Rand Paul revisits Civil Rights Act

Aaron Berk
Mustang Daily
May 27, 2010

	Supporters of Civil Rights bill demonstrate in in Frankfort, Kentucky,

Dr. Rand Paul (son of Dr. Ron Paul) of Kentucky secured the Republican nomination for the United States Senate last Tuesday. His nomination has sparked a media firestorm. Jack Conway, the Democratic nominee for Senate, claims that Rand Paul plans to “repeal” the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He cites an interview Paul did with Kentucky’s Courier-Journal Editorial Board. I found the video Conway references and at no point does Paul ever call for the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, nor could I locate any video of Paul calling for such action.

Paul’s position on the 1964 Civil Rights Act is clear: he supports nine of the 10 sections that dealt with removing discrimination by the government. The Jim Crow laws are a perfect example of institutionalized racism on the part of the government; the majority of what the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did was remove any government discrimination. However, Title II of the act deals with discrimination by “public accommodations” which gets into how private business owners can run their businesses.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Specifically, 42 U.S.C. §2000a states: “All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination on the ground of race, color, religion or national origin.”

This is the part of the act that Paul has an objection with. While he does not support racism in any form, he strongly believes in private ownership.

Business owners ought to be able to run their businesses the way they want. This position does in no way, shape or form endorse racism. As Paul said, “We should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person. I have clearly stated in prior interviews that I abhor racial discrimination and would have worked to end segregation.”

There is a big difference between supporting people’s right to act a certain way and supporting their actual actions. The First Amendment is a great example of this; while many people believe strongly in our First Amendment rights, that doesn’t mean that they agree with what everybody says.

“In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior,” Paul said.

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This article was posted: Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 6:56 am

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