Have you been Rip van Winkling for the past half century or so? Or are you putting us on? I mean, I know (as I said upthread) that a lot of libertarians believe this is how things *should *be; but you seem to believe that it is how they are.
You could say the same thing about eating at a lunch counter, of course. I do know what civil rights are. I suspect this is going to be yet another instance where you claim to know what a word means, and then when people explain that you are wrong, you stamp your feet and say the dictionary and the courts and everybody in the universe are wrong because you know what it should mean. That’s not how it works, alas. For example you may think “civil right” pertains only to the government and not private businesses, but you’re wrong on the facts. You may wish this were true, but it isn’t. I’d say sorry, but of course, I’m not sorry at all because your reasoning would easily be used to support Jim Crow laws.
How can I be free to choose any store I want to patronize without a similar freedom of the other party?
The flaw in that idea is that if the best in the area doesn’t want someone for a client and actually dislikes having that person or persons as a client (the way most of would dealing with an unwanted customer), they are not going to produce their best work regardless of what the law says. They are going to do enough to avoid a law suit at the most. Cakes, flowers, and photographs aren’t the same as medicine or health care. No one has to have a wedding cake, a bouquet, etc., to survive.
Watch out, Marley–you can easily get bogged down if you talk about Jim Crow laws. But of course the civil rights legislation of the mid-'60s struck down not only those laws, but also any Jim Crow-type customary practices on the part of private businesses. That is presumably where people like Rand Paul think it overreached–that it should have been limited to making the government officially neutral–but it’s not in fact what happened, of course, and as I said upthread it is insufficient if it leaves travellers unable to find food or lodging.
Yes, you are wrong. ‘Civil’ rights refers to rights to vote, to hold office, etc. It has nothing to do with private enterprises. ‘Jim Crow’ laws are properly illegal because they interfere with private individuals. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot legitimately compel people to discriminate or forbid them from doing so in their private businesses.
He’s made a career, a lucrative one, out of being the most genteel of bigots. He is a career bigot. People emulating him probably hope they come off looking just like him. Well, they do.
I agree that this was an overreach; though I do not approve of such practices I do not feel that laws forbidding them are just.
That’s a very good point. Thank you.
“Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals’ freedom from infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one’s ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.” That was fun! Took all of 15 seconds.
Ahahahahaha. In other words, you think the only problem with Jim Crow laws is that they made white-owned businesses discriminate against black people - not that black people were discriminated against.
Because that’s just kinda how it works. The customer walking into 7-11 only needs the cash in her pocket (and, I suppose, the old “shirt and shoes” requirement, if we’re going to be picky). The owner of the 7-11 needs a business licence from the city, a sales tax licence from the state, maybe a current health inspection depending on jurisdiction, etc. Businesses in our *regulated *capitalistic system have more constraints on them than their customers do, and I’m afraid you’re just going to have to live with that because it isn’t going to stop being that way.
Right now, in the real world, businesses are forbidden by law from refusing to serve certain classes of people. Right now, in the real world, are there any businesses that you are forbidden by law from patronizing? No?
Then that’s how.
You’re welcome, and I see I got in my warning only one minute before **Melchior **jumped at the chance to try to take advantage of the distinction.
LOL, Miller, at “then that’s how”. Quite right! Let 'im stew in those juices. 
Correct. But that does not make me a racist, because I am not.
So if a white, Christian, religious town just collectively refused to provide any services whatsoever–even food, gasoline*, or lodging–to anyone unlike them, they should be able to do that with impunity? Or suffer only whatever economic consequences hit them through the marketplace? I just can’t agree with that although I understand the logic.
*Or perhaps provide only enough gasoline to get to the next city…
Because you say so, of course, and nothing counts more than your say-so. Certainly not the rights of elderly people or gays or racial minorities or women to participate in our society. You may not have any personal antipathy toward people of other races, but it’s of zero relevance. Your exact arguments have been used to support racial discrimination for generations, and even though you’re aware of that, you don’t care and you’d be OK with it if it happened again tomorrow. That says enough.
Let me count the fallacies here…or could you do it for me?
You may in fact be such a pure libertarian that your views are not in any way motivated by racial animus. But you and your ilk are vastly outnumbered by voters who do not share your libertarianism. So I hope you grasp that what you are arguing for is a pipe dream, that the genie is never going back in this bottle.
Where the action is at is on the margins: not whether hotels or restaurants (other than private clubs) can discriminate, but whether those who provide less essential goods and services, especially those with an artistic component, can. That’s an interesting grey area. But the argument over basic segregation practices is really settled, and not in your favour.
Try coming up with a counter-argument instead.
I can see both sides here, and while I’d like it if people could go where ever they’d like for some service, I really dislike people being forced to provide services they really don’t want to.
My question is, how far is this to be pushed then? And I don’t think I’ve seen it answered yet. Can it be made to where the photographer is forced to go to a nudist camp? Be forced to do a wedding of a couple who are 20 when the person doesn’t believe people that young should get married.
There was the case a year or so ago where the Walmart, I think, refused to do a birthday cake for the neo-nazi parents. Should they have been forced to do such a cake?
I guess I want to know where the line is that the proprietor can just say, I’m not doing that, and not have to worry about running afoul of the law.
The question arises what is meant in England by ‘public house’ as opposed to ‘private club’.