Rand Paul’s Ignorance of Natural Law
Rand Paul is in trouble, politically, because his libertarian political philosophy is divorced from natural law.
Paul has said, on national television, he supports the rights of business owners over business customers regarding the issue of racial segregation. Paul’s libertarianism has led him to say that, while on the one hand he would have supported Dr. King’s civil rights movement, on the other hand he would not have supported the provision within the 1964 Civil Rights Act which required business owners to desegregate their businesses.
Paul’s libertarianism places private property rights over the People’s rights—equal treatment under the law—while the Declaration of Independence supports both.
Paul’s ignorance of the Declaration’s natural law basis is appalling, as is his ignorance of the natural law basis of Dr. King’s civil rights movement.
The Declaration of Independence says:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
This reveals the natural law basis of the Declaration.
Dr. King said:
“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal .law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.”
This reveals the natural law basis of Dr. King’s civil rights movement.
In fact, Dr. King was holding America’s feet to the fires of its natural law basis, found in the Declaration, when he said:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
What Rand Paul fails to realize is that America is founded upon natural law and natural law acknowledges the equality and dignity inherent in all peoples.
When certain states allowed the oppression of certain citizens because of their race, the federal government was right to demand that these states uphold the natural law-based equality that is found in the Declaration of Independence.
Paul’s libertarianism, divorced as it is from natural law, allows business owners to oppress people, legally. This is similar to the philosophy of Ayn Rand (another “Rand”) whose capitalist libertarian philosophy, Objectivism, is best described, in her own words, as “the virtue of selfishness”.
The virtue of selfishness?
This is an oxymoronic statement; a contradiction in terms.
The opposite of selfishness is compassion. Compassion is a virtue, a virtue that Christ lived-out and a virtue that Christ called his followers to live-out as well.
Selfishness, especially corporate greed, is hardly a virtue—it is, rather, a vice.
Rand Paul’s libertarianism, shorn of natural law, is the problem; not the solution. We have quite enough corporate greed in America these days Dr. Paul, we really don’t need you making matters worse than they already are.
4 comments:
Nothing in this article indicates that Paul rejects natural law. In fact, just the opposite, this article shows he accepts natural law! According to natural law, every man can give the government only those powers which he has himself. (Nemo potest dare quod non habet.) And what powers does he have? To protect himself from thieves and murderers. Ergo, he can entrust the government with that power.
But man cannot entrust the government with those powers which has does not have himself, such as forcing other men to bend to his personal, subjective will.
Regarding restaurants, then: no man has a right to eat in a restaurant, no matter how much he wishes to do so, any more than he has a right to steal money because he wants that money. Men only have the right to be not hurt and damaged. For a white to lynch a black, steal from a black, physically strike a black, etc., is to damage and hurt, and and the black can entrust the government with the power to punish the white. But no man on earth has a right to eat in a restaurant. Under natural law, every man has the right to private property. This means that a man has a right to ban from his restaurant anyone he wants.
But the government is owned by everyone, and so the government cannot discriminate against blacks in PUBLIC matters and facilities, unless the government entire exempts blacks from all laws and taxes. But if blacks must obey the law, then they must also have all the privileges in PUBLIC matters which all citizens have. Either the government must allow blacks all the benefits of membership in the social contract, or else they must be entirely exempted from all responsibilities of membership. You cannot have it halfway, giving blacks the responsibilities but not the privileges. But restaurants are private, not public.
to be cont.
cont. from above
If you look again at the Declaration, you'll see that nothing in it indicates a right to eat in a restaurant. It says you have a right to live, own property, and to pursue happiness in your own private life (meaning especially, the right to pursue religious virtue according to the dictates of your own conscience and religious beliefs). Nothing there indicates a right to force other people to accommodate you in a restaurant.
MLK's words there in "A Letter from a Birmingham Jail" speak of unjust LAWS, such as when the government bars blacks from participating in PUBLIC matters, such as PUBLIC buses and PUBLIC schools. But restaurants are PRIVATE, and if a restauranteur bans blacks, this is his own choice, NOT a law. MLK is speaking of government and law, not of private individuals on their own private property. He is writing against Jim Crow Laws, which had discrimination in the PUBLIC sphere. (Incidentally, then, it is absurd to expect government to solve racism and discrimination, when the government was the one that instituted racism and discrimination on a legal basis. The government created the problem, but it is supposed to solve it too?)
Putting aside Ayn Rand (whose theories in this regard are unusual and not ordinary for libertarianism), libertarianism is only a political philosophy, not a moral one. Paul is not saying that a white's banning a black from a restaurant is moral or decent or just, but only that it is outside the jurisdiction of the government, the same way that false religious belief is sinful but not within the government's sphere of authority. Not everyone that is wrong, must be punished by the government.
Rand Paul is thus accepting both parts of natural law:
(1) He accepts the Civil Rights Movement, acknowledging that in the private sphere, racism is wrong, even if the government has no right to do anything about it;
(2) He accepts that discrimination can be legally banned only in the PUBLIC sphere, based on the natural law principle of nemo potest dare quod non habet, "no man can give that which he does not own himself."
To support the Civil Rights Act's banning of discrimination in private matters, is to reject #2 above, and is thus to reject natural law in favor of "might makes right," that the government can extend its authority beyond its rightful jurisdiction, simply because it has the power. This is the same logic that led to Inquisitions and burning of heretics over the centuries, and was rejected by Roger Williams, John Locke, John Leland, Isaac Backus, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc.
cont. from above
If you look again at the Declaration, you'll see that nothing in it indicates a right to eat in a restaurant. It says you have a right to live, own property, and to pursue happiness in your own private life (meaning especially, the right to pursue religious virtue according to the dictates of your own conscience and religious beliefs). Nothing there indicates a right to force other people to accommodate you in a restaurant.
MLK's words there in "A Letter from a Birmingham Jail" speak of unjust LAWS, such as when the government bars blacks from participating in PUBLIC matters, such as PUBLIC buses and PUBLIC schools. But restaurants are PRIVATE, and if a restauranteur bans blacks, this is his own choice, NOT a law. MLK is speaking of government and law, not of private individuals on their own private property. He is writing against Jim Crow Laws, which had discrimination in the PUBLIC sphere. (Incidentally, then, it is absurd to expect government to solve racism and discrimination, when the government was the one that instituted racism and discrimination on a legal basis. The government created the problem, but it is supposed to solve it too?)
Putting aside Ayn Rand (whose theories in this regard are unusual and not ordinary for libertarianism), libertarianism is only a political philosophy, not a moral one. Paul is not saying that a white's banning a black from a restaurant is moral or decent or just, but only that it is outside the jurisdiction of the government, the same way that false religious belief is sinful but not within the government's sphere of authority. Not everyone that is wrong, must be punished by the government.
Rand Paul is thus accepting both parts of natural law:
(1) He accepts the Civil Rights Movement, acknowledging that in the private sphere, racism is wrong, even if the government has no right to do anything about it;
(2) He accepts that discrimination can be legally banned only in the PUBLIC sphere, based on the natural law principle of nemo potest dare quod non habet, "no man can give that which he does not own himself."
To support the Civil Rights Act's banning of discrimination in private matters, is to reject #2 above, and is thus to reject natural law in favor of "might makes right," that the government can extend its authority beyond its rightful jurisdiction, simply because it has the power. This is the same logic that led to Inquisitions and burning of heretics over the centuries, and was rejected by Roger Williams, John Locke, John Leland, Isaac Backus, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc.
Sorry but watch the video I linked in the essay.
I heard, from his own mouth, what Paul had to say. He is an ignoramus when it comes to Natural Law, and apparently so are you.
I suggest you start studying and thinking about this instead of simply reacting to it, Because you are wrong and I am right, and so was Dr King, Aquinas, Augustine, and the Founder.
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