Liberty is the freedom of human beings to pursue their own happiness, coupled with a responsibility for their actions. (The second part of often forgotten.) The ownership of property and the rights that such ownership entail are a means, but certainly not the only one, of ensuring liberty, and some limitations on property rights (which have always been there) are not inconsistent with acheiving that goal.

I see property rights as an institution of the state (a good one), and there are limits on them, like eminent domain. Without that, your property rights consist of what you can keep with your Smith and Wesson.

I guess it is because liberty and not executing innocent persons are clearly ends, desirable in and of themselves, whereas “property rights” are not an end, but a means to an end. How does the CWA compromise the ends or purposes that property rights are meant to serve?

No one argues that the direct outcome of the CRA ’64 is bad. Rand Paul (and most libertarians?) may argue that a loss of property rights is bad in the abstract, but no one argues that we as a society are worse off because businesses are racially integrated. (I would go one step further to suggest that most people would distance themselves from anyone who would make that argument).

Opponents of the Patriot Act and capital punishment, however, take issue with the direct results of those actions. The detractors of these cases aren’t arguing in the abstract; they are firmly grounded in direct, concrete consequences.

Even if there is a “principled” argument to be made against Title II of CRA ’64, the fact is that people don’t live in a principled world. Purely theoretical oppositions just don’t make as strong a case as the concrete oppositions posed against the Patriot Act and capital punishment.