Rand Paul and the Perils of Textbook Libertarianism

The New York Times ^ | May 21, 2010 | Libertarianism

[La Enchiladita]

I think I’ll throw a grenade in this thread and leave. At one time, the Constitution defined a Negro as 3/5 of a human being.

[Vigilanteman]

Philosophically, this is an interesting take. Although, I think, one could reasonably argue that the right of free association cannot supersede the right to seek gainful employment in a publicly held corporation which, by its nature, is no different from a hotel or lunch counter offering accommodations to the public.

Insofar as this particular issue goes, I find myself siding with liberals rather than libertarians.

However, as you pointed out, liberals are not content to legislate equal access or opportunity. As with Title VII, they use it like the camel's nose under the tent to impose their view of equal results and justice which, as it turns out, are seldom equal and never just.

Japan, just to cite my previous example, tend to be both a more equitable and a more just society because the liberal view is much more restrained than it is here.

[Vigilanteman]

Wrong. It defined a slave as 3/5th of a person for the purpose of census apportionment. There were black slaveholders as well as freed blacks who counted as a full person.

At the beginning of this debate, the northern states didn't want the slaves counted in the census at all because they did not have the rights no responsibilities of citizens. The southern states took the rather hypocritically view that they should be fully counted because they were, in fact, homo sapiens. The 3/5th compromise was a tacit recognition that they did contribute to the national economy and, thus, the tax coffers with their labours and, as such, deserved some recognition.

Many of the slaveholders at the time rationalized their actions by claiming that they had saved the lives of the slaves by making them more valuable alive than dead, which too often was the result in the tribal wars prior to the slave trade.

This is why your early anti-slavery societies combined freedom with captivity with resettlement in Africa and considered the Liberian Colony which they founded a model of success. The freed American slaves, once settled, promptly went out and captured locals to work as slaves on their plantations.

It was viewed as appropriate justice since the then fairly recent ancestors of the American freed slaves had been sold into slavery by those same West Africans.

[La Enchiladita]

Wrong. It defined a slave as 3/5th of a person for the purpose of census apportionment.

Thank you for the correction. I mean that. It reminds me of the "old days" on FR when nearly every post was fact-checked by other members who didn't hesitate to correct. In fact, not so long ago I would have heard from at least 5 people on that one.