On Maddow, MLK, and Maple Shade, NJ

Rachel Maddow's recent interview with Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul has me thinking about anti-discrimination laws in general and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in particular. Rand Paul's father, Rep. Ron Paul, is on record as a staunch opponent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and my friend Jim Quinn has a post at his TheBurningPlatform.com that contains this statement from Rep. Ron Paul supporter Paul Joseph Watson:

"The standpoint of Rachel Maddow and her ilk, that the government should regulate the First Amendment in private homes and businesses, is not only a complete violation of the right to free speech as well as private property, but it would also be enforced by the state – the same entity that created racist segregation laws in the first place."

This statement is pretty incoherent: here's why.

1. Who's saying "the government should regulate the First Amendment in private homes"? Not the Civil Rights Act. Neither the Civil Rights Act nor any anti-discrimination law that I know of regulates speech (or, for that matter, behavior) in private homes.

2.  Under the logic of this statement, NJ's 1945 state Law Against Discimination ("the nation’s first state-wide civil rights enforcement statute"), which prohibited discrimination in employment, housing, and places of public accommodation on the basis of race, national origin, sex, age, disability, creed, and other “protected categories” is a  "a complete violation of the right to free speech as well as private property." Balderdash. In 1950, MLK brought his first anti-discrimination lawsuit under that NJ law. MLK and his friends tried to buy beer at a roadhouse in Maple Shade, NJ, outside of Philly. The owner, Ernest Nichols, said no way (I love this passage):

"It is alleged that Mr. Nichols, while the colored folks were still in his tavern, obtained a gun and walked out the door of his tavern and while outside fired the gun in the air. Mr. Nichols claims that this act was not intended as a threat to his colored patrons. The colored patrons, on the other hand, while they admit that the gun was not pointed at them or any of them, seemed to think that it was a threat."

The First Amendment might protect Ernie Nichols's right to rant, but it doesn't protect Ernie's right to run black people out of his restaurant with a gun. NJ was completely within its rights to pass a law that says, "Ernie, if you want to run a bar/restaurant in this state, you can't be doing that."

3. The phrase "Rachel Maddow and her ilk" evidently includes Rand Paul, because he says of the Federal Civil Rights Act "There was a need for federal intervention to say that you can't have segregation, that we shouldn't be doing that" (emphasis added). And guess who was part of that wacky Maddow-Rand Paul "ilk?" The 27 out of 33 Senate Republicans in 1964 who voted for cloture of the Southern Democratic-led filibuster of the Civil Rights Act ("ncluding Senator Engle of California who had suffered a stroke and could not speak but pointed to his eye as a sign of his 'aye' vote"). Who voted against? 23 Democrats (including Sen. Byrd and Al Gore's father) and 6 Republicans.