Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom by Ron Paul Page A

civic religion. To be sure, banning blatant discrimination in all government programs makes perfect sense. Government programs are constructed for public access. But forcing people to integrate and avoid discrimination in all private transactions through affirmative action laws is a different matter.Forced integration in private affairs, instead of bringing people together, actually exacerbates the conflicts that many are trying to eliminate.
    Governments have notoriously written laws that segregated people whether by race, gender, or sexual orientation. This practice was common from the time of slavery until the policy was replaced with affirmative action and forced association in private affairs, thus substituting one set of violations of individual rights with another. Evidence is slim that the hostility between the various groups has been diminished with all the legislation of the past fifty years.
    Voluntary associations are better, are more authentic, and are longer lasting, than associations forced by legislation and imposed by bureaucrats. Martin Luther King, Jr., advised that a person’s character should be the only measure of a person’s worth and the color of one’s skin should be irrelevant. Yet quotas and affirmative action programs are based on certain groups qualifying for special privileges. Reversing the discrimination hasn’t brought people together. Resentment remains in many areas but not where character and talent are the tests of one’s ability. This is true in sports, entertainment, finance, politics, and in the professions.
    Even more appalling is the presumption that wherever blacks and whites and others associate freely and to their mutual benefit, and whenever a person makes accommodation for disability—and this is far more common than one would think from the media—it is due solely to government laws that have forced the issue. The idea here is that if people are left to their own devices, they will always and everywhere choose homogeneity in their social associations. I can’timagine a stranger view of the human condition. To me it demonstrates that the supporters of antidiscrimination have an extremely low view of people and their choices.
    Getting ahead because of special privileges granted by government is the same as falling behind because of arbitrary penalties. Both violate the principles of individual rights and private property ownership. In a free society, individuals
are
allowed to be creeps and pick and choose all their associations. That is, they can discriminate even when the majority disapproves of their choices.
    Outright foolish discrimination in business and elsewhere can be quickly punished by social and economic disapproval; the iron fist of government is not required to force integration and thereby undermine the principles of liberty. The use of the economic boycott in the civil rights struggle was a powerful weapon and an appropriate one.
    Instead, the antidiscrimination fanatics want laws mandating rules for all associations insofar as race, age, gender, employment, sexual orientation, etc., are concerned. These laws never improve social relationships, even when the superficial goal of no “discrimination” is achieved. What is lost is freedom of choice. Property rights are rejected and resentment intensifies. Forced hiring practices have no place in a free society.
    On the other hand, I’ve often observed that the voluntary association approach, with no laws mandating integration, does not achieve integration in the churches. Almost all churchgoers attend segregated churches by pure choice. And even after decades of school integration by federal mandates, the vast majority of black and white children are still in segregatedschools. In other words, when left to choice in areas of life not driven by commercial considerations, separation frequently seems to be the chosen preference. We can regret this but not deny that some homogeneous voluntary groupings are the