[Hoot Gibson]

Apparently, the role of the government is to let a show of hands determine whether or not African Americans can go to the University of Mississippi, of Alabama, and whether or not a private business like Woolworths can exclude folks based on color from eating at their lunch counter. Down deep, Right Wing Flirties, I wonder how many of you agree with him. I always thought there was more to wrong and right than a show of hands.

As I understand what Paul said, I totally agree with him. There is a big difference in allowing individuals to freely decide with whom they want to associate and conduct business and having governments mandating that racial discrimination is the law of the land. Certain businesses and schools in the South had no legal right to serve African-Americans or to treat them equally. Had the legal requirements for businesses to discriminate on the basis of race simply been eliminated, the profit motive would have pressured businesses to stop discriminating.

Rand Paul never said that he supported allowing the majority to decide whether businesses should or should not discriminate on the basis of race. In fact, he said just the opposite - he said that it was wrong for state and local governments to mandate racial discrimination.