Rand Paul, Michael Steele: Fighting to Keep the Liberty in Libertarianism

It was fascinating to watch the talking heads on weekend round-table discussions try to talk Rand Paul out of the hole he dug for himself. In particular, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's defense of the Kentucky Senate candidate seemed ambivalent and a bit painful.

Paul's trouble came with his musings that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 may have overreached when it forbade private businesses from discriminating, that the federal government's condemnation of BP's oil-drenched transgressions is too harsh and that, when it comes to Gulf spills and fatal mining disasters, "sometimes accidents happen." (Those views should be familiar to anyone, as David Corn writes, paying attention to either Paul, father or son.)

On ABC News' "This Week," Steele – doing damage control – said: "It's a philosophical position held by a lot of libertarians, which Rand Paul is. They have a very, very strong view about the limitations of government intrusion into the private sector."

Steele also said: "I can't condemn a person's view. That's like, you know, you believe something and I'm going to say, well, you know, 'I'm going to condemn your view of it.' It's the people of Kentucky who will judge whether or not that's a view that they would like to send." While allowing that he "wasn't comfortable" with Paul's opinions, Steele promised "our party will move forward in fighting for the civil rights and liberties of the American people, especially minorities in this country."

It's as though Steele actually thought through the implications of Paul's words.

I understand the discomfort of my fellow Maryland native. No one has a problem with a discussion of federal vs. states' rights as a political view. It's possible to have such a back-and-forth drained of emotion. But you do need a measure of intellectual honesty of how it works in the real world. There's a lot of talk about business owners being able to decide what color of person they will or will not welcome; I haven't heard anyone talk much about the rights of citizens to buy a cup of coffee at a lunch counter without getting smacked upside the head.

In the 1960's, too much government was the problem – state laws defied the Constitution to set a discriminatory system in stone. Do you think a motel owner in Alabama could have chosen to give a room to a black man and white woman seeking shelter for the night? African-Americans were not allowed to vote for anyone, local or otherwise, who might represent their views until the federal government stepped in.

And it was never a private matter when it came to enforcement of discriminatory laws. Government was always involved. If a black person walked into a restricted store, it wasn't a private force that was called to eject him; it was police officers with salaries paid for by citizens of all races. If a business owner greeted black patrons with an ax handle (as segregationist and one-time governor Lester Maddox did in Georgia), which side would the law always favor? Which side should it?

When my older brother Tony was arrested twice in restaurant sit-ins the 1960's in Steele's Maryland, my parents – pulled from a church dance – were in an impossible and unfair position. They paid the taxes to support the justice system that carted their son away. And they still had to come up with the bail. In a true libertarian society, could black citizens refuse to pay taxes to a government that worked against their rights?

That's one question I'd like to ask Paul. But journalists won't be able to ask him much of anything right now. After complaining about the absence of a "honeymoon" in spite of his big win in Kentucky's GOP primary, Paul pulled out of a "Meet the Press" appearance, only the third person in the show's history to do so.

He probably wants to revise and retool, become the kind of too-common politician who speaks in generalities if he speaks at all. But you'd think a Senate candidate would want voters to know what a believer in "small" government would do when he goes to Washington and becomes a part of "big" government.

Should citizens trust chemical companies not to dump in streams? Would we be better off if Washington eased regulations on food and drugs? And now that we know that Paul would have voted for the Civil Rights Act, what does he think of other landmark rulings -- such as the Americans with Disabilities Act -- that changed our nation? To ask such questions is not playing "gotcha," as Sarah Palin has suggested. As the reaction to the widening BP oil spill proves, it's complicated. We don't want government in our lives -- until we do.

What's clear is that Americans are always looking for someone with the answers. Why is Rand Paul, the libertarian purist, suddenly surprised that people want a few straight ones from him?