45. Whose Business Is It Anyway?, Part 2

Andrew Sullivan has a great follow-up to the Ta-Nehisi Coates piece on Rand Paul. He lays out the argument I was trying to make, except clearly and with a better sense of the history of the '64 Act.

Quoting Paul in an interview:

INTERVIEWER: But under your philosophy, it would be okay for Dr. King not to be served at the counter at Woolworths?

PAUL: I would not go to that Woolworths, and I would stand up in my community and say that it is abhorrent, um, but, the hard part—and this is the hard part about believing in freedom—is, if you believe in the First Amendment, for example—you have too, for example, most good defenders of the First Amendment will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things. . . . It’s the same way with other behaviors. In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior.

I think this is an important, and understandable argument.

More from Sullivan:
I don't agree with Paul on the Civil Rights Act because I believe that the legacy of slavery and segregation made a drastic and historic redress morally vital for this country's coherence, integrity and unity. But was the Act in many respects an infringement of freedom? Of course it was.

To bar private business owners from discriminating in employment would have been an unthinkable power for the federal government for much of American history.

...To my mind, this is settled law and should remain that way. But it is not without cost to liberty... And a real libertarian will feel some qualms about it. Not because they are racists or homophobes (although some may be). But because a truly principled defense of individual freedom will inevitably confront the huge role government now plays in policing fairness in what were once entirely unfair private transactions.

The entire piece is well worth reading.