libertyvidz
07-08-2010, 12:14 PM
The story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100707/el_yblog_upshot/rand-pauls-tea-party-troubles
Lots of comments about the Rachel Maddow interview. My comments:
The problem is that Rachel Maddow (and apparently most everyone else here) doesn't understand the constitution and the interstate commerce clause. When Rand mentioned that she just ignored it. Basically the constitution only gives the federal government jurisdiction over businesses engaged in foreign commerce and interstate commerce. However in 1942 the supreme court expanded this to include local businesses so that FDR could impose Soviet style controls on family farms.
Such authority is illegitimate and dangerous. Do you want the federal government telling you that you can't grow tomatoes in your own backyard? Based on the current (and wrong) understanding of the interstate commerce clause, they can. There were other ways to advance the cause of ending discrimination across America even in private business that didn't violate the constitution. Further Maddow stuck her foot in her mouth and didn't realize it when she brought up Bob Jones university's policy on interracial dating. Note that the BJU policy did not change until 2000. That's a full 36 years after the civil rights act! Clearly they changed their policy for other reasons, namely public pressure. Many of the Woolworth's Maddow kept talking about desegregated before 1964, again based on public pressure. The sit-ins themselves were actually working.
And what about Maddow's "segregated pool" scenario? Well under the civil rights act of 1964 that's still possible. All someone would have to do is to sell "memberships" to the pool, but only sell the memberships to white people. Thus you've escaped the "public accommodations" requirement of the CRA. Maddow kept conflating the moral issue of whether someone should be able to discriminate with the legal question of whether they can discriminate and the constitutional question of whether the federal government has the jurisdiction to force them not to do so.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100707/el_yblog_upshot/rand-pauls-tea-party-troubles
Lots of comments about the Rachel Maddow interview. My comments:
The problem is that Rachel Maddow (and apparently most everyone else here) doesn't understand the constitution and the interstate commerce clause. When Rand mentioned that she just ignored it. Basically the constitution only gives the federal government jurisdiction over businesses engaged in foreign commerce and interstate commerce. However in 1942 the supreme court expanded this to include local businesses so that FDR could impose Soviet style controls on family farms.
Such authority is illegitimate and dangerous. Do you want the federal government telling you that you can't grow tomatoes in your own backyard? Based on the current (and wrong) understanding of the interstate commerce clause, they can. There were other ways to advance the cause of ending discrimination across America even in private business that didn't violate the constitution. Further Maddow stuck her foot in her mouth and didn't realize it when she brought up Bob Jones university's policy on interracial dating. Note that the BJU policy did not change until 2000. That's a full 36 years after the civil rights act! Clearly they changed their policy for other reasons, namely public pressure. Many of the Woolworth's Maddow kept talking about desegregated before 1964, again based on public pressure. The sit-ins themselves were actually working.
And what about Maddow's "segregated pool" scenario? Well under the civil rights act of 1964 that's still possible. All someone would have to do is to sell "memberships" to the pool, but only sell the memberships to white people. Thus you've escaped the "public accommodations" requirement of the CRA. Maddow kept conflating the moral issue of whether someone should be able to discriminate with the legal question of whether they can discriminate and the constitutional question of whether the federal government has the jurisdiction to force them not to do so.