Absolutely wrong. Read my post, below. Ron Paul has not objected to the 90% of the Civil Rights Act that solved 100% of the legal segregation.

He has correctly stated that it is completely constitutional, under the 14th Amendment, for the federal government to prevent states from legislating racial inequality.

Given that companies like Woolworth’s were racist because the LAW REQUIRED THEM TO BE RACIST, the solution is to remove the bad laws. The solution is not to punish all businesses for the next 100 years because Southern Woolworth’s stores complied with bad laws they had no power to change.

There is no need to replace a set of anti-black laws with an anti-business law. Why don’t we let SOCIETY resolve these problems, instead of GOVERNMENT ? [Society and government are two VERY different things, you know. All the libertarians I’ve met are very pro-society.]

You need to open up your mind to possibilities beyond simple choices like:
1. Let’s subsidize labor union bosses and punish businesses, or
2. Let’s subsidize big businesses and use the national guard to attack workers.

How about the government doesn’t target anybody for punishment, or anybody to get special privileges ? Why don’t we wait for somebody to actually commit an assault, theft, or fraud, before we assume they’re evil ? How can you pass out “free” goodies to anybody without first taking them from somebody else ?

I don’t think Ron Paul is a racist, although as the furore over his newsletters shows he isn’t necessarily shy of associating with people with deeply discriminatory views on race, gender, sexual orientation and so on. He genuinely, fanatically believes in personal freedom (except when it comes to things like abortion, of course). But his view of what liberty means is incredibly limited, and the idea that we should smooth other race relations by simply ‘treating people as individuals’ is frankly asinine.

I also find it laughable but sadly pathetic that black people would want to beat down the doors of a business that does not want their business to take their money. Instead of blacks fighting to integrate the lunch counter at Woolworths, perhaps they should have stopped shopping there all together or perhaps pooled their economic pwoer and started their own black owned department store. I mean really, what is the point of all these “buy black” campaigns we see today if we want to shop were they have policies we do not agree with?

“Local, state and the federal government tell businesses what to do all the time. They compel businesses to pay state and federal taxes, business taxes, adhere to environmental, building, and safety codes and regulations, have liability and workers compensation insurance, file employee tax reports, and corporate filing reports, and publish a DBA notice.”

Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t Paul against most of these things? Just because the govt is compelling us to do things do not make them right. But of course, most people lack the courage to change the status quo even if they disagree with it.

What about the Fugitive Slave Laws? Should those have been supported? Ron Paul is the only candidate who can articulate a states’ rights position that was actually used to fight the Fugitive Slave Laws (nullification). Would you oppose this position as well, because it is a states’ rights position? Be careful here, because if you oppose Dr. Paul’s position on this issue, then you support the recapture and transfer of freed slaves in the north back to their “owners” in the south.

The property rights argument is also a racial issue. Look at what happened around Columbia University (a private university) from 2003-2007. The university purposefully allowed their buildings to become rundown in order to devalue the property. Then, they petitioned the local government to allow the University to take over the private property in the area because of “urban blight”. The private properties, including low-income housing projects, were transferred to the private university. This is clearly unconstitutional, and yet was allowed to occur because of a gross misapplication of the principle of property rights. Still another example is the Kelo Supreme Court case. In that case, people’s homes were taken from them and the land was given to the private company Pfizer.

Once the government is allowed to tell a private individual what he/she is allowed to do on his/her private property, it is only a small step to the actual confiscation of that property. Notice in the above examples that the properties weren’t even transferred to the public, but rather to other private individuals. A strong property rights position protects the individuals from these unconstitutional property confiscations.

Please study the concept of property rights in more detail before dismissing Dr. Paul’s position. His voting record clearly supports minorities’ rights, and his property rights position is no different.