My minority friends would much rather spend their money in an establishment that promotes civil rights rather than one that serves them only because the law says so. Wouldn't you rather buy products from someone who is more likely to contribute to the Negro College Fund, or one that contributes to some white supremacist group? Under the current law, there is no way of knowing if the business owner is scum or not.

"You still need to have the laws but I think it helps to have a people who believe in law and order and who have a moral compass or a moral basis for their day to day life."

This is common sense, and it doesn't require some far-flung attachment to loonier organizations. The Reverend Wright Tactic (tm)(r) is only publicly chastised when it is used against one's political preferences, I suppose.

It works like this: government doesn't enable our social cooperation, because a culture of cooperation is first required to even install government. Does that make sense, brah? Likewise, we don't need overreaching government hands meddling in "moral" issues if more individuals behaved more morally due to shared ethical traditions of honesty, loyalty, etc. (the 10 Commandments prohibit theft and so on, after all).

I'm an atheist. But, I gladly support Rand Paul.

And, let's remember that private businesses imposes a cost onto themselves when they discriminate; the same people that claim corporations are pathologically tied to profit-generation also claim they'll willingly lose profits by keeping out paying customers and productive employees. Logic. It works, I promise. (Check out all the private bus drivers that opposed government-enforced segregation.)

Your article states "Others have deftly shown what's historically wrong with Paul's claims. As Blair L. M. Kelley wrote at Salon, Paul's arguments "echo the arguments made for segregation in his state before the turn of the 20th century," when, in Kentucky, a state senator "proposed a new law requiring railroads 'to furnish separate coaches or cars for the travel or transportation of the white and colored passengers.'"

My goodness - do you writer have any comprehension skills? Rand Paul is 100% against GOVERNMENT telling people what to do. How is the GOVERNMENT, requiring a PRIVATE enterprise to buy WHITE/BLACK railroad cars even REMOTELY a Libertarian principal.

Get off your high horses and have a serious debate with a Libertarian. The only way to beat a Libertarian seems to make them into some fascist, big gov't loving pig.

I'm still amazed anyone could write something as stupid as a Libertarian would support the gov't telling someone how to run their business.

Plus, it's a historical fact that unions have segregated heavily against blacks--do we have Democrats railing against union membership for their tainted past? The South African apartheid was spawned by the government meddling in the anti-discrimination of private businesses! Not to mention that minimum-wage legislation disproportionally prices out blacks (and was politically imposed upon the South by Northern political agents).

The free market raises tolerance more than any other force we've seen: based upon productivity, you are probably working next to an assortment of races, political opinions, and sexual orentiations. It's wonderful.

Private owners of apartments, condos, housing developments, etc. can discriminate based on Rand's view. Privately held banks can (and sometimes do) discriminate based on race, nationality, etc. based on Rand's views. Privately held sports teams can discriminate and not hire (i.e., Jackie Robinson) based on Rand's views. Privately held hospitals can choose to not treat (save the life of) people because of race, etc. based on Rand's views. Ladies and gentlemen, this is wrong and needed to be addressed just as the nation's worst behavior, slavery (and the raping and killing that came with it) needed to be addressed.

Those who do not see this likely have never been the victim of the kind of consistent, unyielding, and institutional racism that others (example: african americans) have been through and therefore rather naively believe that without such laws, the racism would go away. Picture a lady or young man being rejected from treatment at a hospital or doctor's office, rejected from attending an event at a restaurant, of rejected from playing on a team (professional or otherwise), or rejected from a bank loan... Close your eyes.... and imagine that it is your mother/daughter/granddaughter/wife or your father/son/grandson/husband. Ladies and gentlemen, this is simply wrong, sinful, unlawful and needed to be addressed in public and private venues and establishments.

.."based upon productivity, you are probably working next to an assortment of races, political opinions, and sexual orentiations."

Yep - and the reason that I am is because of the "interference" of the Government. I can tell you that based upon my own experiences over 50 years, had it not been for the "interference" of the Civil Rights Act, we would have a society that is divided along color lines, instead of the (very imperfect, but better) society we have today.

You would see a massive return to highly discriminatory policies in hiring and service if the Civil Rights Act somehow was suddenly not there. It is a red herring to say that a business cannot survive catering to only one race... Of course they can, they did for a couple of centuries before the CRA.

You can pretty it up all you like - but it is bigotry, pure and simple. This is not something we should be seeing in civilised society in the 21st Century.

Issues of right and wrong are often (and will continue to be) addressed from a federal vantage point. States, left alone, often perpetrated and enforced/protected bad behavior. This is just a truth: unfortunately, there are times when states rights must be challenged. Those who don't understand this and blindly believe otherwise are naive.

"We Wouldn't Need Laws If Everyone Were Christian." But not if everyone were Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist? How about this instead? "We Wouldn't Need Laws If Everyone Were ETHICAL."

Religion always finds ways to justify taking lives. It's called the christian crusades, it's called the six-day war, it's called islamic extremists. When religion takes over it always ends with chaos. This is why we seperated church and state.

Rand's arguments by no means "echo" any Senator who "proposed a new law requiring railroads 'to furnish separate coaches or cars for the travel or transportation of the white and colored passengers.'" If you paid attention to what he said, you would see that he clearly supported the repeal of all racist laws and statutes such as this (in fact, as a statute, A. enforcing racism and B. asserting government control over private business practices, this Senator's initiative is directly antithetical to the philosophy Rand has espoused); the only thing that he questioned was the government's authority to tell private businesses to whom they must cater.

This is because businesses ARE private and are the property of their owners- the government couldn't, for example, require you to take anyone who comes knocking on your door into your own house, even if you were rejecting them on the basis of race. In a society with private property and freedom of speech, religion and association, you are, in fact, free to be a bigot, though we who are not are also free to refuse to do business or associate with you, and to start our own businesses or clubs or restaurants which are non-discriminatory in nature.

Now, speaking of the oppression of blacks in the South, this situation was successful not only because of widespread private-sector bigotry, but at least as much so because of violentm government-backed enforcement of segregation and the evils that came with it. As you yourself referenced above, segregation was largely maintained through Jim Crow laws (segregated schools, public transportation, bathrooms, drinking fountains, the works) and through the practice of racial violence (eg. lynching) towards which the government would do nothing but look the other way. It was legal barriers like these above all which effectively kept blacks down and closed off opportunities for them. Once these were removed, and given the trends towards changes in social attitudes they reflected, then in a REAL free market (note that a market which is full of laws rigging the game against blacks is by no means free), although there would still be some segregated businesses, both the more moral decision and the better business decision would be to accept all customers, and thus inclusive businesses would, in fact, outperform and outcompete their narrow, bigoted counterparts. This is not to say that NO hateful, bigoted stores or restaurants would endure in these circumstances, but they would be easily outnumbered and outperformed, and there would be an abundance of businesses (and ones whose owners were not hateful bigots who people of conscience would rather not be funding anyway) catering to all comers.

Now, I think the provisions in question are relatively harmless as government intrusions go, and have had some good effects. That said, I do also think that if it is possible to end oppression WHILE maintaining privated property rights and freedom of speech and association, that route is preferable to one which consists in government expansion and intrusion to the detriment of said rights.

i fucking hat religion. thats the reason we have racissts like ron and ran dpaul. both them should be lynched.

He is just as dangerous as the Jesuit Priests vis a vis the Roman Catholic Church who ran the Inquisition.

Will he come after the "heretics," everyone else?

He is SO OFFENSIVE. THE GALL OF HIM!

No Christians in jail? No Christians in an army that kill others? No Christians that are gay or commit adultery?

What a joke, but it's the common mantra "We should not legislate morality" heard by some glibertarians (mean their only real master is their God and their bible).

It seems as if Paul's church (The Presbyterian Church of Bowling Green) is one of the USA denomination [Kelley Paul is listed as one of the officers (Deacon?)]. I would think he would be more at home in the much more conservative/fundamentalist PCA church. If he has been listening to sermons similar to those I hear in most USA churches he hasn't been comprehending anything. I'm ashamed that he is a fellow member of the PCUSA.

Baptists www.ethicsdaily.com and www.baptistlife.com/forums faith and practice have weighed in on the Rand Paul discussion focussing on a Chuch Warnock Blog of Northern Virginia which features a photo of Lester Maddox.

Like Warnock, Ms. Posner is right about a lot of things, but could use Fleming Rutledge's Sermon on Virginia Durr and Fannie Lou Hamer to modify her righteousness in this matter.

"You still need to have the laws but I think it helps to have a people who believe in law and order and who have a moral compass or a moral basis for their day to day life." does not equal "We wouldn't need laws if everyone were Christian."

I think Rand is a creep, but your headline is misleading.

But then I guess Rand Paul also considers killing 1000s of Jews a blessing.

I'm trying to fully wrap my head around a man named after an ardent atheist turns into a Christian bigot. The original Rand would be disgusted by Dr. Paul. (And yes, you are a bigot if you connect religious belief with morality.)

Okay, let's see: if 98% of these people won't break the law, then 2% will. I believe that we're at 350M in this country right now, so that means 7M of them WILL murder, steal, and break the law according to Rand Paul, or as many crimes as were committed in 1969. That sounds like enough to warrant police forces, laws, prisons, etc.

Yeah, Rand Paul is completely FOS. Not that we really needed any convincing.

(FWIW, the US crime rate peaked at ~14M during the late 80s and early 90s, dropped dramatically in the mid-90s, and has been dropping ever since, currently down to ~11M in 2008. I'm making no comment; I'm just adding this for context.)

This conversation was finished in the 50s, which is precisely what makes paul backwards

Talibangelicals. God help us if they ever get control (no pun intended).

You seem like a thoughtful, happy person, so I feel particularly conflicted that you so fully misunderstand and so casually misrepresent Paul's views. I doubt I can't "convert" you through a comment, so I'll just point out the least charitable logic in your analysis:

* "People who believe in law and order and who have a moral compass or a moral basis for their day to day life" does not mean Christians. Secular humanists or Muslims would easily fit in this category.

* Because rand Paul's dad's staffer was a reconstructionist, it will echo in Paul's thinking? This seems like guilt by association in the extreme. No one is condemned for their father's sins and certainly not their father's staffer.

* That the John Birch Society "enthusiastically praised Paul's victory" has no bearing on Paul's qualifications. Paul is not guilty by association, nor by admiration, and the fact that extreme elements may be attracted to him does not mean he seeks or desires their attention.

*Constitutionalism and states' rights views may have been used as cover for racism in the past, but they are not inherently racist. Limited government is a bulwark against excessive government power; governments can oppress people too. And government powerful enough to force equality on its citizens is powerful enough to take it away.

*Your example of "a new law requiring railroads 'to furnish separate coaches" would have been explicitly opposed by Paul who clearly stated his intolerance for any government proclamation or law which enforced segregation. At the worst, Paul's view is one of hands being tied by an alternate principle: freedom of property. And not freedom to own other people, as your Biblical example unfairly suggests, just freedom to do what you choose with your physical belongings. Paul wouldn't prefer a segregated outcome, he would just find government unauthorized to forcibly prevent it.

*"The terrible lawlessness of a vengeful South" was indeed an awful consequence of the civil war. Could you also see that as an argument against attempting to enforce equality through government dictate (and militias), since that act itself can be as disruptive to social order and racial progress as it is helpful. The alternative is not always supporting racism or destroying it but sometimes between supporting gradual change or risking acute tensions. This is not an easy moral position to take, but if you care about the outcomes of actual people, it is worth considering realistically.

*You end with the importance of doing the right thing. As an individual--and as a religious man--Paul would be against racism. As a representative of the US constitution, he would be bound by its enumerated powers and cautious of over-expanding government. Being for the latter doesn't minimize the former.

In short, you can be a libertarian and not a racist, a Christian and not a literal reconstructionist, and a liberal religion blogger and not automatically opposed to Rand Paul. But you'd have to be willing to consider him something other than the enemy, which is not a bad place to start.

It would be instructive to know whether American Christians as a whole, not just Paul's fellow congregants, are more law-abiding than American Jews, American Muslims, American Ba'hais, American Atheists and other divisions of our society based on religious beliefs or absence thereof.

Additionally, to which version of Christianity does Paul refer? Does he mean the teaching of Jesus to do violence to no man? If so, I would assume he favors disbanding the military and disarming the police - that would be libertarian if not Libertarian. Does he mean the Christianity obsessed with adherance to ancient Israel's laws regarding tithing? If so, then he might want to instruct that Christianity to re-direct their tithes from church collection plates and into local food banks, as the tithe was always and only about providing food to people (Levites, widows and orphans) with limited access to food sources.

Montana Made

84% of the USA prison population is christian, so this proves your group is the most evil group in the USA.

The idea that in a world where everyone was Christian, secular government would be unnecessary is not new. It has respectable theological roots going back as far certainly as Luther and probably with precedents in Augustine. For whatever that's worth. That doesn't make me like Rand Paul any better, but still.

84% is not far off, in 2008 76.0% of the U.S. population identified as "Christian". This includes Mormon & Latter-Day Saints which comprised 1.4% of the 76.

That this article reaches all the way out to Nixon is telling. Same on Posner.

The libertarian philosophy is naïve at best. Listening to Mr. Paul, one can't help but wonder if he has ever met a non-white person. Of course, we know he has. Right? Probably. The libertarian ideals are easy for a white man in 21st century U.S.A. to hold; foolish, but easy. That is, if one were so mentally lazy that they dare not consider the possibilities beyond the narrow view towards the predicted bliss. The problem is that the bliss will never happen. Not in one hundred million years. We are dealing with humans. Humans are and always will be flawed. Mr. Paul’s own Bible teaches him that. So the white man carries on under the false impression that all things will right themselves, while minorities continue living in impoverished servitude. Left to their own devices, humans will rarely (almost never) do the right thing instead of what is best for the individual at the moment. Proof of that can be seen on a daily basis. Bernie Madoff's crime was extraordinary, his sin is common. British Petroleum acted with complete disregard for the consequences. We all know someone who has purchased a "lemon", what BP did happens daily. The survival instinct in each of us is just that strong. It isn't going to evaporate leaving humans joining hands and singing. It simply won't happen. That is why we have/need governments and laws. The bible teaches faith. And Paul wants to run the nation on faith. Even if we were all Christians, I would still wonder if he gets out of the house much.

Back to the 76.0% number; it is even more interesting that in the States, Christians consistently make up the overwhelming number of the inmate populations. I won’t cite numbers, you can look for yourself.

I think it's very intersting that these people yelp about their own rights, while at the same time they'd be the first to trample all over someone else's.

If the Ten Demands was law, it would be illegal to disbelieve in the one and only Christian God, punishable by stoning. Is this the hope of those who think that we wouldn't need other laws? Ridiculous theocracy!

Obviously, Rand Paul's understanding of Christianity does not include the writings of Martin Luther. I am paraphrasing but it was Luther who said society and human beings needed both Love and the hammer, the cross and the law.

Civil society needs its rules to help those of us from diverse backgrounds, including diverse Christian backgrounds, from trampling on one another's rights in a free society.