Tuesday, October 26, 2004

 
Civil Rights versus Civil Liberties

Dan Rather's 20 or so minute Kerry ad this evening paired a sob story about someone suing a cruise ship because his accommodations were not "accessible" with commentary on filing Supreme Court vacancies. Republicans have given up more than they know with respect to totalitarian mandates of providing "reasonable accommodation" to er, differently abled employees, tenants, and customers. Civil liberties would have been far less violated had tax incentives to provide such accommodations been used instead and financed by general tax revenues. And while not particularly bright, it was obvious to me around age 13 that the 1964 Civil Rights legislation forbidding thought crime in hiring was a massive infringement of freedom.(first they came for the racist jerks, then they came...yadayadayada....for me)One can argue that this infringement was justified by the massive injustice done to the ancestors of most American blacks, but the moral cowardice in not acknowledging this cost in freedom led to "remedies" for not particularly aggrieved groups. And to the debasement of language so that recognition of the right to make non-violent choices in many aspects of life(with the exception of baby-killing-which I would *not* outlaw)has about as much respectiblility as advocacy of cannibalism.
For the record, like a few others, I favor abolishing all laws forbidding choice in employment, but would leave in place laws forbidding discrimination with respect to public accommodations(restaurants, hotels, etc.)given that the exercise of that was a public obscenity. (And of course, courts forbidden to take into account race could not enforce restrictive covenants and the like.)