5 Feet of Fury

Dear Ann Althouse: there is nothing ‘troubling’ about private property rights

She slams Rand Paul’s views on property rights vs. “anti-racist” “civil rights” — and she’s wrong (again).

Not to mentioned disturbingly unprincipled (although she’s female, so what do you expect?)

The anti-racism industry spawned by the Civil Rights Act and similar legislation has been responsible for exponentially more, actual, hatred and discrimination than the fact that a couple of black people suffered “indignities” when they engaged in a few carefully thought out publicity stunts back in the 1960s.

Can you believe this woman has a degree in something or other?!?

He likens private property rights to free speech rights. If you care about free speech rights, you defend even the people who say horrible things — Nazis, the KKK, etc. That’s standard constitutional law doctrine. In Rand’s view — and in the view of many libertarians — property rights work the same way. So you could have this horrible racist restauranteur who excluded black people, and the government would have to leave him alone, just as the government couldn’t do anything about it if a white person had a dinner party at his house and only invited his white friends.

A few years ago, I was at a conference with libertarians, and I was confronted with exactly this point of view [ME: NOTE HER GIRLY ITALICS THERE. WHAT NEXT? LITTLE HEARTS OVER HER “I”s?]. (…)

I am struck — you may think it is absurd for me to be suddenly struck by this — but I am struck by how deeply and seriously libertarians and conservatives believe in their ideas. I’m used to the way lefties and liberals take themselves seriously and how deeply they believe. Me, I find true believers strange and — if they have power — frightening.