FederalRepublic
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Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati
I don't believe anyone here has ever said that discrimination is always a good thing, or that racial discrimination is ever a good thing. I agree that not agreeing to engage in trade of goods and services with someone is extremely powerful. Well-executed boycotts work. Forcing someone by law to engage in trade against their will is also extremely powerful, and much more like Nazi Germany than an individual racist's actions. If everyone in town banded together and refused to sell food to the blacks, I would concede your point. That would be approaching the definition of oppression and a situation where I would advocate economic isolation and ruination of the town and everyone in it. Black people who stayed in that town (particularly if they had a job) would be contributing to a bunch of racist assholes by trading with them...it's extremely powerful, you know. Could you tell me why, again, you want black people to trade with racist assholes rather than simply denying the racist assholes the business?
–Prejudice is an ATTITUDE and Discrimination is an ACTION.
The important distinction here is you are free to be prejudice but once you discriminate your action is directly harming another person or group of people. If you own several gas stations in town, or if a person lives in a place where many people dislike you because of your skin color your actions of not granting permission for a group of people to engage in trade of goods and services is extremely powerful. What you are creating is a society of the powerful vs insubordinate and that is what we had in certain places in the US. Places like Nazi Germany also practiced this form of discrimination. There is NOTHING free about that kind of society. If you think that is not the definition of oppression, I don't know what is!
I don't believe anyone here has ever said that discrimination is always a good thing, or that racial discrimination is ever a good thing. I agree that not agreeing to engage in trade of goods and services with someone is extremely powerful. Well-executed boycotts work. Forcing someone by law to engage in trade against their will is also extremely powerful, and much more like Nazi Germany than an individual racist's actions. If everyone in town banded together and refused to sell food to the blacks, I would concede your point. That would be approaching the definition of oppression and a situation where I would advocate economic isolation and ruination of the town and everyone in it. Black people who stayed in that town (particularly if they had a job) would be contributing to a bunch of racist assholes by trading with them...it's extremely powerful, you know. Could you tell me why, again, you want black people to trade with racist assholes rather than simply denying the racist assholes the business?