tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867467970813012874.post371134841515936532..comments2023-10-30T06:18:18.671-07:00Comments on Dogmatic Enigmatics: Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act of 1964Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302611752231009233noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867467970813012874.post-61355969321842352252010-05-25T00:30:25.467-07:002010-05-25T00:30:25.467-07:00To suggest the state, which was implicated in the ...To suggest the state, which was implicated in the unjust accumulation of that property by whites in the first place, now has no right to force compliance with public laws intended to provide equity of opportunity and access is perverse. It suggests that businesses can be subsidized by the state but not regulated by it, that individuals can reap the unearned benefits of state action but not be expected to bear any of the costs. <br /><br />Consider, for instance, the ramifications of libertarian thought in the medical profession (of which both Rand and his daddy Ron are a part). Under Paul's conception of justice, and that of John Stossel, doctors working in private practice should be able to discriminate against patients based on race, religion, or for any other reason without limit. Meaning that if a person belongs to a group despised for some reason by the only physician in town--or simply the doctor they unluckily encounter in a life-threatening emergency--their very ability to continue living would take a back seat to the doctor's "right" to dispose of his or her "property" as he or she saw fit. Though the physician would hopefully come down on the side of the hippocratic oath, in libertarian-land they wouldn't have to. And if they decided to indulge their biases, well, too bad. That the patient could always go searching for another doctor who was less bigoted might be nice, and work just fine in the ether of textbook based hypotheticals. But in the real world--a world that libertarians fail utterly to comprehend even as I'm told they live somewhere within its physical boundaries--such a patient might well die, all so that the free market could remain unimpeded. ~Tim WiseAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com