I’m Sure!

I’m pretty sure that this passage, part of a defense of major party candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010 Rand Paul’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is not a parody of libertarianism,* even if it reads this way:

I was born in 1950, so I had a little direct experience (in addition to lessons from history) with how this worked before 1964. Springfield had some businesses which were, for example, ‘Whites Only‘. Those businesses, and similar ones which existed in virtually every city and town in former Slave States and many Northern ones, must have suffered significantly for their policies. Springfield might [!] be a poor example of this, because there were not many non-white residents after the famous 1906 lynchings (concluded on the Public Square) prompted much of Springfield’s non-white citizenry to move away – immediately. I’m sure that, wherever they choose to live after 1906, their economic influence guaranteed that they would be served equitably by businesses.

I guess the question of why a group of people would have to move for their economic influence to matter never comes up. But I’m sure another 90 years of waiting for Jim Crow to just wither away on its own would have worked!

[Via Texas Roy, who links to much more similar wingnuttery.]

…see also.

*Nope, it’s parody. After Bryan Caplan’s defense of coverture, it’s just hard to tell these days.