Ron Paul Wouldn't Have Voted for the Civil Rights Act

And Scott Lemieux uses that wholly unsurprising revelation to slur Robert Stacy McCain as racist? Well, yeah.

Lame-ieux links to Robert's essay, "Whatever Happened to AuH2O?" And Robert mentions Rand Paul's controversy over the Civil Rights Act back in May 2010, where Rachel Maddow saw an opportunity and squeezed it for all the racism juice she could get out of it. I wrote at the times, in "Rand Paul on Rachel Maddow: 'IDEOLOGICAL EXTREMISM = RACISM'":

Paul wants government out of enforcing behaving among individuals, consumers, and places of business in the economy. We are 46 years since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and it certainly seems difficult --- given the crises of that era --- to envision progress in eradicating that kind of Jim Crow racism in the absence of federal intervention.

I actually had a lot more to say, but basically I doubt any libertarian argument can carry the day on that issue, and I recall Ace of Spades making a really in-depth repudiation of the kind of libertarianism favoring private discrimination. See: "A Little History For Rand Paul."

That said, I know Robert Stacy McCain pretty well. He's a helluva lot smarter than Scotty Lame-ieux. But colorblind fairness (which is how I've come to see Robert's interaction with people) means nothing when progressives break out the long knives. It's pretty awful, but that's the way thing are nowadays.

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