I did not claim the Constitution to be a moral document. I quite clearly wrote that at times constitutional decisions by the courts and lawmakers, when ambiguity exists, are based on what would be considered moral factors.
Fifth Amendment.
No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Title II infringes on that right.
NO one is taking property from any of the racists business owners for public use.
Racist business owners put the property up for public use when they unlock the doors and invite the public in. They just have to treat black folks as equal human beings to white folks when they open the door. Discrimination is a violation of the black folks rights and even Rand Paul says he agrees with that.
Your restaurant owner can lock up his business and go fishing for a few days and there is no problem. NO one has a ‘right’ to make him open his busienss. He just cannot open for business and decide that certain people of similar situation and station in life cannot enter or use his business because of race, color or religion.
Not really. I am a big proponent that my right to swing a fist ends at your face.
Indeed it is, if it stinks.
The property isn’t seized outright, no (which is why the law wasn’t found unconstitutional; it wasn’t a “direct appropriation”). The state is taking control of the property, however, which should also be forbidden.
Public use does not equate to public ownership. That is the heart of the disagreement here. Given that this is a tangent of a tangent (from whatever the OP was trying to debate, to Rand Paul, to the Civil Rights Act), and boils down to how a given individual interprets the Fifth Amendment and the proper role of government, I think we’ve laid out where we stand, and will begin winding down my participation this discussion.
I agree, but there’s no “punch” here, no harm done to others.
It’s always tempting to outlaw things we don’t like, and remove choices. That is a very dangerous road to go down, though.
Have you noticed that Human Action submitted as part of the pro-libertarian argument against Title II in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a request for me to produce a literal statement in the Constitution that gives racial minorities the right to eat in at any restaurant they choose.
As part of my response I requested that Human Action produce literal wording in the Constitution the gives the right to racist business owners to discriminate against their patrons on the basis of race.
Human Action produced this:
First off, that is not a literal constitutional establishment of a right for business owners to discriminate against some of their patrons.
Secondly, there no depriving of property by the government with regard to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And there is no taking of property for public use such as to build a road or government facility.
Says who? Besides, I dispute that there is any ambiguity. There is public property and private property.
Being deprived of the use of property is deprivation of property.
The ambiguity being addresses is not about public versus private property.
The ambiguity is about whose rights deserve more protection. And the Civil Rights Act Title II comes down strongly in favor of patrons rights to engage in commerce at privately run businesses that are open to the public by making it a crime for business owners to discriminate and refuse access to certain groups when on the basis of race or religion.
The law has held for nearly fifty years and is constitutional. There is no ambiguity there.
When you are ready to discuss things that people actually post or are arguing about, let us know. Until then, well… we all know how long the law has been in place.
Perhaps you can use that same logic on DOMA. The law has been in place for “X” years. Case closed.
It appears that you oppose any broad interpretation of the commerce clause when that does not go your way, however you insist that we accept your broad interpretation of the Fifth Admendment and what constitutes deprivation of use of property or confiscation of property by the government is such cases commonly known as emanate domain.
By the way, I don’t see the interpretation of the Commerce Clause associated with Title II to be a broad one.
People, including black people do conduct commerce when traveling across state lines.
Any business that serves Americans as they travel and dine should be open to all Americans regardless of their race.
You and Mace don’t agree with that, which is fine; but can we have agreement that your view is not sealed with gold as precisely based upon what us written in the Constitution or limited mostly to your interpretation.
Interstate commerce is the flow of goods, not people, across state lines. And besides, Title II has nothing to do with travel, and affects any business, not just hotels and restaurants.
Liberals, and even conservatives for that matter have no logically consistent concept of rights. If rights are contradictory, then what you have is a poor concept of rights. Libertarians believe you have a right to life, liberty, and property. You do not have a right to another’s life, another’s liberty, or another’s property.
They do not believe you have the right to engage in a forced transaction with another that is unwilling. This is pretty simple when you break it down. Supporters of the CRA believe that it is moral to threaten an individual with physical force to conduct business as the majority believes it should be conducted.
The introduction of race, religion, etc. is completely arbitrary. If you have no right to discriminate over these things, you should have no right to discriminate, period.
The law has held for nearly fifty years and is unconstitutional. Whats that about ambiguity again?
I have been discussing only what Human Action and I and some others have been discussing here the past dozen posts or more.
If you can identify where you think I went astray please be specific. If you can’t identify what you are accusing me of, I will take note that you have no genuine or credible counter argument or point to mine, and you gracefully saying farewell.
It has been nice hearing from you on this matter.
I come down on the side of freedom, and limited government. I’m a libertarian; of course I do.
Reading the Bill of Rights broadly secures more liberty for the people. Reading the powers of Congress narrowly secures more liberty for the people.
So, what type of laws affecting businesses would not be justified under the Commerce Clause, then?
Should be, sure. But that’s up to the owner, I have no right to force them to do business against their will.
Nobody is claiming divine inspiration here. Obviously these are our own interpretations of what’s morally right, Constitutional, and legal.
Can we counter-agree that Title II is, in fact, an infringement upon business owner’s rights, just one that you feel is justified by the need for racial harmony & social justice and such?
OK. I don’t know why I let myself get roped into this thread hijack of yours anyway. You don’t like libertarians. Good for you. But you don’t get to redefine what the word means to suit your purposes.
To be fair, it was a hijack of a flight with no pilot. I still have no idea what the OP was trying to debate.
NotfooledbyW, could you answer my question from post #69?
That is, what other rights restrain fellow citizens, rather than the government?
This depends on whether one believes a business owner has the right to turn away customers due to race or religion (or sexual orientation, etc). Based on Supreme Court decisions like Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States and Daniel vs Paul (1964) it appears that the Supreme Court has determined that business owners do not have this right.