I’m really empathizing with Rand Paul these days.
Thanks to a comment he made to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC last week (one apparently in line with a similar observation before the Louisville Courier-Express Editorial Board back in April), Dr. Paul may have endangered his chances of being the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky, despite his victory as GOPer in Kentucky, a state that hasn’t had a Demoncrap in the Senate since… Wendell Ford retired in 1999. (Thankee, Wikipedia; I’d thought it much further back!)
When asked about his opinion of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination against Black people by ANYONE – including restaurants, bars, hotels or other establishments serving the public, Dr. Paul made the mistake of assuming some degree of enlightenment on the part of his interviewer(s). He said that, although he supported the intention of that legislation, as well as the main of its results, he was concerned about the encroachment it represented on the First Amendment right of individuals to freedom of association, encompassing as it did the PRIVATE sector of both business and housing.
The comment, while perhaps somewhat ill-advised politically speaking, was (I believe, as does Dr. Paul seem to, if you bother to read his follow-ups) delivered with the honest intention of provoking serious consideration of the limits of government power in the lives and conduct of peaceful citizens in this alleged free republic. It was emphatically NOT intended to present Dr. Paul (or his supporters) as “racists” or as bigots in any sense of the term.
Unfortunately, thanks to the mainstream-media jackals (at both ends of the alleged political spectrum?), the comment was presented in exactly that way. Ms. Maddow (sadly, in this writer’s estimation, since she often does show promise, in spite of her biases and agendas) chose to pursue the more unsavory implications of the statement, rather than to consider the larger questions involved: (1) how far should the scope of government extend into the lives of peaceful individuals? (2) should not the First Amendment apply to even the most distasteful opinions, as well as those we approve of? (3) Is enforcing equal treatment truly equivalent to creating equal opportunity?
That’s the gist of the Rand Paul situation. Why then, you may ask, do I feel such empathy with the man? I take you back, some 30-plus years, to 1977. I was at the time not only a Libertarian Party (of Mass. mostly) activist, heading for San Francisco as a delegate to that year’s LP National Convention (back then they happened pretty much every year). In addition, I was also Managing Editor (by title; Editor in Chief by actual duties, assisting the semi-literate Publisher) for a biweekly Boston tabloid by the name of Esplanade. This periodical served the Boston gay community, covering entertainment both local and regional, promoting gay-community businesses and boasting a staff of writers and photographers who created a variety of features both verbal and visual. I was mostly in charge of overseeing that lot, as well as penning my own feature articles, interviews, reviews and most of the paper’s editorials.
The irony (and at times, both the best and worst kept secrets in that community) was that I was not myself gay, or even bi-curious, for that matter; I was living with my then-partner (very much female in both aspect and biology), and had little/no attraction to (or from, for the most part) my non-hetero colleagues, or the subjects of said interviews and features. About a year earlier, I’d taken on a freelance writing position (alongside another, for the publisher of Midwestern police journals, in an attempt to expand my writing options; had the feminist paper I’d applied to that same week not turned me down flat, I might’ve been writing for all three at that date). When none of a long series of Editors passing through the gates had managed to stay on for more than an issue or two, the Publisher had called me up and offered me the promotion, which I had accepted instantly. (Said publisher, in fact, when he called, asked, “You’re not gay, are you?” and when I replied in the negative, he simply said, “That’s okay, we don’t discriminate!”)
But I digress …
At this same time, there was a three-pronged effort under way in Massachusetts, spurred by gay community activists, to pass legislation to block discrimination and negative treatment of homosexuals. Two of the three bills being put forth were really no-brainers: an end to discrimination in Civil Service hiring, and a repeal of criminal penalties for consensual sexual behavior between or among adults. In one case, the law would prohibit using “sexual deviance” as a cause for not hiring gays and lesbians for government jobs; in the other, peaceful and consensual behavior would no longer be grounds for arrest and prosecution, regardless of the genders of the participants. (I had even initiated my tenure with Esplanade with an article exploring the issue of “bush sex” – sexual behavior in secluded outdoor areas – which became the first issue’s cover-story and center-spread feature. I even interviewed Barney Frank, back when he was a mere Massachusetts legislator, as part of that story.)
It was the third leg of the stool that caused the problems, however: in that piece of ill-considered legislation, PRIVATE discrimination would have been outlawed, in employment as well as in housing, on the basis of sexual “preference” (back before the PC term of “orientation” took over). In other words, even a small non-governmental company, or a homeowner seeking to rent out his/her duplex or garage unit, would be subject to penalties and prosecution if they expressed their freedom of association by excluding an employee or tenant who turned out to be gay.
The activists at that time insisted that it was all or nothing; link and pass all three bills as one, or let them all fail and show how “homophobic” the Bay State’s legislature truly was. I even wrote an Espy editorial, pointing out how easily the state legislature and Governor would pass the first two measures, if only they separated the battleground. Nobody wanted to listen. From the mid-1970s all the way to the early 1990s, those three pieces were inextricably linked, and every year the bill was brought forth and slammed back into its container for another year. Finally (in 1994, IIRC) someone had the common sense to break that link, and submit the bills separately; the first two passed almost instantly, while the third has still yet not received even a small minority of support.
But I was telling you about 1997, and how closely I identified with Dr. Paul fils…
As I said, I went to California that year, not only as a convention delegate and party activist, but also with true press credentials, representing Esplanade. The latter role meant I got to interview several of the convention speakers (including the wondrous Dr. Timothy Leary), as well as writing stories about several other events. Meanwhile, as an activist and delegate, I marched as one of two men in the fledgling Association of Libertarian Feminists pro-ERA protest, helped write a pro gay-rights resolution (which was then passed almost by acclamation by the convention) and assisted with the passage of a very strong children’s-rights plank to the LP Platform, one which remained there for nearly 20 years thereafter.
However, it was something I did at the beginning of the convention that led to my being slandered and libeled (they left out my name, the effect was the same) by the party’s more conservative and legalistic factions. As part of my lobbying effort for that gay-rights resolution, I’d prepared a two-page essay on discrimination, and how the issue might be dealt with in a libertarian society.
I saw this as a simple matter of dividing society into its public and private sectors: in the public sector, as few could dispute, there should be absolutely no discrimination of any sort, for any reason besides competence and capacity to do the job at hand; in the private realm, the right to choose one’s associates should be inviolate, even to the point of defending bigotry (the principle and legality of it; encouraging boycotts and protests of the actions was another matter).
Where I took a new stance, however, was in where that line ought to be drawn; in my view, accepting any assistance from the government, or even preferential treatment that fostered or furthered one’s own enterprises, would remove the “private” from the operation; therefore, discrimination would be prohibited for such people or companies. When I began considering what such “government assistance” might extend to, I considered such issues as subsidies, guaranteed loans, Section 8 housing subsidies… and incorporation, seeking to create liability-limits for the principals of an otherwise “private company.”
After all, we libertarians were challenging the Price-Anderson Act (limiting liability in the event of a nuclear-plant accident — and to numbers several orders of magnitude below the actual likely cost of the devastation from a serious meltdown, as we later learned with Three Mile Island), on the grounds that it essentially represented an unfair subsidy to that industry. How then could we possibly defend provisions allowing individuals and groups of people to protect themselves against personal liability, under government protection, by (as the SCOTUS has now confirmed with its recent decisions) creating fictional “people” out of mere paper (“documents of incorporation”), and yet still be considered part of the “private sector” and not subject to its restrictions for equal treatment/access under the law?
Even given a legitimate justification for doing so, might not such use of government power to enforce such protectionist actions at very least call into question one’s “private sector” credentials? And if so, might that not remove said enterprise from the “totally private” category, and thus require at least some compliance with non-discrimination statutes?
You see, my intention in presenting this question was never to denigrate those who chose the protection of incorporation (or subsidy, or other government favoritism) for their endeavors; it was instead to honor and affirm those who did not, who upheld the right of strictly private citizens or groups to do whatever the hell they chose to (as long as it abjured force or fraud against others). I thought those folks ought clearly to be rewarded with at least the right of free association, like it says in the First Amendment. I just wanted the line to be a bit clearer.
For example, a social group meeting in someone’s home could obviously include or exclude anyone from such a gathering, as its members (or hosts) chose, and for any reason whatsoever; otherwise, Freedom of Association is rendered meaningless. Similarly, there could be no barrier considered “discriminatory” if the meeting were held in a local church-basement, or even in the auditorium of a private school.
On the other hand, if such a group were to meet in a public-school building or an municipal office-space, exclusion on any basis might be called into serious question.
When the venue becomes a place of business, the line gets even foggier. Rand Paul actually raised this question in another realm of behavior, while defending his prior statements. He cited the right of a store-owner allowing or prohibiting the presence of firearms on his/her premises, and how legislative fiat affects that in various states. Would this not be considered “discrimination” (against either the gun-owners or the gun-control advocates, depending on the store-owner’s preference)? How about the “guns-in-bars” legislation in Tennessee, which is now once again bouncing between legislative approval, the Governor’s vetoes and the Assembly’s overrides thereof — aren’t those decisions inherently bound to “discriminate” against one faction or the other?
Anyway, the very thought that such hitherto sacrosanct turf as the corporate realm (even within Libertarian Party ranks, as I discovered) might be held in question (by some snot-nosed scribbler for a sleazy tabloid mailed out in plain brown wrappers?) was apparently anathema — to some Libertarians, at least. In subsequent months, I was slammed (in all but my specific name) by one Williamson Evers, in an article in Inquiry Magazine, and then saw at least a couple of follow-up comments in various correspondence. (Had there even BEEN an Internet or e-mail lists — or whatever social medium — in existence at the time, I shudder at how the game might have gone down.)
And now you know the rest of the story, and why I feel a certain empathy with Rand Paul these days.
1 comment:
it is good site
Post a Comment