Re: Should employers have the freedom to hire/fire for any reason they wish
It is true that the prohibition on murder hasn't stamped it out entirely -- but that's not to say that murder being illegal hasn't prevented a lot of it from happening! Imagine if it were legal to murder. Preposterous, I know, but surely you can agree that there would be a lot more of it in such a world?
Legality is nothing more than the codification of social norms. Murder, even if it were not prohibited, would not be more common because it would still be considered immoral by the vast majority of the population. Supposing murder was not declared illegal (not the same thing as being legal, mind you), it would not detract from the ability of potential victims to deter and counter attempts at murder.
Discrimination is really no different. Despite a million laws against it, people will always discriminate against other people because it is a basic part of human nature to do so. Suppose you were the hiring manager at a distribution warehouse and needed to hire a forklift driver. Would you hire the person who had three years forklift experience or the person with no forklift experience? Obviously the one with experience. You have just discriminated on the basis of forklift driving experience.
I realize that it sounds silly, but this is because the term "discrimination" has taken on a negative connotation in today's world of political correct hysteria. Discrimination is how every individual chooses a mate, who to associate with, which products to purchase, which job to pursue. In short, every aspect of life is determined through discrimination.
When a person discriminates in a manner offensive to another, it is certainly distasteful, but why should the behavior be prosecuted? So a business only wants to hire black actors and display black programs and even go so far as to call his channel Black Entertainment Television. So what? Anyone who finds that offensive will not contribute money towards that venture and he will have to gamble his success on the hopes of enough people who are similarly bigoted as himself. So a business wants to hire only people who believe in the Catholic faith and only allow customers who similarly follow the Catholic faith and even goes so far as to call his business a Catholic church. So what? Those who don't believe in the Catholic faith will not give money to his venture.
So goes for people who hate whites, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, men, women, children, blondes, redheads, disabled people, and any other factor you may deem distasteful. By denying a person the ability to be open about their biases, you force them under the surface where they can fester and become violent. Prohibition and southern reconstruction are excellent examples of this.
But once again, the lack of legislation prohibiting an action does not imply legality. The appropriateness of an action is determined by social convention and only
sometimes further codified into law (in many cases law is actually in contradistinction to social convention and is largely ignored).
