Somewhere in the vicinity of 30% of the House and Senate opposed the Civil Rights Act, and that's taking into account sympathy votes due to Kennedy being assassinated the year prior. While I am an optimist about people, my conjecture is that people only "came around" to desegregation
after it was forced on them by the govt. Once whites were forced to interact with blacks in ways they never had to before, they realized that they were also just human beings. The same can be said of how society viewed gays and gay marriage. Once workplace protections started being strengthened in the late 90s and 00s, gay people essentially said "you know what, f you, I'm coming out and I don't care what you think," and seeing an out person became a commonplace affair in day to day society. Then finally, most people realized that gays are human beings just like anyone else.
------
The Libertarian Civil Rights Paradox
As the Republican Party descends into a white nationalist death-spiral, many longtime Republicans are scrambling to find alternatives. Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party has nominated two popular former Republican Governors to head a ticket that will compete in all 50 states.
Many longtime Republicans are eyeing the Libertarian ticket as a place to throw away an otherwise odious vote. Beyond this election, it might make sense for disillusioned Republicans to give the Libertarians a more serious look, but only after wrestling with some of the party’s more troubling problems.
Two major policy obstacles block Libertarians from mainstream credibility. The first is their refusal to grapple with real-world economics, waving an ‘invisible hand’ over every problem and declaring it fixed. Worse though is their strange civil rights conundrum. Paradoxically, the party of ‘liberty’ would tear down every protection against racial discrimination. Republicans troubled by their party’s white nationalism will find little relief among present-day Libertarians.
The long, sad decline of the Republican Party as the primary vehicle of black political expression corresponds closely to the rise of libertarian philosophy as a force inside the GOP. If a liberty-minded third party is going to rise as a challenger to the two major parties, it will first have to absorb some troubling lessons from the civil rights era.
Republicans began embracing libertarian ideas about a decade before the Libertarian Party was formed. Barry Goldwater embraced individual liberty as a paramount political value in the early ‘60’s. Libertarians formed a separate political party in the early 70’s when a small core of anti-war conservatives broke from the Soviet hawks over Vietnam, but the two movements never fully disentangled from each other.
To this day figures like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson move easily between Libertarian and Republican circles because the boundaries are muddy. The libertarian movement today is still the heir of the Goldwater Republicans. It was Goldwater who launched the Republican shift toward libertarianism and it was under Goldwater that libertarian thinking flunked its first big test of real-world effectiveness.
The proposed Civil Rights Act of 1964 presented libertarian philosophy with a wrenching choice. In theory, libertarians loathed racial discrimination, but breaking Jim Crow would demand a sweeping expansion of Federal power that would intervene deeply into private life. The dilemma was that African Americans’ repression rose not so much from government as from the culture, ignorance and bigotry of their white neighbors.
The Civil Rights Acts proposed to do something that libertarian ideology insisted was impossible –expand personal freedom by expanding central government power. Goldwater made a fateful decision to break from the core of the Republican Party and oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act. His decision alienated the black community and shined a glaring light on a fatal weakness in libertarian theory.
Libertarianism protects personal liberty from being impaired by government. It creates weak states on the assumption that personal freedom will bloom in the absence of government intrusion.
The black experience is a living reminder that government is not alone as a potential threat to personal liberty. It is possible, as in the Jim Crow South, to build a government so weak that no one’s personal liberties can be protected.
The libertarianism Goldwater embraced had its eyes fixed firmly on Communism. In the fight against the tyranny of a totalitarian ideology, the right failed to recognize that tyranny can flourish under a weak state. Goldwater-era libertarians watched Medgar Evers’ funeral without recognizing small government oppression at work. They have never acknowledged that glitch.
The high-minded pursuit of personal freedom from government made Goldwater an accidental hero for segregationists. In the most noxious irony of the 1964 election, Goldwater as the standard-bearer of “personal liberty” earned the endorsement of segregationist Democrat Strom Thurmond and became the first Republican to win the Deep South since Reconstruction.
Goldwater’s awkward alliance with racists launched a troubling trend. By elevating ideology over experience, the party of Lincoln was forging a strange new path. Modern Republicans troubled by their party’s racism are eyeing the Libertarian Party as an alternative. Ironically, it was Republicans’ flirtation with libertarianism that destroyed our traditional role as a political outlet for minorities. It was libertarian policy and rhetoric that converted the South into a Republican stronghold.
A political platform built on “small government” works only when it is tempered by a respect for the very important role that good government plays in guaranteeing freedom. It might be possible to develop a libertarian platform that addresses the paradox of small government tyranny, but the first step is simply acknowledging the paradox.
Government intervention has been a critical component in the fight for civil rights. Many hard-working, successful African Americans got their start on the economic ladder with progressive hiring and promotion policies at the Post Office or other Federal agencies. Federal troops played a decisive role in desegregating public schools and universities in the South. It was a muscular, activist Federal government that gave African-Americans their first opportunities to participate in the American Dream. Sometimes, liberty needs government.
Extreme anti-government rhetoric devoid of nuance or constraint creates well-justified fear in minority communities. Libertarian values have historically failed them, leaving them exposed to terrifying oppression. Libertarians cannot continue to clumsily paint government as a fount of endless evil and hope to appeal to minority communities whose own family stories render that message hollow.
For libertarians to become an outlet for frustrated Republicans and Democrats, they must develop a more nuanced, realistic vision of small government. Smaller government may be a fine prescription for personal liberty and economic success, but only if it remains strong enough to protect basic civil rights.
The black experience is a living reminder that government is not alone as a potential threat to personal liberty. It is possible, as in the Jim Crow South, to build a government so weak that no one’s personal liberties can be protected.
www.forbes.com
--------------------
