decentralize government and conservative anarchist or libertarian

Great Debates
241

No, you cited exactly what I wrote in Post #236 and then you tell me what I am saying in your Post #240.
You left out a very important word in my statememt win your responses. Why must I continually be forced to point out that you distort and misquote what I have clearly written.

I put the word “equally” into the sentence for a very critical reason in this argument. You sloughed it off as if it has no meaning.

Now will you at least accept the fact that you distorted my point beyond recognition.

Here’s more of it:

Sorry about the “red”… but this is getting rediculous.Come on, do I have to explain the difference between ‘equally inconvenienced’ and ‘inconvenienced’?

242

I have not created any rights and specifically I did not create a right to ‘engage in commerce’. Where did you get that?

So I did not forget to specify anything.

According to me, no family, black or white, has a right to a buyer’s cash or whatever might be used as a medium of exchange if they want to sell something. Please word my position correctly when responding.

And I agree with President JFK that a minority in a society has an elemental right to be treated equally as human beings and as equals to the majority population who at the time had control by white ownership over most non-cash commodities that a free society uses and needs not only for survival but for general well being.

243

The true ‘distinction without a difference’ for a universal medium of exchange like the US Dollar is that the Dollar is unlike the Yen; and unlike the Ruble; unlike the Euro; unlike the Franc; Unlike the Pound. They are all universal mediums of exchange but they have some distinct differences. They are not exactly the same but they are all universal mediums of exchange of global commerce.

Gasoline and beaver pelts are not.

244

For this to matter, at all, you’d have to state that the right to be treated equally only applies when currency is used, or that the government can only regulate such discrimination when currency is used, because the government has a special interest in currency.

That doesn’t seem to be your position; you’ve applied the exact same arguments to transactions involving currency and to transactions that do not involve currency.

Assuming the above is an accurate summary, this currency-is-special stuff is entirely pointless.

245

You are making a superfluous request since the participants of the historic civil rights movement that culminated in the CRA of 1964 had no demands that they be treated equally as white people when making transaction using something other than US currency. They demanded to be treated just like white people are treated when they travel etc. And the standard medium of exchange was at that time and still is - U.S. Currency.

I have addressed your point about transactions where pigs were to be the medium of exchange and was quite explicit that the elemental right the CRA protects for a racial minority etc would apply if using ‘pigs as currency’ were the norm.

And I have not been insisting in any way that ‘the government can **only **regulate such discrimination when currency is used’ or that the govenment’s right to intervene is limited to its power to deal with transactions involving US Currency.

The ‘currency-is-special stuff’ is a rebuttal to your weak argument the ‘exact sameness’ from each side when a buyer uses ‘cash’ and a seller sells gasoline.

You threw that at me to attempt to prove some kind of inconsistency in the CRA’s treatment and protection of sellers as compared to buyers and as equals.

There is no ‘exact sameness’ as you have tried to suggest.

And you have yet to rebut that money is unique as a universal means of exchange whereas gasoline is not.

Therefore you must agree that ‘exact sameness’ does not exist between the two during a transaction or without any transactions taking place.

246

I was pointing out why your ‘distinction without a difference’ was not correct. And your response was that my point must conform to your assertion of why the more accurate ‘distinction without a difference’ must matter in the discussion or in the elementary right being discusssed.

First we should agree whether my depiction of ‘distinction without a difference’ is the most accurate and then deal with why it matters.

247

Who said anything about ‘proving who built the roads that his customers use’ here?

In a reference to ‘prove’", I pretty clearly wrote:

248

Your are not restating my ‘view’ accurately. Buying something is not a birhtright and the government is not forcing sellers to sell something against their will, and that is because it was the seller’s life choice to engage in commerce where public interstate transportation for one thing of many, is the chosen act of commerce.

The will of the seller is already constrained by many laws he must follow to engage in commerce with the general public from whom he seeks income and profit for his business.

One of those constraints is that he treat all of his customers, potential or active, equally.

It is not a birthright as you restate my position because the commodity being sold can run out or the seller may wish to keep it all unto himself. If that is the case, he has every reason to do so. He just cannot sell part of a needed commodity normally and actively being sold on a daily basis like gasoline to whites only.

It is not a birth right because the seller can close his business to the public at any time if he does not wish to sell it. The Feds have not intervened in that way, perhaps unless there was some kind of emergency situation and a clear need had arisen.

The birth right is being treated equally with the majority race in this country. It is not a birth right to just ‘buy something’ for the sake of ‘buying something’.

249

Then the “exact sameness” does exist if the transaction is a trade of two non-currency commodities?

250

Do you seriously not see the logical problem at hand, here?

First, an illogical syllogism:

The government may regulate use of currency differently from non-use of currency.
Buyers use currency, but not sellers.
Therefore, buyers who do not use currency are under the same regulation.

Second, a more conversational recap:

Why do buyers have the natural right, but not sellers?
Because buyers are using currency, which the government has a special interest it.

Why do buyers who are not using currency have the natural right, but not sellers?
???

251

That would be you:

I’m sure that "proving’ paragraph, and that “proving” meant “running a non-public business” made perfect sense to you, but it sure didn’t to me.

252

Yes, they are forcing the seller to sell something against their will. Imagine that Pekka, a Finnish-American, heads down to Ivan’s Motel to rent a room. Ivan has some PTSD from the Winter War, and he informs Pekka that he doesn’t rent to Finns. Pekka tells the Attorney General, and Ivan has a choice: rent the room to Pekka, or go to jail for violating the injunction.

Ivan is being forced, against his will, to rent a room to Pekka. No, he isn’t being forced to rent all his rooms, he chose to open the motel. In the case of the room rented to Pekka, he is absolutely being forced.

Those laws are all very different, in that they prevent transactions, the opposite of compelling them. Examples: selling food without a health permit, selling gas without an up-to-date inspection sticker, operating a theater without fire exits, etc. All of them stop sales, what other regulation forces sales?

This is the constraint under discussion, yes.

253

Members of a minority that suffer discrimination do not have an elemental right to protection against a harm **that does not functionally or economically exist **or a harm that has no bearing on the their right to be treated as equals to the majoity race when they travel etc.

If every transaction on the public highways for buyingfuel for an automobile were an expectaion that the transaction would be a universal barter for pigs then, perhaps the harm would exist - if and only if white racist gas station owners would take white peoples pigs but not black peoples pigs.

254

Are you sure you understand natural rights, again? They don’t start existing when they are infringed upon, they exist beforehand. That’s the whole point of them.

Say that Herb, a gas station owner, only accepts tokens for gas; just stamped copper coins. He sells the tokens for currency, or any other good offer. Anyone with a token gets gas. He won’t sell tokens to women though: doesn’t think they ought to be driving cars.

Have rights been violated?

255

That’s right. You have no idea what you’re saying, which is why you freak out when anyone tries to paraphrase it. What it breaks down to is you asserting
A=B!!!
B = C!!!

Then someone asks, “So are you saying A = C?”

You freak out, and it all starts over again with A = B

Your initial assertion was that the member of a minority group has the right to buy something from the member of a majority group. That harm is caused when there is discrimination, which justifies the federal government forcing the white guy to sell something to the black guy.

I simply asked you to explain why the government shouldn’t also force a white person to BUY from a black person, when clearly even more harm is caused by discrimination.

As far as I can tell, your answer is that owning a business is a choice. Even though owning a car, or driving around, some how aren’t choices. Then something about proof and how currency is special.

But then owning a taxi is a business, hence a choice, and yet you lumped that into the group of people that have the right to buy something.

Because it has no relevant meaning here. Wanna know why? Because the racist gas station owner can simply stand up in court and proclaim, “I discriminate against everyone equally!”

How do you know if the black-sub-group is the only one he refuses to sell gas to? What you see as him only selling to whites ignores the fact that he won’t sell to Jews who are mostly white. And he won’t sell to the Irish, or the Germans, or Northern Aggressors. Frankly, he just wants to sell to his friends and doesn’t much care for foreigners around these parts.

That ridiculous statement will show that proving unequal treatment towards buyers is as difficult to prove as unequal treatment by sellers. Remember how you used lack of proof earlier?

You have no point to distort. I’m simply revealing that fact. What you have is a jumbled mess of incoherent ramblings that for 250 posts have gone around in circles.

I assure you it’s been rediculous(sic) since post 24.

256

Is Herb just an oddball and rare exception among the larger group of Gas Station Owner’s in Tuscaloosa?

Does he sell tokens to black men, but not black women?
The elementary right of which I speak has always existed since the human condition turned toward organizing groups into civil societies. What does not exist is the need to protect that right where possible until conditions in society emerge where that elementary right can be seen and verified in reality to be violated.

Fortunately protecting the rights of a minority from the tyranny of a majority is and was possible in 1964.

257

Yep, this is Herb’s policy, and he’s the only gas station owner in, say, Erie, PA that follows it.

He sure does. Herb has no problems with black folk, and he hates no one. He just thinks it’s wrong for a woman to drive a car; it’s un-womanly behavior.

Ok, there’s been lots of confusion and contradiction on this stuff already, so I’m just going to ask you flat-out:

What is a natural right?

What is a legal right?

What is an elementary right? (if it’s not the same as one of the above)

258

I take it and understand that JFK was speaking to the Nation about an issue that involves and encompasses the most simple and basic facts or principles of human rights - The right to be served in facilities which are open to the public.

“I am, therefore, asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public - hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments. This seems to me to be an **elementary **right. Its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no American in 1963 should have to endure, but many do.” John F Kennedy.

Not quite the stature of natural rights and certain legal rights, but a simple and decent right that a civilized and fair society can and should and must respect.

259

Well, that explains your using them interchangeably. Wikipedia’s article on the subject is decent. Please read it, but I’ll start with the opening paragraph:

Natural rights exist independently of laws, or whether infringement occurs.

Legal rights are created by the legal system. They also exist whether or not infringement occurs.

There is no theory of rights under which a right only exists when it’s being infringed. Please ponder this, and be prepared to state what kind of right the one you’ve postulated is.

260

Herb being a sole and lonely jerk gas station owner is practically not enough to justify Federal Government intervention because being the only one as your fantasy model suggests, is not enough to have an impact on a woman’s right to equal treatment while driving on public roads. Herb’s an a-hole and won’t be in business for long. As a distributor of Exxon Petroleum products the corporation’s executives and marketers would put a stop to Herb’s nonsense.

The above is full well considering that the gas station across the street or down the road does sell to women and black folks and men and even zombies from the fifth realm if they have money.

Now if a bunch of ‘Herbs’ own all the gas stations for miles around then a women’s ability to get gasoline when she needs it is harmed. The Government is justified to step in and stop the epidemic of discrimination against women that has taken over the Erie, PA area.

Just a perspective rooted in reality.