Steve Sailer contradicts himself

Originally published on Los Thunderlads, 27 May 2010:

Regular readers of this blog know that I often read Steve Sailer’s site, and that I disagree more or less violently with everything I find there. One of the things that interests me about Sailer are the many ways in which he contradicts himself. Indeed, a person with nothing better to do could follow Sailer’s output and publish a daily feature called “Steve Sailer Contradicts Himself.” Usually he’s fairly subtle about his self-contradictions; in this old post, I gave one of my favorite examples.

Recently, Sailer contradicted himself far more obviously than usual. On Monday, he mocked the US media for spending time covering Rand Paul’s views on the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Dr Paul is the Republican nominee for US Senate from Kentucky, and the son of Congressman Ron Paul (no word yet on how he is related to 1990s TV personality RuPaul.) Sailer’s summary of this coverage is as follows: “assuming the country got into a giant time machine and went a half century back into the past — would Senate candidate’s Rand Paul’s position on laws on the public accommodations portion of the 1964 Civil Rights Act be a good thing or not.”

The very same post includes a newspaper article quoting Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia explaining some recent cases about the use of civil service tests in hiring and promoting municipal firefighters. The Supreme Court handed down rulings in these cases that appear to contradict each other. In the second of these rulings, Scalia wrote for a unanimous Court that the problem was at the heart of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and that it can be solved only if Congress revises that law.

So, the USA may not have to get “into a giant time machine” and travel back to the early 1960s in order for a potential US Senator’s views on the 1964 Civil Rights Act to be relevant. All nine justices of the Supreme Court just demanded that Congress reopen the law; if Rand Paul is a member of the upper house when that reopening takes place, it is quite likely that he would be in a position to change it, perhaps substantially.