Discrimination and the New 'Inclusive' America

"Bake me a cake, or go to jail!"

Bake me a cake, or go to jail!

Sadly, that is the new message from "inclusive" America. If you don't want to cater, photograph, preside over, sell pizza at, sell flowers to or otherwise participate in a gay wedding, you will be punished. If you don't want your business to pay for a kind of birth control that you consider murder, you will pay fines until your business is bankrupt. 

Personally, I think both birth control and homosexuality are just fine, and gay marriage is as valid as straight marriage. But  forcing everyone to act as if they think that way is just wrong. We have moved from "inclusion" to totalitarianism. 

The list of people you must treat carefully keeps getting longer. Protected classes now include sex, race, age, disability, nationality, citizenship status, pregnancy, family status and more. I'm in two of those groups. You better treat me well!

Why force someone who disapproves of your actions to bake you a cake? Lots of other bakers would love the business. This debate has moved from inclusion to demanding that everyone adopt your values.

In a free country, bigots should have the right to be bigots. Americans should also have freedom of association. 

American lawyers talk about special protection for religious freedom, and in the Hobby Lobby case the Supreme Court said you could escape onerous parts of Obamacare by paying lawyers a fortune and convincing judges that you are a closely-held corporation with religious objections. But why must you be religious to practice what you believe? This should be about  individual freedom.

Of course, government must not discriminate. The worst of American racism and homophobia—slavery, segregation enforced by Jim Crow laws, bans on interracial marriage, anti-sodomy laws, etc.—was government-enforced discrimination. That was wrong, and it was right for the federal government to intervene.

But private actions are different. If I start a business with my own money, I ought to be allowed to serve only libertarians, people who wear blue shirts, whatever. It's my business! 

My customers have choices. If I am racist or anti-gay, the free market will punish me. Enough people would boycott my business that I would probably lose money quickly. 

It would actually be useful to see which businesses refuse to serve one group or another. Tolerance is revealed by how people behave when they are free. American law fosters the illusion that everyone is unbiased, while their real feelings remain hidden, making them harder to boycott, shame or debate. 

Punishment from the market is enough. The heavy hand of law is not needed here. 

However, given America's history, I accept that there are a few exceptions. In the South, people banned from a lunch counter had few other choices. The Civil Rights Act's intrusion into private behavior was probably necessary to counter the damage done by Jim Crow laws. 

But today such coercion is no longer needed. Even in the difficult days of Reconstruction, after the Civil War, business began to bring together whites and blacks who might not always have liked each other but who wanted the best deals. It took several years for racists to get Jim Crow passed so they could put a stop to that erosion of the old racist ways. Government helped keep racism going for several more decades. 

Individuals should be allowed to discriminate. I discriminate all the time. I favor people over others when I choose my friends, jobs, hobbies, clubs, religion, etc. So do you.

Elizabeth Taylor married nine times. Had she married again, should the EEOC have ordered her to marry someone from an ethnic minority? 

A homophobic baker shouldn't stop a same-sex couple from getting married. Likewise, a gay couple shouldn't force a baker to make them a wedding cake. No one should ever force anyone to bake them a cake.

© Copyright 2015 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

Comments

[Murray Got hard]

"The Civil Rights Act's intrusion into private behavior was probably necessary to counter the damage done by Jim Crow laws."
Don't concede Stossel!

[stvboucher]

I suspect that he does not actually believe that. It's far easier to say "probably necessary" and not commit himself either way than to be highly controversial and state that it was wrong (and set a damaging precedent/justification for many further gov't intrusions into private behavior). Rand Paul once said in an interview that the Civil Rights legislation against private business was questionable and it blew up in his face. That position is toxic...you might as well say the "n" word.

[BiPolarMoment]

nougat?

[DenverJay]

Ted Nougat

[Almanian!]

necromancer?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

RUSH!! The Necromancer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JphWi_GOIao

[Nephilium]

Naggers?

[Mainer2]

Clam _iggers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmmqbjhvJlo

[bacon-magic]

non-conformist?

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

"The Civil Rights Act's intrusion into private behavior was probably necessary to counter the damage done by Jim Crow laws."

umm.... not !

It was a terrible precedent - it opened up litigation for every "oppressed group" to demand special protections.
Now that is what we have - a Nation of Special interest groups running around trying to get the government to give them rights and protections that aren't in the Constitution.

Instead of having one standard that applies for all we have many different for blacks, gays, women, illegal immigrants etc......which is nothing more than a colossal mess.

lets go back to one standard which is equal protection under law and the freedom to choose your friends and whom to do business with. Even with this standard the number of people that will discriminate will be miniscule as it is now - its simply an economically unsound business practice.

[retiredfire]

Stossel sez: "If I start a business with my own money, I ought to be allowed to serve only libertarians, people who wear blue shirts, whatever."
Not if non-libertarians, or people who wear other colors than blue for their shirts have ever rioted.
That seems to be the dividing line, here. Any group that has "taken to the streets" and acted in an uncivilized manner, they get included as a "protected class".

Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be civilized human beings.

[gaoxiaen]

A problem with Jim Crow laws was that, in many cases, treating blacks and whites equally was forbidden. Business owners were forced into segregation and had to provide "separate but equal" facilities by law, regardless of the business owners' wishes and eliminating market influence. Under Apartheid in South Africa, three separate entrances and checkout lines were required in stores, for whites, blacks, and coloreds (mixed or other race). Racism aside, that doesn't seem very efficient, and would put small businesses at a disadvantage.

[Michael Price]

" and would put small businesses at a disadvantage."
Which of course wasn't the intention .

[freedomlover]

40 acres and a mule.

Where do I sign up?

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Healthcare.gov

[Radioactive]

only takes 40 years to get the application through the mill

[Anarcissie]

Just because something is an unsound business practice doesn't mean people won't do it. But beyond that, many businesses and persons have been specifically rewarded for discriminatory business practices, specifically because a good many people are racists, bigots, and so forth and will prefer to do business with others of their kind.

So then the ruling class has a problem. They'd like to keep the classical liberal rights, including freedom of association, which they know how to deal with and manipulate, yet on the other hand they justly fear Balkanization of the people they want to rule and profit from. Civil war is extremely expensive. Alternative solutions to the racial situation in the United States in the 1950s, like partition, really did not appeal to these people, for many good reasons. Remember, we are not really of a very different substance from the unfortunate inhabitants of Rwanda, ex-Yugoslavia, Iraq, Israel-Palestine, and many other places where tribal war is always ready to break out.

[De Blog]

A Christian cannot coerce others to participate in their ceremonies..but a gay couple has the right to coerce anyone to participate in theirs????

[Curt]

Not "anyone", only public businesses. A gay couple can't force you or me to participate in their ceremony, but they can force McDonald's or Bubba's BBQ to cater it. And, their logic would suggest that you could coerce McDonald's or Bubba's or Moesha's Deli to cater your child's baptism.

It's a stupid concept and a distinction without any real distinction. But, it's also a distinction that they seem to think is incredibly important.

[some guy]

So how does one become a "non-public" business? Can I form a "private club" that caters only to members and then not allow gays to become members?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Yes.

[Suthenboy]

You are such a kidder. Sorry, liar. I meant you are such a liar.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Why? I support private discrimination. Like at my country club. Like the Masters used to be.

But the law clearly states a 'No Negroes Served' sign outside a business establishment is illegal. That is the law.

Please try to be consistent or logical sometime.

[Ivan Pike]

But the law clearly states a 'No Negroes Served' sign outside a business establishment is illegal. That is the law.

So you were ok with slavery before it was outlawed? The law is the law.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

the law is wrong - it violates the constitution in both spirit and letter

[freedomlover]

The law is what the common man perceives it to be.

[poguemahoney]

You and the overwhelming majority of so-called "Libertarians" would love to bring back slavery, your racism is clear, and it is revealed every time there is an issue like this.

[freedomlover]

Really? Please cite a reference.

[chevy706]

Right because freedom means forcing one to do business with somebody else.

[NathanHolt]

It's not clear other than the fact you are one of those people who group everyone together for your own benefit and childish debate style. Do you personally know the overwhelming majority or is truth something that should be avoided these days ?

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

It's the law but it's not really logical.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

lawjewcull

[Suthenboy]

" And, their logic ...."

See, there is where you are wrong.

[DWC]

You need scare quotes around "public businesses".

[gaoxiaen]

For some reason, many people think that anti-smoking laws are great. The business owners' property rights are disregarded and nonsmokers' "rights" are protected by closing down bars and coffee shops.

[creech]

Doesn't the CRA prohibit religious discrimination? So a Christian can coerce an Orthodox Jewish baker into providing them a wedding cake. Doesn't mean they will try. Said Jew can refuse to provide baked goods to neo-Nazis or ISIS supporters but can't refuse on religious grounds.

[Seamus]

Can Jews, or Catholics, or Unitarians, or Buddhists, or Scientologists, or anyone else refuse to cater the Westboro Baptist Church's God Hates Fags Fest (which I understand is one of their major religious holidays)?

[Hey Nikki!]

Not because of their religion.

[Seamus]

But refusing to participate in a WBC ceremony, not because they're WBC people but because you don't want to have anything to do with what you regard as an immoral ceremony, *is* discriminating on the basis of religion. At least, it is, if refusing to participate in a gay wedding, not because they're gay but because you don't want to have anything to do with what you regard as an immoral ceremony, is discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

[Hey Nikki!]

It would definitely be illegal to refuse to serve a Christian because of their religion, so in fact a Christian could coerce others to participate.

[HazelMeade]

I'm honestly not sure that would really cover personalized services like weddings. What if the Jewish deli said they would only cater for Jewish weddings? What's so terrible about that?
Maybe catering weddings should be treated like a private service not a public accomodation.

[Hey Nikki!]

I would agree that it should, but the existence of religion as a protected class everywhere and the precedents related to public accommodation suggests it would not be considered private.

[HazelMeade]

That seems like a ridiculous interpretation to me.

Unlike (say) a restaurant that only served Jews, I'm not even offended by the idea of a Jewish Deli only offering to cater Jewish religious ceremonies.

It's not even religious bigotry. It's not like they hate all non-Jews. They just aren't comforatable catering non-jewish religious events. Big deal.

[retiredfire]

Big Deal?
Is that a legal argument that could be applied to the whiners?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Nothing in of itself. Maybe they specialize in Jewish-style cakes best suited for Jews and they'd rather cater to them only. I, as a non-Jew, would know that's a 'Jewish bakery' and would determine they wouldn't meet my needs since my Jewish buddy would tell me they don't make tiramisu*.Thus, I move on.

The market. It's interesting.

*I hate tiramisu.

[HazelMeade]

LOL, ok so what if the Christian bakery said they only bake cakes with like crucifixes and Christian symbols and one bride and one groom on top ?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

As long as it's not tiramisu I'm good.

Other than that, best someone else answer this. /grins.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

and that is how many Jewish businesses work - in their own community and there is not wrong with it.

[mad.casual]

It would definitely be illegal to refuse to serve a Christian because of their religion, so in fact a Christian could coerce others to participate.

Huh? The RFRA is pretty much set up to cause/protect this. A Christian can't force a Jewish baker to prepare non-kosher food or Muslims to produce non-Halal. I think asking them to cater a kosher/halal Christian wedding against their will might be a gray area that would get one decision in S.F. and a completely different decision in Walkerton, IN without regard for the RFRA.

I think objecting to a religious a imposition base on a sexual identity argument would probably fall into that gray area.

But, either way, it represents a conflict between the 1st and the CRA by proxy of the RFRA, IMO.

I know the Jewish bakery that made a cake for our Protestant/Catholic wedding in a Catholic church required us to provide any/the religious symbols on the cake and reserved the right of their decorator to refuse any given decoration.

Additionally, the cake isn't technically a part of the Christianity ceremony of a Christian wedding. That is to say, I don't think I've ever eaten wedding cake in a Church. I think between the planner, the reception hall, the baker, the couple, and the Church insignificant details get swallowed up by the market.

[Free Society]

RFRA

It's sad that such a law should even need to be crafted. The only defense against anti-discrimination laws that one should need at all is the Bill of Rights or maybe just the amendment outlawing slavery should be enough.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

agreed
this is how far the national conscious has slid - mostly in people under the age of 40 when all of this politically correct BS was taught as fact in the public schools.

[freedomlover]

I'm well beyond 40 and they were indoctrinating us with this by middle school.

I guess I must have been a budding libertarian. Even then. Because, although I didn't disagree with the common mindset that many of the activities that were presented as the basis for the laws were unfair or even unjust, I would frequently argue that there was no need for laws to enforce such politically correct idealism. We already had plenty of laws that could be applied in other ways to stop many of these activities. And, if this is what society wanted, it would end up happening anyway. Social pressure is usually more effective than written law, except for when the written law is enforced at gunpoint.

For expressing such thoughts, I was labeled a red neck. I've been proud of that label ever since. I associate it with free thinking and not going along with the party line.

Drug use has ebbed and flowed over the years in tandem with societal norms about such use. Drug use laws have had little affect.

[toadboy65]

Nobody has ever, I think, suggested that this is about changing what you sell. It is about whether you can refuse to sell to certain groups of people the same products that you offer publicly for sale to everyone else. Specifically, If I make cheese pizzas, offer them publicly for sale, can I refuse to sell you one because I think you might be gay. Or a Jew. Or whatever group I think God wants me to hate this week.

[Marshall Gill]

If I make cheese pizzas, offer them publicly for sale, can I refuse to sell you one because I think you might be gay. Or a Jew. Or whatever group I think God wants me to hate this week.

Are you a free man? Does your owning a pizzeria make you the slave of anyone, everyone? Forcing your labor against your will is slavery.

[toadboy65]

I don't think that they plan on dragging you from your home and forcing you to work in a kitchen. I think they just want to be able to come in when you are already open, and order from the menu, or order for delivery, if that is one of the services you normally offer. I don't think they are asking to be treated differently than everyone else.

[Free Society]

Ahhhh, no. Would a Rabbi be forced to perform a Christian ceremony? Would a gay atheist wedding officiator be forced to do a wedding ceremony at the Church of the Duck Dynasty? The street so clearly doesn't go both ways it's amazing you say that.

[retiredfire]

Normal people cannot do anything that might offend anyone but when homosexuals do things that normal people find extremely offensive, everyone must submit.

[plusafdotcom]

Ah, sorry... missed the alleged logic or examples implied by that...
Care to elaborate/clarify... if you can?
Thanks!

[John G Chase]

Submit? You mean "accept", or "tolerate", or "ignore", right?

[Bruce Majors]

It's a compromise you know; we really want to force you to participate in the honeymoon.

[KMDA]

With many arguments like this one I think it's important to point out that there are communities where there may be one baker. Or a few, but still no options. As we close post-offices across the United States, it's not unfathomable that some people find themselves in situations where their civil right to equal treatment makes meaningful difference in their lives, whether it's a cake or family planning.

[Fairbanks]

Why is it a civil right to be treated equally by private citizens? If I bake a cake for my friend's birthday should you have the legal right to impel me to bake one for you? If not, why is it different just because I decide to sell cakes?

[Warren's Strapon]

muh public akomadashunz

[poguemahoney]

I believe his argument concerns businesses, not private citizens.

[Private FUQ]

So your argument is that if you open a business then you enter into slavery.

[ManocentricMaleocracy]

Don't feed the assholes. You'll just get shit in return.

[Brandybuck]

Everyone must be forced to do what I say because otherwise CORNER CASE! Los Angeles florists must all cater pizza to gay weddings because Podunk, IN has only one baker!

[mad.casual]

Actually, Lou Malnati's ships deep dish overnight anywhere in the country with just a phone call.

Even heart-shaped for your gay wedding in Walkerton, IN!

[UnCivilServant]

Now if you could find some place that sells pizza...

[mad.casual]

New York style pizza at a gay wedding in Walkerton, IN?

Now you are dreaming.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

How does he pack it and keep it warm? If I lived in the US I'd try that.

[BakedPenguin]

It's frozen, apparently.

[BakedPenguin]

Looks good, too.

[mad.casual]

I live within driving distance of several Lou Malnati's and have never had need of the service. I assumed it was a frozen or par-baked situation.

I think it's more of a name/brand loyalty situation than an actual delivery business model.

[mad.casual]

Not that Mom and Pop in Walkerton, IN are going to whip up a dozen hot pies two hours before your nuptials.

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

I think it's U-bake

[BigT]

Website says baked and flash frozen. Presumably while wearing a raincoat.

[DenverJay]

Oh. You're talking about the pizza. For a minute, I thought you were talking about a gay wedding.

[Sevo]

KMDA|4.8.15 @ 11:05AM|#
"With many arguments like this one I think it's important to point out that there are communities where there may be one baker. Or a few, but still no options."

I have friends who live out in the boonies. They have to drive quite a ways for medical care. I presume you would have someone fund a hospital for them?
Your 'argument' is nothing of the sort.

[sarcasmic]

If that baker refuses to serve people, perhaps another baker will see a business opportunity.

[Emmerson Biggins]

tough shit.

That doesn't mean, morally, that you get to compel labor from people. Even if they are bigoted assholes.

[Brett L]

Exactly. Their work, their choice to allocate their labor by any arbitrary standard. Any other deal is a form of slavery.*

*assuming their choice doesn't violate some contract they voluntarily assented to.

[dbdbdb]

Poor argument. No one is forcing anyone to perform unwilling labor. They're simply asking for service that they provide for the rest of the community in exchange for money. When you offer your services to the public, refusing parts of the public because of religion or sexual orientation, that's discrimination. So what you're arguing is that discrimination is perfectly okay in business. I think the courts have already differed with you.

A valid instance involving religion? A bakery refusing to give service to someone of the Jewish faith because they refuse to use kosher ingredients. They can't force the business to do something they don't normally do. But when the request is within the scope of what the business does but refuses someone because of their faith or sexual orientation? That's discrimination.

[Emmerson Biggins]

No one is forcing anyone to perform unwilling labor.

Bullshit. They don't want to do it. You want to make them do it. If they don't do it, you fine them. If they don't pay the fine you send goons with guns down to take their stuff. You are advocating forcing these people to perform unwilling labor.

[DenverJay]

So fucking what? I'll discriminate against anybody I damn well please. Just because you say the magic word "discrimination" doesn't give you the right to force me to work for anybody, even if I do the exact same work for somebody else.

[freedomlover]

Full Definition of DISCRIMINATION

1 a : the act of discriminating
b : the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently

2 : the quality or power of finely distinguishing

3: a : the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually

I HATE how abused that word has become. We all discriminate every day. And, there ain't nothing wrong with it. To do any less would be mean we were unable to make a choice about anything. We would be less than human.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Speak for yourself. I never discriminate dick.

[soflarider]

BS. Everyone discriminates.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

So, I should just learn to lie better and you'll never know the difference. The results would be the same - I don't bake cakes for the Sally Kohn wedding - but my excuse is more politically palatable.

'Oh, sorry Ms. Kohn - I have two other weddings that day. Scheduling conflict'.
'Oh, sorry Ms. Kohn - the oven is broken (or my staff is sick, or there's a sugar and flour shortage)'.
'Oh, sorry Ms Kohn - I no longer bake cakes. I only bake cookies'.

Got it?

[toadboy65]

They would not refuse to serve Jews. They just need to inform them that they do not keep a Kosher kitchen. If the customer is willing to order from the menu, they should be served.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Errh, like the 'social contract'? I've heard it exists, and I've heard I'm party to it. But, like a living, breathing jackalope, I've never seen it.

[OfficialGovtSpokesperson]

How does closing post offices deny people access to cake or family planning??

[mad.casual]

IMO, it's a attempt (subliminal or deliberate) to conflate (gay) marriage, access to food, access to medical care, and denying someone their rights.

[LynchPin1477]

communities where there may be one baker

I find that hard to believe, unless you define communities based on zip code alone. Even if were true, though, it wouldn't change my stance on this.

[poguemahoney]

So I guess a private hospital can refuse emergency care to anyone?

[Procrastinatus]

I nominate this as Worst Red Herring of 2015. I mean this is like Am Soc detptitude. Not that it matters, but;

1: That would be a medical malpractice/civil suit nightmare.

2: No hospital anywhere ever would make a policy of discrimination like that. Ever. At all. No major business or corporation would destroy their share value by doing that, either.

So the one imaginary example that you have of the terrible consequences of not fining/imprisoning/killing people because they're bigots has 0% chance of ever happening.

[PapayaSF]

I've noted that much of the argument against the Indiana RFRA consists of wild predictions like poguemahoney's. "OMG, if this passes, there will be a run on 'No Irish Need Apply' signs!!" There are racists and bigots hiding in businesses everywhere, just waiting to shut out a portion of their customers, and make themselves look terrible to most of the rest of them. Somehow, I don't think that will be common in the real world.

But that's all an indicator that the issue is so symbolic to the left. They have aging and well-worn historical examples, and a burning desire to be on The Right Side of History Right Now. The fact that they're railing against rare anomalies, ghosts, and imaginary monsters doesn't slow them down. They are the Righteous, and if you disagree with that, you're Not.

[Seamus]

And those communities affect--what--2% of the population? I'm betting there are more people who don't have internet access than can't drive to a second bakery. (Heck, my family has been known to drive 100 miles to get a cake from a bakery we particularly liked.)

[[e-mail]]

So what if there's only one baker in a community?? Nobody is allowed to bake a wedding cake other than a "professional" baker??????
Get a grip, KMDA, and stop tossing out red herrings.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

As we close post-offices across the United States, it's not unfathomable that some people find themselves in situations where their civil right to equal treatment makes meaningful difference in their lives, whether it's a cake or family planning.

THE HORROR!

There is NO baker in my town. I'm FORCED to drive 25 miles to get a cake. The entire population is being discriminated against. I DEMAND A FUCKING BAKER! IT'S MY RIGHT TO HAVE A BAKER THAT WILL CATER TO ME! I DEMAND A LAW THAT REQUIRES THERE TO BE A BAKER IN EVERY TOWN! No...a baker within 15 minutes of every domicile in America. BY GOD, IT'S MY RIGHT!!!!!!!

[freedomlover]

Damn! I have staff that sounds just like that! I hear such "rights" claims day in and day out.

I was recently explaining to a subordinate, so that she might better understand how the EEO laws worked; that they only applied to narrowly defined situations and that the burden of proof was on the plaintiff. I mentioned that I could fire her because I didn't like her shoes and she had no recourse under the law as an example of something that was not protected.

She went into outburst mode and told me I was wrong and she could sue me if I fired her for any reason. She went on to tell me that she was basically guaranteed a job here because the law prevented me from firing her once I hired her.

What was that about indoctrination of the youth in this country? ;-(

[VG Zaytsev]

You should have fired her ass on the spot.

[Hamster of Doom]

This presumes a right to cake. I think I see the flaw in your logic.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

They want cake. They all do.

[celtvin]

The solution is to let them eat cake and pizza(lots of carbs and fats) until they die off; then we won't have this issue. Or, maybe we can eliminate cake and pizza since they seem to be a basis for discrimination. It definitely is getting rougher to practice "Amor Fati?"Love Your Fate," which is in fact your life", because that's what I believe. Originally, I thought my fate was just to live and die, but I'm sure someone will find that discriminatory. Keep laughing!

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Baking a fucking cake isn't the product of some abstruse alchemical arcanum. Where I grew up, there was no professional cakemaker closer than an harf hour drive (which was a big trip in a community where folks still walked or went ahorseback for most day-to-day business). And guess what. The town wasn't listing away for lack of cakes. Somehow folks did the impossible and BAKED THEIR OWN.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

there are very very few places that you describe left in the US and of those that do very few of them are going to discriminate against anyone. It still doesn't make it right to use the force of government to coerce people to do anything against their will or conscious. They will just have to drive a little farther to get a cake or a photographer.

[dbdbdb]

You are all missing the point! It's not about easy access to cake. It's not about cake at all. It's about whether it is legal or even right for that matter for someone to refuse business to someone because of their religion or sexual orientation. Are businesses allowed to refuse business to someone because of their sexual orientation? Can a hotel refuse a gay couple? Can Ford say no gays can drive our cars? Can a grocery store refuse to sell food to someone who's gay? Where do you draw the line? I think it's pretty simple. If you provide a service to the community, you can't discriminate against anyone in that community unless they can't meet the demands of the deal. Simple.

[R C Dean]

If you provide a service to the community,

Nobody provides a service to the "community", whatever that is.

They provide service to specific customers.

[Bill Dalasio]

Where do you draw the line?

Oooh! Oooh! I know!

Where it's their fucking property!

Do I win? Do I get a cake?

[DenverJay]

You did win the internet today. However, cakes are awarded on Mondays and Fridays. Tuesday and Thursday, the prize is overnight delivery of a baked and flash frozen pizza. Wednesday's prize is free catering for the gay wedding of your choice.
Due to the number of new players on Saturday and Sunday, there are no prizes awarded on weekends.
Congratulations, and tell your friends to play!

[JPyrate]

Self ownership is an absolute property right. Yes even people you do not like own themselves. No one here is missing the point. YOU ARE missing the point.

[lcwrite]

The answer to your questions is: they should be.

It should be legal for a business to choose not to do business for reasons that you or I may find stupid. They have a right to be stupid and to suffer the loss of business that is going to follow.

Every woman that ever broke my heart was a blonde. If I chose to eliminate blondes from the potential pool of people to rent my rental property I should be able to do so. It eliminates a substantial pool of possible renters and thus artificially drives down demand and lowers the likely rent I can demand but if I were dumb enough to do that I should be allowed to.

If Ford chose to deny sales of their cars to gay people I'd expect GM and Chrysler to respond by courting gays and selling more vehicles. I'd also expect Ford to lose sales among straight people who are repulsed by such discrimination.

In the case of a bakery, or pizza place, refusing to cater a same-sex wedding how much do you want to bet there will be (a) negative publicity and losses by that business and (b) other bakeries and pizza places that advertise they support same-sex marriages?

Let the market, and freedom, win.

[blcartwright]

Where do you draw the line?

My first question is whether the discrimination actually created any hardship, and definably harm, above just being offended. These are standard legal terms. If someone truly cannot obtain the good or service from anyone, that the discrimination is a substantial burden, then I'll listen.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Because government says so. You forgot that part. 'You can't discriminate because government says so'. Just like you can't opt out of Social Security Taxes or ObamaCare.

'Sit down, shut up, don't discriminate, eat your broccoli, because says so. ,' government

[Richard Jones]

I think you're actually missing the point. These businesses are not refusing to serve someone because of their religion or sexual orientation. They freely admit that they do serve gays in their place of business. What they are refusing to do is to participate in what they believe is a ceremony that violates their religious beliefs. Right or wrong, they actually believe that baking a cake for a gay wedding (even if it is just picked up from their store and not delivered) is participating in that ceremony, or whatever their religious grievance is. You and I both apparently find this to be crazy, but that is their religious belief. I understand it is easy to conflate, and I'm sure a lot of people do it knowingly, but there is a big difference. It is the ceremony, not the individuals.

[R C Dean]

Why do my rights change depending on my proximity to other people providing goods and services, again?

[Jazzizhep]

Whether you live in a small community has no bearing. I had the same conversation with a supporter of Net-Neutrality because he thinks it will bring better quality broadband to rural areas. You make that choice when you decide to live in the boonies, like myself. I can choose to live where I have more than one grocery store or not. The gov't shouldn't force the local grocer to carry imported capers because I need them.

[freedomlover]

Choices like imported capers (Whole Foods) are supposedly what is driving the urban revival. It's supposed to be the reason that so many young, techies and hipsters are moving into San Francisco and driving rents to levels not seen outside of Manhattan. It is also the reason given for why the suburbs are "dying".

But, I've been around the block once or twice. I was born in SF as a matter of fact. And, I work in this urban planning arena regularly. It appears to me to just be a trendy thing driven by a confluence of factors from national origin (lots of newcomers from dense, urban environments like Hong Kong and Mumbai), a desire to associate with one's own kind (birds of a feather) and utopian fantasy (indoctrination in public schools).

Oldsters like myself just keep saying, "Wait until they have kids of their own".

And, we are already seeing evidence of this.

[blcartwright]

For my wedding, and my daughter's wedding, the cake and photography were provided by family friends working out of their homes. Members of the family catered the food.

If no one is providing the service, start doing it yourself! It's a business opportunity!

The govt should not be allowed to tell you "you must not serve" but at the same time "you must serve". What the govt can do is stop other people from threatening or committing violence against those who become politically incorrect.

[Richard Jones]

So if I can't have a cake baked for my wedding, nobody can? You realize that is the end result here, right? I'm assuming you are advocating legal action resulting in fines/penalties/jail time, which often results in the closing of the business. So we're all equally without cake. Social justice!!!

[Bruce Majors]

Yea. Because no one can bake their own cake. Or order wedding supplies on the internet.

[Fairbanks]

"I accept that there are a few exceptions...." That kind of thinking is why we're in this mess today - someone else deciding who are the favored groups that that get special treatment. Stossel abhors forced association, except when he doesn't. And if an exception is OK with him than I guess he feels it's OK to force it on everyone. I expect more from Stossel.

[DWC]

I'm with you. You either have principles or you don't.

[freedomlover]

Tribalism.

It pays significant dividends in this country. Everyone is figuring that out. Especially the politicians.

I just can't figure out which tribe I get to belong to. ;-(

[Actorguy]

Really John? With that attitude, I guess it is ok for bus drivers to tell minorities to sit at the back of the bus, after all they're bigots and have rights too. What about separate but equal bathrooms, water fountains, counter space in diners after all these business owners have the right to be bigots if they want to. Oh, that's right your mixed message commentary says that Jim Crow law is wrong and it was a good thing for the government to step in....hmmm...so that kind of discrimination is wrong but if people have qualms about serving a certain group..its ok with you. You can't pick and choose discriminatory practices, discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. I always liked your commentary, but you are wrong on this one my friend.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

No he's not.

I thought lefties were more 'nuanced' than us extremists.

[dan'o]

What John is saying (as I received it at least)
- If a bus driver owns his concern, he should have the right to be a bigot. The free market will punish him.
- If a diner owner wants to have segregated bathrooms or counter space they should have the right to. They won't last long because a vast majority of us will see it as reprehensible.
- Jim Crow was bigotry by decree, and government should never pass such laws. CRA gets a pass because it was to reverse the damage caused by those laws.
-Inclusion laws force the appearance of tolerance, but don't change anyone's belief systems. Allowing people propriety over their own property isn't just the right thing, it also sheds light on reality and allows the opportunity for controversy and debate.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

"Inclusion laws force the appearance of tolerance, but don't change anyone's belief systems."

I think this is true.

But a leftist will retort 'Fuck them. Force them into an enlightened state of being.'

All they've accomplished, in my view, is animosity.

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

And then they feed on that animosity to ensure themselves a steady stream of voters who will vote for them for no other reason than that the other guys will put them back in chains. They're like the cockroach on Men in Black.

[freedomlover]

SJWs all he way.

The Ds pretty much have this down pat. The Rs are trying too. But falling way behind.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

agreed - social inclusion laws are stupid and always have been

[MJBinAL]

I have sadly, said this before.

It sometimes occurs to me that the only way to make progs leave me alone is to kill them. they do not respond to reason, they do not respond to kind words, they only respond to resistance by seeking greater force to apply.

I keep hoping that they will agree to just leave me be. It is just not something they do. And on top of it all, they insist they are doing me a favor by forcing to me to do, or pay for, something I don't want, don't like, or believe is wrong.

I hate the whole idea of killing them though, they are an awful lot of them, and it puts me in the position of being the user of force. It is a terrible dilemma.

But eventually, push may come to shove .......

[DenverJay]

You know what we could do? We could make up a list of things that the government is allowed to do. Then, we could pass some sort of constitutional amendment that says that the government isn't allowed to do anything that isn't on that list, no matter how much the progs insist that the government get involved. We could just say "well, that sounds great, but unfortunately, amendment X says the government can't do that, you'll have to find some other way to accomplish your goals."

[freedomlover]

Uh, sarcasm I hope.

We pretty much have that list already. It's just being ignored.

[DenverJay]

Yeah, you didn't notice my ironic use of "amendment X"?

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

That pretty much sums up the entire argument. A correct stance, imo.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

I'm referring to dan? post....

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I know. You don't have to be mean about it.

/drops head.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

Blame it on bad forum design with inadequate post nesting.

[DenverJay]

"inadequate post nesting"
Oooh jargon!

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

Correct nonetheless? Yay or Nay?

[HazelMeade]

Once again it IS worth noting that none of these people are saying they won't serve gays in general. They just don't want to supply products for a gay marriage.

A marriage being after all a religious sacrament (for Christians anyway), some of them might be so offended by the idea of a gay marriage they might not want to be involved in any way.

I don't see any reason to argue that racist bigots ought to be able to discriminate against black people just to make the point that someone shouldn't have to cater a ceremony that they find morally offensive.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

There's the problem that in Christian mythology unchristian marriages are not sacraments. And the fact that in Christian mythology, the heathen is constantly belly-deep in immeasurable sin, so nothing really matters. It's not like adding one more sin of infinite gravity to an infinite body of sins of infinite gravity is worthy of note or special attention. One could argue that acts which are especially insulting to reason ought to get some special kind of censure or something, but as a rule, till somebody joins the Church, it's really no legitimate concern nor rationally defensible of the Christian what particular silliness the heathens are cavorting themselves up to.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

The only legitimate objection here, in Christian terms, would be the participation in a pagan rite. But you could go and attend to the whole fucking gay "wedding", clap hands, hold hands, drink, eat cake, pick up chairs or sticks or whatever they do, without technically violating this prohibition. It's only if you were to act as an official "witness" or to do some part of the ritual they made up for themselves or say prayers with them. Otherwise, it's a profane social interaction and no kind of "sacrament" or holy rite.

One might say oh well he just doesn't want to "support" this kind of thing. Why this thing in particular? There's a lot of evil in the world. Is this the one worth trifling over? If it is, then I think a person ought to have to decline supporting just about every other thing happening in his community, since there's a ton of worser things, in terms of screaming insults to reason or actual violence against people and animals. How does your religion prohibit you from catering a gay wedding yet allows you to cater the policeman's ball? Or pretty much any political hoohah, since in this age they all agree on one point--Yes, violence needs to be done to someone!

[HazelMeade]

First of all, just because the rest of the world is awash in sin, doesn't mean a devout Christian isn't going to object to sullying himself with it. People should get to choose which profane things they feel are acceptable enough to supply services to. It's not really my business, or you're or the governments, to make religious determinations about which activites count as sinful.

Is having someone bake a cake for you so important that you don't care if that person feel that baking that cake is a degrading, sinful, act?
It is worth inflicting violence on a person who otherwise has done you no harm?

Aren't their worse things in the world to correct than the fact that some Christian baker doesn't want to supply a cake for a gay wedding?

[DenverJay]

Very well said, Hazel. And I would like to add the point that the only reason why this began is because government was involved in marriage in the first place. Gay rights activists didn't just have to find a liberal church to marry them, they had to fight to change the laws. And so, the part of that coalition that can't accept that they have won has continued to fight for further social acceptance in what has been, up to now, their most important venue: Law.
Couples (or whatever), should have a marriage in a church that accepts their union, before their God, and the government should enforce domestic union contracts.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

On the other hand, I would be very disinclined to cater a gay wedding. Not for religion, though, but because they're jerks. Which ought to be a more acceptable reason under the law, considering that it doesn't require any totalitarian investigation into the validity of one's religious beliefs in order to verify the claim.

[HazelMeade]

Oh sure, if freedom of association meant anything, anyone would be allowed to decline to cater a gay wedding, or any other kind of wedding, for any reason.

Sadly, freedom of religion is one of the few remaining protections for individual liberty in this respect.

[soflarider]

So your prejudice that says all gay people are jerks and allows you to bow out of a gay union, is more valid than a religious person's position that a gay union shouldn't be participated in because it's against their beliefs.

That's some fucked up "logic".

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

The difference to me at least is that the government doesn't own the business and has no financial stake or risk in the business so they cannot tell the actual owners how to RUN the business.

Discrimination is a poor business model, it rules out a potential stream of income and opens the business up to social scorn - but it should be a right of anyone.

Social change should come from economic and social pressure not from government fiat.

[dbdbdb]

Then I'm sure you disagree with laws that prohibit smoking in bars and restaurants. You're telling businesses what to do in that case. What about airplanes? Should the gov't tell the airline industry to prohibit smoking on airplanes and let the market sort it out?

[dbdbdb]

I meant "or let the market sort it out."

[CatoTheElder]

Of course the market should sort it out, and the government should have no say on whether a carrier allows smoking on its aircraft.

[kbolino]

Consumer choice trumps central planning every time.

If people don't want businesses to allow smoking, then they will go to (or open) business that don't allow smoking.

[gaoxiaen]

The market should sort it out.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Is this a trick question?

Gee, you're asking a bunch of libertarians if we should 'let the market sort it out'.

Why don't you venture a guess, smart ass?

[ace_m82]

Is it OK to do so? Probably not, since it is morally reprehensible.

Is it OK for you to use force of arms against people who do it? Absolutely not! That's their property (presumably) and no one is forcing people to use that bus.

You can do what you want on you own property (save aggress against another human). Telling someone where they can sit, while perhaps evil, doesn't aggress against them. Hitting them in the face would.

[dbdbdb]

So your argument is that it is perfectly okay to discriminate against anyone as long as they don't perform some act of aggression on them?

[kbolino]

Yup.

[BillEverman]

What do you mean by "okay"? Do you mean that it's perfectly acceptable and moral? If that's what you mean, then no, it's not okay. Do you mean that if someone does it, then the government should be able to punish them for it? If that's your odd definition of "okay", then yes, it is, or should be, okay.

Do you believe that everything that is moral should be required by law, and everything that's not should be punishable by law?

[Limpee Wiltstock]

The problem is we're talking about two different things here: discrimination based on personal preference and institutionalised oppression of an underclass. The former doesn't really have anything to do with right or wrong, ne more than one can say preferring a particular flavour of ice cream or a species of ground cover is wrong; furthermore, preferences like that can't come from anything like actual thought, but just sort of emerge out of things. The second is a political hijinks enforced on the point of a spear, at some turn invariably justified by social conditions fabricated for the purpose, so the authoritarians can grow and prosper. This is people brutalising other persons and adding insult to injury by surrounding it all by an almost impenetrably dense miasma of lies. This could be the definition of evil. Some guy who doesn't like sharing a space at the sushi bar with the Negro is not. Somebody that gets the policeman to throw that him out of the place because that damned nigger uses tobacco recreationally for the glory of God and edification of mankind is.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Let's face it: the Gay just gives some people the willies.

[tarran]

Actor_guy's unhinged rant is made even funnier by the historical fact that the railroad companies and bus companies opposed Jim Crow, and one of the landmark supreme court decisions upholding Jim Crow laws was brought by a railroad that didn't want to segregate it's customers.

[NSmallz13]

I can't tell if you are sarcastic or truly don't' know anything about business?

You ask if it's ok for a bus driver to tell minorities to move to the back. If he owns the bus, yes. But if he is employed to someone else who employs the bus, no. The owner would have the right to fire you.

Now if every bus driver were to tell minorities to move to the back (very unlikely to ever happen) the bus that DOESNT tell minorities to move to the back would have FAR greater customers and profit because after all, black brown and disabled money is just as good as white money.

Of course this is all assuming the buses were completely privatized. All without violating anyone's rights. Amazing.

[BiPolarMoment]

*Ahem*, DIFFERENTLY-abled money.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Wot you got against jew money?

[Seamus]

Businesses would be daft to provide separate bathrooms and water fountains, because it would double the cost of bathrooms and water fountains. That's why separate bathrooms and water fountains were never mandated by business in the Jim Crow South, but by (and listen very closely to this, and pay attention:) THE GOVERNMENT, as was separate seating on buses (which didn't cost the bus companies extra money but was a pain in the ass for them).

[Rufus J. Firefly]

In my business, there's all sorts of harmless 'discrimination' that happens on a daily basis not because 'racist' but out of practicality. For example, I have an on-site chef that cooks the meals. While we try keep our menu broad and diverse making all sorts of different cuisines including Mexican, Chinese, Lebanese, Italian, American etc. - we inevitably are omitting others. For example, we were asked if we cook 'kosher' or 'Halal' in the past. We don't because it's not what we do since this would entail a different cost structure and changing my cook's routine which would put stress on her. The parents then have the choice of overlooking this and opting for the service or not. It would get insane if the government would force me to make a Halal meal for one person - and by the way, we do cater to special diets where feasible particularly where the health of the child is at stake. That sort of thing.

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

Clearly, you're a racist anti-Muslim bigot. Report to the reeducation camp immediately, comrade.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

In a way, we already have reported. It's Quebec.

[HolgerDanske]

You wouldn't be forced to make a special meal for one person. You'd be forced to serve meals to everyone which conform to various outrage parameters. Like nut-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, halal, kosher, and vegan. Or else.

Kale for everyone!

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I was going to reply to this, but then I smelled a peanut and died.

[LynchPin1477]

Jim Crow law is wrong and it was a good thing for the government to step in....hmmm...so that kind of discrimination is wrong

Yes, that kind of discrimination is/was wrong. The key reason being that people were forced. Forced discrimination is wrong. Forced inclusion is wrong. Voluntary discrimination is wrong but it shouldn't be illegal. Voluntary inclusion is good and is where most businesses would end up regardless.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

agreed

[GregMax]

Bathrooms are still segregated.

[Seamus]

As we speak, progressively-minded people are working to change that.

[GregMax]

The bad part is having to wait for the women to get the hell out. Otherwise they are welcome to the men's rooms (which are typically WAY cleaner than the women's.)

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

progressively stupid people that is

[blcartwright]

The new Indiana law says that facilities and accommodations shall not be denied because of sexual identification. So if a man wants to put a dress on and use the women's shower room at the gym, there's not a damn thing the business can do about it.

[freedomlover]

Can I discard the dress and shower nude with the women?

/big smile/

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Only because of urinals. Once the ladies learn how to pee standing up, well ---bye bye, segregation!! Hello Equal Rights

[blcartwright]

they'll ban urinals for being discriminatory

[freedomlover]

I can't get that image out of mind's eye!

Thanks a lot!

[R C Dean]

With that attitude, I guess it is ok for bus drivers to tell minorities to sit at the back of the bus, after all they're bigots and have rights too.

Not if its a government bus service (which most of them are).

Don't forget: Jim Crow was government forcing people to discriminate. Stopping that is A-OK.

If you believe that government shouldn't force people to refuse customers, why are you so insistent that government should force people to accept customers?

[dbdbdb]

That's a straw man argument. We are not asking businesses to accept all customers. We're simply saying businesses can't refuse customers based on race, religion or sexual orientation. If someone doesn't play by the rules of the business (e.g. people not wearing shoes into a store or restaurant, or loud customers in a movie theater) then businesses have the right to refuse those people their products or services. But to say you can refuse someone because they're gay is discrimination.

[MJBinAL]

sigh,

This is really simple. Either you are a slave, and can be forced to work for someone you do not want to, or you are not.

If you are a slave, then your personal views and desires, good, bad or indifferent, are not important and this is a moot discussion.

If you are NOT a slave, then you can't be forced to do work you do not want to do or associate with those you do not want to associate with. The validity of your reasoning behind what you want and do not want is not relevant.

This is how principles and logic work. Your arguments amount to "I don't like the result of your logic so it must not apply."

One thing you said is correct, you are not "asking businesses to accept all customers" you are DEMANDING (with threat of force) that they accept all customers that you want them to. And who those groups are that you demand they accept are subject to expansion at your discretion.

In effect, you assert that they are YOUR slaves and you are kindly and tolerant to allow them SOME discretion about what they do and who they do it for. And on top of that, you expect them to LIKE it!

[Limpee Wiltstock]

That's kind of a crasy rationalisation, since the categories there are completely unalike. Sexual orientation is invisible unless someone is a jerk. And is it a real thing anyway? Just because I have sex with men, suddenly I'm GAY? Does this seem right? What is it, some metaphysical branding iron of the gods comes down and marks my everloving soul _HOMO!_ for all eternity? All that aside, if we pretend it's just shorthand for "he's fucked somebody else of anatomy similar to his own slightly more often than the rest of us", then it describes the product of conscious choice on part of the accused. Religion, on the other hand, is the product of conscious choice or drugs or else an act of your so-called god or some mix of the three, according to what religion one chooses/gets fated/dateraped into. In theory, it's totally visible and impacts everything in a person life; in reality, it's often invisibler than being gay.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Then we've race, which is entirely biologic and beyond the control of the accused to alter or even his god. I'll readily concede that there is such a thing, but how one wants to chop it up is academic and unfeasible for most practical purposes. Furthermore, I've noticed most white people in the United States have better odds at correctly identifying a pit bull terrier than they do at telling the race of some random uneuropean. Briefly, these underclasses in need of protection are fabricated as a means to bolster authority; the categories are entirely arbitrary, since it really doesn't matter what they are, as long as they are and can be used to inoculate a system of oppression and authoritarianism. As usual, their actions do precisely the opposite what they say they will; just as most of what they say means exactly the opposite of what the words mean, or, at least, it did, for a long time, till recently, when it became fashionable to treat words as meaningless chumpitchers.

[JPyrate]

Actorguy. Repeat after me. Self ownership is an absolute property right. Jim Crow laws were made by, and enforced by the government. Businesses had no choice, but to discriminate.

[lcwrite]

Actorguy: John argued that public (government) entities shouldn't be able to discriminate. Odds are, the bus driver works for a public (government) entity so he isn't advocating for that.

Now, if a company like Greyhound were to discriminate that should be legal. Dumb, but legal. And another bus line would jump up to gladly handle the discriminated group.

Your rant though shows you can't distinguish between government and private.

[Brochettaward]

What's really amazing is that the same politicians who support ordering people not to discriminate against gay weddings opposed gay marriage up until just a few years ago. In fact, so did most Americans.

That may be the most absurd aspect of all this. Worse than the government playing mind-reader trying to discern the motives for the rejection of customers and making sense of religious beliefs etc. The blatant hypocrisy from the political class on display goes largely unnoticed.

Until late 2012, Obama refused to support gay marriage and said he believed it was between a man and a women. Doesn't stop his base from attacking Rand Paul on the issue for saying it's a state issue and he defines it that way.

Today, they call you a bigot for not wanting to provide a cake when just a few years ago they lined up in droves to vote for politicians who would have denied gays the right to marry in the first place.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Even AFTER it was known Obama didn't support it (or wouldn't commit to it), Ellen fawned all over him and invited his hypocritical, cynical, derpy ass on TV.

They have no intellectual compass.

[RG]

Nor do they have a moral compass. They went from arguing that you can't legislate morality, to trying to legislate morality regarding tolerance.

[The Bad Captain Madly]

Remember the old line about "How does my marriage affect you?". Well, now you're finding out how it affects you.

Feeling enlightened yet?

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

I think a lot of it is the politicians trying to seize credit for social changes that are actually happening on their own. They would have us think that changes in social norms would not exist without the government's benevolent creation of them. Gay marriage is becoming more widely accepted because of social changes, not by government fiat.

[Brochettaward]

Yes, that's what politicians do. You end up seeing this quick, odd reversals of positions where government force clips from one direction to the other and a lot of the public is left on the wrong side of the poll numbers.

[freedomlover]

Yes. I work in government myself. In a relatively non-political local agency. My work involves interfacing with many other local governmental agencies.

You know what we are all really good at? Spinning things. We're even better than most politicians.

One time, we were significantly fined for non-compliance on a state environmental regulation. We had it coming. Our Director in charge of the situation simply refused to even try because he said, "They can't do anything to us". Well, they did. They fined us. And crowed about it in the newspapers.

But, lo and behold, our executive director spun that to the positive. He told our board and the newspapers that paying the fine was cheaper than complying. The press repeated that and the board deemed him a hero.

He was outright lying. But, no one bothered to challenge him.

My respect for the press was destroyed long ago. But my disdain for John Q public is even worse. People are just stupid and believe whatever the press parrots.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

When I first heard about gay weddings, I thought, "That sounds sort of okay." Then I had one. NEVER AGAIN.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Personally, I think making a pizza with anything other than olive oil should be banned while prison time should be given to corporations or people who break this covenant.

MY FEELINGS COUNT and the best way to show you care is to throw people in jail.

[Ivan Pike]

Personally, I think making a pizza with anything other than olive oil should be banned while prison time should be given to corporations or people who break this covenant.

Pizza is disgusting no matter how it is made.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

"Pizza is disgusting no matter how it is made."

Which part? The one where you use '00' flour and make the dough from scratch, top it with a fresh tomato sauce with fresh mozzarella and some basil? Or the part where you delicately splash some golden olive oil with crushed garlic and rosemary? Or the one where you crumble some sausage with rapini?

[Ivan Pike]

Yes.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Ah.

/quietly walks backwards out of room.

[UnCivilServant]

You are both disgusting.

Rufus crossed the line when he put oil on his tomato pie.

[Ivan Pike]

You are both disgusting.

Thanks Unciv.

[Catatafish]

"Tomato Pie" = Deep Dish

We're talking about pizza here, UnCiv.

[UnCivilServant]

Naw, there's some shallow-dish tomato pie from Naples that isn't pizza either. (and some bullshit that a place tried to sell us that had thick crust and sauce over the cheese. We took to calling the place O'Scuzzys and never went back. They went out of business and got replaced by Luigi's, who do sell real pizza)

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Ha! Funny. There are some bad pizza places. My friend has a guilty pleasure: Pizza Hut.

[Catatafish]

Over...the cheese? Were you travelling in Cimmeria to encounter such barbarians?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Not following.

The olive oil is used to make a sauce. Not using OO is a no-no. It's a must. A rule. A LAW.

Olive oil is to be brushed on a white pizza (optional of course) with rosemary and garlic.

Hey. I spent a couple of weeks learning how to make pizza in the motherland so I speak with some authority. /winks.

[HazelMeade]

I can't disagree. What kind of retard uses vegetable oil to make a tomato sauce?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I know, right? Ew!

[HazelMeade]

If you're going to deviate from tradition, at least do something creative like use bacon grease or truffle oil or something.

Vegetable oil (or corn or canola) is like just cheap. The sort of thing you expect from Ragu.

[Hamster of Doom]

Bacon grease has a high particulate count and is smoky if it isn't clarified (and if it's clarified, then it's not the genuine article, so why bother).

Really, best used to whisk into the sauce last minute to give it flavor and a richer mouth feel.

Fake oils are heresy. We hates them.

[blcartwright]

I have to confess I've grown to use olive oil at least 90% of the time that I use an oil.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

When I was growing up, we had pizza with some regularity. It was always something made at home by family members, like pretty much any other meal. Olive oil was universal. Mayonnaise, also, was something I never got from a grocery store for my entire youth and some of my early senescency. Always home-made. It was a few times done with olive oil on account of some shortage or other. NEVER AGAIN.

Now I make my own tallow and use it for a lot of thing. Leather dipped in hot tallow, for instance, becomes astonishingly suppler and durable, though it gives it a bit more stretch than may be desirable in some uses. As a medium for the tanning of leather, I've found it wholly impossible. Stronger men than me.... Works great with wood and iron as well.

[Free Society]

Hey. I spent a couple of weeks learning how to make pizza in the motherland so I speak with some authority. /winks.

If the motherland is Italy then you need to keep your pizza recipes to yourself. Maybe Italian pizza is a different breed I don't know, but nowhere in the world has worse pizza than Italy. A few places do New York style (passably) but by and by Americans are the True Scotsmen of pizza now.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Since when is making 'NY style' the standard?

Bah. Dunno where you've eaten pizza in Italy but I couldn't disagree with you more.

I mean, like, I'm not even sure how to respond to this!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

By the way, your comment reminds me of two things people told me.

One, a Greek told me Greece makes better pizza and the other a Portuguese who said Portuguese restaurant he owned made better Italian sauce than any Italian restaurant.

I tried both to see what they were running on about - crap on both counts.

I've had great pizza not just in the USA but Montreal too. But, please.

Apparently, everyone makes better Italian food than the Italians.

Uber-arrogance if you ask me.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Better pizza AND pasta. Sorry. He have me a bag of it to try.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I remember my mother making the pasta all the time when I was growing up. It's hard to see how you could fuck it up.

[Free Society]

Uber-arrogance if you ask me.

Yes let that hatred seeth out of you. I've eaten pizza all around the world because I like pizza as it happens. In Italy it was Milan and Venice, granted that's no pizza tour of Italy. But I found the Italian restaurant industry thoroughly underwhelming. Now rage it about it more.

Since when is making 'NY style' the standard?

Oh not just NY, but North America more generally. European pizza more generally sucks. Italian pizza sucks more dick than Italian men.

[Bill Dalasio]

The Iron Law of Pizza:

Quality is inversely proportional to the distance from where it was made to Brooklyn, New York.

[freedomlover]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza

[sarcasmic]

Pizza is like sex. Even when it's bad it's good.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Growing up, my buddy's father (from Lucca) would bake several pizzas in his outdoor wood-oven on Saturday afternoons. Works of arts - all of them (except the one with anchovies. Blech). Each made in different ways.

Half-way through his 6 foot 4 frame would be drunk and angry swearing at anything - even the ants for crawling on his oven.

Add some beer and wine and it made for some fun Saturdays.

Good times.

[sarcasmic]

I like anchovies. I've always liked canned fish. Sardines, smoked oysters, smoked eel... yum.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Plenty of people do. Just not much of a fish guy even though my mother made a lot of it growing up.

Anchovies tend to melt when you cook them in a sauce like alla puttanesca.

[sarcasmic]

Anchovies are just a way to add salt while also adding flavor.

[hamilton]

Precisely. Garum, evolved (barely). Add some salty and some umami in one swell foop.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Pretty much.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

Anchovy paste works just as well in cooking...not on a pizza though.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

That explains a lot about you, sarc.

[Ivan Pike]

I like anchovies. I've always liked canned fish. Sardines, smoked oysters, smoked eel... yum.

I knew there was something I liked about you.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Can we get back to the topic at hand?

MAKE ME MY PIZZA BITCH.

Come to think of it, wasn't there a scene in 'Do the right thing' where Lee argues a pizza place should make pizza for the brothers because of where they operated?

My memory is sketchy here because I wanted to forget the film.

[sarcasmic]

I knew there was something I liked about you.

A couple days ago me and the five-year-old were sharing a can of smoked oysters on Ritz with some cheddar, and the kid wanted to offer some to her mom. When I told the kid that Mom doesn't like them, the kid, in an honestly curious way, asked "Why don't you like smoked oysters Mumma?" It was hilarious.

[GregMax]

My dad used to give us those. I can still see him spearing an oyster out of the tin with a toothpick and put it, dripping with oil, on a cracker. I'd pop one in my mouth and the oyster has such a different flavor that to this day I imagine I can smell them just talking about them. Nice memory.

[HolgerDanske]

Smoked mackerel in bright red tomato sauce. Canned. It's fantastic.

At least until my American wife told me what she thought it smelled and looked like *futilely tries to scrub memory from brain* 🙁

[sarcasmic]

Smoked mackerel in bright red tomato sauce. Canned. It's fantastic.

Never seen it, but if I do I'll try it. Whenever I see a can of fish that I've never tried I generally buy one. Some are fantastic, while others not so much (squid in its own ink was double-plus ungood).

[HolgerDanske]

I've never had the Norwegian brands, but they are probably comparable:

http://www.scandinavianfoodsto.....re-makrell

http://www.scandinavianfoodsto.....et-makrell

[HolgerDanske]

Eat it open sandwich style on buttered whole-grain rye bread, topped with mayo and french-fried onions.

This kind of bread (also available in your local Wholefoods):

http://www.amazon.com/Mestemac.....B000LKTXHA

Sadly it's imported, vacuum packed, and dry 🙁

[sarcasmic]

At least until my American wife told me what she thought it smelled and looked like *futilely tries to scrub memory from brain* 🙁

My wife will eat fried haddock or backed scallops, and that's the extent of her seafood menu. She always makes faces and snide remarks when I (or me and the kid) eat canned fish. Oh well.

[HazelMeade]

Pizza is like sex. Even when it's bad it's good.

No it's not.
I'd rather eat bad pizza than have bad sex.

[lcwrite]

But would you prefer no sex over bad sex?

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Yeah, and leaves you in pain for a week and then it turns out you caught something....

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

you are crazy - pizza is god's gift to the working man

[Aloysious]

When it comes to pizza, everybody is wrong and crazy except me.

1. I like both thin crust and deep dish.

2. More is better than less.

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

^^ THIS

[freedomlover]

Second!

[toadboy65]

The "we don't serve your kind here" laws are about religious freedom in the same way that the puritans sought religious freedom in the new world. They wanted to live in a place where they would be free to persecute those who disagreed with them. As for the contraception and abortion coverage, it is in the same spirit. Health coverage is a benefit, like wages. If you can control what employees use their health benefits for ( I don't want MY money going to pay for.....), then they should be able to exercise the same control over what the employee spends their wages on.
If you don't want to sell to Gays, Jews, Blacks or whatever, don't have a business open to the public.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

As for the contraception and abortion coverage, it is in the same spirit. Health coverage is a benefit, like wages. If you can control what employees use their health benefits for ( I don't want MY money going to pay for.....), then they should be able to exercise the same control over what the employee spends their wages on.

You don't understand how contracts work, do you?

If you don't want to sell to Gays, Jews, Blacks or whatever, don't have a business open to the public.

You don't understand what rights are, do you?

[Emmerson Biggins]

Wait, if I believe in freedom of association, even for people who want to run a business, I have to defend the puritans too? That's pure bullshit.

Fuck off, slaver.

[Catatafish]

Do you have ANY concept of the difference between government coercion and private interaction?

[LynchPin1477]

They wanted to live in a place where they would be free to persecute those who disagreed with them

You don't want the same thing? Then I assume you loudly criticized the people who want to boycott Indiana or who wrote terrible things about the businesses that said they wouldn't serve a gay wedding.

If you can control what employees use their health benefits for ( I don't want MY money going to pay for.....), then they should be able to exercise the same control over what the employee spends their wages on.

I agree. An employer should be able to stipulate that their employees tithe 10%, don't use birth control, don't go to R-rated movies, etc.

And the employees (and potential employees) have the right to tell that idiotic employer to go fuck themselves. Or not, if they are OK with the stipulations.

[Seamus]

The "we don't serve your kind here" laws are about religious freedom in the same way that the puritans sought religious freedom in the new world. They wanted to live in a place where they would be free to persecute those who disagreed with them.

To give the Puritans their due, they *did* move into a howling wilderness where there were no other white people, precisely for the purpose of separating themselves and forming their own little religious utopia where they could play their own little religious games without having to deal with other religions. (The Indians' religion didn't count. To their credit, though, the Puritans didn't try to suppress that (except as a side effect of suppressing the Indians themselves, after the Squanto and Massasoit lovefest gave way to things like King Phillips War.)) The Puritans, not unreasonably, thought that if you wanted to practice a different religion, there were plenty of other places in the world you could do it. People like Quakers who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to preach their competing brand of religious nuttery were going out of the way to look for trouble. They were as annoying as, well, I would be if I kept trying to join the local CPUSA chapter and sell them on the virtues of Rand, Hayek, and Friedman.

[HazelMeade]

Health coverage is a benefit, like wages.

So why don't you just ask for more wages and then buy your own damn health insurance?

[R C Dean]

No, health coverage and wages are both forms of compensation.

"Benefits" refers to that part of your total compensation that is not wages.

You'll do better if you use the same language as the people you are trying to convince.

[toadboy65]

You are correct. I should have said compensation.

[ManocentricMaleocracy]

Really you shouldn't have said anything, because you look like a tool.

[freedomlover]

Nothing would have altered the health care landscape, probably for the better, than to have simply done away with "non-taxable" benefits all together.

Once employees received only payment as taxable wages and were free to use it on their health care as they saw fit, free choice and market pressures would have put the whole employer/health care industry/government trio out of business.

Sadly, to this day, most employees covered by employer provided health care policies, have no idea of the real cost. But, as late baby boomers enter into early retirement - those retiring before Medicare eligibility - the shock wave sure to follow when they find out their employer has been "hiding" their annual $20,000 premium for health care insurance from them - is going to set off another round of national debate.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

There is something that would have made things betterer--leaving medical boards and pharmaceutical companies to fend for themselves without any infusion of government force and control.

[GregMax]

What I love is this statist (the dictionary doesn't even recognize 'statist' - sad) . . . anyway, the statist book of social canards that include things like - "if you get hurt and don't have insurance, WE have to pay for it"; or "if your business is 'public' it uses the roads and sidewalks and whatever the fuck else we imagine, so you have to do what the collective demands", and of course my fav, the "you didn't build that" trope because the unwashed masses pay for roads and infrastructure but the alien "businessoids" just beam down here and start harvesting money from "us".

Fuckin' statists.

[HazelMeade]

I'm happy to pay for roads and sidewalks. Why does that mean I also have to pay for the cops that are going to force some well-meaning Christian couple to cater a gay marriage?

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Or kick some well-meaning Christian man's head in for trying to make some zzzzzz in the park.

[freedomlover]

"the alien "businessoids" just beam down here and start harvesting money from "us"."

Great idea for a sci fi flick.

Or, one hell of a business model. Where do I throw in with your vision? 🙂

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I'm still waiting for that check that's supposed to come when society gets round to repaying its debts. I think I'm owed some consideration according to my social contract. I hope it works out soon. Society's getting to be kind of a burden on me.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

that is why the constitution was written - so that everyone could have a point of view and THE GOVERNMENT could not punish them for having it. Nowhere does it say that anyone must like you or accept your lifestyle as valid. If you wish to run your business and discriminate (which is incredibly stupid) then that is your choice. In this country, we have the right to be extremely close-minded and outright stupid if we like as long as we do not infringe upon another person's life, liberty or property.

[R C Dean]

You aren't free unless you are free to be wrong.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

You aren't free unless you are free to be wrong and to enforce your wrongness upon others.

[Mick Kraut]

What this whole incident has brought into sharp relief is that when you scratch a liberal, you uncover a fascist...their first impulse is Stalinist...

[Palin's Buttplug]

Fascism is a right-wing political system that stigmatizes/excludes/persecutes a group of people - the opposite of an egalitarian/leftist system.

[Mr. Flanders]

When it comes to the way they want to enforce their policies, I think a lot of people on the far left and pretty similar to the people on the far right - they both tend toward fascism.

[Palin's Buttplug]

In tactics? Sure. We can agree on that.

[straffinrun]

Fascism is a marriage of state and corporate control over an economy in order to control the behavior of people. People free to make decisions on their own concerning their own welfare and using their own resources is a direct threat to the fascists. But you wouldn't get that because you have zero principles.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

Yep Fascism can be left or right. Italian Fascism was left-ish and was eagerly lapped up by the evil Wisconsin progs in the early 20th century.

[Azathoth!!]

No, it can't.

Fascism requires a strong overarching State, philosophies on the right require a limited small State. Thus facsism can never come from the right.

[BillEverman]

The philosophy may call for a small state, but the practice has never seemed to follow that principle.

[Catatafish]

Ah, the intelligentsia of the left-right paradigm speaketh!

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Capitalists, Kulaks, religious dissidents, and other 'counter-revolutionaries' aren't groups of people persecuted?

I'm hoping you're a sock puppet because it distresses me to think people as stupid as you breathe.

[Palin's Buttplug]

There is general agreement that the Left includes: anarchists, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, autonomists, communists, democratic-socialists, feminists, greens, left-libertarians, progressives, secularists, socialists, social-democrats and social-liberals.[5][6][7]

There is also general consensus that the Right includes: capitalists, conservatives, fascists, monarchists, nationalists, neoconservatives, neoliberals, reactionaries, right-libertarians, social-authoritarians, theocrats and traditionalists.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left?right_politics

[LynchPin1477]

Gee, it's almost as if the left-right paradigm is totally inadequate for describing the real world.

Oh well, full steam ahead.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Nationalists were always ALWAYS - LIBERALS. This is not a matter of debate but fact.

Conservatives of the classical sort- ie Burke, de Maistre) were traditionalists.

Fascism is the merging of government and corporate factions. It's an entity onto itself. But its inventor - one named Mussolini - was a socialist - as was his father.

[Palin's Buttplug]

"Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail."
? Benito Mussolini

Mussolini called his political philosophy fascism and right-wing as he was the ultimate nationalist.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

BM

Lines up pretty well with socialism. Also he had a confession near the time of his death that he was still a socialist at heart. Will have to find the citation though.

[Palin's Buttplug]

But "the state" that furthers the goals of a race/class of people over others is classic right wing politics.

Socialism for only Aryans is right wing.

[Catatafish]

Mussolini's fascism (the birthplace of the modern movement) had zero to do with Aryanism. That horrible disgusting nonsense didn't get added to the normal disgusting nonsense until Hitler came along.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

BUUUUUTTTTT PLLLLLUUUUUUGGGG

It might be a general principle independent of the color on the political spectrum. That would also explain your misunderstanding...you know - with you not dealing in principled arguments based on fundamentals that are refined through thought, debate, etc.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Yet he excelled at each. Did he actually say it though?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Benito_Mussolini

He wrote for Avanti! His base was socialist and ended up fascist and fail to see why it's 'right-wing'. I've always felt it was its own entity.

http://bit.ly/1PkcYSZ

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

the Left includes: anarchists... the Right includes: capitalists

So where do anarcho-capitalists fit into your cockamamie little scheme, there, teh Weigel?

[BillEverman]

So you settle a lack of consensus by citing the authority of Wikipedia saying that there is a consensus. I don't think it works that way. Maybe if it was louder....

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I think the distinction is that the fascist persecutes a few select groups that make up a small part of the population, whereas in the communist country, all groups are persecuted equally, preferably by their own members. All this about left and right is confusing. When I was a boy it was simpler. It was Authority versus those longhair hippy freaks. You knew what was what in those days. You knew which side you were on.

[Suthenboy]

Of all the lies told by the left this is one of the most egregious.

"We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state." -Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister

The National Socialists were right wing. The Fascists, who want government control over everything, are not leftist.

Got it.

Fuckin' liar.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Because Nazi's hated communists, you dingbat. Capitalism had been blamed for the Great Depression and was pretty much maligned universally.

Some "socialists" they were - banning labor unions and workers rights.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

the maligners were mostly Fascist, Eugenics loving Progs that were instrumental in architecting the New Deal which was a policy endorsed by Hitler and Mussolini.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

That they hated communists doesn't negate they were socialists.

And capitalism was maligned because liberalism had long ceased to exist and a bunch of crazed, left-wing loons made up of commies, socialists, and progressives came in to fill the vacuum while conservatism was just too small to take on all that derp.

[straffinrun]

Bloods hated Crypts. Doesn't make either of them any less of a gang.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Socialism - or at least socialist tendencies- always had a strong presence in Germany dating back to Bismarck's welfare state.

It was, to go slightly off tangent, one of the last countries to hold out professionalizing its soccer league (certainly well after England, Italy, and Spain) because it adhered strictly to amateur sports.

[Win Bear]

Socialism - or at least socialist tendencies- always had a strong presence in Germany dating back to Bismarck's welfare state.

Quite the opposite: Bismarck was staunchly anti-socialist; the welfare state was an attempt to forestall the spread of socialism in Germany.

[Palin's Buttplug]

They called themselves "socialists" only in that they wanted the state to own production to further their race/class elitism.

Nazis were certainly not interested in worker rights for Jews, gypsies, blacks, and other minorities. Thus they were right-wingers.

Rufus, you have only an American middle school understanding of political systems.

[Catatafish]

Since when did one component of the political spectrum have a monopoly on being racist, murdering assholes? Or are you forgetting the progressive, socialist bent of the eugenics movement here?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

What's the Canadian equivalent? Is Middle-school where Americans send midgets to school?

While I'm not exactly overly excited over my History degree, I'm certainly not gonna question it over the likes of you.

Doesn't matter. I think you've just displayed your 'understanding' of things with the above quote.

****

'Politifact is apolitical'
'Israel is a creation (was it?) of the UN'

[Limpee Wiltstock]

UN, Iahveh, what's the difference?

[Free Society]

Nazis were certainly not interested in worker rights for Jews, gypsies, blacks, and other minorities. Thus they were right-wingers.

And communists weren't interested in "worker rights" for kulaks, farmers and tradesmen. You really have no business criticizing someone else's understanding of these concepts of which you are so woefully unfamiliar. As evidenced by the fact that you predicate your understanding of these systems upon a modern version of a false left-right dichotomy of ideologies.

[BillEverman]

And yet you're the one who sees everything in binary, black and white, left-right terms. Interesting.

[Win Bear]

Nazis were certainly not interested in worker rights for Jews, gypsies, blacks, and other minorities. Thus they were right-wingers.

Nazis weren't interested in worker rights for Jews because they identified Jews with bankers and profiteers; replace "Jew" with "the 1%" in Nazi propaganda and you pretty much have modern progressive propaganda.

Nazis stuck gypsies, blacks and other racial minorities into concentration camps because they believed them to be genetically inferior and a drain on society. This also wasn't some right wing idea, the idea came from American progressives and their eugenics movement at the beginning of the 20th century; Nazi laws were actually inspired by eugenics laws in California.

For all their numerous other faults and crimes, right wingers like Christian conservatives generally opposed eugenics, racism, and slavery.

[Free Society]

That they hated communists doesn't negate they were socialists.

Hitler didn't just hate communism, he envied them and studied them. He envied their populist appeal, their simple message, their ability to command collective obedience. Hitler even came right out and said that in forming his own views he looked to the example of the Marxists. Setting aside semantic differences, Hitler viewed Marxism's problem as not being sufficiently anti-Jew.

[Seamus]

Because Nazi's hated communists, you dingbat. Capitalism had been blamed for the Great Depression and was pretty much maligned universally.

Some "socialists" they were - banning labor unions and workers rights.

You're joking, right? ADA Democrats hated Communists too. They weren't right-wing. And the Soviet Union banned labor unions (other than ones sanctioned and supported by the government--which means by management) and workers rights (except those conceded by the government--again, by management). They too were not right-wing.

[Win Bear]

Well, difficult as that may be for you to understand, PB, there is more to politics than a simple division into left/right camps.

The Nazis opposed both communism and capitalism. What they advocated was a tightly regulated market economy that prevented profiteering and rewarded productive work; rational, science-based government for the purpose of improving society; job creation through government programs and massive government investments in infrastructure (hence the German Autobahn and railway system). Nazis advocated government retirement plans, universal healthcare, free university education, and opposed multinationals and the free movement of capital. Before they started gassing people by the millions, their political program was largely a progressive program, something that in many ways didn't sound too different from what progressives and Democrats advocate.

US progressives and Democrats are neither strongly left wing nor strongly right wing, and neither were the Nazis. Political orientation is a multi-dimensional space, not a simple left-right spectrum.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I'd say there's quite a bit less to it than that.

[Free Society]

Fascism is a right-wing political system that stigmatizes/excludes/persecutes a group of people - the opposite of an egalitarian/leftist system.

You can use the left-right dichotomy if you want, it's meaningless but you can use it. Fascist ideology has nothing to say about ethnic minorities and is in fact a highly egalitarian and populist system. They called themselves socialists for a reason. I'd tell you to go read a book but then you'll just tell me that you already read some Howard Zinn.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

Fascism is actually a left wing political system not right wing- That is why it is called National Socialism in Germany. The other fascist rulers - Mussolini claimed that "socialism runs in my veins". Fascism is a collectivist ideology in which the government doesn't own the means of production but does control and direct it.

Conservatism -which is a right wing ideology is a free market ideology that strives to make people as free economically and socially by limiting the power of the government - which is diametrically opposed to the government control of the Fascists.

It is a huge misrepresentation (lie) by liberals socialists and progressives (who are all leftist socialists) that Fascism is a right-wing ideology. Socialism, Fascism and Communism are all left wing and are all responsible for more misery and deaths in the 20th century- several wars and at least 200 million deaths

[ManocentricMaleocracy]

It's even worse than that, Fascism was much lauded by lefties in the US until, you know, all the horrible shit it did, then the left did the little rewrite of history to try and convince people Fascism is a right-wing ideology to associate their political enemies with it. In the end it's collectivists all the way down.

[R C Dean]

Only an idiot could conflate "egalitarian" and "leftist". Leftism is elitism - top-down control of everything.

Or pretend that fascism, which is a form of socialism, is a right-wing system.

[blcartwright]

You're confused.

Fascist comes from the Latin word meaning to 'bind together' and Mussolini used the image of wheat tied together with a cord. It is the concept of all elements of society coming together under a common national narrative (under the strict control of the govt, of course).

One of the more convenient ways to create this national narrative is to find a villain who is victimizing the population. In Germany it was the Jews, Communists and Gypsies - non-Germans who were accused of exploiting German society. Today it's global warming and the corporations.

The message of the Fascist has always been that society will perish unless we band together under the leadership of progressive politicians who will tightly regulate life so that no one will be victimized. That's not right-wing.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

It was also a holy symbol of state power in the Ancient Romans. And they used to have one on the US dime.

[freedomlover]

Hmmmmmmmmmm

I always accepted Fascism to be a political partnership between the state and large businesses that created and ensured an oligarchy.

But hey, what do I know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

[Win Bear]

In practice, fascism ends up a political partnership between the state and large businesses. But ideologically, fascism claims to have roughly the same goals as socialism, namely fair compensation for supposedly productive members of society, opposition to capitalism and "unearned income", and a society structured according to principles judged desirable by experts.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Oh, you show off! Orwell would be soooo proud

[Win Bear]

Fascism is a right-wing political system that stigmatizes/excludes/persecutes a group of people

You mean like leftists stigmatize "the 1%"? Why do you think Jews were stigmatized in Nazi Germany? "Jew" was just one of the 1930's words for "the 1%".

the opposite of an egalitarian/leftist system

There is nothing "egalitarian" about leftist systems either. In fact, leftist systems, progressive systems, theocracies, and fascist systems are fairly similar to each other; they all want ruling classes that govern in order to ensure fairness, social harmony, and security. They all demonize and persecute groups opposing them, plus groups that don't meet their criteria for good citizenship.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

May as well say, "Statism is a political system that stigmatizes/excludes/persecutes a group of people."

[iownmy anonymity]

no doubt. loving this article. i do not like to catering to any minorities or muslims in my rental housing business. it is my business. and whether it is the cake business, the pizza business, or america's biggest business, the real estate business, the government should not be in it!!!

[Mr. Flanders]

Although I respect your right to discriminate, I still think your a despicable person and I hope your business fails.

[Catatafish]

*nods head in vigorous agreement with Flanders*

[DWC]

I think you are jumping to conclusions. I'm not saying that I agree with judging people based on their ethnicity or religion or sexual orientation is a good thing and most certainly I am liberal in that regard, but you have no knowledge of his experience as a business owner. It may well be that he has had terrible experiences renting out his property to people from certain populations and it may have skewed his perspective because of that and I wouldn't blame him for that. I have known many, many different types of people in my life from every possible background and there are certain subcultures within the US itself which foster a lack of personal responsibility and disrespect for the property of others. It could be certain white trash cultures, of which I am well acquainted, and it could be inner city gangster culture, with which I am also well acquainted - the racial aspect is completely incidental. I can well understand how previous experience with people you associate with those cultures would change your perspective. Would you rent to people whom you fully expect (rightly or wrongly) to trash your property or not pay their rent? I wouldn't and I wouldn't be ashamed of it to suit anybody's sensibilities. No, I don't believe in judging people based on their race or religion or sexual orientation, but does that mean you are morally required to be stupid about it?

[Mr. Flanders]

I never said he's required to do anything, morally or otherwise. I simply stated my attitude towards him and his business based on the information provided. I don't think he should be forcibly compelled to do business with people he doesn't like on the basis of skin color or other factors, but I also reserve my right to not like him and to hope his business fails.

[JeffreyinSandySprings]

looks like you got it Mr Flanders - now I wish the whining idiots across the country could understand your simple sentence.

[R C Dean]

i do not like to catering to any minorities or muslims in my rental housing business

Depending on the market, this may be basically a rough cut against renters likely to be problems. Yeah, its collectivist thinking, but its really hard to get through your day without assigning people to groups and making decisions without doing a full forensic investigation of every single person you meet.

I'm unwilling to say that its bigoted, to tell you the truth, without knowing more. If (note that this is a hypothetical) I can rent out all my units to low-risk renters, and white folk are more likely to be low-risk renters, why is it bigoted for me to recognize that (hypothetical) reality?

There are swathes of Dallas where you would be a fool to rent to a Mexican immigrant, because the odds that your house is going to turn into a flophouse for 20 immigrants are not that low. Would I be a bigot if I took that into account?

[iownmy anonymity]

you keep on hoping. i'll keep on succeeding.

[hamilton]

Hey, good for you in starting a business, and I too support your right to discriminate. In fact, if you let me know the name of it, I'll make my own effort to ensure that I and my family and close personal friends stay away. Free advertising, saving money on your precious bottom line!

[Emmerson Biggins]

Ya, if you are sincere, then you'd best serve your stated interest by fucking off, and let the non-bigoted-assholes do the talking. You might wanna think about trying to not be a bigoted asshole. But, while you are milling it over, I'll still respect your right to (peaceably) do what you want with your property.

But, cmon, let's be honest. It's far more likely you are a leftist "troll", and I use the term loosely. You might wanna think about what freedom of association really means. But while you are milling it over, I'll respect your right to engage in idiotic, vapid speech.

[Suthenboy]

No, the government should not be in it, and neither should you. Cant wait to see you fail.

[R C Dean]

i do not like to catering to any minorities or muslims in my rental housing business

Depending on the market, this may be basically a rough cut against renters likely to be problems. Yeah, its collectivist thinking, but its really hard to get through your day without assigning people to groups and making decisions without doing a full forensic investigation of every single person you meet.

I'm unwilling to say that its bigoted, to tell you the truth, without knowing more. If (note that this is a hypothetical) I can rent out all my units to low-risk renters, and white folk are more likely to be low-risk renters, why is it bigoted for me to recognize that (hypothetical) reality?

There are swathes of Dallas where you would be a fool to rent to a Mexican immigrant, because the odds that your house is going to turn into a flophouse for 20 immigrants are not that low. Would I be a bigot if I took that into account?

[R C Dean]

I blame the squirrels.

[Emmerson Biggins]

I'm mostly saying it's bigoted because I don't think that should matter. If you aren't willing to protect free speech rights for nazis, you don't really believe in free speech. If you aren't willing to protect freedom of association rights for actual bigots, you don't believe in free association. By just conceding that it must be 100% pure bigotry, I get to disassociate myself from the actual bigotry part, rhetorically speaking.

Probably a waste of effort given the intellectual firepower the opposition seems to be bringing. But what the hell. I gave it a shot. But if we have to concede a point in this argument, we should concede that one. Not freedom of association itself.

[freedomlover]

Perhaps because there is risk in doing so due the PC laws?

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Moral majority or bust!

[Emmerson Biggins]

When we had Jim Crow laws, some places had freedom of association and some didn't. Then the government fixed that with CRA. Now nobody has freedom of association.

And fuck the concession that the CRA was needed. It might have actually been, but we'll never know because we went straight from one form of unnecessary coercion to another. So that supposition is completely hypothetical and counterfactual.

[sarcasmic]

Laws that prohibit discrimination allow bigots to hide behind the law.

If such laws didn't exist, then the bigots could reveal themselves, allowing customers to vote with their dollars.

[straffinrun]

That's not the point of these laws. A biproduct sure, but the main point is to punish. Harm. Damage. Beat the hell out of people financially and physically until they do you want them to do. Control is the game and these fuckers think that their cause is righteous so they don't care about the precedent it sets.

[sarcasmic]

Sure that's not the intent. But it is indeed the result. They want to punish bigots. But by outlawing bigoted behavior by businesses, they actually shield these businesses from going out of business as a result of people choosing not to spend their money at places that promote bigotry.

[straffinrun]

Do the people pushing this really car about the results? It's the "anti-gay" law or whatever lunacy they dream up. We know the results but they don't care about that bc putting a smiley face on totalarianism is the goal. We're dealing with amoral people and need to treat them accordingly.

[sarcasmic]

Do the people pushing this really car about the results?

Nope. They only care about intentions. That's how they pave the road to hell.

[RG]

Exactly. When you tell them that not allowing discrimination a) doesn;t change the bigot's mind and b) allows the bigot to achieve greater profits, they simply don't care.

[straffinrun]

Too many beers, sorry. Can't even type.

[freedomlover]

SJWs

[$park? the Swifty]

No matter how many times this is said, it's still impossible for stupid people to grasp the simplicity of it.

[sarcasmic]

Can't fix stupid.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Or without laws against "discrimination" we might develop a culture in which an honest discourse about crap could emerge, which might actually improve something for somebody. You can't beat sense into people. On the other hand, there's no evidence you can expunge stupidity by any means. [Except through agency of an omnipotent god-state overseen by the country's wisest most high priest-king.] You can die on the gibbet or perish in fire--it's the same price.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

I like Stossel...and I don't care who knows it.

[John]

What people forget is that discrimination is not illegal. It is only discriminating on the basis of some things that it illegal. A deli in Philadelphia owned by a mad Eagles fan could legally refuse service to anyone wearing a Cowboys or Giants jersey. Restaurants refuse to serve people who don't meet their desired dress code. Indeed, businesses couldn't operate at all if they couldn't discriminate in some fashion.

So the heart of this issue is whether there are some things that there is a compelling reason for the government to stop businesses from discriminating based upon them. The answer to that question with regard to racial discrimination was controversial but at a minimum not unreasonable. The country had a situation where 12% of the population was largely prevented from having a fair shot at housing, jobs and any other sort of commerce in large areas of the country. In the 1950s, a black family couldn't take a long trip across the south without sleeping in their car and eating at a picnic table because there were so few hotels and restaurants that would serve them.

[John]

That is a fucked up situation and a very compelling reason for the government to act. Even if you still object to that on principle, you have to admit that the situation was truly loathsome.

The gays in contrast face nothing like that. So where is the compelling interest in government action here? There isn't one. And that is why the advocates for applying to CRA to gays never talk in concrete terms about the actual situation facing gays. They instead talk in bullshit generalities about the evils of "discrimination" as if all discrimination is the same or could ever be eliminated.

[straffinrun]

Compelling public interest was created as a way of power lusters to beat the hell out of free people.

[John]

Pretty much. That is what this is all about.

[LynchPin1477]

What sticks in my crawl is the refusal to admit that maybe, just maybe, the country has changed since pre-1963, that the CRA worked, and significant portions of it are no longer needed to prevent the type of widespread discrimination you describe. I mean, maybe things haven't changed that much and large portions of the country would voluntarily re-institute a situation similar to Jim Crow if they could, but that seems exceedingly unlikely to me. But most people won't even entertain the idea.

[John]

That drives me nuts. They never admit things have changed because these laws have become nothing but a power grab for one group to get preferential treatment over another. That is all they are. The justification for the laws to exist at all has largely and thankfully evaporated. Not only do they ignore that, but also, they pretend that gays are in the same situation today that blacks were in the pre civil rights era.

[freedomlover]

Tribes. Tribes I tell you.

Join one!

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

What you say is true John, so how do we square that requirement with the broader principle of free association?

Do we say that enough time/social advancement has happened in the interim so we can revert back to a more basic system where free association trumps anti-discrimination?

I don't know the answer.

[R C Dean]

What's troubling, in part, is that the CRA falls into a classic Total State ratchet.

The State makes a problem worse (Jim Crow laws).

That problem demands a solution.

The solution is, naturally, the State.

Now, if we had repealed Jim Crow and otherwise prohibited government from discriminating, and a generation later we still had a bad problem, maybe we can talk about compelling governmental interest in controlling private behavior.

The sleight of hand is that we had a compelling governmental interest in stopping bad government behavior, and bootstrapped that into controlling bad private behavior.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The thing I don't get, and this is where it gets messed up, is why in the world would a Cowboys or Giants fan (those degenerates) would want to make a case of it and demand service from someone who doesn't want to give it to them? If someone doesn't want or like you, you were taught to walk away, no?

Why do we feel in our misplaced self-righteous and boneheaded egoism feel we have a right to someone making us a cheese steak? Go somewhere where they actually VALUE you.

Same principle holds with these wanna-be faux gay activists claiming they're 'taking a stand'. And even if they get the government to force the shlep baker to bake them a cake, they'd better hope the baker is a consummate professional and doesn't accidentally use their second-rate ingredients.

[John]

The other thing is that you can subvert the whole thing by just shutting the fuck up. A black person in Georgia in 1955, couldn't conceal the fact that he was black. And any white business owner in that place and time could go to bed confident every night that he didn't serve blacks. You can't do that with gays. Unless the gay self identifies, even the most conservative and gay hating business owner couldn't refuse to serve gays because he doesn't know who is gay and who is not.

So whatever public accommodation discrimination is going on, it is always going to be a fraction of what it was against blacks because gays have the ability to be anonymous. Indeed, this is why the gay rights movement is so obsessed about weddings. It is the one case where a business could discriminate if it wanted to.

[freedomlover]

Also true in some cases with race. Even black.

I've had more than one black friend who didn't quite fit the visual stereotype tell stories of having some unknowing knit wit confide their own racist outlook on blacks

On the other hand, there have been a few times in my professional life where a black youth has acted out in not acceptable ways and received punishment. This resulted in their parents getting my or my superior's white face and claiming we were only "picking on their kid because he was black". It took everything inside of me to stop from blurting out what I really thought.

Did I mention how much I hate PC?

[Seamus]

The thing I don't get, and this is where it gets messed up, is why in the world would a Cowboys or Giants fan (those degenerates) would want to make a case of it and demand service from someone who doesn't want to give it to them?

In the case of the Cowboys fans, it's because they're insufferable assholes, just like Yankees fans. (I have no opinion about Giants fans, as we don't run across so many of them here on the East Coast.)

[Mr. Anderson]

I'd like to know how much truth there is that few businesses would serve blacks. The people I've talked to say that reality does not match the movies. Very few businesses refused to serve blacks by 1964.

[Enough About Palin]

Was thinking about this last night and came to the conclusion that what these gay rights activists are doing is exactly the same thing as a guy telling his girlfriend, "Shut up and go make me a sandwhich."

[John]

There is so much neurosis going on here that it is hard to know where to start. First, the entire left suffers from civil rights era envy. They so desperately want it to forever be 1963 so they can have their moment in the sun and be able to tell their children how they fought for what was right. Of course it isn't 1963. That doesn't stop them. And they have decided to make being gay the new black and to live out their fantasy fighting for the gays. Some of it is that gays being human beings are sometimes nasty and vindictive. They spent a lot of years on the bottom and are now on top and want to be as poor and nasty winners as possible. No amount of inclusion will satisfy them. They want revenge and forced acceptance. And of course some of it is just nastiness and class hatred among straights. White progs hate Christians and conservative Christians most of all and this is another way to stomp on them. And lastly, a lot of it is social signaling. People by their very nature love to signal and feel like they belong to the right and the good. This is a very easy way to do that.

[straffinrun]

John, I want to know why the CRA needed to be enforced in the first place. Aren't we ceding an unnecessary inch by granting that pre1965 was so evil that laws that enshrined discrimination needed to be corrected by more laws? I know that isn't politically palatable, but can't we argue in good faith here about the obvious infringement of rights the CRA had on people? We get the intrusions on the rights of free association today because people didn't stand on principle in the past when it was a lot harder to sell.

[John]

There is a compelling argument that it didn't need to. The point is that even if it did, the situation with blacks in the 1950s is so radically different than with gays today, the example is not analogous and means nothing to the question we are considering now.

[straffinrun]

Absolutely. Competitive markets exist so there is no need. I get that approach, but it also looks like you are avoiding making the principled stand against coercive state action into the private lives of individuals in the first place. If the war has to be fought, I'd rather start from first principles. That may be just a strategic difference.

[Tony]

How the fuck do you know? When did you experience being gay in modern America?

[straffinrun]

That's the threshold? Then how the hell do you know what it's like not to be a disengenous twat?

[Tony]

I lean heavily toward the belief that you can't truly appreciate being a different race, sex, sexual orientation, or what have you, without actually being it. The human ability to have empathy bridges the gap to some extent. Libertarians, I've noted, lack this quality more than most, but especially enjoy telling minorities (of which there are very few in libertarian circles) that they're wrong about everything.

[sarcasmic]

Well then. Since you have no concept of what it is like to be a human being capable of rational thought and logical deduction, you have no right to criticize libertarians.

[straffinrun]

BTW, Tony, I've lived almost my entire adult life in a population where 95% are of a different race. You have no idea WTF you're talking about.

[oobins]

Eileen, I'll grant you that much, you're an Eileen or Colleen or if you like, a Sheila. Antoinette perhaps. Do you know what it's like to be anyone but yourself? No ma'am. So you're a special snowflake, and you want everyone to give you special rights so that you don't melt in what you feel as the "heat" of people not being identical to you. That's so creative, I must say. It reminds me of clique-formation in 7th grade, let's figure out whom exactly we HATE and gang up against them, socially speaking. Snark away, Antoinetta!

[HolgerDanske]

"I lean heavily toward the belief that you can't truly appreciate being a different race, sex, sexual orientation, or what have you, without actually being it."

Except if they're conservative, republican, libertarian, white, male, or Christian.. Then it's totes OK to presume to know how they think.

[John]

Tony,

Why are you such a racist that you feel the need to piss on the victims of slavery and Jim Crow by pretending your sorry ass has ever faced anything approaching that?

[straffinrun]

I'll leave it there. He won't get it, John, but gave me a good chuckle. G'night.

[Tony]

So you're the arbiter of whose treatment by society is "good enough"? Or is it the entire collection of white heterosexual males who run almost everything who get to decide such things?

[Frankjasper1]

Tony are you gay?

If not, how can you know what being gay in modern america is like compared to blacks in the 60s?

These kind of arguments make me chuckle. Person A throwing out that person B is not of the particular group thus they can't have an argument on it while not realizing they as person A aren't part of said group either...so how can they have an argument on it?

Example a white prog trying to distract argument at hand by throwing out the white privilege card to a fellow white. Your opinion is invalid cause you have white privilege but mine is totally legit!!!

[Tony]

Yes, I'm gay. It is perhaps that fact that allows me to at least very basically empathize with other minority groups, even if just to appreciate that I can't possibly truly know what it's like to be black in this country.

Libertarians and other conservatives--overwhelmingly white, male, and heterosexual--are laughably unwilling to even begin engaging in this sort of empathy. They have theirs, why can't everyone else just try as hard as they did to be white and male?

[Frankjasper1]

Being gay, what empathy are you looking for?

[Frankjasper1]

What is wrong with being black in this country?

You sound a little paternalistic.

[Frankjasper1]

Sorry for the mutliple..i can't edit.

Do you hate white male conservatives? I sense a lot of animosity

[Greg Gutfelt's Nutpunch]

You are a sick fuck. You fundamentally don't believe in equality. You think that certain types of human existence are higher forms. You think these higher forms grant understanding of personal as well as unlived experience. The lower forms can only understand themselves, but the higher have a transcendent ability the others do not have.

This is the heart of what is going on when a black says 'whites cant use the n word' or Sotomayor says a wise latina brings something different to the supreme court. The assumption is that others can understand the white experience, but whites don't have the ability to understand others. In this worldview, whites are objectively inferior.

The human condition is supposed to be based on things like love, rejection, ambition, hope. These are supposed to define it. These are supposed to be universal. The opposite position is that race and gender and other qualities define the human condition. This is a self-destructive argument tho, because it makes persons non-transferable (across identity groups).

If persons are non-transferable then identity discrimination is not just ethical, its the only rational course.

If universal qualities like rejection aren't applicable across racial (gender, etc) lines, then blacks can't understand the white experience. The contents of the experience isn't what makes us share the human condition, its the context of the experience. We share a universal context, not a universal content.

[Greg Gutfelt's Nutpunch]

continued

Nobody can know exactly what its like to be a slave in the 1800's. But we can know what its like to suffer. Expecting others to grasp the nuance of our own condition with exquisite detail is a type of selfishness.

Your wife dies, someone comes to the funeral and says "I know how much you are suffering" and you come back with "shut up asshole, you don't understand how I feel". This is basically what is happening every time a protected class says others can't speak to their life experience. No, I can't understand how you feel to the 100th decimal place of grief, but I know it hurts. If you are unwilling to say my experience translates to your human condition, how can your human condition translate to mine? For that to be possible you would have to exist as a higher form of consciousness, with an additional power I do not have. That would make me objectively inferior, which implodes the MLK cornerstone of racial equality.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Tony, you're just a big pile of pussy. I may have one, but you ARE one.

[Win Bear]

are laughably unwilling to even begin engaging in this sort of empathy

Well, you certainly don't have any empathy, otherwise you would understand that empathy is an emotion one experiences in person. What you misidentify as "empathy" is simply a mixture of self-righteousness, self interest, and social signaling.

Yes, I'm gay.

So am I. But you are also a bigoted moron.

[Win Bear]

Well, Tony, honey, I have experienced being gay in modern America, not to mention several European nations, and I can tell you from first hand experience: you are full of shit. Trying to force acceptance of minorities doesn't work, if anything, it makes things worse.

Now, having said that, I'm still for forcing Christian bakers to bake cakes for gay weddings, not because I think it's good for us faggots, but because I think it may actually jostle Christian conservatives out of their complacency and their propensity for social engineering.

[Azathoth!!]

Stossel wrote something else that needs to get more attention--

Even in the difficult days of Reconstruction, after the Civil War, business began to bring together whites and blacks who might not always have liked each other but who wanted the best deals. It took several years for racists to get Jim Crow passed so they could put a stop to that erosion of the old racist ways. Government helped keep racism going for several more decades.

After centuries of slavery, people started coming together almost immediately. Until the Democrats fucked all that up.

And than what we needed was to get rid of those laws.

Instead the Democrats gave us Public Accomodation laws.

Maybe we should finally stop listening to the party of slavery when they try to speak on civil rights issues? Maybe we'd make some actual progress then?

[freedomlover]

Good point. I live where non-whites are now the majority. And, I'm not a member of their tribe.

Based on the extremism that is sometimes expressed as a result of the move from "oppressed minority" to "the new majority" for reparations for past injustices, perceive and otherwise, I sometimes wonder when the beatings will begin. (")

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Isn't it 'shut up and go make me a SAMMICH'? If you prefer, SANGWICH?

[oobins]

Sang-WEESH. Say it along with me. Sang-WEESH. Good. You're getting it.

[Harvard]

Sammidge a-hole.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

IT. IS. SAMMICH!

/Chicago

[oobins]

cay-ZHAWN say SHICKen say sangWEESH, it's New Iberian

[ZombyPoet]

Maybe I am the only one but I think it would be dangerous to force someone who dislikes me or my lifestyle to make food for me.

Also, I tolerate all kinds of things. But I don't celebrate all the things I tolerate. Nor should I be required to.

[tarran]

Maybe I am the only one but I think it would be dangerous to force someone who dislikes me or my lifestyle to make food for me.

Dude, anybody who has been in the military recognizes the danger.

I remember reading about an incident where a newly assigned seaman on his week underway walked in on the cooks peeing into the mashed potatoes destined for the officers' mess.

"Because we hate the officers."

[Pro Libertate]

Freedom should be, and was meant to be, the default in this country. If the government wasn't expressly given the power to limit your freedom, then you have that freedom to exercise as you see fit. The fact that a long, slow coup d'?tat has occurred that has illegally expanded government power at our expense is irrelevant to our legal and moral rights. The fact that government uses extraconstitutional force to compel behaviors and gets away with it doesn't mean that the government is legitimate. It is not and becomes increasingly less so as it expands and each of us diminishes.

So it's not some little thing to demand the freedom of association, nor is it a little thing to do as many on the right do and concede the right of association without a whimper and focus solely on free exercise. We have to fight for all of our rights if we want to keep them.

Even accepting the status quo to some extent, the freedom of association isn't automatically trumped by laws limiting private discrimination. Even if you view the latter as co-equal to the freedom of association under equal protection, anti-discrimination laws must be narrowly tailored to limit the infringement of other rights. That's clearly not the case, as we've seen in similar situations involving speech rights.

[Almanian!]

Pattycake
Pattycake
Baker's man
Bake me a cake
as fast as you can!

Or I'll sue you into oblivion you fucking fascist, racist, sexist, homophobic teahadist Nazi lover!

[Barry Loberfeld]

April 8 LewRockwell.com

[straffinrun]

What, his birthday?

[Hyperion]

OT: Apparently, it's sexist to call Hillary by first name.

Don't call her Hillary

Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,Hillary, Hillary,

Had enough yet, beeotches? There's more where that came from!

[Almanian!]

HILLARY!

I'm down with the struggle

*makes black power fist, innapropriately and awkwardly*

[Pro Libertate]

Um, yeah, her campaign can do it, but no one else can.

Isn't it time she finally got prosecuted for the twenty crimes she committed with the e-mail business?

[John]

So all of those "Ready for Hillary" bumper stickers and t-shirts are sexist?

[Mainer2]

Speaking of one named celebrities.....

Did you know that Sting is actually jewish.

His real name is Schting.

[freedomlover]

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE (born 2 October 1951), known on stage as Sting, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, activist, actor and philanthropist. He was principal songwriter, lead singer, and bassist for the new wave rock band The Police from 1977 to 1983, before launching a solo career.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Ah, no. He was on some genealogy show. Sorry, son.

[John]

The other big lie that is constantly told in addition to the lie that all discrimination is bad and illegal, is that Jim Crow was the product of thousands of racist business owners acting in collusion. I bet you 99% of the public and nearly 100% of the journalists in this country think Jim Crow was the result of Southern Governments not banning race based discrimination. And that is a complete lie.

The truth is that Jim Crow was largely the result of state governments mandating discrimination. Plessy v. Ferguson was not about a black guy challenging a railroad's decision to make him ride in the black only car. It was challenging a state law (in Georgia I think) that required railroads to segregate their passengers. You didn't have a choice in the Jim Crow South. The law required you to segregate by race if you ran a business.

Knowing that puts the entire thing in a different light. Would businesses have discriminated absent the law? Sure. But not all would have and once a few didn't the gig would be up. I can't compete if my competition is selling to the entire population and I am only selling to two thirds of it. Indeed, the existence of these laws at all proves that the system would have broken down had it not been mandated. Otherwise, why did they feel the need to pass the law?

[Pro Libertate]

It's kind of obvious. Why would they pass laws like that if everyone were doing it, anyway? And you can be as racist as they come and be greedy for as many customers as you can get your Klan-baked hands on.

[R C Dean]

The truth is that Jim Crow was largely the result of state governments mandating discrimination.

Not even that. Its definitional. "Jim Crow" refers to state laws mandating discrimination.

[Tony]

Personally, I think property rights are a good idea, but forcing everyone to act as if they think that way is just wrong.

[John]

Tony, I am not sure what is more funny, how stupid that statement is or that you actually think it is clever.

[Tony]

If you favor legalized discrimination, you favor using cops to drag people out of businesses because of the color of their skin or their sexuality. We tried that and decided using government force to prevent such a crime against humanity, rather than supporting it, was a better idea.

Now tell me that taking away nondiscrimination laws doesn't require this (at least in theory), and explain how.

[tarran]

That's right Tony, Jim Crow laws that forced people to discriminate racially, whether they wanted to or not = allowing property owners to summon police to remove trespassers.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tonylogic(tm)!

[Tony]

All those innocent, tolerant white Southerners, forced to discriminate because of the racist assholes they voted into office.

[tarran]

Tony, I am going to explain this to you as simply as I can, in the vain hope that you might follow the argument:

The reason for those laws were that there were nonracists who were reaping the economic rewards of not racially discriminating.

The racists were losing money to the non-racists and wanted to use the government to stop that.

Your sad attempt to conflate the law being summoned to evict trespassers regardless of why they are unwanted with the laws intended to punish a hated minority and the people who do business with them is in no way the gotcha you think it is.

[Tony]

Citation for the claim that Southern whites in the mid-20th century and before were mostly racially tolerant.

[tarran]

Citation for the claim that Southern whites in the mid-20th century and before were mostly racially tolerant.

I never claimed that. It's so sad that you struggle to understand arguments written simply enough that an average fourth grader could follow it.

[oobins]

Logic? Logical flow and consistency? HOGWASH, that's for repthugliKKKan teatards.

Tony knows all, when Tony re-states what the issue REALLY is, you know you're in the presence of prescience.

[Catatafish]

"Look over there! It's a squirrel!"

Them's some good arguin' tactics, Tony.

[oobins]

Larnt 'em gud et the kneejoint of de Willie, de slick Willie. He dun felt yo' pain, Jane. Wye jes' lissen' tewwim, he say it 'bout de odda ting ova deah, 'n' if'n he say dat, musta been troo. Ah sweah.

[Sevo]

Well, it's the proggy way!
If you don't have an argument, tell the big lie! Someone might be dumb enough to believe it.
To the rest of us, it's an an insulting tactic practiced by assholes.

[oobins]

And people say Leo Strauss was/is a conservative. Noble Lies to bully others into agreeing with you, that's the essence of restraint!

Heah come De Pwog! Heah she come!

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Jim Crow laws mandated whites only counters and separate but equal public accommodations. Oh sure, a lot of business owners probably agreed with the sentiment but that doesn't change the fact that Jim Crow violated freedom of association rather than protect it.

[Tony]

But hypothetically, favoring "freedom of association" that entails the right to discriminate means you get to call the cops and have them drag people out of your restaurant for being the wrong color. Does it not? That's what "no trespassing" means.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Yes Tony, that's what owning property entitles you to do. I'm sure you'd call the cops if a bunch of black people squatted in your living room. Can you explain why you're allowed to that at your home but not your diner when you own both?

[Tony]

At least you admit it. Neither of our preferences on antidiscrimination law requires more or less government force. It's entirely a matter of whose interests you want the cops protecting.

[freedomlover]

I'll protect myself.

You subject yourself to the whim of the cops.

And,good luck with that!

[tarran]

Yes it does, Tony.

So what?

It also means that fag restaurant owners can throw fundies out of their establishment.

It means sheenies can kick skinheads out of their delis.

Does that bother you too?

[Tony]

You can kick people out for being disruptive, just not for being the wrong race, being disabled, or couple of other qualities. This debate is whether it include sexual orientation on the list.

The reason such legislation was necessary was because a particular social problem was discovered, known elsewhere as apartheid. Sometimes the real world presents such problems. In the part of the country where this was a real problem, this meant the exclusion of black people from equal participation in the commerce of their communities. That is not the free market I was promised by you guys.

After the horrible imposition that was the CRA, next racist white Southerners decided that the best way to deal with the fact that black people were an economic underclass was to lecture at them about their personal choices. You can't make this stuff up.

[sarcasmic]

a particular social problem was discovered, known elsewhere as apartheid.

You do realize that it had to be backed up with government force because not enough people would willingly participate. Oh, no. I guess you wouldn't realize that being that you are too retarded to understand the difference between voluntary and coerced.

[Catatafish]

"That is not the free market I was promised by you guys."

You mean that "free" market that was distorted by government laws mandating separate eating, drinking and pissing facilities?

[Atma]

Actually, Tony, the debate in this particular thread is the level of government force required under permissive vs. nondiscriminatory regimes. To pretend otherwise merely confuses your own issues.

In any event, one error in your analysis is selecting the appropriate baseline of government force. Trespass laws already exist. This level of force persists regardless of the existence of nondiscrimination laws. The salient question is whether nondiscrimination laws add new kinds of government force, which they unquestionably do.

Under your theory of government force, all laws require equal amounts of compulsion because an individual will, at some point, have to avail themselves to law enforcement to either force compliance with the law one any or another. This is a silly proposition.

Your argument also assumes that all effectuations of government force are equally forcible. This is incorrect. What is more intrusive from first principles: being required to leave an area you do not own or being required to allow others into an area that you do?

In a similar vein, level of government involvement is but one benchmark used to assess the propriety of these kinds of laws. Another is the centrality of the right involved. Freedom of association is inherently protected by the Constitution. Freedom from being discriminated against by private citizens is not (it is protected by a run-of-the-mill statute).

[sarcasmic]

What is more intrusive from first principles: being required to leave an area you do not own or being required to allow others into an area that you do?

Tony has only one principle: Might make right.

Thus all that government does is righteous and just because government has the last word in violence. Unless it's the other party's idea. Then it's bad not because of what it is, but because of who came up with it.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Principals versus principles.
And whining. Whining loudly.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

Atma....that was very well written. However, Tony is too fucking stupid to understand what you just said.

All he read was: Racists, homophobe, intolerant, mean libertarian, etc.

[Tony]

Trespass laws already exist. This level of force persists regardless of the existence of nondiscrimination laws. The salient question is whether nondiscrimination laws add new kinds of government force, which they unquestionably do.

Then equally salient is whether getting rid of the current status quo--nondiscrimination--would add to government force, and it would, even if under the umbrella of trespassing. It would be reintroducing government force to enforce discrimination in places of business. We tried it, and it was simply a better regime, with respect to force and everything else, to diminish the rights of business owners--because the right they were asserting was causing an entire class of people to be set apart from their communities.

This is a silly proposition.

Tell libertarians that; it's they who constantly argue that any regulation, including taxes, no matter how minor is ultimately government murdering you. I see that argument every day here. I'm actually making the case that an antidiscrimination regime requires less government force, or at least a more palatable form of it.

[Tony]

What is more intrusive from first principles: being required to leave an area you do not own or being required to allow others into an area that you do?

Depends on what your priorities are. Owning a business that is open to the public is not an unfettered right, and you can't operate it any way you please. Freedom of association can apply both ways; the constitution doesn't say it requires us to allow rampant discrimination. It doesn't define it at all. Why can't a freedom of association include the right to equal access to the commerce of your community? Even if we don't go there, why is that right trumped by a business owner's alleged right to discriminate? As I have been saying, it takes government goods to enforce either side's right claim.

If society isn't bigoted on a large scale, then such laws are unnecessary; by the same token they are also harmless. If bigotry does exist on a large scale, such laws become necessary because the right of bigots to kick people out for having the wrong skin color is simply not as important a right to protect than the right to be free from discrimination while engaging in commerce.

[morganovich]

tony-

while i think asking a question like "which is more intrusive" is a good one, i disagree with the answer you have come up with.

you cannot have a "right to protect than the right to be free from discrimination while engaging in commerce."

having such a right in and of itself represents a massive intrusion and a violation of a more fundamental right: the right to self determination and free association.

rights are, by their nature, negative. they carve out things that cannot be done to you by the state.

a right to free speech or free religion works like this.

but you cannot have a right that requires others to do things for you.

so, you cannot have a right to an education, to healthcare, or to force others to associate with you.

if you cannot have it alone on a desert island, it's not a right.

the idea of intrusiveness does not apply to negative rights. they are not intrusive.

but the sort of positive privilege you posit when discussing a right to be free from discrimination is intrusive. it abrogates the negative right to self determination.

thus, i see no way anyone could view the right to free association as more intrusive than an envisioned ability to force others to associate with you.

the former is consensual, the latter coercive.

[morganovich]

and where would such a thing end?

shall we make attractive men date ugly women because everyone has a right to non discriminatory dating?

this idea that having a business somehow abrogates your rights and that you cannot keep your rights and your livelihood is anathema to basic notions of freedom and liberty.

it IS an unfettered right to start a business, engage in commerce, hire who you like, and serve who you chose.

the fact that this right is broadly denied by law makes it no less true. that's just an appeal to practice fallacy,

if we, as you initially questioned, seek the least intrusive path, that is it.

it's the only one that is non coercive.

anything else is finding some way to force the prom queen to date you against her wishes.

[sarcasmic]

morganovich, Tony feels that fallacies are compelling arguments. Show him a fallacy and he will fellate it.

[Tony]

if you cannot have it alone on a desert island, it's not a right.

So why should I have any interest in your political philosophy at all, if all it offers are the liberties you have when alone on an unpopulated island? The only reason even to be talking about rights is in a social context. Rights--all rights--impose restrictions on other people. That's the point. They are all "positive." What you have when alone on a deserted island is the right to go insane and die young. Not really worth considering.

[Greg Gutfelt's Nutpunch]

Tony,

What do you think is the difference between Salon or Jezebel ostracizing right-wingers as crazy nut jobs, and private businesses ostracizing individual customers?

It seems to me that extreme cases of both are operationally the same effect. How would you ethically distinguish them?

[freedomlover]

"That is not the free market I was promised by you guys."

As bad as it was, they were free to leave. So, why didn't they?

Ever heard of "A Day Without Mexicans"?

[oobins]

The world will be ideal and totally habitable, bro, when everyone is a clone of Tony.

[Catatafish]

I will now shudder in my bed sleepless, oobins.

[oobins]

(Tony reads Catatafish's comment)

(Tony looks in mirror and gives self thumbs-up)

[I'm Mr Meeseeks]

Personally, I think freedom of speech is a good idea, but forcing everyone to act as if they think that way is just wrong.

[adolphowisner]

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is what- I do...... ?????? http://www.jobsfish.com

[Mr. Anderson]

It's simply politically impossible to criticize the CRA. The narrative is that people were going around lynching and killing blacks with impunity until a handful of enlightened civil servants bravely fought to pass the hotly contested legislation forcing bigots to serve blacks and bring about equality.

In reality the representatives represented the people that voted for them. The CRA passed overwhelmingly in both parties because the anti-racist sentiment of people was so prevalent. It was very much a vast majority punishing a minority view. The sentiment was so strong that they were able to pass one of the most intrusive and unconstitutional laws of all time with very few dissenters. Laws represent the will of the people, the will of the people is not changed by laws.

[Tony]

The Act did pass with good majorities, but Southern representatives and senators almost unanimously voted No. That would be the region of the country where much of the problem existed. Sometimes the federal government needs to drag the South into civilization. If you don't like it, you could persuade them to stop being such ignorant racist dicks.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Sometimes the federal government needs to drag the South into civilization

Go make that argument to the National Congress of American Indians with regard to reservations and Indian schools.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

'Sometimes the federal government needs to drag the South into civilization'

I just made this point above. Namely progs are smug asshole who 'tolerate' opinions and when they've had 'enough' they release the government hounds because civilization.

How is this NOT totalitarian thinking?

[Ivan Pike]

Go make that argument to the National Congress of American Indians with regard to reservations and Indian schools.

Please film it, please.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

Endeavor to persevere

[kbolino]

But, but, the BIA has nothing but good intentions!

Rethuglican sabotage!

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Then why did you Yankees drive the Mormons out of the United States and in to Mexican Territory? You don't like polygamy, don't be a polygamist.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Tony, do you believe in Santa Claus too? Because, my proggie pal, I will let you in on a little secret - there is no such thing as 'government angels'.

[OldMexican]

Re: Mr. Anderson,

It's simply politically impossible to criticize the CRA.

May be politically difficult especially because of the morally-corrupt Left, but not impossible. You simply call out the Conflators and demand that they explain how is it that a person loses his right to property and liberty the moment he or she opens a business, only because there was State-sanctioned segregation? The fact is that the anti-discrimination clauses in the CRA were totally unnecessary as the problem was discrimination by the State and not by private individuals. The clauses only served to open the door for further encroachments on private property and freedom itself, for instance: remember busing? The social engineering derived from the CRA has continued to make life increasingly difficult in America for no good reason but to appease feelings.

[freedomlover]

Why does this remind me of arguing with my father-in-law that the U.S. didn't have to enter the Second World War: That the "Nazi threat" was pretty much limited to Europe. And that, there was an arms race going on - the battleship race - with Japan that my have goaded them into making that first strike because they thought we might be preparing to do unto them.

[Libertarian]

Here's a question I have for the SJWs, inspired by the photo for this article:

John is being paroled after serving 5 years for rape. John's brother goes to a bakery where the owner, herself, was raped last year. The brother wants a cake that says, "congratulations on getting out of jail." The owner refuses to bake the cake. Should she be forced to bake it? If not, why not?

[John]

Legally, the bakery can refuse. Again, not all discrimination is illegal.

[sarcasmic]

Depends. Is John's brother gay or black? If so, then yes. Otherwise, no.

[uunderstand]

I DEMAND A FUCKING BAKER!

Why does the baker's sex life matter?

[skunkman]

My biggest problem with the entire issue are two lies being spouted, one one each side of the issue:

1) A Christian baker not wanting to serve a gay wedding is NOT the same a restaurant that didn't serve blacks. One is a religious belief one is a pathetically racist position having nothing to do with religion.

2) Christians that believe that being gay is a sin and for that reason don't want to provide a cake for a gay wedding ARE inconsistent because I guarantee that they serve others that are openly involved in things that they believe is sinful, for example not believing in God.

As a Christian, I am offended by those that grandstand their 'so-called' faith by saying they are being forced to do things against their belief. They are foolish at best, liars at worst (by the way liars are sinners too). But this whole idea of foreign people to accept behavior that they don't agree with is bogus to.

Like so many other things in the US today, the extremes on both sides are screwing up a great country.

[oobins]

Unfortunately, your supposed "Christian extremes" are straw-men. And you thought nobody would catch that, I suppose. I wonder what kind of Christian you are, using duplicity like that to "make a point." I take an eraser to your point, it no longer is your plus-one, it now is your zero.

[Frankjasper1]

If christian bakers/florists had requested to do it for an adultery orgy...do you think they would comply? So maybe it isn't about the people being gay but rather what action they may have to be a part of that is the issue

[Seamus]

What? You believe Christians should be free to discriminate against orgiastic adulterers? Fuck off, hater! Who do you think you are, forcing your morality on others?

[Seamus]

What? You believe Christians should be free to discriminate against orgiastic adulterers? Fuck off, hater! Who do you think you are, forcing your morality on others?

[toadboy65]

I have heard a person state in all seriousness that he felt that black skin was the "mark of cain".

[freedomlover]

You obviously don't know any serious Mormons.

[OldMexican]

Punishment from the market is enough. The heavy hand of law is not needed here.

Social engineers do not want to be bothered with such notions like self-regulation, John. If there's one thing about little red Marxians (besides their hostility towards the sovereignty of the individual), is that they're not particularly patient.

However, given America's history, I accept that there are a few exceptions. In the South, people banned from a lunch counter had few other choices. The Civil Rights Act's intrusion into private behavior was probably necessary to counter the damage done by Jim Crow laws.

That doesn't make sense, John. If these Jim Crow Laws were meant to LIMIT your association and your right to exchange your own property or use it as you saw fit, then what makes you think that there was a need for a further intrusion or a different one?

Jim Crow laws existed to guarantee OBEDIENCE, not because every single white vendor was equally racist or singularly motivated by racism instead of greed. Little red Marxians might think that but that is because they're self-contradictory idiots who may argue the above while at the same time argue that regulations are needed because the Market doesn't do things by itself.

[freedomlover]

I had an underling once. Back in the 1980s. She was a pretty neat person. She happened to be black. Her father happened to be the president of a local NAACP chapter.

She used to talk about her grandmother who had grown up in the segregated south. Memphis IIRC. She shared that her grandmother was critical of, and had no use for, MLK. She even provided quotes like: (I'm paraphrasing from memory here.)

"Well, things were all good until he came down here and stirred 'em up. We black folk had our side of town and the white folk had theirs. We walked on our side of the sidewalk and they walked on theirs. We didn't bother each other and went about our business. We mostly got along and even conducted polite business with each other. Then he came down and stirred it all up and look at the mess we have now.

WTF? Her father is president of a local NAACP chapter. She's grown up free in the post CRA period. But the matriarch of her family had no use for MLK or the civil rights movement?

I'm sure I would have liked her grandmother. I always like people who speak their mind without PC restraint, even if I don't agree with what they say.

Something to think about.

I see parallels with U.S. military forays into other lands where the culture and history is outside of our understanding.

[OldMexican]

Re: Tony,

Personally, I think property rights are a good idea, but forcing everyone to act as if they think that way is just wrong.

So you think no one should be putting up fences and locks on doors because others might take offense at such displays?

From time to time you are careless and show your true stupid self. By the way, I understand the gist of your argument: Property Rights is an inherently racist idea. I do get it.

[Tony]

Just inherently coercive. And I mean real guns and real prison. Even without the state at all, as you've said many times, you think you have the inherent personal right to shoot a 5 year-old in the head if he steps on your lawn.

This is not a "negative" right.

[OldMexican]

Re: Tony,

Just inherently coercive.

"I want your stuff!"
"What? You can't have it, it's mine!"
"Your attitude is inherently coercive!"

The argument of thieves. And of little red Marxians. But you know what? I respect thieves a bit more - they take risks. You're a spineless coward, just like all little red Marxians.

Even without the state at all, as you've said many times, you think you have the inherent personal right to shoot a 5 year-old in the head if he steps on your lawn.

Not a 5 year-old. Just you, Tony. Just you.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

What if the reason I won't cater to homosexuals is because they're jerks?

[OldMexican]

They may act like jerks towards you only. You may have that... air. You know wha' 'm sayin'?

[OldMexican]

Re: Tony,

In the part of the country where this was a real problem, this meant the exclusion of black people from equal participation in the commerce of their communities.

You mean the exclusion caused by licensing laws?

BURN!

[dbdbdb]

So I assume if General Motors or Ford finds that they don't want to make cars for gays that that's okay too? Any business that refuses to do business with someone because of who they are is discrimination. It's not like refusing to server someone because they're not wearing shoes or a shirt. It's not up to the market to determine who can discriminate and who can't, it's against the law which it should be.

[Atma]

"It's not like refusing to server someone because they're not wearing shoes or a shirt."

But then:

"It's not up to the market to determine who can discriminate and who can't."

One does not follow from the other. Also, "it's against the law which it should be."

So something is illegal if it's illegal. That's the principle. Got it.

[OldMexican]

Re: dbdbdb,

So I assume if General Motors or Ford finds that they don't want to make cars for gays that that's okay too?

They make cars for gays?

Any business that refuses to do business with someone because of who they are is discrimination.

Yes.

It's not like refusing to server someone because they're not wearing shoes or a shirt.

Yes, that is discrimination, too. Discrimination means: choosing one from several, for whatever reason.

It's not up to the market to determine who can discriminate and who can't, it's against the law which it should be.

Meaningless tautology. Just because it is against the law doesn't mean it is immoral. At one point, it was against the law to sell alcohol. Now it is not, yet ethanol has not changed in composition.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Would you want to force GM to make cars to you when they obviously hate your gay guts? Really?

Just how stupid can you be, fool? Paying for a "car", built by a bigot who wants you dead?

Why don't you just jump off the Golden Gate Bridge instead? Both scenarios result in your demise, but at least you didn't enrich the bigot.

[freedomlover]

What? You don't think someone would come out with a Liza Minelli car perfect for the gay crowd and take advantage of that instantly disenfranchised market?

If 10% of the population is gay then, 10% of car buyers are also likely to be. Most car manufacturers would kill for a 10% increase in market share.

[Win Bear]

What? You don't think someone would come out with a Liza Minelli car perfect for the gay crowd and take advantage of that instantly disenfranchised market?

Unfortunately not, because car companies have been such effective rent seekers and lobbyists that they have pretty much made it impossible for competitors to enter the market.

[Win Bear]

So I assume if General Motors or Ford finds that they don't want to make cars for gays that that's okay too?

General Motors has been bailed out and subsidized so much that they can hardly be considered a private company anymore. So, it's not OK for them.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

The thing is. the Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressives have tried boycotts, extensively. And while they have scared a few corporations into line, the actual economic effect on those who stood up to the tactic seems to have been minimal. Maybe I missed to signal Boycott vicories, but I don't think so.

So, the LIRPs aren't willing to restrict themselves to boycotts because experience seems to have shown them that not enough people share their pet obsessions to make it effective. And that can't POSSIBLY be because their cause is so much piddle, so it's obviously time to bring in the Big Guns.

[morganovich]

and here:

"However, given America's history, I accept that there are a few exceptions. In the South, people banned from a lunch counter had few other choices. The Civil Rights Act's intrusion into private behavior was probably necessary to counter the damage done by Jim Crow laws."

you give the game away. everyone thinks their case is an exception. we're all special. it's always needed, an emergency, and the only way.

once you start to say "unless we really need it" you are no longer in opposition to an idea.

the debate is not longer "do we have a right to free association" it's "under what circumstances can our privilege of free association be taken away."

special cases rapidly become the general case once you shift something from being an inalienable right to being a privilege.

[freedomlover]

Tribalism I tell you. Find one and join. I hear the Hells Angels are recruiting.

[hpearce]

The simple fact is that nearly all state-mandates like anti-discrimination laws are also state-mandated associations as the mandates frequently involve more than one person. They inherently violate our civil right to freedom of association.

Freedom of association is an important libertarian political principle which we can also call a collective/social right to satisfy the left .... but you may need to resolve your opinion of the state (a coercive monopoly on the service of government) which has non-free associations with its citizens. I did. You will unleash the principle of freedom of association in your discussions with people.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Your excuse is "that's the law". Fine.

Mitt Romney won the election in 2012 and a law was passed requiring all businesses serving the public display his photo, prominently and respectfully. With the words "Mitt is God".

[Laird]

The key sentence is "Punishment from the market is enough. The heavy hand of law is not needed here." The rest of the essay is superfluous.

[hpearce]

Punishment from the anti-discrimination laws is not needed because it violates our civil right to freedom of association. Never mind the market "fixing" things.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

And yet, my question to Matt, Nick and the rest of the editorial staff - why are the editors of "The Federalist" better at explaining the libertarian point of view than the editors of "Reason" ?

So much for "free minds and free markets"

[poguemahoney]

That is an excellent point!!!

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Matt Welch appeared on MSNBC and gets his clock cleaned by Christine Quinn.

Sean Davis writes a scathing response to Sally Kohn's "laws aren't coercion, you dumb libertarians".

Maybe Matt had an off day? Or maybe he is just pooped out at defending freedom.

[freedomlover]

Maybe Rand Paul should be offering autographed copies of the Federalist Papers instead of the U.S. Constitution?

[chunkylover3]

I've never understood how anyone can say gay marriage is as valid as straight marriage when traditional marriage brings two opposites together to create a family and have children. Two gay people simply can't do that. Sure they can love each other. Sure they can live together. Sure they can be committed to each other. But they can never have what traditional marriage has. And stop the cheap name-calling. Why call people who don't believe in gay marriage "homophobes"? To me that's just a cheap shot. No one ever mentioned gay marriage a few decades ago and now all of the sudden if we're not all in for it we're homophobes? Barack Obama was against it as recently as three years ago. Was he a homophobe the vast majority of his life? Overall the article makes a great point that you don't hear often enough. The libs are just too hysterical and misrepresent their opponents' position and bring up wild hypotheticals that will never happen. If you block out all their nonsense and read people who make sense then you realize that there can be a compromise and the radicals shouldn't be able to cram their agenda down everyone's throat.

[Bodica Slayer of Drones]

Oh, you're thinking about the KIDZ. So was Joseph Smith when he instituted polygamy. It wasn't more sex with oodles of new, different and younger women. Sex was a by-product. He just wanted a lot of kidz. (sarc)

[freedomlover]

Actually, you are on to something.

As a friend of mine liked to point out, many religions prohibit masterbation.

That's because religions were invented by men. Frequently men of cultures that were being oppressed by others as in the case of the ancient Israelites.

The only way they could see overcoming their oppressors was by war. War was a game of numbers then. Warrior numbers.

They needed to raise an army. Armies don't get raised without children. Lots of children. Male children.

Hence, the prohibitions against "spilling one's seed on the ground" and the pro-male bias of many Jewish/Christian/Islamic sacred texts.

Joseph Smith was just extending that run. Copulate, populate, conquer and spread.

You see a lot of that in the natural order of the world as well.

Don't count yourself out so quickly.

[poguemahoney]

"The libs are just too hysterical and misrepresent their opponents' position and bring up wild hypotheticals that will never happen."

I know, those Republicans are just so clear-minded and reasonable: Rusk Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Newt, Rick Perry, Ted Nugent, and it goes on and on and on, wit "legitimate rape" and the birthers, and etc etc etc. A fucking whole encyclopedia could be compiled about these fucking morons. I used to vote Republican maybe one third of the time, now I vote Libertarian or Democrat pretty much totally because the extreme wing of the Republican party is now so prominent, even a fairly level-headed Republican like Chris Christie is going to have to kiss the ass of the crazies, so they can't be trusted. I feel that much of it simply racism---what really pushed them over the edge? A black President. That racism always becomes apparent in issues like this.

[Free Society]

even a fairly level-headed Republican like Chris Christie

Yeah price controls and ham sandwiches make a guy reasonable.

[freedomlover]

I'm not happy with the Repubs either. But I fear the left more.

Imagine Tony as POTUS!

Talk about taking away one's freedoms.

[hpearce]

From a personal view, homosexual marriage may not be valid but from a political one it is as valid any another form of free association.

The invalid part is the state controlling it ! This means the state has to itself rule on the morality of the association given it is going to enforce that rule on others.

Just like we have separation of church and state, we need separation of marriage and state for the same reason --- our personal belief structure.

[toadboy65]

My Dad, in his 70s, recently remarried, to a widow near his age, after the death of my Mom. They do not plan to have more kids. They both want companionship and stability. They plan to travel together and enjoy the other advantages of a married couple. By your argument, their marriage is not valid. I once shared your views. However, as I have matured, I have learned to not worry about how others define love. As long as it does not affect me or hurt anyone, I don't see how it is any of my business.

[OldMexican]

Re: Tony,

Owning a business that is open to the public is not an unfettered right,

Yes, it is.

and you can't operate it any way you please.

Of course I can. I have office hours, those are MINE.

Freedom of association can apply both ways; the constitution doesn't say it requires us to allow rampant discrimination.

It doesn't have to. People already have that right. People discriminate all the time, because their time is limited.

Why can't a freedom of association include the right to equal access to the commerce of your community?

You don't have a right to a clientele. That is why there's advertisement and sales.

The problem with your reasoning, Tony, is that you conflate rights with things you happen to like.

If society isn't bigoted on a large scale, then such laws are unnecessary;

That's question-begging.

by the same token they are also harmless.

You don't seem to know many lawyers.

[freedomlover]

No! No! No!

You didn't build that.

[Atma]

This is pretty much right, and answers Tony's points in a more concise manner than I likely would have. Bravo.

I also just wanted to posit that Tony's view of freedom of association runs contrary to nearly 60 years of well-settled, (mostly) noncontroversial Supreme Court case law. The most relevant and recent I can think of is Boy Scouts of America et al. v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000). But I am not a First Amendment lawyer (I wish I were), so someone can correct me on this point.

Further, to Tony's assertion that:

If society isn't bigoted on a large scale, then such laws are unnecessary; by the same token they are also harmless.

That is of no moment. A right's value is not measured by how many people agree with it, but the scope of its coverage when everyone else does not. The First Amendment's free speech protection, for example, was not written to protect my conversations about cookies. It was written to protect vile, hateful speech that almost any decent human being would oppose (with some minor exceptions that are essentially a dead letter in today's world, such as obscenity, inciting violence, fighting words, etc.). If you do not protect the latter, your life is relegated to the former.

[Tony]

Of course national civil rights legislation is not tied to the first amendment but to the 14th and 15th and Interstate Commerce clause. Constitutional justification is a fun game to play, but I see it as, when all is said and done, a political conflict between two sides that one will win and one will lose. One lost, and I think it would be a good idea to keep it that way. If the constitution prohibits Congress from enacting such laws, then the constitution is not up to the task of generating a decent society.

As a longtime ACLU liberal I get the point about protecting the rights of unpopular. Bigots are arguably quite an unpopular class, but nobody is arguing for taking away their First Amendment rights, merely regulating their actions when doing business that caters to the public.

[Josh Melton]

Thank you Mr. Stossel. We can always count on you to calmly say what free minds are thinking. Free speech is the very vessel through which minorities achieved the freedom and equality enjoyed today; however, when opposed by someone using the same tool to express their feelings, minority groups like the LGBT community is readily there to condemn those individuals for exercising their own free speech. The most offensive free speech must be permitted by the government and power-possessing groups. Individuals can make up their own, free minds.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

400 comments? Wow, imagine how many comments there would be if H&R posters *weren't* tired of the whole subject!

[hpearce]

heh heh, I have just stated recently .... and I plan on "attacking" some dedicated Reason commentators as a libertarian purist , lol

[HazelMeade]

I'm curious as to whether the people favoring compelling Christian conservatives to cater gay weddings would object to a bakery that simply stated that they would only cater events held within their church, sect, or denomination.

Why not just announce that Catholic bakery X will only cater Catholic weddings? Or Muslim florist Y only supplies Muslim weddings? Or that they only supply mono-theistic religions?

What would be so terrible about the idea that some tiny portion of their business that involves religious ceremonies they reserve for only people of the same faith? Is it so horrible to preferentially provide certain services for people in the same religious community?

Maybe it's slightly exclusionary, but I don't even think it's bigoted. Preferencing people who share your beliefs in matters that impact religious practices (of which marriage is one) doesn't mean you hate people of different faiths. It could just mean that you are particularly devout.

[hpearce]

Those with libertarian beliefs would say yes .... your freedom of association necessarily gives you the right to discriminate too .... regardless of your beliefs .... it is that simple.

Discrimination is a civil right.

[buybuydandavis]

Otherwise known as living according to your own values, instead of having imposed by the state.

[Win Bear]

I'm curious as to whether the people favoring compelling Christian conservatives to cater gay weddings would object to a bakery that simply stated that they would only cater events held within their church, sect, or denomination.

Philosophically, I have nothing against it.

Legally, however, since Christian conservatives can force atheists and homosexuals to serve them, we should require Christian conservatives to reciprocate. That is, I oppose giving religion a distinguished protected status, so that any nut can use their religion as a pretext to evade laws that limit everybody else's freedom of association.

From a practical point of view, I don't think we're every going to get rid of legal restrictions on freedom of association as long as they don't actually start inconveniencing Christian conservatives.

[buybuydandavis]

"Elizabeth Taylor married nine times. Had she married again, should the EEOC have ordered her to marry someone from an ethnic minority? "

Should have been a woman. She demonstrated a clear pattern of sexual discrimination in her marriages.

[hpearce]

lol, yes, a fact I have noticed too about those sexists who will only have sex with one sex or the other but not both

[AD-RtR/OS!]

We have moved from "inclusion" to totalitarianism. ----

The essence of Progressive thought is Totalitarian - society shall be led by an enlightened, educated, elite which will make all decisions for the masses.

[freedomlover]

Where do I sign up?

[SomebodySmart]

The worst of American racism and homophobia?slavery, segregation enforced by Jim Crow laws, bans on interracial marriage, anti-sodomy laws, etc.?was government-enforced discrimination.

...and forcing children to attend government-run indoctrination centers where bullies preyed on them.

But private actions are different. If I start a business with my own money, I ought to be allowed to serve only libertarians, people who wear blue shirts, whatever. It's my business!

...allowed? Excuse me? A better word would be "free".

[Win Bear]

But private actions are different. If I start a business with my own money, I ought to be allowed to serve only libertarians, people who wear blue shirts, whatever. It's my business!

You should be. But that's not the law. The law is that there are some categories of people that are protected against your choices, and others aren't. In particular, socially conservative Christians are protected against discrimination by progressive civil rights laws, they don't want to give up that protection, they simply want to right to discriminate against people they don't like. And the quickest way to restore some sanity and freedom is not to continue the current situation, which limits the liberties of only some minorities, it is to take those limitations of liberty to their logical conclusion so that the Bible thumbers and faggots march hand-in-hand demanding liberty.

[SomebodySmart]

My customers have choices. If I am racist or anti-gay, the free market will punish me. Enough people would boycott my business that I would probably lose money quickly.

...except that fag-lovers cannot boycott a business they never went to in the first place, such as Chick-fil-A, but plenty of people who disapprove of homosexuality can buy-cott the place and the place makes more money.

Queers have a high suicide rate because they wake up one day and realize what they are, and they cannot even live with themselves. Other queers cope by pretending they are okay; and they want everybody to pretend with them, and it ain't happening, and they are furious.

[REMant]

Discrimination is essential to a free market. A free market imposes market discipline. Without it you have socialism or anarchy. You can't legislate conduct. It has to come from inside, as a result of free interaction. Some consider "prejudice" to be only discrimination against skin color, or other things over which ppl are said to have no control, but it isn't those things alone, and can we possibly have a world in which no one takes responsibility for what they are? And if we did, would there then be any point in passing tolerance statutes? What you'd end up with is Foucault's ancien regime, where physical punishment is the only solution, or some sort of socialist re-education. Isn't this, in fact, what many liberals want?

[gary47290]

A cake is not a fungible item. This argument makes no sense.

Also, Stossel seeks to pierce the corporate veil. Companies do not have free exercise rights, only natural persons. If an owner wants to invoke their personal faith, then they should be permitted incorporation.

[Win Bear]

Likewise, a gay couple shouldn't force a baker to make them a wedding cake. No one should ever force anyone to bake them a cake

Since the 1960's, it's been the law of the land that gay bakers can be forced to bake cakes for Catholic weddings. Now, you're welcome to argue that that shouldn't be the law of the land (I think it shouldn't be). But as long as that is the law of the land, it seems only fair that Catholic bakers should be forced to bake cakes for gay weddings, in particular given that Christians have historically viciously persecuted homosexuals.

Furthermore, from a libertarian point of view, forcing social conservatives to be subjected to the same draconian rules that they want to subject everybody else to may be the quickest way of getting rid of this nonsense.

[Azathoth!!]

Since the 1960's, it's been the law of the land that gay bakers can be forced to bake cakes for Catholic weddings.

Cite?

[Tony]

The CRA of 1965 protects against discrimination based on religion. It does not do the same for sexual orientation.

I gather that the consensus is as it has been with marriage: "We're not going to abolish the CRA [or marriage], but we can stop the hemorrhaging of freedom by drawing a line in the sand when it comes to including gays in the legal protections everyone else enjoys!"

[PapayaSF]

Has there been even a single instance of a gay baker forced to bake cakes for a Catholic wedding?

[lerohi]

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.netjob80.com

[chris goodwin]

You spoil a good argument by swallowing guvmint propaganda. (I think: dunnjo, but as I have been told :- ) Yes, there were rules and regulations and even laws that reuired that lunch counters and busses should enforce racial discrimination - so bus companies and lunch counter owners did so discriminate - else they would have been closed down for "breaking the law:" and such businesses need permits from municipal authorities, so they could do nothing on their own. It needed a black woman with guts, and widespread community support, tp take on the guvmint, and get the Supreme Court to do the right thing, just for once. But the wrong she was righting was the creation of the political system in the first place.

All that was necessary was a ruling that Jim Crow laws cannot stand. There was no need for a "Civil Rights Act." Civil rights just are: or are not. "Laws" or rules or regulations that seek to deny any man's civil rights must simply (!) (how do I capitalise an exclamation mark ?) ( !!!!!!!!!!!! )
be trampled under foot. Pigs trying to enforce them are fair game: they are oath breakers, the lowest of the low. Just lynch a few Judges, sheriffs and policemen, and the rest will very soon remember that there are limits to what they can do.

[kimmoberry]

I just got paid $6784 working off my laptop this month. And if you think that?s cool, my divorced friend has twin toddlers and made over $9k her first month. It feels so good making so much money when other people have to work for so much less. This is what I do...

http://www.jobs73.com

[slotowner]

"Why force someone who disapproves of your actions to bake you a cake?"
So if your Jewish, a Muslim who thinks your actions are wrong does not have to deal with you.

The trouble with this discrimination is that every time it pops up, someone says its different. Let's be honest, laws frequently force people to do things they don't want or disagree with but often it is set up to stop the tyranny of the masses.

There is the standard phrase, Majority Rules, Minority Rights. While the majority can choose the general direction of governance, the law is set up to protect all of the SUBSTANTIAL minorities of having their right to live their lives from being forced into matching the lifestyle of the majority.

Substantial is the key & the rebuttal to all those who say, why can't people marry their dog or sister then. There are a lot of homosexuals but few people demand they love fluffy and rare is the person who is demanding that anti-abortionist be forced to have a abortion.

The simple way to determine if it is actual discrimination? Just switch who, what, & to whom.

Why should business owner who believe that all modern medicine is an anathema to God be forced to provide health care? Why should people be forced to sell flowers to an inter-racial marriage?

If it looks like a duck & quacks like a duck ...

[slotowner]

"Why force someone who disapproves of your actions to bake you a cake?"
So if your Jewish, a Muslim who thinks your actions are wrong does not have to deal with you.

The trouble with this discrimination is that every time it pops up, someone says its different. Let's be honest, laws frequently force people to do things they don't want or disagree with but often it is set up to stop the tyranny of the masses.

There is the standard phrase, Majority Rules, Minority Rights. While the majority can choose the general direction of governance, the law is set up to protect all of the SUBSTANTIAL minorities of having their right to live their lives from being forced into matching the lifestyle of the majority.

Substantial is the key & the rebuttal to all those who say, why can't people marry their dog or sister then. There are a lot of homosexuals but few people demand they love fluffy and rare is the person who is demanding that anti-abortionist be forced to have a abortion.

The simple way to determine if it is actual discrimination? Just switch who, what, & to whom.

Why should business owner who believe that all modern medicine is an anathema to God be forced to provide health care? Why should people be forced to sell flowers to an inter-racial marriage?

If it looks like a duck & quacks like a duck ...

[antodav]

I hate that John Stossel thinks the way he does about certain things, but he is correct in how we should approach differences of beliefs in a free society. I don't know how right he is about the necessity for the sections of the Civil Rights Act that pertained to private businesses. But certainly, none of this is necessary today.

[Kurt Johnson]

Excellent.

[jmillsintacoma]

Business owners can't stand in their establishment's door and throw bricks at passers-by. The owner of a diner isn't allowed to hit customers with a fry pan even if that happens inside the owner's business.

This writing is predicated on the idea that it's OK to peacefully refuse service. So, would it be OK for an elderly gentleman in a crisp white three-piece to tell blacks they can't sit in a diner if the message is delivered with a friendly southern drawl? Does that message become impermissible only if it's delivered by a tattooed skin-head in a "wife-beater" T-shirt holding a hickory ax handle?

Last year, 12-year-old Ronin Shimizu committed suicide after being bullied for being the only boy on his school's cheer-leading squad. "I heard that people called him gay because he was a cheerleader," a friend said. Is the problem here that the bullies should have been better dressed? Can that message ever be delivered in a caring, peaceful, civilized way, or is the message itself just another form of "hitting people"?

The core of the libertarian philosophy is not "property rights," but the non-aggression principle. The core question to be asked by libertarians is not "Who owns the business?" The critical question for libertarians is instead "Is the business owner acting in a way that causes unreasonable harm to others?" When you start asking that question, bigoted behavior becomes as intolerable to libertarians as it is to other thoughtful Americans.

[Richard Stallman]

In all but the smallest bakeries, the actual bakers are employees and
wouldn't know or care who the client is. They wouldn't share the
boss's bigotry.

Insurance coverage for employees is a different sort of issue. It is
none of the employers' business what medical procedures the employee
gets.

The US would be much better off with a national health system, like
the one Canada enjoys. Non-wealthy Americans would get better care,
its total cost would be much less, and sickness would never bankrupt
anyone. What's more employers would have no role in it, so they could
not use it as an opportunity to bring their bigotry to bear on a
target of opportunity.