A few people have written about how they think Rand Paul should’ve handled his appearance on Rachel Maddow and other similar interviews. Here’s Christopher Donovan’s way of defending freedom of association.

Robert, the Civil Rights Act wasn’t about expanding rights, it was about taking them away — from Whites. Everyone’s got a right to decide whom they’ll associate with, and whom they won’t. This is probably the most fundamental right. The government has no business dictating who our associates will be. This may be awkward and painful at times, but that’s life. How would you feel if the government forced you to host three Ku Klux Klansmen at your condo in D.C.?

When I was watching the Maddow video I thought of how cool it would be if Paul said “What if government decided that there wasn’t enough integration in our personal lives too? Of my three children, do you think one should be forced to take a black spouse?” though I certainly didn’t expect it. To a libertarian both a business and a home are private property that government must respect; unfortunately we must face the fact that there’s a sharp difference in most people’s minds. Even Americans who own their own businesses feel there’s a distinction between where they work and where they eat, sleep, socialize and raise their families. So comparing the Civil Rights Act to mandatory intermarriage or being forced to hang out with Klansmen isn’t going to work.

That being said, I do think that there are politically smart ways not to back down. How about this

It’s funny that the media has been going after me for defending freedom of association when they don’t question any politicians who advocate affirmative action about those beliefs. If you truly believe that all people should be treated equally, how does one advocate not the freedom to discriminate, but mandatory discrimination? If a major corporation or university came out and said “We want to hire the best person for each job or admit only the best students by some kind of race blind criteria,” that would for all practical purposes be illegal. Do you think that’s right? Why don’t you question Speaker Pelosi, President Obama or my opponent about their views on affirmative action? I have made ending affirmative action a central part of my platform. Anybody who defends the practice has no right lecturing me or any American on the evils of racial discrimination.

This is a political winner, allows one to still be a libertarian and even lets the politician take a "more anti-racist than thou" posture.  I don't see the downside.   Since no one ever does this, I must be missing something. But what?

The news of Rand Paul's big primary win (in a randslide) was certainly positive, tempered by his unclear foreign policy message. Now that he finds himself in the general election, the media is starting to ask questions about his views on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Politico reports on his waffling on the CRA:

Moving from the Republican Primary to the general election means, for Rand Paul, addressing a broader set of issues than the anti-tax, anti-spending focus of his campaign.

And while he's answered this question before, I'm not sure he's going to be able to get away with an evasive response to a question today on whether he would have voted for the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in public places and in the workplace.

Paul has suggested in the past -- and been attacked for suggesting -- that the federal government has no place regulating private business decisions, even on issues like race and accomodations for the disabled, and was pressed on the question -- three times -- on NPR just now:

"What I've always said is, I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would have -- if I was alive at the time, I think -- had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, ad I see no place in our soc for institutional racism," he said in response to a first question about the act.

"You woul have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater?" asked an interviewer.

"I think it's confusing in a lot of cases in what's actually in the Civil Rights Case (sic)," Paul replied. "A lot of things that were actually in the bill I'm actually in favor of I'm in favor of -- everything with regards to ending institutional racism. So I think there's a lot to be desired in the Civil Rights -- and indeed the truth is, I haven't read all through it, because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue on the campaign on whether I'm going to vote for the Civil Rights Act."

Paul explains his position further on the CRA at the one hour mark of this video interview with the editors of the Louisville Courier-Journal. He says he supports the parts of the bill that fought discrimination in the public arena and on public property, but disagrees with telling private business owners what to do. He then goes on a bit of a rant about his admiration for Martin Luther King Jr., and explains how he gets emotional when watching his speeches.

I have no doubt we will begin to see the media paint Paul as a racist, just as they attempted to do to his father. But the reality is that Rand , despite his positives as a candidate, is riven with many of the modern multi-culti pathologies that infect political discourse. Absent from his views on the CRA is any bit of understanding about the major cultural upheaval that resulted from the Act, and absent from his views on MLK is an understanding of the racial redistribution of wealth King advocated. Instead Paul tries to paint him as some anti-government crusader. In the end, I have no doubt that Rand is telling the truth about his views on the CRA; that it merely clashes with his ideological views on private ownership.

At any rate, Rand's clash with the media on the CRA is a healthy reminder of how hard it will be for a real alt-right candidate to infiltrate the PC state.

This article by Bryan Caplan is four years old, but I bring it up today because it’s the only serious attempt I’ve ever seen by an open borders libertarian to seriously consider the issue of HBD.  Although he seems to misdefine “eugenics,” Caplan shows that higher IQ individuals do better with low IQ immigration if everything else stays the same.  While the example he uses is a population that is exclusively brilliant deciding to let in a population that’s completely stupid, the argument works even if you acknowledge variation within a nation.

We can see this clearly if we use a thought experiment that mirrors what’s happening in America.  Let’s say you have a nation of 100 people with an average IQ of 100.  Because of the bell curve distribution of talents, your population looks like this:

People with IQs of 120+- 10
110-119 IQ- 10
100-109 IQ- 30
90-99 IQ-30
80-89 IQ- 10
79- IQ- 10

Assume that 50 people from a group with an average IQ of 90 settle in your country.

110+ IQ- 5
100-109 IQ- 5
90-99 IQ- 15
80-89 IQ- 15
70-79 IQ- 5
69- IQ- 5

Now let’s say you’re an airline pilot with an IQ of 115 in the original population and that there’s a minimum IQ of 110 for your job.  Before the population transfer, only 20% of people were capable of being trained as a pilot.  You probably get paid well for your rare skill.  But after immigration only 16.7% of your countrymen are smart enough to potentially do what you do.  Because the country has more people there’s more of a demand for flying but fewer people relative to the general population smart enough to take up the profession.  Your skill is more valuable and your salary goes up.  Also, when you hire a nanny, go out to eat or get someone to wash your car you benefit from the lower costs for the services of babysitters, cooks and gas station attendants.

On the other hand, if your only options in life are becoming a grocery store clerk, bricklayer or baby sitter, your wages drop and there’s no compensating advantage of being a part of a proportionally smaller in demand elite.

But at least our airline pilot friend unquestionably benefits, right?  Actually, there are other things we have to consider.  Unfortunately, the low IQ masses vote.  They demand free health care, welfare and schools for their children.  Since the less intelligent commit a disproportionate amount of crime your tax dollars go to more jails and police (not to mention the better odds of getting robbed, raped or killed).  If the migrants are from a visibly different ethny they may demand the creation or expansion of affirmative action programs.  Our pilot may lose his job to an immigrant with an IQ of 105, who proceeds to crash a plane with some more high IQ people in it.

In the long run, multiracial societies with vast life disparities between different groups aren’t known for their high levels of social peace.

One of Caplan’s readers was nice enough to explain this to him in a different post.

The problem is that people with low IQs tend to produce negative externalities. They're more likely to vote for bad policies, they commit more crime, they're more likely to become public beneficiaries, and they're less likely to contribute enough in taxes to pay the marginal costs they impose on other government programs.

If we lived in an ideal world with an ironclad guarantee of a minimalist government, I would agree with you. But as it is, it's not at all clear to me that the net marginal benefit of more low-IQ people is positive.

“Negative externalities” is a very good way to put it.  Caplan’s analysis is good as far as economic truth goes but ignores all social and political realities.

A few weeks ago I argued that "the myth that libertarianism and traditionalist conservatism are one and the same is going to come crashing down when amnesty is brought before Congress." It appears I didn't have to wait that long, as libertarians are up in arms about SB 1070, recently passed in Arizona.

Reason puppets the PC lie about Hispanic crime in a piece attacking "Arizona's draconian new law" (the stastically-sound report "Color of Crime" notwithstanding):

The state has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants. But contrary to myth, they have not brought an epidemic of murder and mayhem with them. Surprise of surprises, the state has gotten safer.

Over the last decade, the violent crime rate has dropped by 19 percent, while property crime is down by 20 percent. Crime has also declined in the rest of the country, but not as fast as in Arizona.

Babeu's claim about police killings came as news to me. When I called his office to get a list of victims, I learned there has been only one since the beginning of 2008-deeply regrettable, but not exactly a trend.

Truth is, illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native Americans. Most come here to work, and in their desire to stay, they are generally afraid to do anything that might draw the attention of armed people wearing badges.

As my past writings on the subject can attest, I think Obamacare is a horrendous, likely ruinous, social program. I can thus summon one and half cheers for the Republican leadership, which despite having backed George W. Bush's unfunded Medicare extension but six years ago, has decided to come out strong against Obamacare, follow the Tea Partiers, and try to "kill the bill."

As a friend wrote to me in an email:

Things can always get worse no matter how much the current system sucks. We should applaud the Republicans here for not trying to reach out and do something "bipartisan." Give me spineless slimeballs over true-believing liberals.

There's truth to that ... but there is also a way in which a political opposition, even a forthright and unwavering one, can do serious intellectual damage to a cause by essentially agreeing with the premises of its adversary and not actually defining what is wrong with the other side.

Ron Paul’s victory in the CPAC straw poll triggered renewed discussion of his message, a discussion typically styled as an a la carte acceptance or rejection of his various recommendations and stances. So, for example, Jonah Goldberg will go along with auditing the Fed, kind of, and he isn’t part of the neoconservative cabal, and...

I am dying to know how each individual movement lackey feels about Paul. Really I am. Yet the overall verdict already is in and it’s not necessarily wrong because it’s being expressed by the neocons or the establishment or the GOP hacks or whoever. It’s that Ron Paul doesn’t function well as the leader of one of the two governing parties.