Depends on your perspective. A Libertarian would say you are artificially creating two categories of property when only one exists. Property. Period. You say it’s not the same thing, but only because you define them to be different. A Libertarian doesn’t define them to be different.
Fair enough.
You appear to be agreeing that the black customer’s freedom is being restricted by the restaurant owner’s policy. So the issue then is there are two conflicting freedoms: the black customer’s freedom to eat where he chooses and the restaurant owner’s freedom to refuse any customers he chooses. Would you agree with me up to this point?
If so, then the issue is whose freedom gets preference and whose freedom has to give way. The libertarian argument would be that the restaurant owner’s freedom has priority. Libertarians generally value property ownership very highly.
But that would be descriptive rather than normative morality (and as I said before, I’m not convinced there’s really any such thing as normative morality). In any event, there certainly is not a consensus that property ownership is the primary principle in resolving moral disputes.
I, for one, would argue the opposite. Property ownership is a voluntary state - nobody is forced to own property. So acquiring property means voluntarily assuming the conditions - good and bad - of property ownership.
Race, on the other hand, is an inherent condition. You’re born with it and will have it all your life. So you cannot choose to accept or decline the conditions of your race.
So I’d make the argument that a black person’s loss of freedom should have precedence over a property owner’s loss of freedom. The black person had no choice in being a black person. The property owner voluntarily chose to be a property owner, which meant he would able to avoid the loss of freedom associated with property ownership if he felt the loss was too great to bear.
I don’t agree with you up to this point. No one has a “freedom to eat where he chooses”–that’s simply a ridiculous non-concept.
[QUOTE**]
John Mace**
Cite that this is anything even remotely mainstream in the Libertarian Party?
[/QUOTE]
Der Trihs, the above comment it utterly moronic and makes you look incredibly hypocritical and cowardly(not saying you are obviously.
You specifically claimed that Libertarians praise Somalia.
Ok, then as the saying goes, put up or shut up. Show that prominent libertarians have made such comments.
If you were correct and not merely shooting off your mouth about a subject you know nothing about it shouldn’t be difficult to do.
I was talking to John. If you want to get back in the conversation, you can answer the question I asked you before: would you say that you believe forcing somebody to do something they don’t want to do is the primary bad thing?
As for “freedom to eat where he chooses” it derives from the freedom of movement, the right to live, and the free market principle. All long established freedoms that are widely held.
Oh, I see I missed a post from you. No, I don’t think that’s the primary bad thing. I don’t even know what “the primary bad thing” means.
In your mind perhaps, but no other mind has ever conceived of it. The Heart of Atlanta case and its progeny are born of the freedom to move about the country, that part is true, but that doesn’t mean that they separately establish some “freedom to eat where you choose.”
No. Freedom and property rights are intertwined. You don’t have the “freedom” to use someone else’s property. That makes a mockery of the term “freedom” as noted by Terr above when he remarked that you would consider it nonsense if he claimed to have the “freedom” to camp out in your house.
It’s the same principle that says you have the freedom to swing your fist wherever you desire, so long as it doesn’t come in contact with my nose.
As I pointed out earlier…not quite. There’s “Freedom of Association,” which means that my kid’s birthday party can be all-white if that’s the way I want it. That’s why churches can exclude attendees of conflicting faiths, and how political parties exist. Imagine if the Democratic Party County Committee had to accept Republicans on an equal basis…or if the Catholic Church were compelled to offer Mass to atheists…
Only when it comes to commerce has society decided (and the U.S. Constitution interpreted) to require equal access.
(And even then, restaurants have the right to refuse service to “anyone” – they just can’t use race, religion, national origin, previous condition of servitude, etc. – as the basis for discrimination. Go in to Trendo Mondo wearing blue jeans, and they’ll throw you right out…and they have every legal right to do so.)
Not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that you have to own property to have freedom?
Let’s not get back to arguing over straw men. I never said that anyone has the right to move into somebody’s house. And you never said that property owners have the right to kill people on their property. These are absurd extremes that neither of us has advocated so let’s not misrepresent the other’s position. We both accept the idea that there are reasonable limits, so let’s just stick with discussing where those reasonable limits should be.
Absolutely. This is the central point of the debate. When two freedoms interfere with each other, how do you decide which one has precedence?
You apparently feel that freedoms derived from property ownership have precedence. I, for the reasons I discussed above, don’t agree.
But I’m willing to discuss the issue. Why do you feel that property ownership should be the guiding principle?
As I just posted, there are reasonable limits. Nobody is claiming that property ownership has zero rights and nobody is claiming that property ownership has absolute rights. So the issue is where in the middle are the limits on property ownership rights?
I’ve said I feel that a black person’s freedom to eat where he chooses is greater than a restaurant owner’s freedom to refuse service to a black person. Do you agree or disagree with this? And why?
No. I’m saying that freedom without property rights is meaningless.
It’s not a strawman, and I never said anything about rights. I said that your definition of freedom should logically include the freedom to move into someone’s house.
It’s no more an “absurd extreme” than claiming anyone can waltz into your restaraunt if you don’t want them to. It’s only in very recent years that it was considered normal to require that.
It’s not “freedom” to take someone else’s property. When you can do that, there is no freedom.
No, and I don’t see how you could get that from what I posted. I’ve said explicitly that it’s the other way around.
Well, first of all, it’s not what I think It’s what Libertarians think. And they don’t think property ownership should be the guiding principle. Liberty is.
You’ll need to elaborate on this point. Can you explain, for example, how something like freedom of speech or freedom of religion are meaningless without property rights? I can envision these freedoms being practiced without any property rights being involved.
I’ve said all along that there are reasonable limits to the freedom I’ve described. I never claimed there was a right to move into somebody’s house or a right to take their property. I’d hoped we had got part the point of straw men. So why are you arguing against things you’re pretending I said rather than responding to the things I’ve actually said?
Again, I’m confused. When you saying it’s the other way around, do you mean that you think freedoms that aren’t derived from property rights have precedence over freedoms derived from property rights? That seems to go against what you’ve been saying, especially in view of your above statement that you feel all freedom without property rights is meaningless.
Which brings us right back to the issue of conflicting liberties. How do you resolve a dispute between two conflicting liberties?
From what I’ve heard and seen and read of libertarian beliefs (including in this thread) the consensus is what I’ve said: they think property rights should be the guiding principle in resolving disputes between conflicting liberties. If you disagree with this, what do you feel is the guiding principle of libertarianism in resolving disputes between conflicting liberties?
When you claim that you have the “freedom” to eat anywhere you choose, that means that you claim the right to enter someone else’s property (restaurant) against their wishes and the right to take their property (food) against their wishes (compensation notwithstanding).
I, personally, wholly agree. I think it falls out of the property clause of the 14th Amendment, and is also part of ordinary regulations on commerce. It’s part of getting business license. Doing business is sufficiently “public” as to permit (and require) society to interfere (one hopes to a minimal degree) to prevent abuses.
We don’t let business owners dump mercury…even on their own property. And we don’t let them divide the community against itself by racist practices.
I was just piping up to say that some of what you said was (in my opinion) insufficiently explicit, as you didn’t seem to be limiting it to business practices. I may have been wrong on that. Anyway, I’m totally in favor of the various Civil Rights Acts and Constitutional interpretations that allow businesses to be regulated – to a degree – for the common good.
Your formulation of the issueis completely absurd. You think that the different freedoms involved should be balanced, whichi suppose is fine as far as that goes, butthen you make up a freedom so you havesomething to balance. There’s no principled wattle say that there is a freedom to eat where one chooses and not say there is a freedom to camp where one chooses, and you haven’t even attempted to distinguish the two, you’ve just hand-waved it away.
As an ex-Randista, ex-libertarian, I am now of the opinion that this is the distinction on “legislating morality” that matters: whether you are legislating that individuals are free to make their own decisions as individuals, or you are legislating that people in positions of power are free to make their own decisions to affect others. So long as we insist on an organizing principle which legitimizes and concentrates power these two goals will always be mutually exclusive. If we remove this power-concentrating principle (maybe this is impossible), then the two positions are identical. But this is not what libertarians propose.
An excellent point, and one that often gets lost in the discussion.
I’ll add one more nuance to it: that once the power to make decisions gets delegated to others in government, there are few-to-no correction mechanisms to put in place if the citizenry decides that they want that power back, or that the powers are being used inefficiently, or are going down the wrong path, etc.
The usual reply from non-libertarians is that we do retain the power to change this, via our voting rights. I would argue, however, that is extremely disingenious and is practically impossible to implement. Especially for federal powers.
For example, one topic that often pops up in libertarian discussions is the FDA. They have federal power to dictate to me what I can and cannot legally ingest into my own body. They have the power of the gun to restrict me (and you) from conducting business in a voluntary manner with another party who wishes to sell me food and/or drugs, if the FDA so desires.
I don’t like the restrictions the FDA imposes on my lifestyle. I would like to change that. The usual chorus from non-libertarians is that I have the right to do so, via the vote.
But how? I vote for one Congressional Representative (out of 435) every 2 years, one senator (out of 100) every 6 years, and one President every 4 years. The FDA is an entrenched bureaucracy that has its own interests in mind, and there is practically zero incentive for any of the people I vote for above to prioritize effective management or positive change of the FDA…unless there is a headline-grabbing scandal, and in those cases the inevitable result is to provide more funding and control to the agency, not less.
So we have delegated certain rights and decision-making authority to a bureaucracy. And we ain’t getting it back, ever.
How is that moral? Why would you want to do that? Why would you vote for people who are eager to take your money and decision-making authority from you, with no hope of getting it back?
But the charge on the other side is that business and corporations will have a level of implicit power on the level of this, and the usual chorus from libertarians is that we can vote with our dollar. But since the people we’re voting against by definition have more dollars…
I think there is plenty of evidence over the last 30 years of weakening or dissolving of government institutions.
I won’t get into the morality or efficacy of the US political system.
As for the idea that if you don’t like it, you can change it . . . well, obviously you cannot by yourself. Sorry. You are part of a society, and you are subject to rules that you find immoral. Me too. But the system is geared to the will of the majority (and the political influence of the minority). Get enough people to share your view and you’ll make change. Want the FDA gone? Work to get Representative Paul elected; he’s said he’ll do it.
But . . . this non-libertarian would not make that argument to you. I argue instead that it is in the interests of our society that your right to sell and buy is restricted. I think it is in my best interest, and the best interest of all people with whom I share my society, that you not have the unfettered right to sell or buy whatever chemicals you wish.
Where the line on that restriction is drawn is debatable, natch.
If Libertarianism can’t distinguish between the dining room in my house and the dining room of a hotel, Libertarianism is even more stupid than I thought. These properties are used in very different ways, and so can be treated differently.