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Hopefully people are beginning to realize that once you start limiting rights in the interest of 'feelings', your moral compass goes away.

When you [Brian Lamb] and I were young people in college, it was an open question whether states had a right to force public accommodations – Lester Maddox’s Pickrick restaurant in Georgia – to take all comers…Well, 50 years later, that’s a stone, cold, dead, closed question, and aren’t we glad? That’s progress. In that sense, we’re less tolerant, but who cares?

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I do. The action against Maddox was unconstitutional as hell and enforced involuntary servitude upon Maddox and his employees. The idea of involuntary servitude where the rights of the individual have been sacrificed to servitude of society have since been expanded into politically correct insanity.

Add to this a long list of other affronts to the use of private property by our nanny state, not least of which is the coercion of private businesses to accomodate people with disabilities.

Lyndon Johnson said it was because "a man has a right not to be insulted in front of his children"

Nowadays, we'd be lucky if they would just acknowledge their children's existence and support them.

Johnson's Great Society can be thanked for that.

And even if one believes in coercing owners, the federal government wasn't empowered to nationalize this policy, just as it isn't empowered to nationalize policy on burglary or prostitution.

However, the "Dixiecrats" had created a de facto "nation" in the South, not unlike the Confederacy that denied a whole race of citizens the rights protected in the Federal Constitution. Segregation was a form of slavery, in a cold war fashion.

As one who has had business in the area of "public accommodation", I wish I cold have discriminated more than allowed, but more on behavior or ability to pay. Just like guns, it is not the average gun owner that will cause them to be eventually confiscated, but the Lester Maddox types, that will repeal other rights we now enjoy.

George Will is a cafeteria conservative: he just picks the parts he likes.

This article sidesteps the issue of "Jim Crow" laws.

In 1964, some locales already had anti-discrimination laws, some had no laws on the subject and left it up to proprietors who to serve, but Georgia and other southern states had laws requiring racial discrimination.

Don't forget that.

"...Lester Maddox’s policy may have been lousy, but his premise remains indispensable..."

Is the author trying to say Maddox may have been "right" but it was for the "wrong" reason?

From what I can tell, there are no "Private Property" rights for a private business.

Violation of the Interstate Commerce Act. Maddox was wrong.

Violation of Interstate Commerce. Maddox was wrong.

If I may add my own testimonial to that offered below.

On a weekend where we have lost two prominent political figures in Georgia, it amazes me that former Mayor Maynard Jackson is being heavily eulogized while Lester's funeral is getting little ink. Lester Maddox was one of a kind. Probably the only honest governor we ever had as proven by the fact that he was poorer when he left office than before he went in.

He was quite a character. I met him first in 1966 when he was running for governor. He was driving himself around Georgia in a station wagon with a sign on top stating:"THIS IS MADDOX COUNTRY". At that time, I had occasion to meet and talk to all the candidates for governor including Ellis Arnall, Ernest Vandiver, Bo Calloway and Jimmy Carter. Most of the other people my age were very liberal and thought Lester was a joke. They poked fun at him and portrayed him as if he were an unintelligent bigot. Except for Jimmy Carter, who also was then driving himself around Georgia meeting the voters, none of the other candidates seemed to care what a 17 year old had to think about politics. Lester would always listen patiently to questions,(no matter how unflattering) and explain his views in a highly articulate manner.

However controversial, his civil rights positions were the law of the land until the Supreme Court struck them down in the Heart of Atlanta Motel and Ollie's BarBQ cases in the mid-1960's based on a liberal new reading of the interstate commerce clause. Absent a tenuous nexus to interstate commerce, the right to associate is still the law of the land as evidenced in the recent Augusta National gender controversy.

I last met Lester while he was governor and I was in college at Georgia State. He used to come eat in the S&W Cafeteria and would talk to anyone who came up to him. I was put in charge of a charity fund raiser for MD that was held annually by my fraternity. While planning activities for this event at Piedmont Park, I invited several local politicians and prominent athletes to draw crowds. Other than Ken Reeves, a Falcon defensive back, only Lester showed up. He was famous for riding a bicycle backwards. At our event, we had a tricycle event for the ladies and Lester obligingly rode a child's tricycle backwards. At the time, he was Governor of Georgia.

Somehow, he remembered my name, because in January 1968. he commissioned me as Lieutenant Colonel, aide de camp Governor's Staff. I still have the framed commission hanging in my office.

Over the past several decades I lost contact with Lester. Other than the occasional newspaper article about fundraisers to help him out of poverty or his battle with prostate cancer or his wife dying, I have heard little about him. Perhaps I should have made more of an effort to find out how he was doing, but the time pressures of life precluded my doing so.

However, let me add my prayers to those others who knew and admired him:

"May he find happiness with his beloved wife Virginia in heaven."

The following is from an article on CNBS cited below.

''How you, chief?'' was one customary greeting. Another: ''It's great to be alive. A lot of folks aren't, you know.'' He was known for quaint sayings and outrageous gestures like riding a bicycle backward!

A link to the complete article is at the end of this message - following are my favorite portions. Even though I was a baby when Governor Maddox was in office, I have certainly admired his many fine qualities and stalwart advocacy of the "little people."

I have enjoyed his outgoing, even audacious friendliness in recent years when we saw him in Marietta at the Picadilly Cafesteria and Williamson Brothers BBQ. The governor played his harmonica - always including Dixie,of course and sang several songs for our children and all who cared to listen. He was a Southern treasure and took a courageous stand based on the US Constitution with which many agreed. He stated his position succinctly: "I've nothing against blacks, just forced integration."

Now separated from us by eternity, having "run the good race and fought the good fight," I'd like to think that Governor Maddox is now enjoying the company of those who went before him, particularly his beloved wife:

"DEAR MOMS & DADS. Help Save Lives, Families and U.S.A. STAY MARRIED" read Lester Maddox's 1998 ad that ran in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, following the death of his wife of more than 60 years, Virginia.

After she died, Maddox resolved to work to keep other marriages together,reasoning that if a few thousand dollars' worth of advertising could save one family, ''then it's worth it.''

Though Maddox once brandished a pistol at civil rights protesters in his restaurant, he began his term as governor with a vow that ''there will be no place in Georgia during the next four years for those who advocate extremism
or violence.''

''As well as a constitutional human right to associate with whomever you please, there should be a corresponding right to disassociate if you please,'' he once said. Maddox claimed he had nothing against blacks, just forced integration.

In one incident, customers of his Pickrick fried chicken restaurant armed themselves with pick handles to bar blacks. Pick handles became his trademark, and later he sold them as souvenirs.

He won the hearts of many by opening the doors of his office and the governor's mansion to what he called the ''little people.'' Twice a month he held a kind of people's court to hear the problems of the rank-and-file
and offer advice and help.

''I think history will record him as a very progressive governor who gave his all to see that Georgia moved forward in an equitable and fair manner,'' said former Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy.

http://www.msnbc.com/local/rtga/FormerGeoLest.asp