thing was pretty much resolved by that time IIRC. I mainly wanted to underscore your point about the majority speaking French — according to the research I used, it was much higher than 60%.
Janus – That would be nice, and I’d prefer that everything could work itself out without any outside pressure. But unfortunately there’s no historical evidence that it actually works that way. The southern states had many decades for this metamorphosis to occur, but it didn’t.
I doubt if anyone would open a store that discriminates unless they were emboldened to do so because they felt there was a demand. And even if there was only enough of a demand that it just barely managed to stay in business, how does the presence of such a business affect the wider community? I think it would just validate bigotry, and having been validated, it would be free to metastasize.
I’m generally not one to advocate the sacrifice of individual interests for the “greater good”, but in this case I can make an exception.
The CRA might limit some peoples’ freedom to be bigots, but the net result of it is more cumulative freedom for more people.
“It’s never, ever happened. Not once.”
Of course it has never happened. It has never been allowed to happen. It tkaes time to happen naturally, and we as a species cannot keep our fingers off the damned hurryup button, aka government and laws — that also do not work.
And it’s not libertarians who are “experimenting” with your life — it’s you, yourself, who allow governments to do it. You even vote for them to do it. And then you pay for them to do it.
“I think it would just validate bigotry, and having been validated, it would be free to metastasize.”
I don’t think it would. I think the more natural laissez-faire attitude would present itself, and the minority number of racists who are being shunned by the majority would not multiply, but would actually diminish, chiefly because most of them are only there to satisfy the bullying of a “leader” who will cease to be popular as soon as he fails to succeed.
But I did warn that it was a short and possibly unsatisfactory scenario.
Janus
How long are those discriminated against supposed to wait until they get treated like humans? And with the actual example of the southern states, how many more decades of continued oppression would have sufficed until you think that the government needed to step in?
Oh bullshit, Janus. Complete and utter bullshit. It had HUNDREDS of fucking YEARS to happen in the American south, for example.
How fucking long do you expect people to wait for your fucking market to work?
Just how fucking heartless and selfish are you? I mean really – what kind of fucking monster are you?
You know why we need governments? To protect people from assholes like you.
Reality,
Can one disagree with you without you throwing around hateful insults and bile? If you want your country to be like Cuba, why don’t you move to Cuba where everthing is controlled by the government.
YO! CHILL THE FUCK OUT, Y’ALL!
Let’s keep this civil, shall we? Like the grownups we pretend to be? Seriously!
Left to its own devices, the market will reflect human nature. Human nature, left to its own devices, is, by its very nature,
lazy, greedy, selfish, envious, egotistic, suspicious, impatient, and the market will serve this nature to the best of its ability.
The market has, in its time , done wonderful things, and, in its time, it has done terrible things.
The market tends to reflect the nature of the marketers, not the customer. That explains why Translink in the GVRD thinks that nobody rides transit on the weekends, because nobody who runs Translink rides transit at anytime.
That is why government feels compelled to control the market, because the marketers believe that it is a zero sum game: if you have any money, they want it, all of it, right now, or else, somebody else gets it.
As far as discrimination goes, marketers can decide who will get their products and services, but they literally cannot afford to discriminate on any basis, because everybody is part of the market now. OTOH, marketers don’t understand that.
Rnad Paul’s problem is that he forgets that it is 2010. There is no point in speculating on what one would have done in 1964, to allow private businesses to discriminate on the basis of color.
He does not have the balls to just come out and express his own racism, but it *is* coming out nonetheless.
More to follow – time out, y’all! – CTZen
Good morrow, all!
“The gambling known as business looks with austere disdain upon the business known as gambling.” – Ambrose Bierce.
What’s the difference between Wall Street and Las Vegas? Las Vegas dresses better.
Dubya once said that he wanted to privatize Social Security, to hand over the funds to the management of the bigger brokerage houses on Wall Street. Why do you suppose that they call them brokers? Because, if you trust them, that’s what you’ll be.
Politicians say what they do, because the lady whut brung them tells them when and how to dance.
I find it odd that conservatives are more willing to trust large companies, who ship jobs overseas, and large banks and brokerage houses, who ship profits offshore to avoid paying taxes, and churches, who pay no taxes, than they are to trust government, which spends their tax dollars at home. Am I the only one to find this odd? Or am I simply giving the conservatives more credit for brains than they deserve?
Rand Paul can’t figure out where he went wrong. It’s quite simple, really. He opened his mouth, and his brains spilled out.
It is the year 2010. Eventually, this will occur to the conservatives of the world – probably somewhere around 3014. – CTZen
Jasmine, racism is hateful. Leaving its victims to hope that someday it might solve itself over market forces is also hateful.
Don’t like being told that that? Tough fucking shit.
You think I’m rude? You’re an idiot. Rude is a sign that says “No Jews or Dogs.” Canada used to have lots of them.* And that would be perfectly OK with Janus.
Funny how some people have a problem with me being insulting, but no problem with people being far more insulting to minorities.
* http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=a1ARTA0000247
For Canadian Jews in the 1920s and 1930s, quotas and restrictions were a way of life. Many industries did not hire Jews; educational institutions such as universities and professional schools discriminated against them. Jewish doctors could not get hospital appointments. There were no Jewish judges, and Jewish lawyers were excluded from most firms. There were scarcely any Jewish teachers, and Jewish nurses, engineers and architects had to hide their identity to find jobs in their fields.
Furthermore, there were restrictive covenants on properties preventing them from being sold to Jews. As well, many clubs, resorts and beaches were barred to Jews. Signs warning “No Jews or Dogs Allowed” or “Christians Only!” could be found on Halifax golf courses, outside hotels in the Laurentians and throughout the cottage areas of Ontario, the lake country of Manitoba and the vacation lands of BC.
What a Libertarian paradise!
“How long are those discriminated against supposed to wait until they get treated like humans?”
The vast majority of people won’t make them wait any time at all. Do you not get that? Racism is a minority thing.
“Complete and utter bullshit. It had HUNDREDS of fucking YEARS to happen in the American south, for example.”
Less than a hundred, actually, if you count “official” years when slavery was permitted. But then, how come it didn’t happen in Europe?
“Just how fucking heartless and selfish are you? I mean really – what kind of fucking monster are you?”
Whoa, there, dude or dudette or whatever you think you are. ‘Splain yourself.
Janus
Would that this were true.
Given that the only real responsibility of business is to generate profits for shareholders by meeting a demand, I can’t see it as an effective vehicle for social change. Business innovation is restricted to that which makes money, and so it should be.
Leaving social change up to the invisible hand is a recipe for same old-same old. Business will continue to do what has been successful in the past, and if that includes denying service to minorities, so be it.
In a society so toxic that discrimination is considered routine and acceptable business practice, it’s unlikely that people would be moved in sufficient numbers to effect change themselves, by shunning or whatever. In such a context, the business that breaks ranks and decides not to discriminate is more likely to be shunned… Sad but true. People prefer things to stay the same.
“Jasmine, racism is hateful. Leaving its victims to hope that someday it might solve itself over market forces is also hateful.”
Yes, racism is hateful. And who is doing the leaving of the victims of it — those of us who are actually fighting it every bloody day of our lives by not allowing it to take hold and color our own existence? Or you, who wants the government to do all your work for you?
“Don’t like being told that that? Tough fucking shit.”
Right back atcha, ya horse’s ass.
“You think I’m rude? You’re an idiot. Rude is a sign that says “No Jews or Dogs.” Canada used to have lots of them.* And that would be perfectly OK with Janus.”
You’re both rude and an idiot. Seriously, you gotta do something about that drug-fueled imagination of yours. If you never again learn one thing, take this lesson away from this exchange: LEARN TO ASK BEFORE YOU MAKE ASSUMPTIONS!
“Given that the only real responsibility of business is to generate profits for shareholders by meeting a demand, I can’t see it as an effective vehicle for social change. Business innovation is restricted to that which makes money, and so it should be.”
JJ, that’s why I said it was complicated. The only “market” in a libertarian world would be the place where you buy products in exchange for money or other products. There would be no “shareholders” except direct partners in a business, who would all work in that business (and those who have motre than one business would work very hard, indeed). The stock market — which is a false market, would not exist.
The world of the libertarian is a fantasy. It does not exist because we have “progressed” much too far to allow it. The only way we’ll ever see it happen is if there’s an awful disaster that catches all the world’s governments off guard to the point where the citizens of this planet can actually take control for themselves, again.
RB take note: I AM NOT fUCKING ADVOCATING A FUCKING DISASTER, YA PINHEAD!
Janus
😯 Don’t say that 😯 I love the stock market♥
Why? It’s a useless entity that produces nothing of value to anyone. You can’t eat it, drink it, wear it, ride in it, or be entertained by it. If you win at it, it’s only because somebody else loses; and eventually you will lose, too. It’s a cloud of wishes and dreams built on a foundation of fog.
And take a look around…it destroys more than it helps.
Janus – Perhaps that is where we disagree. You say that racism is a minority thing and I say that it is the minorities that get discriminated against.
Think Obama is borrowing our way to disaster? -Racism
Want people to be responsible for their own behavior? -Racism
Don’t like Obama’s policies? -Racism
Don’t like government intrusion on businesses -Racism
Don’t like Healthcare? – Racism
Don’t like socialized medicine? -Racism
You’re pro-life? -Racism
Like Arizona’s law? -Racism
Question Obama’s birthplace? -Racism
Think civil rights legislation crossed over into property rights violations? -Racism
Racism
More Racism
Janus, you ARE a fucking disaster.
You’re a self-righteous, self-important and utterly callous and uncaring idiot.
You’d blithely throw other people’s lives away, all the while smugly convinced it’s for the greater good. Selfish doesn’t begin to describe you.
Janus – You’re from BC, so you must remember Bob Ringma. He was my MP for awhile 😦 … what an embarrassment. He humiliated the entire riding with his dumb and bigoted statement that store owners should be able to refuse service to gays & ethnic minorities if they are “bothering” a bigoted customer. It was so bad it even got him suspended from the Reform Party, known for its dumbness and bigotry.
And that was only 17 years ago, and here in BC which is considered one of the more progressive provinces 😯 My point is that utterly wrong and stupid ways of thinking are still alive & well, and in some surprising places. If permitted, I’m pretty sure most businesses wouldn’t bother catering to them, but just the fact that they *could* relegates minorities to second class citizen status.
I know you’re debating a hypothetical, and normally I agree with you on many of these libertarian issues. But in this case I see it as someone else’s liberty being compromised, and that’s unacceptable. We’ve already had lots of time to see if the market could generate social change (minority rights) on its own and it didn’t — and why should it if its only responsibility is to give the public what they want and make money?
It’s interesting that the position that business has no responsibility other than making money (which I generally agree with), can also be used to explain why it’s unlikely that business would ever be a vehicle for social change, and therefore would likely only respond to external pressure to recognize civil rights.
RB – I understand your frustration, but I don’t think Janus is as bad as all that 😉 I know from her other comments that she’s very supportive of minority rights. She’s arguing a hypothetical situation, which at first glance appears to make sense (even though a little deeper analysis indicates that it’s pretty obvious things don’t work that way.) Easy, buddy 8)
You know though, JJ, when reality is pointed out to someone over and over and they refuse to accept it because it conflicts with their pet theory, I tend to not have a very high opinion of them.
Bottom line, she’s willing to sacrifice other people in the name of a political philosophy and I think that stinks.
“You say that racism is a minority thing and I say that it is the minorities that get discriminated against.”
It’s both, actually.
Racism is a form of bully behavior. At first glance, it might seem like they’re all over the place, but most of them are simply followers because they’re afraid of being bullied by their “leaders” if they don’t. Take out the chief bully and the rest of them will go back to “normal” — whatever that is for them — and sink into obscurity. I can’t wait for that to happen to the Phelps family — take out Fred and Shirley, and the whole inbred clan will become silent. Wait for it.
And they bully the ones who have few comrades to come to their defense — the minorities. It’s really too much work to bully a majority, although the government seems to be able to do it to the voters because the voters are too lazy and dazzled by government bullshit to stop them.
“Bottom line, she’s willing to sacrifice other people in the name of a political philosophy and I think that stinks.”
Where the fuck did you hatch that hare-brained idea?
JJ, this thing had a too-quick trigger! 😆
First, it’s not a “political philosophy.
And second, I’m not “sacrificing” anyone.
You really need to get your head outa that bog, RB.
“Janus – You’re from BC, so you must remember Bob Ringma.”
I had to go look him up. That was a period when I was in retirement from all thing political, and I refused to engage in anything that smacked of politics.
But, to make my point, how long did he last after he came out with that absurd statement? According to what I was reading about him, he cleared outa town only seconds before the tar-and-feathers crew! And hasn’t been heard from since, thank the gods…
Janus – It might *seem* to make your point because Ringma was bounced as a result of electoral outrage over his statement, but it’s kind of apples to oranges to compare a society that’s already leveled the playing field for minorities, to one where minorities have no standing and are routinely (and legally) abused. Ringma’s statement wouldn’t have been any big whoop in Alabama 50 years ago. It was the way business was usually conducted in the Jim Crow south.
JJ, we’re never going to get real answers, but let me ask the questions anyway: Do people not become racist bullies because it would break some law, or do they not become racist bullies because they’re not racist bullies to begin with, no matter what the law?
If you lived in a society like the Jim Crow South, and if you had a store, would you follow what seems to be the custom of preventing minorities from shopping in your store? Or would you flip “society” the bird and let anyone buy who had the money to do so (after hours and from the back door, if necessary)? This is especially a critical point, because it pits your own financial well-being against a group you don’t like, anyway. Do you follow a group you don’t like out of fear of retaliation, or do you follow your own sense of fairness and economic good sense?
Part of the problem with this particular discussion is that some people think only “government” can make people “behave.” But who do they think “government” is? It’s the people who have had enough of an unfair situation, and they’re doing something about it! And they have this idea that a committee — a group — can do the job better than the individual citizens.
The problem with that is…everyone thinks himself to be a cook, and wants to contribute his own little pet shaker of salt to the broth, making it completely unpalatable to the whole by the time they’re finished with it.
Libertarians will always value the individual over the group. And, left to themselves and with time, individuals cooperating with one another on a temporary basis will always do a better job than the group.