decentralize government and conservative anarchist or libertarian

Great Debates
181

Just so we have this clear, you believe that:

If a white man refuses to exchange the commodity gasoline for the commodity cash with a black man, harm is caused, even if nothing at all happens to the black man other than he goes across the street to a different (possibly black owned) gas station.

And that harm is so great the Federal government needs a federal law even though you claim “not all white people are racists” which would imply that not all gas stations would refuse service.

But if the white man refuses to exchange the commodity cash for the commodity gasoline with a black man, no harm is caused, even if the black man goes broke, loses his house, and dies penniless on the street.

You believe that a customer has a right to buy stuff, but the owner doesn’t have a right to sell stuff.

From this, we can conclude it’s okay for a white man to refuse to sell gas to a black man, as long as it’s for the black man’s business, because the black-owned business doesn’t have the same rights at the black person. And you justify all this because:

So what would happen if someone did seek out this protection?

182

Your set up is based upon one individual vs one individual. The entire point I have been making is about groups on the buying side vs individuals on the selling side. People within the group must be treated as equals as public and anonymous customers.

So your argument does not apply.

If you can re-ask your question based upon your understanding that there is one vast interelated group of all Americans and/or visitors that operate motor vehicles that require gasoline so they can travel to and fro about the country as such as the gasoline supply is normally plentiful. We will stick to gasoline as the commodity.

Then to understand the 'harm’that I and the CRA addressess you have to understand that within that large group of travelers, there are sub-groups of equal status in terms of civility and ability to purchase gasoline that exist. To keep it simple, some are white and some are black.

Certainly one white gas station owner’s refusal to sell gas to black folks does not cause ‘harm’ to one black family if the black family has an option to buy gasoline right across the street or next door from a more civilized and grown up business man.

But will you argue that every bigoted station owner only refuses service when the gas station across the way would take care of them and let them get on their way?

There is harm done to the group of blacks trying to get from point “A” to point “B” !!! as EQUALS !!! to all their peers in that big group of all travelers that I have pointed out.
I believe Human Action understands the concept of what harm is caused to travelers if there is gas available but are refused equal access to it simply on the basis of their race.

Perhaps Human Action can explain it better than I.

183

So only customers? And only if they’re anonymous? And only if they’re part of a larger group?

If a black guy is just an everyday schmo, a white person can’t refuse to sell him gas. But if the black person is buying gas for his business than it’s okay.

What would happen if the black guy owned and operated a taxi, that obviously needs gas. Which vast anonymous interrelated larger group is he included it? Can a white gas station owner refuse to sell in this case?

Really? Are you sure?

Oh, so there is harm?

No doubt, but the question I asked is if there is harm done to a gas station owner if there is money available but refused equal access to it simply because of his race. You said no but failed to explain why other than to stumble around incoherently talking about subgroups and anonymity.

Don’t feel bad, the dozen or so people before you that tried the exact same attack on Rand Paul, and his father before him, couldn’t explain it either. I hate to be the one to tell you this but your line of reasoning is hardly unique.

184

The taxi owner is in the larger group of black and white Taxi Owners. The White gas station owner can refuse to sell the black Taxi owner gas but since 1964 he would be in violation of Federal Law for discriminating against the black group of taxi drivers and serving white taxi drivers.

Yes I’m sure. Its when there is not gas available to blacks but there is to whites that causes the harm. Fact! You cannot deny it so we see the running in circles.

I always have said there was.

I explained it quite well. I did not fail to explain it. You have failed to comprehend the explanation or are using that excuse to bail out.

My points stand up quite well based on the facts and reason and recognition of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the reason for the CRA. And by the way, what attack on Rand Paul and Ron Paul is that?

185

You start with the argument that there is a right to be treated without prejudice and discrimination as a group as compared to another group of equal capacity and similar demeanor.

You now seem to be retreating from this natural-rights based approach, by inventing exceptions that arbitrarily render the right inapplicable:

Why do groups on the buying side enjoy this right, but not groups on the selling side? Both are exchanging one commodity or service for another. What other right would work this way?

186

Okay, so it also applies to businesses as well as individuals, contrary to what you said above.

Now if harm is done to the owner of the taxi, wouldn’t the same harm be done to the owner of a gas station? Since all gas station owners deserve to be treated equally, right?

I don’t deny it, and I’m well aware of the circle we’re running in. The denial we’re running into is who else has harm done to them. So I’m going to ask you again about the black owner of a gas station, does he deserve to be treated equally with respect to all other gas station owners?

You see, as a gas station owner, he has to first buy the gas from a distributor, and then sell it to both businesses and the general public. So if the distributor is white, and refuses to sell him gas, is he harmed? And what if his customers are white, and refuse to buy gas from him, wouldn’t he also be harmed?

Well, no, actually, you wrote:

Maybe you were being ironic.

No, all you’ve done is stated repeatedly that harm is done when some people are denied some things, because sometimes they have a right. So harm is done when a white person refuses gas to a black person, but harm isn’t done when a white person refuses cash to a black person.

Here’s another wrinkle for you, what if the black person is Canadian, and while traveling, needs to exchange Canadian currency for US, can a white person refuse to give him cash? Remember that if the black person owns a gas station, he doesn’t have a right to the white person’s cash, do he now?

187

No I have not. Take a closer look at what I have written.

I have expressed this in many ways. Groups on the buying side treat business owners in an equal way. They disriminate in deciding which owner gives the best service and they discriminate for whatever reason a consumer of products or services chooses to discriminate. But the key is that the overall group of consumers (black and white) discriminate equally against white businesses or black businesses or green or brown or blue businesses. They all do it.

The White Business owner who chooses to discriminate does not discriminate while dispensing his service or goods to the general public in an equal manner to blacks and whites. It is not equal treatment.

Also the comsumer as a group have not set up a commercial buisiness on a public right of way to attract customers at random.

The consuming group is in an entirely different situation in determining when and how they spend their money. The Consuming group can grow their own potatoes and refuse to buy them from a potato seller. Neither black nor white potato sellers have a right to anyone’s money just because they started a business.

Starting a business is a life decision.

Being born black or white is not a decision a consumer makes.

That is a major difference in how the Federal Government sees the relationship between consumers and business owners and the sub-groups within those two groups of peers.

188

You’ve explained why you think the CRA doesn’t cover owners; why doesn’t the natural/elemental/elementary right you propose apply to both? Consider other rights that exist: free speech, exercise of religion, security from arbitrary search and seizure, right to bear arms, right to a speedy trial; all that good stuff. None of them apply to one broad section of Americans but not another, none of them depend on the economic situation of a person. They all apply equally. Your right doesn’t.

I assert that the right you’ve proposed isn’t a right, but a creation of the CRA.

189

If you allow this than this will allow environmental laws , Child labor laws , monopoly laws ,minimum wage laws ,unsafe working condition so on. If the feds can tell property owner what he or she can or cannot do.

You mean the flaw with conservatives of how contradictory they are?

So you saying no government be it feds or state should pass law for segregation or against segregation it should be up to the property owner ?

What about slavery than ?

So all schools should be private than?

The civil war was mostly over state rights .If you talk to any confederate supporter today they are disgusted with government today the FDR and feds telling state what it can or cannot do.

This tells me the US system is very broken and has been not years but very long time and I mean very long time .If such system is so broken where south and north feel they are not country under one nation but two separate countries than there should be debate on how reform the electoral system and the responsibility of feds and states what they can or cannot do.

190

The natural/elemental/elementary right JFK and I speak of, and the CRA protects, applies to and belongs to all humans ‘by reason of birth’.

The life choice to start a business or run a publically operated business is a choice not a reason of birth, and therefore does not and more importantly need not apply to operators of commercial property.

191

Not so much that, no, mainline conservatives talk about smaller government, but the government they have in mind is much larger and engaged in much more than the government libertarians are talking about when they advocate for small government. It’s not internally contradictory, just two groups of people using the same words to mean different things.

Yes, this is the approach that should have been tried back in '64.

Already covered this earlier in the thread; slavery should be outlawed because:
a) humans are not property, they are individuals with their own natural rights, and
b) the limit of freedom is harm done to others, and enslaving someone inflicts tremendous harm.

No (though I do support voucher programs), public schools should not be segregated by race, gender, sexual orientation, or anything else. Equal protection demands equal education.

I’ve never spoken to a ‘confederate supporter’, I don’t think they are very numerous. Prohibition of slavery and the preservation of the Union are pretty settled, uncontroversial issues at the moment.

Did you read the Snopes article? We’re talking about a few thousand people, who may or may not live in the states the petitions claimed to represent, who may or may not be real people and not fake names or bots, who may or may not be signing as a joke or to make states they dislike look bad. You cannot seriously draw some kind of reasoned political point out of the secession petition nonsense.

192

You’ve tailored the right more and more narrowly, so that it now applies only to patrons of certain businesses, and no one else. What kind of weak-sauce right is that? Imagine the right to a free press applying only to readers and not publishers, and only readers of certain bimonthly periodicals.

Also, if there is a natural right to be treated without prejudice and discrimination as a group as compared to another group of equal capacity and similar demeanor, why is there an exception in the CRA for private clubs? They can exclude any race, religion, or national origin they like, which is prejudice and discrimination against groups.

193

Hence the CRA is not based upon a broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

It was weak-sauce enough to improve the conditions that most non-propertied black folks had to suffer until recently. Unless you believe ‘Equal but Separate’ was the better way to go for a free and moral and multi-cultural society to conduct its legal affairs and commerce.

Freedom of speech transcends and is of a higher principle than ‘regulating commerce’. Now if a white paper mill refused to sell a black publisher paper so he has no avenue to print a newspaper, the Feds might have had gotten involved.

Again, Private Clubs are not businesses that appeal to the general, anonymous public. When a businessman opens a gas station on a public road in Alabama and he puts up a neon or flashy sign in order to attract that traveling car from New Jersey to sell some gas and make a profit, he is no longer operating a ‘private club’. He cannot turn away the family from New Jersey just because they are black and sell gas to the next care from Kentucky just because they are white.

Private clubs are not necessities that the family from New Jersey and Kentucky would need to use when planning their travels. Gas Stations on public roads are part of the infrastructure of our society that we all need and use and are thankful for their operation.

Equal access for all including minorities to be treated as equals by business owners that have chosen to operate for high public appeal for customers is not weak-sauce.

194

You’re all over the road, here. In one breath, the CRA protects a natural right, inherent to all of us by reason of birth.

In the next breath, the CRA is a narrowly-tailored exercise of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause to regulate interstate commerce.

It can’t be both. Either there’s a natural right to be treated without prejudice and discrimination as a group as compared to another group of equal capacity and similar demeanor, or there isn’t.

Which is it?

195

Which two groups are you comparing? Be specific. Which group are you claiming is not protected by the CRA.

196

Well, private clubs, people denied by private clubs, business owners, business-to-business customers, LBGT people, customers of non-interstate businesses…

197

But which two groups are you comparing where one is discriminating against the other in the same exact way and then is not protected by the CRA?
While I wait for that answer, on "Private Clubs, people denied by private clubs, "two weeks ago you wrote this:

You have answered the question as to why private clubs are not regulated by the CRA.
Who decides to make private property ‘quasi-public’?

You seem to be blaming the government and/or the public/minority civil rights activists for this problem.

It is the property owner that decides to open his gas station or restaurant to the public for profit. And it is the property owner that decides to keep his property private which includes turning it into a private club if he wants to.

The natural right the CRA protects applies to property owners that decide to make their property open to the public. I think that is what you call it when private property is being treated as quasi-public.

198

emacknight’s scenario works perfectly well for this. Person A refuses to sell gasoline because of the customer’s race; Person B refuses to buy gasoline because the seller’s race. Both are violations of the right to be treated without prejudice and discrimination as a group as compared to another group of equal capacity and similar demeanor, if such a right exists (as pertains to private citizens).

Either Person B is violating the same right, or the right doesn’t exist. Take your pick.

But there’s a right to be treated without prejudice and discrimination as a group as compared to another group of equal capacity and similar demeanor! You are allowing a blatent violation of this right. The right you stated says nothing about private clubs, or ownership, or any other exception.

Congress and the President.

Just the government.

Property that is open to the public is still private property. You’re using public-as-in-people-can-walk-in and public-as-in-owned-by-the-government interchangably; I am not.

By way of analogy, consider the case of Virginia Military Institute. It was required, after the United States v. Virginia decision, to admit women. As a public institution, it was required to abide by the Fourteenth Amendment and apply the Equal Protection clause, as any other part of the government does.

VMI had the option to instead become a private school, and set it’s own admission policies.

The owner of a hotel covered by the CRA has no such option. It is treated as quasi-state-owned, ie quasi-public. The government sets the customer-service policy for the business owner, while supplying no funding or other consideration.

199

The Seller’s race is not protected because he is not entitled to a customer’s money which is equal for all within the group of all sellers.

Buyers however do have an equal right and access to what commodity all the equals in a buyer’s group have access to

You are not comparing two comparable groups.

The act of selling is a life choice. The act of buying gas for instance is a birth right of all people to have equal benefit of what communities have to offer to the public such as food fuel and accommodations and public entertainment. To deny those benefits on the race they were born into is wrong and has been justifiably addressed.

A seller starts a business later in life full well knowing that he has no right to a customers money.

That is a huge difference that shoots your argument down from the
Start.

200

Dora the explorer has this great character that sings

“I’m a grumpy old troll, living under the bridge”

It’s neat.