why would it be illegal to discriminate?

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Isn't it in my right to discriminate against a group or race? Not that I do, but why is it illegal for me to ban blacks and asian people from my business ? As long as you don't cause physical harm to the other person I dont see why it should be illegal. In a free society I don't see why [we] are forbidden to do this.

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The words "free society" are the ultimate sleight of hand!

You are ignoring the social contract implicit in your agreeing to live in a certain society. When you agree to stay on in the United States, you also have to agree to abide by the ways that the people of the United States have decided that their society would be run. One of those ways is that there will be no discrimination on the basis or race, sex, etc.

Freedom, in this context, means having the choice to get up and leave, if you disagree with so many of what the rest of the people are legislating and doing and you are not inclined to fight so that things get closer to your liking. I'm serious.

You can stay on, of course, and fight against that injustice, against that wrong, as you see it, but the point is that the people of the United States (more precisely, their legislature) have made it illegal to discriminate. For the US, then, mandatory non-discrimination is no injustice.

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Cyrus, what is it that the conservatives love to say? "America, love it or leave it (unless the hippy liberals are in control or passed a law)"

The libertarianism in this thread is borderline racist and is pretty disgusting. Discriminating against someone based on race harms them psychologically and sometimes physically (two ways this happens-- first, people have mental breakdowns, and second, areas where discrimination runs rampant foster lynchings and the like). I realize that the liberatarians are against preventative laws but this is not a preventative law-- racist discrimination is on the same level as violence.

Also, PVN has absolutely zero justification for his claim that it is "reprehensible" to coerce people to trade with one another. No warrant for this claim makes sense given the brightline of 'you may not coerce trade except in those situations where trade would have taken place if it weren't for racism.' PVN cannot come up with an impact to his argument because it is silly, ideological, and poorly thought out.

[SheetWise]

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You do realize this is hypothetical right?

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Apologies. I'm new to the "Elliot Richardsn" Forum. I never know what to expect. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[SheetWise]

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pvn, I think we need to start a separate thread about your political beliefs. Although suavely presented, and often persuasive on their surface, I'm coming to the belief that they're actually incoherent upon closer inspection.

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Then you need more peripheral vision. I, for one, welcome the comments in context -- a lot of width and depth -- very little if any ambiguity -- roadmaps to the issues, if not the solution.

[SheetWise]

Where to start ...

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You are ignoring the social contract implicit in your agreeing to live in a certain society.

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Agreeing? I was born here. You confuse "Laws" with "Rules". I don't have to agree to laws -- the law is the law. I can choose not to agree or abide by rules. If I have to agree, then it is not a law.

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When you agree to stay on in the United States, you also have to agree to abide by the ways that the people of the United States have decided that their society would be run. One of those ways is that there will be no discrimination on the basis or race, sex, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]
You do not have to agree (see above). The State wants you to believe you must agree. Earlier in this thread I gave many examples of how not to agree. They do require that you limit the way you interact because the State has used Regulatory Law (non-law, or rules) as a means to force compliance.

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Freedom, in this context, means having the choice to get up and leave ...

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Agree to tyranny or leave? What?

This is wrong on so many levels ...

[DuceTrey23]

As far as what's illegal, if you exclude anyone that is not a White Heterosexual Male between the ages of 18 - 45, then it's illegal. If you exclude this particular group, then it's OK. I'm a WASP and went to a 'Historically Black' University and it amazed me at how minorities, Blacks in particular were OK with double-standards as long as they benefited.

[Cyrus]

If I was sure of one thing, it was that my post would be misconstrued to be a variation of the standard conservative reply to dissidents of any sort. But it's not.



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Agreeing [to live in a certain society]? I was born here.

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And Tasmanians were born in Tasmania. Some people were even born in Nazi Germany. Getting up and leaving is usually not an option, (most of the time for technical reasons) but the point is this : The adult who lives in a society enters implicitly but quite clearly into an implicit contract with that society.

As to the relevance of economic refugees in the argument, I will leave it to the laisser passer experts to expand on.

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You confuse "Laws" with "Rules". I don't have to agree to laws -- the law is the law. I can choose not to agree or abide by rules. If I have to agree, then it is not a law.

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I am not confusing anything. Your "rules" are either imposed democratically, in the only proper sense of the word, in which case there is a tautology between "rules" are the "law" - or they are the result of heteronomy in which case you are following yer own rules (if you are brave) but are obliged to follow the laws.

To confuse you even further, that was not good enough for Socrates who, when presiding over the trial of the military heroes of Athens, heroes who were accused of various things by the people, chose to forestall and delay the trial as much as needed for the innocence of the accused to shine through. I.e. he went against the will of the people, following his own moral rules. Reconcile this with Socrates refusing to disobey and escape from the (clearly wrong, too) decision of the Athenians to put him to death. He drank the hemlock.

I understand the root cause of the confusion, here. And, surprisingly enough, some of the viewpoints of the Libertarian Right (ugh!) are accurate, as to the interaction of State and individual and the impossibility to overcome the inherent imbalance between the two. ("State" in the sense of the kratos, the organisational apparatus of enforcing the will of the ruling class and implementing its dictats.)

We have to understand that the State is either autonomous (literally : "creating its own laws") through the self-determination of its citizens -or- we have variations of non-democracy, from the extreme of total dictatorship and control à la Stalinist USSR to the extreme of benign liberal oligarchy à la modern USA.

A society of free citizens that legislates freely and determines/changes its own rules, and is also ruled with mandated, revocable representatives, has given to "laws" and "rules" one and the same sign (tautosemous).

One of the worst punishments in Athenian democracy was exile, by the way.

[Cyrus]

Very briefly : The original question was not about career advice. Whether or not the OP will not be a good businessman is irrelevant : That eventuality will merely reflect the public's level of approval of the OP's business practices. *

The OP poses a significant question: In the context of a society as the Libertarians imagine it (see pvn's succinct post), not only do companies and persons have the same rights (the USSC already ruled on that!), but persons and companies should be "free to discriminate".

Are you ready, folks, for the revelation of the trick ?

That would not be a society we would be dealing with! That would be an amalgam of individuals who happen to live together geographically. Like in most tricks, the definition of the premises is violated as soon as the trick starts.

But we have already been through this stage in our evolution, as you should know, many many thousands of years ago. Man almost immediately formed societies for reasons of self-preservation, and more. The seemingly correct (in its instictive abhorrence of kratos) Libertarian Right's position wants to take us back to that pre-historic age, following a line of "thought" that expands the clumsy, "magical" and so-far-catastrophic axioms of one particular economic theory to all aspects of human endeavours and civilisation.

And History, as well. Like all fanatics, the fanatics of anti-social "freedom" interpret History through the lens of their pet economic theory, copying the Marxist practice of same.

_________________


* As if Wal-Mart is doing badly, by the way!

[tylerdurden]

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You are ignoring the social contract implicit in your agreeing to live in a certain society.

[/ QUOTE ]

The social contract is a concept used to justify oppression.

According to Rousseau, the social contract required that "whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free." What this really means, according to a critic of Rousseau's work, is that "freedom is no longer conceived as the independence of the individual. It is rather to be sought in his total surrender to the service of the State."

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When you agree to stay on in the United States, you also have to agree to abide by the ways that the people of the United States have decided that their society would be run. One of those ways is that there will be no discrimination on the basis or race, sex, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have obeyed the law. That doesn't mean I think it's right. I don't have any particular desire to behave in a manner contrary to antidiscrimination laws, but I still believe they are anti-freedom.

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Freedom, in this context, means having the choice to get up and leave, if you disagree with so many of what the rest of the people are legislating and doing and you are not inclined to fight so that things get closer to your liking. I'm serious.

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Yes, don't vote, rebel. Or leave. We've already had this discussion. It first assumes that there is somewhere better to go. It also assumes that your property rights are less important than the right of the masses to oppress you.

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You can stay on, of course, and fight against that injustice, against that wrong, as you see it, but the point is that the people of the United States (more precisely, their legislature) have made it illegal to discriminate. For the US, then, mandatory non-discrimination is no injustice.

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Is advocating more freedom not "fighting" in your book? Must one resort to violence, leave the country, or shut up? Did Ghandi "fight" or was he a "criminal" against the social order?

[tylerdurden]

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racist discrimination is on the same level as violence.

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It's not even close. And racism really has nothing to do with it. The basic arguement here is that if you (as a "businessman") let anyone into your house, you have to let everyone who wants to come in into your house. At the same time, this argument says you have no right to demand entry into others' ("consumers") houses.

The distinction between buyers and sellers is arbitrary. There are two parties agreeing to a mutually benefitial transaction. Coercing one of them into trading with anyone who demands it while the other is free to pick and choose who he trades with is, to be blunt, evil.

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Also, PVN has absolutely zero justification for his claim that it is "reprehensible" to coerce people to trade with one another.

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What's NOT reprehensible about forcing someone to do something?

[bobman0330]

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As far as what's illegal, if you exclude anyone that is not a White Heterosexual Male between the ages of 18 - 45, then it's illegal. If you exclude this particular group, then it's OK. I'm a WASP and went to a 'Historically Black' University and it amazed me at how minorities, Blacks in particular were OK with double-standards as long as they benefited.

[/ QUOTE ]

Discriminating against people who are white or male is illegal. Discriminating against people under 18 (or under any age, except in New York) is not. Also, discriminating against people who are over 40 in an employment context is illegal. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But I get the gist of your post