Judge Napolitano: Only Ron Paul Believes In Freedom, The Other Candidates Are Repugnant To Freedom

Napolitano says that most Republicans don't understand or accept that the 14th Amendment guarantees the Bill of Rights to citizens vis a vis their state government, too -- so if the federal government can't do it, the state government can't do it either.

Only one candidate -- the Only Man Who Can Save America -- believes this, as Napolitano does.

Here's the problem with that: The core 14th Amendment guarantee is that slavery, and all "badges of servitude", are hereby outlawed.

And yet only Ron Paul, of the candidates, disbelieves in this core guarantee -- he believes that it is an impingement of "freedom" to insist that Jim Crow and racial apartheid be stamped out.

And no, this isn't from the newsletters he supposedly didn't write. He continues insisting on this point.

Odd, isn't it, that Ron Paul, the champion of freedom, suddenly reverses himself on that point?

Let me tell you why this is bullshit. First of all, I am deeply suspicious of this whole claim. I think it was created backwards, specifically to defend Jim Crow, while supposedly not having anything to do with Jim Crow. Whenever you have a bad thing you want to push, the standard response (everyone does this) is to abstract it, take it up another level of abstraction, so you can talk in general theory while still getting the specific result you seek, but are precluded from demanding.

Second, it's not just a question of what rights we have -- it's a question of what rights we have which the government will use force to vindicate. There are some contracts that are, by law, unenforceable -- contracts for sexual services, for example, are null and void. Courts won't enforce them, and courts are central to contracts. If you don't have a tribunal which will enforce your contract, you have a piece of paper meaning nothing.

Now, let's take a cafe, open to the public generally, but they have a sign "NO COLOREDS ALLOWED" or "COLOREDS ENTER THROUGH THE BACK."

Suppose blacks decide they want to eat there. Or don't feel like entering through the back. As actually happened-- this is not theoretical. This happened.

And suppose the cafe refuses to serve them, and the black guy decides he's going to sit there until he is served. Note well, Doctor Paul -- this is also not theoretical. This actually happened.

And suppose the cafe owner now calls the cops to evict him for trespassing.

You see, at this point, the state is directly and unavoidably involved, and the state itself -- not just individuals making their own bigoted choices -- must decide if the black guy is actually "trespassing," such that large men with guns will forcibly remove him from the restaurant and throw him in jail for being a disorderly person, just because he wants a sandwich at a shop whose primary business is selling sandwiches to the general public.

Ron Paul says "Of course the state should arrest that man!" After all, he's decided, private property rights are absolute. And a black guy's right to be served in a business which serves the public, that is, whose doors are open to the public generally, is... nonexistent.

See, there is a clash of two rights there. There is no "freedom agenda" that particularly justifies the shop-owner's right to make life hell for the black guy over the black guy's right to just order a sandwich, as every other member of the public is entitled to do. That's just where Ron Paul wants it to come down.

At some point, rights are in conflict -- and we have a method for resolving such disputes. Like the Constitution -- which forbids all "badges of servitude," such as continuing to back-door a slave caste into existence by treating blacks as second-class (if that!) citizens.

The Constitution does not permit second-class citizens. It once provided for two classes of persons -- citizen and slave -- but that was abolished. Now it only speaks of citizens.

No, states' rights does not extend into creating a tiered system of citizenship, which the Constitution itself forbids.

That's the "freedom agenda" I've been hearing so much about?

Or is it instead a cutesy, noble-sounding bit of bullshit to continue justifying a regime of racial apartheid?

When you seek vindication of your rights from the state -- through courts, through police -- the state is unavoidably involved, and historically has made the determination that some "private" contracts or arrangements, such as for sexual services, are so repugnant the state will have nothing to do with them.

posted by Ace at 02:26 PM

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