With the political world talking more about the tidal wave of anti-LGBT Jim Crow legislation popping up in conservative legislatures all over the country, it was only a matter of time before the patron saint of unreconstructed right-wing bigotry, Pat Buchanan, weighed in and set the new standard in the right's effort to roll back civil liberties in America.
Well, the wait is over: Buchanan's written a column and the standard has been set. Using the brouhaha over Arizona's anti-gay law as a springboard, Buchanan argues that it's time for America to get rid of civil rights laws — all of them.
Granting that it's "a radical idea," Buchanan writes, "Suppose we repealed the civil rights laws and fired all the bureaucrats enforcing these laws."
"Does anyone think hotels, motels and restaurants across Dixie, from D.C. to Texas, would stop serving black customers?" he continues. "Does anyone think there would again be signs sprouting up reading 'whites' and 'colored' on drinking foundations and restrooms?"
Not only does Buchanan think the answer to these questions is a big fat NO, but he's willing to go one step further: Not only are civil rights laws unnecessary, but they are, in fact, basically the same kind of tyranny that led to the American Revolution in the first place.
At this point, you might be wondering, If these civil protections are unnecessary, why have they endured? Pat's got an answer: "They exist to validate the slander that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic country which would revert to massive discrimination were it not for heroic progressives standing guard."
It's a conspiracy, in other words. And for all of those who would worry that repealing civil rights laws could lead to widespread discrimination and injustice, Buchanan's got a simple answer.
"[I]ndeed, some bigots might revert to type," he writes. "But so what?"
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