I Apologize to My Fellow Americans

[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.