I Apologize to My Fellow Americans

[Galen]

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Prior to the awakening, especially in the south, overt blatant prejudice was hard wired into the culture.  People of color could not stay in many hotels, eat at many restaurants, use many sanitary facilities, drink at certain water bubblers, etc...  The sit in at the Woolworth lunch counter where blacks were refused service became a symbol of this sort of behavior.  The Supreme Court and various laws passed by Congress made this sort of overt prejudice illegal.  Many have come to understand that if one offers a service to the public, one has to provide that service to the People.  

The law can be rigid.  Once a principle has been laid down, one should not make exceptions.  There are many who will say denying service at a lunch counter due to race is different than denying bakery goods to someone with different sexual preferences.  Others do not see the difference.  I'm one of the latter.  Prejudice is prejudice.  Bigotry is bigotry.  The legal principles favoring equality set down during the awakening should be extended.

In practice, wearing the bigots down is a long slow tedious process.  It happens in fits and starts.  After a wave of progress, the progressives are tired of fighting and the bigots get stubborn.  One celebrates the Confederate flag coming down, the rainbow flag going up.  A new status quo is defined, and for a time might be accepted.  The bigots will accept that certain lines have been breached, but cling to the next line down for a decade or more.  The US is currently going through a progressives tired bigots stubborn phase.

Now, I would disagree that Gary Johnson is the only libertarian who is not a bigot.  It is possible to believe in the financial notion of unencumbered free markets and the political principle of small non-interfering government without being a bigot.  In this, I believe Galen should speak for himself.

But I'm tired of and disgusted by the double think.  The current generation of bigots is openly promoting a right to practice overt segregation.  There is no such right.  When such a bogus right is advocated, it is time to call a bigot a bigot.

[Galen]

(01-28-2017, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Now, I would disagree that Gary Johnson is the only libertarian who is not a bigot.  It is possible to believe in the financial notion of unencumbered free markets and the political principle of small non-interfering government without being a bigot.  In this, I believe Galen should speak for himself.

You really don't understand do you?  Libertarianism recognizes the right of free association which also means that people have the right to choose who they don't associate with.  There is no double think involved here.  It is simply not the government's place to tell people who they may or may not associate with.  If people truly are bigoted then no amount of external force will change this.  Indeed, it will create resentment that will eventually express itself in a violent manner most likely.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-28-2017, 08:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Now, I would disagree that Gary Johnson is the only libertarian who is not a bigot.  It is possible to believe in the financial notion of unencumbered free markets and the political principle of small non-interfering government without being a bigot.  In this, I believe Galen should speak for himself.

You really don't understand do you?  Libertarianism recognizes the right of free association which also means that people have the right to choose who they don't associate with.  There is no double think involved here.  It is simply not the government's place to tell people who they may or may not associate with.  If people truly are bigoted then no amount of external force will change this.  Indeed, it will create resentment that will eventually express itself in a violent manner most likely.

I'm not particularly an expert in libertarianism. I guess I'll have to ask others on the forum who think of themselves as libertarian to confirm or deny Galen's assertion. Does libertarian thought necessarily demand the right to discriminate? Is bigotry an inherent aspect of libertarianism?

I do understand that forcing bigots to respect the rights and equality of others is a long slow tedious process. It will indeed create resentment. However, it is part of US culture to push the long slow tedious movement towards equality. Over the years, the United States has applied external force to the Confederates, the KKK, Hitler's Nazis, the segregationists of the mid 20th Century, those who believed in a cultural imperative to keep females in a inferior role, and more recently in those with irrational prejudiced against those with non-traditional gender relationships.

The bigots of any era will be able to convince themselves of their inherent superiority and their right to keep others in their place. Sometimes, the places the minorities belonged were in gas chambers or dangling from southern trees. Those who object to such hatred and bigotry have for centuries been applying 'external force' and have made tremendous changes. This generation's bigots seem unable to comprehend this history, which makes them no different from prior generations of bigots. As a fundamentalist cannot allow himself to comprehend evolution, a bigot will engage in double think to believe their own hatreds and prejudices are somehow different than what has come before.

[SomeGuy]

Whew, lot of Whiggish historical assumptions in this thread, that somehow the norms, mores, and values of early 21st century white Yuppies are hardwired into the fabric of the universe. 

The libertarian argument is that you have the right to associate with who you want (free association), and that nobody else has the right to abridge this, no matter the ideological justifications waved around.  The only role of the government is to prevent force and fraud, not wrong-think.

Quote:Is bigotry an inherent aspect of libertarianism?

I mean, really Bob?  Would you like to dump any more poison in that well before continuing this discussion? 

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-28-2017, 09:57 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Whew, lot of Whiggish historical assumptions in this thread, that somehow the norms, mores, and values of early 21st century white Yuppies are hardwired into the fabric of the universe. 

The libertarian argument is that you have the right to associate with who you want (free association), and that nobody else has the right to abridge this, no matter the ideological justifications waved around.  The only role of the government is to prevent force and fraud, not wrong-think.

Quote:Is bigotry an inherent aspect of libertarianism?

I mean, really Bob?  Would you like to dump any more poison in that well before continuing this discussion? 

I would go back to the Enlightenment rather than to the Whigs.  I see the many recent S&H crises in Anglo American civilization are moving things from the Agricultural Age pattern of autocracy, absolute values, religious thought, hierarchical class privilege and heavily militarized government towards the Industrial Age pattern of democracy, scientific thought, economic centered government, equality and human rights.  I see nothing to be ashamed of in observing and advocating such transitions.  The world has been moving in a consistent and to my mind favorable direction.  

Consistent over a long period of time doesn't mean forever, but I don't see the most recent children of the Enlightenment backing down.  The values of Jefferson's self evident truths are still flowing strongly.  It's not just the whites or the yuppies or the early 21st Century.  For many and for a long time, the Enlightenment principles have been important.  I wouldn't underestimate or lightly dismiss them.

And, sure, yes, I'll poison the well.  Can you or anyone make a solid distinction between prejudice against blacks at the Woolworth lunch counter in the middle 20th century and prejudice against someone with non-traditional gender preference in a hypothetical modern bakery?  To me, segregation is segregation, bigotry is bigotry, and doublethink to try to hide this needs to be called out.  In either case, one is denying a service due to prejudice.  Does libertarian 'right to free association' imply those running hotels and restaurants in the south in the mid 20th century had a right not to associate with blacks?  Does the government not have the power to enforce the Bill of Rights?  Have you read the Constitution recently?  Hint: the founding fathers were children of the Enlightenment even more than 21st century white yuppies.

Those thinking the bigots are 'core America' need to be challenged in said belief.

[Warren Dew]

(01-27-2017, 06:28 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 05:28 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 05:02 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 04:00 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 02:23 PM)taramarie Wrote: I am curious. In what way do you see the alt right not being evil? This would include the likes of the KKK, neo nazis, white supremacists keep in mind. I am very curious as to what you think about that.

The folks you mention make up less than 0.1% of the alt right.  Characterizing the entire alt right as evil on that basis is like calling the entire left in the US evil because they include a few thousand Communist Party members.

Ah actually when you look into what alt right supports at its core it is not a good image nor a good message. If you have any links that prove them wrong go for it. Alt right (going by its core message) is not mainstream right wing. it is far left ahem like communists are far left.

What the alt right supports at its core is the interests of American citizens over the interests of the rest of the world.  I can see how those from the rest of the world might feel it is "not a good image nor a good message" - no doubt you'd prefer the US promote the interests of the rest of the world over those of American citizens - but it's not evil.

"no doubt you'd prefer the US promote the interests of the rest of the world over those of American citizens - but it's not evil." ah actually I will have to stop you right there because that is totally inaccurate and you judging me with no evidence to back your claim up. Hear it from the kiwi's mouth....I am for all Americans rights. Despite being a kiwi I do care about EVERY Americans rights. My concern is how to consider ALL Americans rights without infringing on others rights as well. THAT is my concern....take it or dismiss it.

I have yet to read anything related to the alt right where it says it cares about ALL Americans and that is what bothers me.

So what does "all Americans" mean to you?  Does it include illegal immigrants?  I was specific about "citizens" in "American citizens" for a reason.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:I would go back to the Enlightenment rather than to the Whigs.  I see the many recent S&H crises in Anglo American civilization are moving things from the Agricultural Age pattern of autocracy, absolute values, religious thought, hierarchical class privilege and heavily militarized government towards the Industrial Age pattern of democracy, scientific thought, economic centered government, equality and human rights.  I see nothing to be ashamed of in observing and advocating such transitions.  The world has been moving in a consistent and to my mind favorable direction. 

Bob, Bob, Bob, you're embarrassing yourself twice over here.  The phrase "Whig History"  means precisely that "The world has been moving in a consistent and to my mind favorable direction".  And trying to draw a distinction between the Whigs and the Enlightenment means that you clearly know little of either.  The Whigs WERE the Party of Enlightenment principles.  

Quote:Consistent over a long period of time doesn't mean forever, but I don't see the most recent children of the Enlightenment backing down.  The values of Jefferson's self evident truths are still flowing strongly.  It's not just the whites or the yuppies or the early 21st Century.  For many and for a long time, the Enlightenment principles have been important.  I wouldn't underestimate or lightly dismiss them.

The world from 1500-1914 moved consistently in the direction of white hegemony, and yet that has clearly fallen by the wayside, hasn't it?  Communism and eugenics were popular amongst your ideological predecessors  as well, and thought to have a historical inevitability of their own.  The fact that you no doubt think that those things were temporary aberrations from the true path of "history's direction" as defined by your mores now is to be guilty of precisely the belief in "the norms, mores, and values of early 21st century white Yuppies are hardwired into the fabric of the universe" that I accused you of earlier.

Quote:And, sure, yes, I'll poison the well.  Can you or anyone make a solid distinction between prejudice against blacks at the Woolworth lunch counter in the middle 20th century and prejudice against someone with non-traditional gender preference in a hypothetical modern bakery?  To me, segregation is segregation, bigotry is bigotry, and doublethink to try to hide this needs to be called out.  In either case, one is denying a service due to prejudice.  Does libertarian 'right to free association' imply those running hotels and restaurants in the south in the mid 20th century had a right not to associate with blacks?  Does the government not have the power to enforce the Bill of Rights?  Have you read the Constitution recently?  Hint: the founding fathers were children of the Enlightenment even more than 21st century white yuppies.

You asked for the Libertarian view of the subject and I gave it to you.  It too flows from the Enlightenment, indeed, it is simply a derivation of an older strain of Enlightenment principles, that of Classical/Manchester liberalism.

I like that you acknowledge that you are engaging in extreme partisanship and fallacious reasoning.  The fact that you think those things are justified in the pursuit of the cause du jour is precisely the example of "illiberal liberalism" that people like Jonathan Chait have derided.

You mention the Bill of Rights.  Alright, point to the amendment in said Bill that supports your position.  

[Warren Dew]

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

Who lacks rights in that case, in your opinion?  The right of the baker not to have to sell a cake with a congratulatory message she doesn't believe in, or the right of the lesbian couple to be able to get a cake from whoever they want?  Does a neonazi have the right to buy a cake from a Jewish baker with a swastika on it?

[Warren Dew]

(01-27-2017, 11:53 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 10:02 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 09:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The John Birch Society, long considered extreme and ludicrous to conservatives, has stayed as far to the Right as possible without delving into calls for genocide (including enslavement or extermination) except perhaps against Communists. The Republican Party has gone so far to the Right that it and the Birch Society are now hard to distinguish.

I have heard that both left and right wing have become more extreme over the years. Not sure if that is true or not.

There is certainly less willingness to compromise.  Yes, prejudice that was accepted as normal in FDR's time would generate outrage today.  The civil rights and women's movements since the Awakening reflect vastly different expectations among the modern blue population.  Aspects of red culture have been dragged in the direction of equality quite some distance.  Given how stubborn and irrational cultures can act, it shouldn't be surprising that they are digging in and refusing to budge for a time.  In this, I'm not speaking only of the red culture.  The blue belief in equality is stubborn too.

What this fails to distinguish is the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.  It has always been the red culture that champions equality of opportunity; it was the Democrats who fought the civil rights movement most strongly when that was what the civil rights movement meant.

Once they had lost on the civil rights movement, the blue culture, unable to comprehend the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome, focused on forcing outcomes to be the same irrespective of fairness from an individual standpoint.  LBJ, who like many on the left truly believed that blacks were fundamentally inferior to whites, redefined affirmative action to mean discrimination against whites, because he thought that without favored treatment, blacks could never attain equality.

This is, of course, fought by the red culture, which believes that all races are fully capable of achieving equality on their own, given the opportunity, and should do so.

[Warren Dew]

(01-28-2017, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Prior to the awakening, especially in the south, overt blatant prejudice was hard wired into the culture.  People of color could not stay in many hotels, eat at many restaurants, use many sanitary facilities, drink at certain water bubblers, etc...  The sit in at the Woolworth lunch counter where blacks were refused service became a symbol of this sort of behavior.  The Supreme Court and various laws passed by Congress made this sort of overt prejudice illegal.  Many have come to understand that if one offers a service to the public, one has to provide that service to the People.

This wasn't because the businesses wanted to segregate nonwhites, though.  It was because the Democrats had passed laws requiring segregation.  Most businesses would have preferred not to have to go to the expense of separate facilities.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-28-2017, 11:28 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Prior to the awakening, especially in the south, overt blatant prejudice was hard wired into the culture.  People of color could not stay in many hotels, eat at many restaurants, use many sanitary facilities, drink at certain water bubblers, etc...  The sit in at the Woolworth lunch counter where blacks were refused service became a symbol of this sort of behavior.  The Supreme Court and various laws passed by Congress made this sort of overt prejudice illegal.  Many have come to understand that if one offers a service to the public, one has to provide that service to the People.

This wasn't because the businesses wanted to segregate nonwhites, though.  It was because the Democrats had passed laws requiring segregation.  Most businesses would have preferred not to have to go to the expense of separate facilities.

Do you have a source on that?  From all accounts I've red on the time period, bigotry far outweighed profits on this issue.  One followed the tradition of segregation or one lost one's white business.  The desire to keep bigot business was a much more dominant economic motivation than the cost of maintaining the extra facilities.

Yes, it was Democrats that ran the south during Jim Crow days.  This was before JFK and LBJ actively sought out the black vote by pushing black issues, and Nixon responded with the Southern Strategy.  Once upon a time, the Democrats were the party of Jim Crow and Tammany Hall style corrupt big city machine government.  The Republicans were the party of Gilded Age robber barons.  Lots of bad options were available in that time.  Things have changed, but not enough.

[Warren Dew]

(01-28-2017, 08:59 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 08:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Now, I would disagree that Gary Johnson is the only libertarian who is not a bigot.  It is possible to believe in the financial notion of unencumbered free markets and the political principle of small non-interfering government without being a bigot.  In this, I believe Galen should speak for himself.

You really don't understand do you?  Libertarianism recognizes the right of free association which also means that people have the right to choose who they don't associate with.  There is no double think involved here.  It is simply not the government's place to tell people who they may or may not associate with.  If people truly are bigoted then no amount of external force will change this.  Indeed, it will create resentment that will eventually express itself in a violent manner most likely.

I'm not particularly an expert in libertarianism.  I guess I'll have to ask others on the forum who think of themselves as libertarian to confirm or deny Galen's assertion.  Does libertarian thought necessarily demand the right to discriminate?  Is bigotry an inherent aspect of libertarianism?

Everyone demands the right to discriminate, not just libertarians.  No one thinks they should be denied a choice in the race of the person they marry.  No one thinks that gays should be required to accept dates from straight people and vice versa.  In those cases, everyone accepts the libertarian belief in the right of free association.

I think most strict libertarians would tend to side with Galen on this issue:  people should be allowed to conduct business with who they want, without government intervention.  Without laws passed by the state requiring segregation, probably all libertarians believe that competition would have put businesses wasting space on segregated lunch counters out of business, in favor of more efficient businesses that used a single lunch counter for all their customers.

Personally I'm more toward the minarchist side and further away from the pure anarchocapitalist side.  While I agree that things would most likely work out fine under Galen's model, I'm okay with a local government - under the fiction that the government is a voluntary organization - having licensing laws that require businesses to serve all customers.

However, I'm not okay with the government violating first amendment rights by requiring the bakers to put a swastika or a congratulatory message for a gay couple on the cake if they don't want to.  The customer who wants those things on his cake can go to a like minded baker, or buy a blank cake and put the decoration on himself.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-28-2017, 11:58 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 08:59 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'm not particularly an expert in libertarianism.  I guess I'll have to ask others on the forum who think of themselves as libertarian to confirm or deny Galen's assertion.  Does libertarian thought necessarily demand the right to discriminate?  Is bigotry an inherent aspect of libertarianism?

Everyone demands the right to discriminate, not just libertarians.  No one thinks they should be denied a choice in the race of the person they marry.  No one thinks that gays should be required to accept dates from straight people and vice versa.  In those cases, everyone accepts the libertarian belief in the right of free association.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that people can't deny offers to go on a date.  The area I'm most concerned with is when a prejudiced individual is supplying goods and services to the public.  Can such an individual provide services selectively by race, gender, culture, etc...

I will note that the current legal blocks against prejudice do not apply to churches, private homes and private clubs.  Thus Augusta National as a private club denied membership to women and minorities for a long time.

Certainly, the principle of free association has much merit in most to all private interactions, but a culture conflict erupts when one is supplying goods and services to the public.

(01-28-2017, 11:58 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: I think most strict libertarians would tend to side with Galen on this issue:  people should be allowed to conduct business with who they want, without government intervention.  Without laws passed by the state requiring segregation, probably all libertarians believe that competition would have put businesses wasting space on segregated lunch counters out of business, in favor of more efficient businesses that used a single lunch counter for all their customers.

I disagree with your spin on history.  Jim Crow, the KKK, the Nazis...  Bigots remain problematic until and unless decent people force them to behave.

In a world where everyone followed libertarian values, perhaps, as you say, economic considerations would triumph over bigotry.  The problem would go away.  However, if everyone followed Communist values, or Nazi values, or fundamentalist Islamic values, there would be no problems.  Any hypothetical mono culture might be utopian if only every single individual bought into the same mono culture.  Alas, in the real world, an assumption that everyone will buy into the same culture is absurd.

(01-28-2017, 11:58 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Personally I'm more toward the minarchist side and further away from the pure anarchocapitalist side.  While I agree that things would most likely work out fine under Galen's model, I'm okay with a local government - under the fiction that the government is a voluntary organization - having licensing laws that require businesses to serve all customers.

I don't assert that governments are voluntary.  Humans are social animals.  They claim territory, form groups, make up rules, enforce said rules over the breadth of their territories, etc...  Humans have been doing this for a long time.  I see it as in their DNA.  While humans are capable of learning and teaching cultures, which makes them different from other animals who can't do so, humans are political animals.

Libertarians asserting a 'right to freely associate' and pushing for rules that say there shall be no rules are still human.  They have a culture and will press to enforce their culture on everyone else.  I can often sympathize with much of what they desire.  I still prefer the 'power of the majority is trumped only by the rights of the individual' model.

(01-28-2017, 11:58 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: However, I'm not okay with the government violating first amendment rights by requiring the bakers to put a swastika or a congratulatory message for a gay couple on the cake if they don't want to.  The customer who wants those things on his cake can go to a like minded baker, or buy a blank cake and put the decoration on himself.

This would be my preferred common sense solution, assuming the second nearest baker isn't a zillion miles away.  However, it can turn into private individuals censoring speech that conflicts with their prejudices.  The First Amendment can be applied the other way.  My own culture suggests that tolerance is the proper solution, just as the libertarian values focus on economics.  I don't know that we will agree.

[Warren Dew]

(01-28-2017, 11:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 11:28 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Prior to the awakening, especially in the south, overt blatant prejudice was hard wired into the culture.  People of color could not stay in many hotels, eat at many restaurants, use many sanitary facilities, drink at certain water bubblers, etc...  The sit in at the Woolworth lunch counter where blacks were refused service became a symbol of this sort of behavior.  The Supreme Court and various laws passed by Congress made this sort of overt prejudice illegal.  Many have come to understand that if one offers a service to the public, one has to provide that service to the People.

This wasn't because the businesses wanted to segregate nonwhites, though.  It was because the Democrats had passed laws requiring segregation.  Most businesses would have preferred not to have to go to the expense of separate facilities.

Do you have a source on that?  From all accounts I've red on the time period, bigotry far outweighed profits on this issue.  One followed the tradition of segregation or one lost one's white business.  The desire to keep bigot business was a much more dominant economic motivation than the cost of maintaining the extra facilities.

I thought it was well known that segregation was enforced by law, but here's a source.  It's not a great source, so if you are skeptical about such laws, we might have to find a more reliable one:

These laws meant that black people were legally required to:

• attend separate schools and churches
• use public bathrooms marked “for colored only”
• eat in a separate section of a restaurant
• sit in the rear of a bus

http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/era...gregation/

For a successful business owner, bigotry can't outweigh profits; if you don't make a profit, you go out of business.  Based on discussions with people who ran businesses during that period, white bigots weren't enough to sustain a business, and they made more money on the black customers anyway; thus why they had segregated lunch counters rather than merely having all white restaurants.  And of course if businesses would have voluntarily segregated anyway, why would a law be needed?

Note that all white restaurants continued to be legal if they were organized as membership clubs.  They didn't become common because there weren't enough bigots to sustain them - or at least, not enough bigots willing to put their money where their mouths were.

Market forces would have done a fine job of equalization, if they had been allowed to operate without government interference.

[pbrower2a]

(01-28-2017, 11:58 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 08:59 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 08:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote: A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Now, I would disagree that Gary Johnson is the only libertarian who is not a bigot.  It is possible to believe in the financial notion of unencumbered free markets and the political principle of small non-interfering government without being a bigot.  In this, I believe Galen should speak for himself.

You really don't understand do you?  Libertarianism recognizes the right of free association which also means that people have the right to choose who they don't associate with.  There is no double think involved here.  It is simply not the government's place to tell people who they may or may not associate with.  If people truly are bigoted then no amount of external force will change this.  Indeed, it will create resentment that will eventually express itself in a violent manner most likely.

I'm not particularly an expert in libertarianism.  I guess I'll have to ask others on the forum who think of themselves as libertarian to confirm or deny Galen's assertion.  Does libertarian thought necessarily demand the right to discriminate?  Is bigotry an inherent aspect of libertarianism?

Everyone demands the right to discriminate, not just libertarians.  No one thinks they should be denied a choice in the race of the person they marry.  No one thinks that gays should be required to accept dates from straight people and vice versa.  In those cases, everyone accepts the libertarian belief in the right of free association.

I think most strict libertarians would tend to side with Galen on this issue:  people should be allowed to conduct business with who they want, without government intervention.  Without laws passed by the state requiring segregation, probably all libertarians believe that competition would have put businesses wasting space on segregated lunch counters out of business, in favor of more efficient businesses that used a single lunch counter for all their customers.

Personally I'm more toward the minarchist side and further away from the pure anarchocapitalist side.  While I agree that things would most likely work out fine under Galen's model, I'm okay with a local government - under the fiction that the government is a voluntary organization - having licensing laws that require businesses to serve all customers.

However, I'm not okay with the government violating first amendment rights by requiring the bakers to put a swastika or a congratulatory message for a gay couple on the cake if they don't want to.  The customer who wants those things on his cake can go to a like minded baker, or buy a blank cake and put the decoration on himself.

A business owner has a reasonable right to refuse to do business that he can reasonably expect to get him into trouble. If my business sells fuels, then I will never knowingly sell an accelerant to an arsonist,  do vehicle repairs to the car of a known fugitive, or knowingly rent a room for the night to someone involved in drug trafficking. I'm not going to become an accomplice in a crime.  If I am a businessman and I am black or Jewish I might be loath to launder a Klan robe or Nazi attire unless it is for a benign purpose (such as theatrical use or a historical exhibit). On the other side on this sort of political discrimination, I would not expect a Klansman or neo-Nazi  to bring his laundry to me if my surname is an obvious derivative of "Cohen" or "Levi" or I have 'too much' melanin in my complexion.

Customers have the obvious right to discriminate unless they are the government (thus a school board cannot  even ask a prospective schoolteacher about homosexuality or religion) or are such big players in the local economy that they can make or break a small business. The school district can ask about a criminal record, so if a prospective school teacher has been convicted of sex with a minor, then the school district can reject the hire on that basis alone.

As an employer I have an obvious interest in keeping my business place attractive to customers and economically efficient enough to allow a profit. If I own a bakery, I do not expect the person who frosts the cakes to know much about business law; such knowledge ordinarily indicates someone with a college education who might not be as cheap a hire as someone who has 'only' a high-school education or might still be in high school. A high school dropout? I would be leery, as dropping out of school suggests low intelligence (and little ability to do the work) or rebelliousness. I might have to hire, for lack of alternatives, a bigot who knows enough to not use overt smears on the job.

Part of the job of baking a cake is frosting it... as a business owner I am not going to supply a cake  that reminds a child to remain loyal to the white race or suggests pedophilia is out of the question. Neither will I put obscene language or depictions of sexuality on the cake. I am not going to insult anyone based upon ethnicity or religion, and one group that I am unwilling to offend is Bible-believing Christians who could be the bulk of my customers in my location. The baker who feels leery about a wedding cake for a same-sex, interfaith, or mixed-race couple might leave the finishing touches to me. I will put the names "Gary and Larry" or "Susan and Eve", or the statuette of a same-sex or mixed couple on the cake. But that baker had better bake the cake and go as far as possible in completing the cake.

Oh, yes -- you know what I think of the President. A celebratory cake for the election of Senator Snake is not out of the question.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-28-2017, 12:47 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: I thought it was well known that segregation was enforced by law, but here's a source.  It's not a great source, so if you are skeptical about such laws, we might have to find a more reliable one:

I don't question that there were laws in place.  The bigots had a working majority.  Of course they passed such laws.

(01-28-2017, 12:47 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: For a successful business owner, bigotry can't outweigh profits;

Bigotry was good for business.  If one followed the local traditions, one got more business than if one didn't.  There is nothing in the history books about second bathrooms and bubblers being abandoned, about restaurants and hotels spontaneously abandoning segregation due to economics or libertarian theory, of the southern states repealing the Jim Crow laws.  These are all figments of your values locked imagination.  MLK and LBJ should get credit for what happened, not Ayn Rand.

You remind me of Kinser denying Stalin's and Mao's famines.  You are putting your political and economic theories over the history of what actually happened.  Bigotry and segregation existed.  They went away due to a mostly non-violent series of protests resulting in government action.

(01-28-2017, 12:47 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Market forces would have done a fine job of equalization, if they had been allowed to operate without government interference.

I see this as libertarian doctrine with nothing to do with history.  Segregation went away due to government interference.  There is nothing to suggest that market forces were going to effect things at all any time soon.  Your theory that someday hatred and bigotry would have eventually faded away has as much validity as the Marxist notion that the state would wither away.  Bigots hate.  They will continue to hate until they are stopped.

Libertarian freedom of association is to a great extent just another ploy to justify the hate continuing.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-28-2017, 08:59 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 08:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 03:34 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 06:30 PM)taramarie Wrote: and when i say infringe on others rights i mean other Americans rights. Say in the case of the religious baker who did not want to serve gays. That is what i mean. But dismiss me if you want. I know what i stand for.

A libertarian, other than Gary Johnson, would say that was his right to choose who he does business with.  I would say he is being stupid but again libertarians in general don't see any particular need to protect the stupid from themselves.  Customers can also choose to boycott this baker over the issue and libertarians wouldn't have any particular problem with that either.

Now, I would disagree that Gary Johnson is the only libertarian who is not a bigot.  It is possible to believe in the financial notion of unencumbered free markets and the political principle of small non-interfering government without being a bigot.  In this, I believe Galen should speak for himself.

You really don't understand do you?  Libertarianism recognizes the right of free association which also means that people have the right to choose who they don't associate with.  There is no double think involved here.  It is simply not the government's place to tell people who they may or may not associate with.  If people truly are bigoted then no amount of external force will change this.  Indeed, it will create resentment that will eventually express itself in a violent manner most likely.

I'm not particularly an expert in libertarianism.  I guess I'll have to ask others on the forum who think of themselves as libertarian to confirm or deny Galen's assertion.  Does libertarian thought necessarily demand the right to discriminate?  Is bigotry an inherent aspect of libertarianism?

I do understand that forcing bigots to respect the rights and equality of others is a long slow tedious process.  It will indeed create resentment.  However, it is part of US culture to push the long slow tedious movement towards equality.  Over the years, the United States has applied external force to the Confederates, the KKK, Hitler's Nazis, the segregationists of the mid 20th Century, those who believed in a cultural imperative to keep females in a inferior role, and more recently in those with irrational prejudiced against those with non-traditional gender relationships.

The bigots of any era will be able to convince themselves of their inherent superiority and their right to keep others in their place.  Sometimes, the places the minorities belonged were in gas chambers or dangling from southern trees.  Those who object to such hatred and bigotry have for centuries been applying 'external force' and have made tremendous changes.  This generation's bigots seem unable to comprehend this history, which makes them no different from prior generations of bigots.  As a fundamentalist cannot allow himself to comprehend evolution, a bigot will engage in double think to believe their own hatreds and prejudices are somehow different than what has come before.

Do you discriminate? Have you ever engaged in discrimination and the use of discrimination yourself? I've been posting and dealing with blue discrimination for years so please give me a straight answer. If you can't, I'm going to answer for you and you're not going to like what I'm going have to say about you and the blues in general. Hint. I don't view a group of blues who choose/prefer to hang out with other blues on a internet forum as being abnormal.  It's no more abnormal than a group of blacks who prefer to hang out and talk with blacks in school before classes start or a group of football players or athletes sitting together during lunch period or after school.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-28-2017, 11:24 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 11:53 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 10:02 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 09:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The John Birch Society, long considered extreme and ludicrous to conservatives, has stayed as far to the Right as possible without delving into calls for genocide (including enslavement or extermination) except perhaps against Communists. The Republican Party has gone so far to the Right that it and the Birch Society are now hard to distinguish.

I have heard that both left and right wing have become more extreme over the years. Not sure if that is true or not.

There is certainly less willingness to compromise.  Yes, prejudice that was accepted as normal in FDR's time would generate outrage today.  The civil rights and women's movements since the Awakening reflect vastly different expectations among the modern blue population.  Aspects of red culture have been dragged in the direction of equality quite some distance.  Given how stubborn and irrational cultures can act, it shouldn't be surprising that they are digging in and refusing to budge for a time.  In this, I'm not speaking only of the red culture.  The blue belief in equality is stubborn too.

What this fails to distinguish is the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.  It has always been the red culture that champions equality of opportunity; it was the Democrats who fought the civil rights movement most strongly when that was what the civil rights movement meant.

Once they had lost on the civil rights movement, the blue culture, unable to comprehend the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome, focused on forcing outcomes to be the same irrespective of fairness from an individual standpoint.  LBJ, who like many on the left truly believed that blacks were fundamentally inferior to whites, redefined affirmative action to mean discrimination against whites, because he thought that without favored treatment, blacks could never attain equality.

This is, of course, fought by the red culture, which believes that all races are fully capable of achieving equality on their own, given the opportunity, and should do so.

OK. You convinced me. I really need to sharpen up my writing skills.

[Eric the Green]

(01-28-2017, 11:24 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 11:53 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 10:02 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(01-27-2017, 09:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The John Birch Society, long considered extreme and ludicrous to conservatives, has stayed as far to the Right as possible without delving into calls for genocide (including enslavement or extermination) except perhaps against Communists. The Republican Party has gone so far to the Right that it and the Birch Society are now hard to distinguish.

I have heard that both left and right wing have become more extreme over the years. Not sure if that is true or not.

There is certainly less willingness to compromise.  Yes, prejudice that was accepted as normal in FDR's time would generate outrage today.  The civil rights and women's movements since the Awakening reflect vastly different expectations among the modern blue population.  Aspects of red culture have been dragged in the direction of equality quite some distance.  Given how stubborn and irrational cultures can act, it shouldn't be surprising that they are digging in and refusing to budge for a time.  In this, I'm not speaking only of the red culture.  The blue belief in equality is stubborn too.

What this fails to distinguish is the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.  It has always been the red culture that champions equality of opportunity; it was the Democrats who fought the civil rights movement most strongly when that was what the civil rights movement meant.

Once they had lost on the civil rights movement, the blue culture, unable to comprehend the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome, focused on forcing outcomes to be the same irrespective of fairness from an individual standpoint.  LBJ, who like many on the left truly believed that blacks were fundamentally inferior to whites, redefined affirmative action to mean discrimination against whites, because he thought that without favored treatment, blacks could never attain equality.

This is, of course, fought by the red culture, which believes that all races are fully capable of achieving equality on their own, given the opportunity, and should do so.

Yes, and certain groups do not have full opportunity now. Roadblocks are put in their way, like racial profiling, unnecessary police brutality, access to voting, and discrimination.

You can't build a red/blue narrative based only on political party labels. Southern and Northern Democrats were not the same in their views in the 1960s, or earlier. The sixties were a political party realignment, just as happened in every previous Awakening and Crisis. Once Barry Goldwater voted against the civil rights bill and ran for president in 1964, and Nixon's southern strategy and Wallace's campaign in 1968 mobilized anti-civil rights sentiment among southern whites, the parties completely changed ideologically and geographically. By 1980 the pattern we see today was well-established; Republicans are now the party of anti-civil rights, while Democrats are pro civil rights. In deep southern states, people vote almost entirely along racial lines: whites vote Republican and blacks vote Democratic. In old border states, Republicans win easily because whites outnumber blacks more than in the deep South.

The Democratic program does not embrace equal outcomes for all. What it offers is programs that keep everyone protected against capricious greedy bosses and economic crashes. Sometimes it offers programs to help lift people out of poverty, and that's what LBJ provided until he put all his eggs in the fight against communism.

Bill Clinton said mend affirmative action, not end it. Not because blacks or others are inferior to whites, but because discrimination still exists and so does economic inequality. This inequality and poverty happens among blacks because of the heritage of racism. Many have been able to break out of poverty, but some remain. This inequality affects people of all races, because the bosses have appropriated the country's wealth, and no adjustment has been made to this increasing trend since 1980. One can't expect people of any race to rise out of poverty, when the policy of the country is to keep people IN poverty, by allowing a small group to hoard all the wealth and power.