Either rule consequentialism collapses into act consequentialism or its not really consequentialism at all.

I’ve aways disagreed with those libertarians who have claimed that individuals have a right to discriminate against others based on race.

As I recall, you’ve also disagreed with those libertarians who have claimed that individuals should have a legal right, but would be committing a moral wrong, to discriminate against others based on country of origin.

I agree with your perspective that “a regime of strong negative rights is the best guarantee of positive liberty,” and in your assessment that “this is really an empirical question about what really does maximize individuals’ chances of formulating and realizing meaningful projects and lives.” Although such goals are highly subjective in nature, it does seem safe to say their chances face a net opportunity loss when confronted with an organized belief that the aspirant is inherently worthless, and that such beliefs therefore represent “clear evils.”

Perhaps I misunderstand the positions, but it would seem to me that an argument which categorically prohibits all coercion necessarily permits all voluntary association, an ugly manifestation of which could be some form of “structural discrimination”. You said that you are ambivalent about the state stepping in - but why? How could voluntary association - however structured - be more harmful than the coercion of government regulation - however “ticky-tack”? After all, as you and others at Reason are well aware, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force..” Without this force (e.g. in the form of a century of Jim Crow laws), racism, sexism, etc. are just ideas that, like all others, must stand ultimately on their own merits - which, of course, they can’t.

As a self identified decent person concerned with liberty, I also agree with the responsibility to denounce, “if not actively tear down” (assuming sans coercion) “racist beliefs and norms that enable liberty-killing structural discrimination.” However, I also believe that among the most pernicious liberty-killing beliefs and norms is the status quo opposite to our shared perspective about negative rights. Whatever the intention, Government almost always couches its’ intervention as “attempts to guarantee the worth of our liberties”. The belief and norm that to so save us from ourselves is the just purview of Government enables such horror shows as the “drug war”. It seems clear that this belief strikes much closer to the root of liberty than beliefs which foster discrimination, as I am sure that any individual - whatever their race, gender, creed - would readily consider the four walls of the prison cell a far greater obstacle to their “chances of formulating and realizing meaningful projects and lives.”

Lastly, you say that “serious forms of structural discrimination are much worse for liberty than certain kinds of coercion,” and that “Libertarians make themselves look ridiculous when they claim that everyone is fully and equally free as long as no one is coercing anyone.” To my mind, for reasons mentioned, all forms of structural discrimination are serious. However I disagree in principle, again for reasons mentioned, that they are worse - let alone much worse - than “certain kinds” of coercion. There is only one kind of coercion: “persuasion” through force or threats of force. As for libertarians looking “ridiculous when they claim that everyone is fully and equally free as long as no one is coercing anyone,” I can only say that from what I’ve seen, they more accurately and often say that everyone is as fully and equally free as possible so long as this is the case.

Ron Paul has a clear track record as a decent person concerned with liberty. Whatever incidental enabling his negligence or supposed closet racism* has provided for liberty-killing racist beliefs (*his repeated reference to racism as “an ugly form of collectivism” and a “spiritual malady”, as well as his repeated championing of MLK, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, etc. as heroes, suggest a piss-poor record as a closet racist), it clearly pales in comparison to the enabling that his voluminous efforts, over decades, have provided for beliefs which promote that very positive individual liberty you believe “most worth caring about”.

I discussed this over a catallarcy once with regard to good Samaritan law, and in quite a bit of detail.

I’ve aways disagreed with those libertarians who have claimed that individuals have a right to discriminate against others based on race. I don’t have lots of time to discuss it but I think it should be clear that within a society a person of one race can buy a piece of property from someone of another race and then turn around and place some kind of deed restriction on future owners not to sell to that other race.

This obviously violates reciprocity and therefore is not moral. Furthermore it violates others rights to free association and the like.

The problem I see with this however is that if you take a wrong turn it can lead one into the realm of positive rights. Which I believe is a mistake. As much as these rights may look like classical positive they are not.

Does this mean you are going to become a social liberal? You know positive rights and all.

Interesting post. I wonder, could you clarify how you distinguish liberty from freedom? It has always seemed to me that when we’re wading into political philosophy, we use freedom to refer the total range of possible free action available to an individual, while we use liberty to refer to the range of action in which the state refrains from meddling.

To be sure, the question of where to draw the bound for liberty is an empirical question, but it’s a question of how best to bound liberty, not how to expand freedom. While we generally hope to expand both liberty and freedom as much as possible, the expansion of liberty is necessarily political and the expansion of freedom essentially private.

Thoughts?

he has actually helped cultivate a cultural climate hostile to the prospects of “the blacks”
I never came across any of those newsletters in meatspace and don’t know how prevalent they were, but my suspicion is that they had negligible impact on cultural attitudes towards African Americans. If you’re going to diminish Paul’s stand against the drug war by the possibility that he will get elected, might as well take a similarly utilitarian attitude toward the newsletters.

Horwitz, regarding whether someone should be allowed to say something that may or may not result in harm to you, I would point out Kinsella’s Causation and Aggression.

Libertarians make themselves look ridiculous when they claim that everyone is fully and equally free as long as no one is coercing anyone. Now, this isn’t obvious. At least it wasn’t to me. It took me a good while to come around to this view—to see just how much structural bias does deprive people of their freedom or of the value of their freedom. But I am embarrassed that it took me as long as it did.

Setting aside that liberty is the absence of coercion, I’m curious to know the path you took to come to a more positive rights approach. I found this section of your post a bit circuitous and could never really tell whether you were advocating a ‘minimum existence’ provided by the state or not.

If you could share a bit about the journey towards the realization that structural bias deprives some of their freedom (and perhaps define/elaborate on what you see as structural bias), I’d love to read about it. Was the journey experiential, philosophical, etc.?

Why focus on 15-year old posts (especially if Dr. Paul did not write them, as he does not strike me as a racist) when all the other candidates (republicans and democrats) are unrepentant warmongers NOW and want to continue the war in Iraq (150,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have died so far) and possibly attack Iran?

are 15-year old writings more important than an unjust war that all the other candidates want to continue? are 15-year old words more important than 150,000 Iraqi lives?

Hello? Hello? HELLO?

are you to tell me that i should drop Ron Paul and vote for any of the other candidates? Dude, are you serious?

Besides, if this is all that the Establishment has found on Ron Paul to attack him, that’s pretty good. I would not want to know what skeletons all the other candidates have in their closets.

Nobody ever said tha Ron Paul is perfect. He’s not. noboby claimed is Jesus reborn. Okay, granted.

But dude, have you seen the other candidates? have you listened to their policies? have you seen that they are all backed by the CFR? have you seen them?

Dude, RP is all we’ve got, and besides, John McCain once said RP is the most honest person in congress. that’s pretty good. good enough for me.

If you’re not convinced, I recommend reading Dan Klein’s article “Mere Libertarianism.”