Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I think you know: Yes (R).

[Oldiesfreak1854]

America was founded on the right to refuse to serve black people at your diner.

This quote automatically makes you a massive HP.  It may not be "we reserve the right to refuse service to robots and space bikers", but it's WAY worse.  I know you're being sarcastic, but you're completely wrong on this one.  Even one of my PoliSci professors said that the "state's rights" argument was irrelevant and was essentially calling for a return to the Articles of Confederation.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Yes (I), and I suspect that many of those voting 'no' in this poll would have, too. I've yet to see an argument against the act's passage that isn't racist or blithely ahistorical.

So Barry Goldwater was a racist?

Certainly his actions were.

Goldwater was a founding member of the NAACP in Arizona and was instrumental in making his family's department stores one of the first businesses in that state to desegregate.  He was not a racist, but Democrats successfully portrayed him as one in the 1964 campaign for his vote, even tying him to the KKK in ads.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

America was founded on the right to refuse to serve black people at your diner.

This quote automatically makes you a massive HP.  It may not be "we reserve the right to refuse service to robots and space bikers", but it's WAY worse.  I know you're being sarcastic, but you're completely wrong on this one.  Even one of my PoliSci professors said that the "state's rights" argument was irrelevant and was essentially calling for a return to the Articles of Confederation.

I was being completely sarcastic, dude. I was poking fun of the libertarian arguments against the CRA.

I know.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Yes (I), and I suspect that many of those voting 'no' in this poll would have, too. I've yet to see an argument against the act's passage that isn't racist or blithely ahistorical.

So Barry Goldwater was a racist?

No. He was ignoring a solid century of institutionalized segregation.

Also, didn't Goldwater later claim that he regretted his vote? My understanding is that he viewed the bill as unconstitutional on the basis of dubious legal advice from Robert Bork (which cited a number of late nineteenth century supreme court rulings). I'm not student of law, but the era of the court that brought us Plessy v. Ferguson strikes me as a poor source of justification for opposing civil rights legislation.

Bork was a champion of civil rights who just thought 1964 CRA was too extreme.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Bork was a champion of civil rights who just thought 1964 CRA was too extreme.

Bork on the CRA:

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Bork on the First Amendment:

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If Bork opposed it, then it was for legal reasons.  Otherwise, he was a pretty strong civil rights supporter.  So he was kind of like Goldwater.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Yes (R), which means my time as a 1960's Tennessee Congressman might have been rather short

I am greatly disappointed that we have so many people on this forum who voted "no".  I don't think a "no" vote means someone is a racist.  Yet, a "no" vote on this issue in 1964 was certainly a vote to enable racists to infringe on freedom.

Racial discrimination is by far the greatest threat to individual liberty that has ever been faced by any group of individuals in our country's history.

The federal government was the only agent with the political and logistic capability to attempt to restore that natural liberty.  The freedom for many individuals to be able to gain equal access to prosperity and happiness far outweighs the infringement on the right of a restaurant owner or businessman to discriminate against a man based on his skin pigmentation.

Absolutely true.  It's why it wasn't unconstitutional.  And Howard Baker was elected to the Senate in Tennessee in 1966 on a pro-integration platform.