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Yep, money in our pockets. A dollar from a gay is still a dollar.
Actually the way the conversion rate is now, it's like $1.26!
Yep, money in our pockets. A dollar from a gay is still a dollar.
Why isn't this in the right forum?
Businesses don't have the same rights as individuals. It is not comparable. I am completely comfortable with stripping the right of a business to discriminate on the basis of religion, race, gender, or sexual orientation.
But what about you? Is it ok for a state to vote away someone's right to marry? Because apparently it's not ok for a state to make businesses serve customers without discrimination, according to you. So you're surely against states stripping the rights of someone else to marry?
I do, in my state we are given the freedom to vote and voice our opinions on traditional marriage. We aren't stamped out and silenced in the name of "equality."
You had a state (New Mexico) decree that a private business has no say in matters of principle. Call that state wrong - I dare you.
Or is selectively stripping rights more of a fringe-left thing?
Pretending that discrimination is about morality and principle is just nonsense. That's the biggest joke of this whole discussion. The claim that sexual orientation is an issue of morals. The reality is that a person's bigotry does not allow them to ignore the law, which protects against discrimination. That's the law, and no matter what weird beliefs a person might have, they still have to follow the law.
It's moot, as I never have nor will view marriage as a right.
Ah yes. The law is always right. The law is always just. The law is always absolute.
Wunderbar, mein fuhrer.
Laws exist to preserve our freedoms. For example, the free market does not exist without established mechanisms to enforce legal contracts. If you head over to the the Soviet Union or former Eastern Bloc countries, there exists little semblence of a free market simply to the fact that wronged parties (fraud victims, contract violations) have no options for redress outside of physical violence. The courts and police are corrupt and enforceable laws are non-existant. Thus their economies suffer to the point that they cannot be considered free or equitable.Ah yes. The law is always right. The law is always just. The law is always absolute.
Wunderbar, mein fuhrer.
That is likewise with discrimination and protected classes. In economics everyone is considered an interchangeable rational economic actor. Not considered is that in reality some people are hindered from freely entering into contracts because one party is refusing the other party on the basis of religion, skin color or sexual orientation. Thus we see populations like the LGBT or racial minority communities generally having a worse perspective when it comes to employment, income levels, educational attainment, health care access, etc. Laws like the Civil Rights Act or protected classes try to mitigate that, albeit not always with complete successful but it still definitely helps.
Ah yes. The law is always right. The law is always just. The law is always absolute.
Wunderbar, mein fuhrer.
Ah yes, equating the rights of gays to get married with one of the most notoriously oppressive and homophobic regimes of the 20th century.
Solid work.
Hardly. I was just mocking people who want to give Washington absolute power.
Pick your battles. When the government actually grants more rights to its citizens is probably not the best or most logical moment to make allusions to the Third Reich.
Someone who refuses to do business with another, for whatever reason, is not stripping them of a right. That's ludicrous.
/snort. And how so? I'm well aware that bigots have adopted libertarian positions as an attempt to provide reasonable cover for the ability to discriminate. As far as I am aware, pretty much all libertarians do not enjoy such associations and are favorable to the Civil Rights Acts and other historical anti-discrimination policies.What you're arguing is not libertarianism, freedom, or capitalism. You may be the only self-proclaimed "libertarian" who likes to argue on the side of perceived fairness and idealism.
You are not pragmatic by any stretch.
I was talking about gays being married. What are you talking about?
Oh, I was speaking commerce.
As far as marriage, I personally don't have a problem with gays getting married. I'd be a lot more adamant about it if I thought that marriage was a right. At that point, it'd be an equal rights issue. However, I see it as an issue of privilege.
I'd support gays getting married if it led to the eventual abolition of the marriage between the state and the institution itself.
/snort. And how so? I'm well aware that bigots have adopted libertarian positions as reasonable cover to discriminate.
"Yet that’s precisely why Paul’s 1.0 argument breaks down on its own terms: at the scene of a four-century crime against humanity — the kidnap, torture, enslavement, and legal oppression of African-Americans — ideal theory fails. We libertarians, never burdened with an excess of governing power, have always had a utopian streak, a penchant for imagining what rich organic order would bubble up from the choices of free and equal citizens governed by a lean state enforcing a few simple rules. We tend to envision societies that, if not perfect, are at least consistently libertarian.
Unfortunately, history happened. Rules for utopia can deal with individual crimes — the mugger and the killer and the vandal — but they stumble in the face of societywide injustice. They tell us the state shouldn’t sanction the brutal enslavement or humiliating legal subordination of a people; they have less to say about what to do once we have. They tell us to respect the sanctity of the property rights that would arise as free people tamed the wilderness in John Locke’s state of nature. They have less to say about the sanctity of property built on generations of slave sweat and blood."
Why Rand Paul Is Right ... and Wrong | Cato Institute
You and I have been around the block on marriage and the state and I don't feel like there's any "there" there. As to commerce, that's a fuzzy area that I've never quite been able to wrap my own head around. On one hand you can't make me believe it's okay for there to be black and white only movie establishments, but you can't make me be okay with doing business with, say, a white supremacist. If you want to be really confused, come to L.A. and see how pretty much every business has a "We reserve the right not to do business with anyone" sign behind practically every register, and then understand that none of them are on any kind of solid legal ground.
Right, and it basically stems from my belief that marriage is not a right. If I thought it was, we'd probably be in agreement.
If a business owner wanted to do the segregated business, he should have that right. I doubt he'd stay open though. Eventually people will socially evolve beyond these things - and without the help of the state. You shouldn't have to do business with a white supremacist. As a business owner, you should have that right.
I support "we reserve the right" wholeheartedly. If I went into some restaurant in Miami and a Mexican guy shooed me out the door, mumbling "pendejo blanco", that's fine - some other place down the street will be more than happy to take my money. See, eventually people like that will get phased out - as well they should.
Depends on where the business is. If the establishment is in L.A. the Mexican will stay in business. If a white supremacist runs a "whites only" store in, say, Idaho, he'll stay in business. It's all very well and good until minorities find themselves edged out of the majority of businesses through no fault of their own (being black, Jewish, gay, etc.), that's where you run into a problem.
Using a white supremacist probably wasn't the swiftest choice on my part seeing as the white supremacist technically has a choice in what he is (upbringing notwithstanding).
Depends on where the business is. If the establishment is in L.A. the Mexican will stay in business. If a white supremacist runs a "whites only" store in, say, Idaho, he'll stay in business. It's all very well and good until minorities find themselves edged out of the majority of businesses through no fault of their own (being black, Jewish, gay, etc.), that's where you run into a problem.
Using a white supremacist probably wasn't the swiftest choice on my part seeing as the white supremacist technically has a choice in what he is (upbringing notwithstanding).
Hardly. I was just mocking people who want to give Washington absolute power.
It's bad enough that America dictates the morality of other nations. I'd rather them not do it to their own.
Ridiculous absolutism.
You don't want to give Washington absolute power? Why do you support dissolving the US as a political entity?