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Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discrimination?

What's More Important - the "Right" to Discriminate, or Freedom From Discrimination?


  • Total voters
    93
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

You're not working for me. You're conducting a transaction with me.

If you force me into a transaction then I'm forced to provide my labor for your benefit. That is involuntary servitude.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

You're not working for me. You're conducting a transaction with me.

i am not?.....so if you enter my hamburger shop, and order a burger, and i say...no, i am not serving you... of coarse you cannot force me by physical means, however you use the power of government to force me by coercion.

the government tells me, make that burger for her.......or we will put you out of business.....what do i do?, serve you a hamburger, or get forced out of business by the government....which is government coercion, and unlawful, because i have not committed a crime, which would be the only way that situation you have there for government coercion.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

You're just being an absolutist as a result of limited capacity for analysis and understanding. You admitted such.

I will admit that Kant has something absolutist in the requirement for rationality. I don't think it would be correct to associate the categorical imperative with limited analytical capacity, however.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

Um, I hate to tell you this...but even though he did write the Constitution, he did NOT write what he felt was right, but instead, he had to write what was AGREED UPON by those who voted in the majority in the Constitutional Convention. I hope you understand the difference.

that makes no sense....what did he not write?
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

If you force me into a transaction then I'm forced to provide my labor for your benefit. That is involuntary servitude.

Then don't break a sweat ringing me up at the register. Have someone else:2razz:
 
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Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

There is no right for a buissness to designate lunch counters as "whites only" or "blacks only".

"Seperate but equal" is unconstitutional.

That refers to government, not private citizens.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

Guy, it does. not. matter. what YOUR ethical beliefs are. The worst mistake people make is, "well, everything would be better if"...and then they go using whatever rhetoric to back up what they think is eminently logical.

Do you feel that you have the right to violate the body or property of your fellow man in order to coerce him to trade with someone against his will?

Problem is, there IS such a thing as "too much freedom". Yes, now that your head has stopped exploding, there IS such a thing as "too much freedom". You can't go shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, you can't say the word "bomb" when you're about to go on a plane, and you can't say "My restaurant won't serve you because you're black"...because in all three examples, Very Bad Things happen when you do.

I totally agree that people can endanger others through their words or actions. However, you're comparing apples to oranges. Not trading with someone doesn't endanger them in any way, shape, or form.

You can have your "right to discriminate" and the Very Bad Things (like riots, lynchings, etc.) that would go along with it...or you can have your "freedom from discrimination" and the relative peaceful society that comes with it. But you CANNOT have both.

I'm not convinced by your predictions of a nightmare scenario.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

i am not?.....so if you enter my hamburger shop, and order a burger, and i say...no, i am not serving you... of coarse you cannot force me by physical means, however you use the power of government to force me by coercion.

the government tells me, make that burger for her.......or we will put you out of business.....what do i do?, serve you a hamburger, or get forced out of business by the government....which is government coercion, and unlawful, because i have not committed a crime, which would be the only way that situation you have there for government coercion.

Then you become my slave by serving me in your restaurant and I pay you for that service? That seems pretty far fetched to a reasonable person.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

Business is a transaction. If people want to look at it as liberty then they must realize liberty needs to be for both parties. The only way to do this is to not attach emotions to transactions. If you do, you run the risk of producing an oppressive society.

No, business is a service. A transaction is when money changes hands.

Bold: Seriously? We're talking about human beings here. There is not one single person alive that has no emotions. Not one single action is taken without emotions.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

that makes no sense....what did he not write?

There's a difference between writing what you WANT to write...and writing what is AGREED UPON by a great many men...and there were more than a few shouting matches at the Constitutional Convention over what should be in the Constitution.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

Then you become my slave by serving me in your restaurant and I pay you for that service? That seems pretty far fetched to a reasonable person.

everything i said is true, that is how the current way of government force works.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

I don't think people can truly be at peace until they are truly free and by extension the society can not truly be at peace until all people are truly free. This cannot be done under a system that relies on government or relies on community or promotes collectivism, but only under one that promotes individuality and voluntary exchange that allows individuals to practice their sovereignty at a cost they decide on. If however, you allow society or government to be the tool that decides the cost people are willing to pay for their lives then people will combat amongst themselves and the society itself will be in a constant state of war due to the individual desire for personal liberty being undermined by hostile forces. This will not only make individuals that wish to maintain their just liberty fight, but people that wish to use the government or society to gain more liberty than they are justly permitted to fight, and thus, as society moves forward conflict and war will only grow until the society itself crumbles at its feet.

I disagree with that. Peace is acceptance. Its an individual decision and not a result of a way of life. Besides, it won't happen anyway, too many differing priorities. If society swings too much in any direct, some group is going to be upset and try to change it to their preferred way. That's just the way it is. If the more libertarian types get their way, then the more typical types are going to fight back as a result. There are specific subtypes that prefer a more libertarian style of things, but that priority is only one of many.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

It's a skit by Monty Python. I had to cut the 'r' off because your username can only have 15 letters.

Holy Grail - Killer Bunny - YouTube

I don't have to watch it - it's the Vorpal Bunny, followed by the Holy Hand Grenade! One of the great scenes, not too long after the "Knights who say 'Ni'" scene IIRC.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

Ah. The almighty market would drive the racists out of business. Sounds good, doesn't it? Sounds really reasonable, doesn't it?

The problem with your theory - which I've heard espoused many times before - is that it wouldn't work that way because we have something called the Deep South, where racism is still strong. All it takes is ONE racist business to succeed to start the vicious circle. That business which wouldn't allow blacks attracts enough racists (and there ARE enough racists in the Deep South) to succeed...and what happens? Sooner or later the blacks get ticked off, and open their own blacks-only business. THEN the racist whites point to the blacks doing that, and say, "See? It was the blacks who were racist all along" and so the whites-only business gets more business, and more businesses like that open, and more blacks-only businesses open in retaliation...

...and suddenly we're on our way down that vicious circle to a market-enforced Jim Crow era.

Not only that, but when the blacks decide to come in and sit down at the counter in the whites-only business (just like they did in the Civil Rights struggle), the whites would call the police and say, "We don't allow blacks in our business" and so the police are forced to enforce the law...

...and suddenly we have government-enforced racism...and you know as well as I do that this would be all over the media. There would be riots - particularly in the black community - and innocent people would die.

Is this really where you want America to go?

All of this might have been true 7 decades ago. While racism may still exist, its not near as rampant as many would like to believe or espouse.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

Then you become my slave by serving me in your restaurant and I pay you for that service? That seems pretty far fetched to a reasonable person.

Being forced to work is all that is required for it be involuntary servitude. This could be direct by checking the person out yourself or indirect by being forced to giving up your property under conditions you do not agree to for someone else's benefit.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

There's a difference between writing what you WANT to write...and writing what is AGREED UPON by a great many men...and there were more than a few shouting matches at the Constitutional Convention over what should be in the Constitution.

well glen, here is why your wrong...

Madison was asked to write the bill of rights

he did it on his own not among other people, he likes to jot things down making notes to myself.

on a small piece of paper he writes the bill of rights, and one thing Madison writes in his 8th amendment is life liberty and property, Madison understands the right to property, without it.....we as a people have no liberty.

so the constitution recognizes the right to property.....even the 14th amendment does later on.

Madison goes on to write about the right of property, and he states clearly.......


This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.



so you see glen, without the right of property, liberty would not exist, because everything about a human being is property...the body... the labor, and the objects we obtain from that labor, a persons own words and ideas and how that person runs a profession.
 
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Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

I disagree with that. Peace is acceptance. Its an individual decision and not a result of a way of life. Besides, it won't happen anyway, too many differing priorities. If society swings too much in any direct, some group is going to be upset and try to change it to their preferred way. That's just the way it is. If the more libertarian types get their way, then the more typical types are going to fight back as a result. There are specific subtypes that prefer a more libertarian style of things, but that priority is only one of many.

You must see though that if peace is acceptance that the only way to obtain it is to practice a system where sovereignty of the individual is absolute. Otherwise, once it is limited there will undoubtedly arise a lack of acceptance. You can not have a system depending on modern liberal ideology and have one of peace. It will never happen. A system built on coercion and slavery is not one of peace, but a system of war and conflict.
 
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Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

I totally agree that people can endanger others through their words or actions. However, you're comparing apples to oranges. Not trading with someone doesn't endanger them in any way, shape, or form.

It does when refusal to do so leads to riots. When I refer to black sitting at a "whites-only" counter, that wasn't a government counter - it was a business "open to the public". Do you really, truly think that exact scenario wouldn't play out again? How long do you think it would take before that business was vandalized or worse? Hours, maybe? And then there's likely to be some gun nut in there who decides he's under attack and he kills one or more of the vandals.

How long before the riots begin?

This isn't a "nightmare scenario", guy - this is PRECISELY what would happen.

How many people would have to die, how many businesses would wind up vandalized or firebombed, how many lives would have to be broken before you realized that maybe, just maybe "a right to discriminate" is NOT a path to a peaceful, prosperous society?
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

Then you become my slave by serving me in your restaurant and I pay you for that service? That seems pretty far fetched to a reasonable person.
involuntary servitude, still exist even if payment is rendered.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

No, business is a service. A transaction is when money changes hands.

Bold: Seriously? We're talking about human beings here. There is not one single person alive that has no emotions. Not one single action is taken without emotions.

It's not bondage to conduct business even if you dislike what you do. Simply quit if you dislike serving the public. Business is conducted in order to make a transaction, that was my point.

As to your second point, I agree. If we gave humans free reign to conduct business based on emotions, you would have a vile mess on your hands. We had that pre-civil right's laws.
 
Re: Which Is More Important? The Right to Discriminate, or Freedom from Discriminati

It does when refusal to do so leads to riots. When I refer to black sitting at a "whites-only" counter, that wasn't a government counter - it was a business "open to the public". Do you really, truly think that exact scenario wouldn't play out again? How long do you think it would take before that business was vandalized or worse? Hours, maybe? And then there's likely to be some gun nut in there who decides he's under attack and he kills one or more of the vandals.

How long before the riots begin?

This isn't a "nightmare scenario", guy - this is PRECISELY what would happen.

How many people would have to die, how many businesses would wind up vandalized or firebombed, how many lives would have to be broken before you realized that maybe, just maybe "a right to discriminate" is NOT a path to a peaceful, prosperous society?

So do you feel you have the right to violate the body or property of your fellow man in order to coerce him to trade with someone against his will?
 
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