Rand Paul and Freedom of Association

The freedom of association also includes/implies the freedom to disassociate. Private groups and individuals should have the right to discriminate, even if occasionally we find it personally repugnant.

Several good pieces on this issue below. This issue isn't fundamentally about discrimination, it's about liberty.

The Freedom of Association by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.: "We live in anti-liberal times, when individual choice is highly suspect. The driving legislative ethos is toward making all actions required or forbidden, with less and less room for human volition. Simply put, we no longer trust the idea of freedom. We can't even imagine how it would work. What a distance we have travelled from the Age of Reason to our own times. Referencing the great controversy about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Karen De Coster put the issue to rest by turning Rachel Maddow’s question on its head. She demanded to know whether a white businessman has the right to refuse service to a black man. Karen asked: does a black businessman have the right to refuse service to a Klan member?"

The Right To Discriminate by Walter E. Williams: "Should people have the right to discriminate by race, sex, religion and other attributes? In a free society, I say yes. Let's look at it. When I was selecting a marriage partner, I systematically discriminated against white women, Asian women and women of other ethnicities that I found less preferable. The Nation of Islam discriminates against white members. The Aryan Brotherhood discriminates against having black members. The Ku Klux Klan discriminates against having Catholic and Jewish members. The NFL discriminates against hiring female quarterbacks. The NAACP National Board of Directors, at least according to the photo on their Web page, has no white members."

Fight Bigotry Without Government by John Stossel on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent: "Jim Crow was evil. It had no place in America. Racist policies in private restaurants are also evil, but they do not involve force. Government is force, so it should not be used to combat nonviolent racism on private property, even property open to the public. I just don't trust government to decide what discrimination is acceptable. Its clumsy fist cannot deter private nonviolent racism without stomping on the rights of individuals."

Which Institution is More Enlightened?: "You’ve got it backwards. Jim Crow itself was government power. Jim Crow was legislation that forced the segregation of blacks from whites. Research shows that people acting in the free market that you apparently believe is prone to racial discrimination were remarkably reluctant to discriminate along racial lines. It was this very reluctance – this capacity of free markets to make people colorblind – that obliged racists in the late 19th century to use government to achieve their loathsome goals."

Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act: Was he right? - CSMonitor.com: "The controversy over Rand Paul’s comments about the Civil Rights Act shows a major misunderstanding of freedom and the road to racial equality."