Rachel Maddow cornered Rand Paul on the subject of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the strangest thing happened. He turned into a politician before our very eyes. This champion of the truth-telling Tea Partiers waffled and dodged like the most seasoned of pols. You half expected him to say, “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”
Mr. Paul’s difficulty is this. His libertarian ethic leads him to believe that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was mistaken insofar as it ordered private businesses to not discriminate. He applauded those sections of the law that forbid the government from discriminating but he equivocated on the section of the law that required private establishments to desegregate. Maddow tried to corner him into a “yes” or “no” on whether or not he supports that aspect of the landmark law, but he refused to answer. He said that liberals have a problem because they want to argue that restaurant owners can prevent patrons from bringing firearms into their restaurants. He brought up William Lloyd Garrison, apropos of nothing really. He began several replies to Maddow’s yes-or-no question by saying, “Well, it’s interesting….” He argued that Maddow’s question was really just a political attack designed to make him appear like a racist. Paul categorically said he opposed all forms of discrimination and racism and there is no reason to disbelieve him. But, that was not the question. The question is about the role of government in society and whether or not the federal government was right to insist that it be against the law to discriminate on the basis of race in private businesses that serve the public. He would not answer. His career as a non-politician politician lasted less than 24 hours.
Mr. Paul also has raised objections to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which has dramatically altered the possibilities open to those with disabilities in our society. He cited a practical example of why he is opposed to the law: Why should a small business owner not be permitted to merely put a disabled person’s office on the first floor rather than be forced to build an elevator so the disabled person can work on the second floor? The problem is that this practical example is false and I know so. Back in the early ‘90s, the business I managed expanded to the neighboring building, which required extensive renovations. Because of our high profile in downtown DC, we were one of the first businesses whose renovation work was done in consultation with the Justice Department for compliance with ADA. Originally, they really did want us to put in an elevator but when we showed them how the cost of this would essentially close the business, they relented. So, his example is a false one and I will be happy to come to Louisville to testify to that fact.
Mark Silk has argued that Rand Paul’s victory shows that the religious right and the libertarian Tea Partiers can happily co-exist. I am not so sure. Certainly, as Silk points out, the religious right felt duped by the establishment Republicans in Kentucky who evidently misrepresented Paul’s position on abortion to them. Paul is pro-life. But, as Silk notes, the libertarians are uniformly in favor of same sex rights, opposed to government intrusions into the bedroom, and they need to keep that quiet until after the November election if their alliance with the religious right is to hold. That might work if we did not have a two-party system, but if I were the Democratic nominee, I would be challenging Paul on the issue of same sex marriage rights in every debate and in every advertisement.
Readers know of my suspicion of libertarianism. I witnessed the damage it perpetrated on the Democratic Party which embraced its cant in an effort to defend abortion rights. It robbed the Democratic Party of its ability to articulate a moral underpinning to its agenda. It will do the same for the Republicans. Libertarians will be at war not only with the religious right on the issue of same sex unions but with the neo-con right on issues of American intervention abroad. Their minimalist view of government coheres with one strand of American political thought, our rugged individualism, but it is completely unable to accommodate the other strand in American political life, the Biblical commitment that we are our brother’s keeper. Any successful politics in this country finds ways to balance both those impulses, not to jettison the one to exalt the other.
Catholics, especially our friends over at First Things who are devoted to the examination of first things, will recognize that libertarianism is not just a bad fit with Catholic social teaching, it is an impossible fit. Two central, foundational concepts in Catholic anthropology – communion and solidarity – find no room at the libertarian inn. In the Catholic worldview, the human person is made for communion with God and other persons and solidarity expresses the social nature of our selves. In the libertarian worldview, interests may converge, but the attempt to articulate common goals to be undertaken not as a congeries of individuals but as a people, as a nation, that is a misguided project. Libertarians are wrong. They are profoundly wrong. And, in the coming months in the great state of Kentucky, it will become more and more apparent just how wrong they are.
Michael Sean Winters
You make the strong assumption that communion and solidarity are only possible if they are enforced at the barrel of a gun. True communion and solidarity are not coerced. The same is true for charity.
Later on, you make the same mistake with regards to common goals. You insinuate that common goals are not possible without using violence (government force) against people. That is both incorrect and quite frightening.
Michael Sean Winters becomes a culture warrior before our very eyes. Isn't this the kind of tactic you decried so much during the health care debate by charging conservatives with using the pro-life message to oppose the President's health care bill? Who are you?
But MSW's labelling Rand Paul as "Libertarian" and then running with MSW's caricatured version of how a liberatatian would act in MSW's made-up "Catholic" world is completely distorts who Rand Paul is. Rand Paul has already refuted many mistaken impressions that he is blindly liberatarian. For example, he in a very Republican way he disapproves of the Obama admisistration "pre-announcement" of not using nuclear weapons under certain condition as being an unnecessarily weak give-away. He favors in negotiating with Iran that all options including military options should be on the table. Rand is more practicle side than the Obama admisistration in dealing with Iran's nuclear threat which of course no one can hide from.
And of course sometimes libertarianism is clearly superior to wanton do-gooderism in recognizing that government in trying to solve one problem often instead creates many other problems.
Governemnt often has no or very limited ability to solve society's problems. For example the most advanced insightrs of humanlind are in the libertarian ideas of the First Amendment of the Constitution where government is actually forbidden to be involved. "Congress shall make no laws abridging... freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freeedom of religion". In the areas of speech, press and religion govenment historically has proven to not only be of no help but an tyrannical danger to society. Throughout history governemnt has shown itslf to be one of the worst problems humankind can face. Government is often the problem; not the solution. American's "anthroplogy" is greatly advanced by forbidding meddling third parties in government from regulating speech, press and religion. Much of our freedom and properity we enjoy is derived from First Amendment libertarian principles restricting the government in our private affairs. Libertarianism at time has profound merits that we can all agree to and benefit by.
Too bad the same cannot be said of the Democrats that MSW continues to shill for...
He must have been reading the comments about Ayn Rand the other day and laying in wait for an opportunity to attack libertarianism. However, he has to present a convoluted argument to do so. I am not a libertarian but easily recognize that Catholicism can thrive better in an environment that will not restrict what it can do than in one that tries to regulate everything one can do. (Except sex. That is the one thing liberals are completely open to.)
Michael, you seem to have been deliberately rattling some people's cages of late. It certainly does keep people reading the column, but I'm not sure it is doing much good otherwise.
Jesus rattled quite a few cages himself so you're in good company.
Left libertarians believe in economic democracy within the workplace and the ending of the corporation priviledge - meaning that if you own the piece of a business and it creates a torte the successful plaintiffs can not only take your business assets, they can go after your house and car, etc. Left libertarians are also more accepting on personal relationships that the Magisterium frowns upon.
Both kinds are in favor of overturning drug laws and releasing (and reenfranchizing) drug offenders serving in a racist southern penal system, which would cause Rand more trouble than anything he believes or says about marriage. Actually, the pure libertarian position is to simply stop celebrating marriages other than in churches, so that people get civil unions from the state (regardless of sexual orientation) which give them automatic contract rights vis a vis tax policy and their families of origin in regard to medical decisions. Of course, this is a distinction without a difference designed to placate the religious and cultural conservatives (sadly, one shouldn't be able to be both - but quite a few are - cultural conservatism being a polite reference to racism).
''Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned; supply, demand and price are mostly set by market forces rather than economic planning; and profit is distributed to owners who invest in businesses. Capitalism also refers to the process of capital accumulation.''
Now with something as ubiquitous as capitalism there are lots of variations but the definition above is suitable to discuss it. If one wants to see how wikipedia talks about different forms of capitalism, go to its discussion. There are obviously whole courses on it and its variations in academia and several have written books on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
The horrors of capitalism. What horrors. Go outside and look around and see what capitalism has built and go anywhere else in the world to see what alternative systems have wrought. Capitalism like anything can lead to some problems but give me a break. Look at the medical system, the technology system, the education system, the housing etc and compare it to anywhere else in the world. Not perfect but there is no close second. That is why people all over the world have been flocking here for decades.
And because it is not perfect we have people who want to change it. And replace it with what? Nothing else will employ so many people at such a high level. Only a few years ago jobs were going begging because there was not enough people with technical skills to do them. We should be encouraging capitalism as best as we can. Since 1980 when Ronald Reagan lowered taxes and reduced regulation, 45 million jobs have been created by small businesses and none by established businesses. So destroy that and you will put people out of jobs for 50 years. Encourage that and you will get the jobs as the small business that capitalists and investors create will employ the people. There is a very small percentage of the population, probably less than 1/2 of 1 % who end up doing this. Let them loose and we all will benefit. Stifle them and we will be talking about permanent high unemployment as Obama's economic advisers are currently doing.
And to use a favorite phrase around here. Unemployed people is not social justice no matter how a Jesuitical commentary wants to slice it.