Ann Althouse
Radley Balko | December 29, 2006, 2:43pm
Ann Althouse responds to Ron Bailey here .
It is a bizarre response. Apparently what so offended Althouse is that anyone could possibly believe that a private business owner should be permitted to privately discriminate on the basis of race. This, to her, isn't a position that's compatible with civil discourse. Or, at the very least, if you hold this position, the burden is on you to prove to Althouse that you aren't ignorant, racist, or sociopathic.
What's funny is that Althouse accuses libertarians of being didactic, "true believers" on this issue, something she apparently finds "disturbing" and "repellent." But it's pretty clear that Althouse herself isn't all that interested in open debate. Tossing around accusations of racism in response to an opinion that can clearly be held by someone who harbors no racial animus whatsoever has a way of cutting off debate.
When, for example, someone in Althouse's comments section suggested that segregation in the south was largely the result of government policy, and that were it not for state-mandated segregation, the private sector would have integrated on its own (a position held by many economists, including Thomas Sowell), Althouse snapped back :
The notion that economic incentives alone would have desegregated the South is a ridiculous fantasy that I am amazed to hear expressed by anyone with a sound mind and a basic education.
Golly. Good thing Althouse isn't one of those "true believers" unwilling to entertain any idea that challenges her worldview!
I'll concede that I'm a bit biased in all of this. I happen to believe the very thing that sent Althouse reeling -- that businesses should be allowed to discriminate in any way they please. I'd go out of my way not to patronize a racist, as I think would enough of the country to make racism a surefire business killer. I also believe that the 14th Amendment compells the federal government to interfere when a state or local government -- or agents thereof -- is abusing a citizen's civil rights, for reasons related to race or otherwise.
But I happen to think that freedom of association also includes the freedom to be a bigot and to associate with bigots, as well as the freedom to, for example, serve someone who smokes. And I think the tremendous downside that stemmed from Heart of Atlanta and like cases that forced private businesses to desegregate is that we're now faced with an interpretation of the Commerce Clause that gives the federal government far too much power over local affairs, from telling cancer patients they can't smoke marijuana to ease the bite of chemo, to stopping hospitals from being built in order to protect some obscure, endangered, cave-dwelling insect. (I actually think the south could have been desegregated by way of the 13th Amendment -- but that's another discussion entirely).
And oddly enough, despite the fact that I hold these opinions, I don't feel I need to to prove a damned thing to Ann Althouse about whether I do or don't hate black people.
I understand that Althouse disagrees with me on these issues. That's fine. And I understand that "state's rights" and "federalism" are often code words for state-sanctioned racism and bigotry. In my writing, I've been quite vocal about the GOP's deplorable "southern strategy," and its detestable habit of pandering to racists . That doesn't mean federalism isn't still a good idea.
Discussing these types of issues is the very reason groups like Liberty Fund sponsor events like the one Althouse and Bailey attended in the first place. But it's supposed to be just that -- a discussion. Invitees are selected to provide for an interesting, provocative debate. It means you may possibly encounter ideas that are foreign to you, or that you disagree with. Dealing with those ideas without throwing a fit and unleashing accusations of racism every time your own beliefs are challenged is part of having a grown-up discussion with grown-up people about grown-up topics.
VM | December 29, 2006, 4:34pm | #
Perhaps a historian/legal type can explain this better. There have been examples where private institutions did not segregate and that the (state) government forced it, and the Supremes upheld the state laws.
Wasn't Plessy v Ferguson exactly the supreme court upholding Louisiana's laws that segregated the railroad (when the railroads didn't segregate)? Private business didn't segregate, but was forced to in this case.
From:
The Supreme Court and "Civil Rights," 1886-1908
by David Bernstein
The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 100, No. 3. (Dec., 1990), pp. 725-744.
"...it was only the state-enforced Jim Crow laws that led to a rigid system of segregation in the South" (p. 728).
Note 18 says, "Railroad companies often opposed segregation laws because of the expense in enforcing them", and refers to Epstein's "Race and the Police Power" (1989).
Furthermore, Berea College vs Kentucky was upheld by the Supremes. That was based on a 1904 Ky law (Kentucky Day Law), that "prohibited the instruction of Black and white students in the same school, whether public or private" (ibid, p. 731). Berea College was a "small, private, racially integrated school [and] was the only institution of higher learning that accepted Blacks apart from the Kentucky State Industrial College" (ibid)
Kentucky's defense? (taken from note 42 (Berea at 51) "The welfare of the State and community is paramount to any right or privilege of the individual citizen. The rights of the citizen are guaranteed, subject to the welfare of the State" (citation, see above).
BTW, Justice Harlan was the only dissenter.
(This has taken a long time to write, so I apologize if others above have made these arguments)
One thing about libertarianism, for me, is that it is an idealized (oftentimes stylized) framework for wanting freedom from coercion and gaining/having/ being able to earn the economic power to be able to battle it on a private front, and the freedom from it on the public front.
VM | December 29, 2006, 5:05pm | #
Citizen:
Timeline
March 1960: "Fourteen students marched to the first sit-in west of the Mississippi River at the Weingarten's lunch counter near the TSU campus. After the students sat down, the store manager closed the lunch counter. Mading's Drug Store lunch counter was the second target in a series of peaceful sit-ins."
April 25, 1960: bus station lunch counter serves blacks
May 1960: "On the Saturday before Mother's Day, Eldrewey Stearns led a boycott of four downtown Houston stores, including Foley's Department Store."
June 1960: "Three Houston businessmen - John T. Jones, Hobart Taylor and Bob Dundas joined together to create a plan for the desegregation of Houston's downtown stores. Dundas met with local major media owners and arranged for the first of three media blackouts. The desire for peaceful desegregation and Foley's Department Store's advertising dollars were used as tactics to get the media owners to agree to the blackouts."
August 24, 1960: 70 Houston lunch counters quietly integrated
And:
http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/1999/kellar.htm
"Make Haste Slowly Moderates, Conservatives, and School Desegregation in Houston"
by William Henry Kellar
ISBN 0-89096-818-7
and:
Lulu B. White: Reckoning with Gender and Fighting Jim Crow
There were some ups and downs, reflecting a painful era.
From Houston Timeline:
Houston Timeline
1933 - State legislature passes a law prohibiting "Caucasians" and "Africans" from boxing and wrestling against each other.
1933 - City authorities reject plans for a Southern Pacific Station because blacks and whites would use the same ramps to reach trains.
1947 - Legislature establishes Texas State University for Negroes (now Texas Southern University).
1948 - Voters reject zoning. Houston continues as the only unzoned major city in the U.S.
1954 - Segregation on city buses ends.
1958 - Houston is dubbed "Murder town, USA" by Time Magazine for maintaining the highest murder rate in the nation, 15 per 100,000.
1958 - Mrs. C.E. White becomes the first black person to be elected to the School Board. Shortly after her election, a cross is burned at her home.
1964 - The city of Houston drops the item of race designation on job applications.
1969 - "Houston" is the first word spoken from the lunar surface.
1970 - In August, the Justice Department files suit against the Houston School District, charging that they were continuing to operate segregated facilities. The suit contended that segregation involved Mexican-Americans as well as blacks.
1994 - Voters reject a zoning ordinance in low voter turnout.
(hopefully there were some interesting things on this list.)