Racism: Pin The Tail On The Donkey

“Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge--for an automatic evaluation of men’s characters that bypasses the responsibility for exercising rational or moral judgment.” --Ayn Rand, “Racism,” 1963--

As on object lesson for those who would divorce principles from politics, and as an indication of the evasive follies that result from such attempts thereafter, consider the latest Tea Party tussle:

“Tea Partiers had barely started their victory lap for propelling Rand Paul to triumph Tuesday [May 18th] in Kentucky’s GOP Senate primary, when a controversy over the new nominee’s criticism of the Civil Rights Act threatened to rain on the parade.” (“Tea Party activists defend Rand Paul amid civil rights controversy,” Foxnews.com, May 21st.)

Mr. Paul, in a series of interviews, aired the belief that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which concerned itself with racial discrimination on private property as well as in the public arena, stepped outside the bounds of proper government by doing so. And now, naturally, Democratic cries are loud and clear: “Racist!”

Yet on this issue Mr. Paul is correct: regulating personal behavior on private property, beyond the scope of force or fraud, is outside of government’s legitimate boundaries--and such regulations always end up causing more problems than they purportedly solve.