By Robert Wenzel
Last Thursday, Rand Paul called for the GOP to put on the back burner the second amendment. Today, he went after the first amendment.
In an interview with Boston talk radio host Jeffrey Kuhner, Rand came out against the Confederate flag, calling it “a symbol of human bondage and slavery,” reports MeduaLite.
“The South Carolina flag issue; a lot of Republican candidates have taken a position on it, some say it’s an issue for states rights, it’s a state issue, others say that should the Confederate flag should be brought down,” Kuhner said. “Where do you stand with [South Carolina] Governor Nikki Haley? She says the Confederate flag should go: agree, disagree?
“No, I agree,” he said. “I think the flag is inescapably a symbol of human bondage and slavery, and particularly when people use it obviously for murder and to justify hatred so vicious that you would kill somebody. I think that symbolism needs to end, and I think South Carolina’s doing the right thing.”
Rand noted that it was a decision for South Carolinians to make, “But if I were in South Carolina, that’s what I’d vote to do and that’s what I would recommend to anybody who asked me my opinion.”
“The thing is that people used it for southern pride and heritage and all that,” he said. “But really to I think every African-American in the country, it’s the symbolism of slavery for them. And now it’s a symbol of murder for this young man, and so I think it’s time to put it in a museum.”
To be sure, the libertarian view is that free speech must be considered in the context of private property, there is no absolute right to freedom of speech. Here's Murray Rothbard on this (from For A New Liberty, The Libertarian Manifesto as read by Jeff Riggenbch)
But when we are talking about general policies in the context of existing government regulation, then the default view must be to allow speech in public areas, including flag waving of any sort.
It is, in the eyes of a libertarian, an extremely dangerous view to hold that a symbol of any sort should be banned (even exclusively on government property) because it is a symbol "of human bondage and slavery."
First. since any symbol may hold different meanings for different people, but secondly, it promotes the idea that government should have a role in determining what is proper speech and proper symbolism.
The libertarian view should always be that government be shrunk, not that government should be handed any role in determining anything.
Thus, once again, we see Rand as a micro-technician of the state and nowhere close to being a libertarian and far, far from being a Rothbardian hater of the state.
Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher at EconomicPolicyJournal.com and at Target Liberty. He is also author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics
(ht Jay Stephenson)
With passage of Fast Track authority the senate made our representatives vestigial at every level of government, so we will now face taxation without representation at every level of government; yet Rand has decided he would rather talk about the Confederate flag on this day of infamy.
ReplyDeleteThe senate just opened up the flood gates of ugly consequences, and I feel like running for the hills.
Hearing yours and Murray's correct libertarian analysis of current events is always refreshing.
ReplyDelete"I think the [Confederate] flag is inescapably a symbol of human bondage and slavery..."
ReplyDeleteAnd the US flag isn't?
I've never like Rothbard's treatment on this particular set of topics, even though I agree with him/you on free speech ultimately being a "property rights" issue in terms of it's "allowance", he falls short in other areas surrounding ideas in this area IMO.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Rothbard acknowledges that libel/slander can be "immoral", but goes on to say it doesn't matter because reputation can't be owned.
Aside from the continual disagreement between people on what "is" or "is not" property, if we set that aside to examine the other parts of his argument, everyone has to at least concede that the ignoring of "immorality" in behavior is a violation of natural law, Rothbard is pro natural law so this seems inconsistent:
https://mises.org/library/1-natural-law-and-reason
Second, Rothbard cites the "law of accessory" as a reason by which he can extend his coverage of "criminality" to the leader of a criminal enterprise.
This is also inconsistent IMO because all he is doing is differentiating types of speech(persuasion vs. commandment), he hasn't established a fundamental logical principle by which we can consistently apply this differentiation as you'll see below, nor does his argument actually match up to definitions surrounding the "law of accessory" that I can find.
Rothbard argues against "advocacy" as a crime using the concept of "free will" but doesn't extend that for some reason to the employees of a criminal enterprise that have been "commanded" to commit a crime. The "Nuremberg Defense" has been universally discredited long ago. If your employer "commands" you to do something, you always have the choice to quit, hence "free will".
Ergo that's totally inconsistent argument Rothbard makes in my viewpoint.
Further yet, Rothbard complains about the outgrowth of conspiracy crimes as a result....but who here would like to giving a rousing defense for someone that has paid another, a simple contract if you will, to kill a person?
Not me. I know a violation of natural law when I see it.
According to Rothbard if I understand him right, doing so doesn't make the purchaser of murder a criminal.
I could go further into the actual history of the "law of accessory", but before I do that I have to find out what time period Rothbard is using for context of that law.(maybe it's in footnotes someplace)
Though I'm a fan of Rothbard overall, I find his arguments less than convincing in this area.
This is also a Saul Alinsky tactic to marginalize a sector of America the establishment sees as a threat. These are the people who might listen to Alex Jones or may have voted for Pat Buchanan a decade ago. It is now basically considered hate speech to criticize Caitlyn Jenner, but those who drive trucks and listen to Hank Williams Jr. are to be demonized and humiliated. This is why the establishment wanted the Fabian socialist Obama elected in 2008.
ReplyDeleteI had mixed feelings about this. I would make them keep the flag up as it has been for just 50 years as a reminder of their bone headedness in holding on to segregation as some sort of cultural institution.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand it unpackages issues like secession from Jim Crow laws and "the South".