'Right To Discriminate' Bills

[quadraginta]

Yeah, let's bring back "White's only" lunch counters.

Do you seriously believe that this would happen again on a large scale?

<snip>

"It can't happen here."



















(Again.)

 

[turingtest]

...
I absolutely agree. Government is also required to protect property and enforce contracts, or you don't end up with a market at all. But that's not the level of government we're debating here.

I've probably just lost the drift of the thread, but...what is the level of government we're debating here? Is protection of property and enforcement of contracts the only proper role for government, and the (totally) free market will take care of the rest (including civil rights)?

 

[Upchurch]

But not on anything like the scale that the South saw. And yes, it still occurs on a small scale... even with government prohibition.

And therein lies my point. Neither discrimination nor slavery are forced on the people by the government. Slavery and discrimination will occur regardless of what the government "dictates". The laws are reflective of collective attitudes and beliefs of the people themselves, or ought to be, constrained by a few principles that are not subject to the whims of the times, or shouldn't be. Overly simplified, it's government of the people, by the people, for the people, and all that.

Government is also required to protect property and enforce contracts, or you don't end up with a market at all. But that's not the level of government we're debating here.

What level of government are we talking about, then?

 

[Ziggurat]

And therein lies my point. Neither discrimination nor slavery are forced on the people by the government.

Slaves in the pre-Civil War south would have told you otherwise: their condition was very much forced upon them by the government. So would people who were legally obligated (and faced severe punishment if they didn't) to return escaped slaves.

And discrimination was forced on people by government in the pre-civil rights era. Have you not seen the examples listed in this very thread of laws requiring racial discrimination?

What level of government are we talking about, then?

Well, most directly, the bill mentioned in the original post.

 

[Upchurch]

Slaves in the pre-Civil War south would have told you otherwise: their condition was very much forced upon them by the government.

Slaves in the pre-Civil War south would have told you that their slavery was forced on them by their owners.

And discrimination was forced on people by government in the pre-civil rights era. Have you not seen the examples listed in this very thread of laws requiring racial discrimination?

Laws that came from will of the majority in those areas. Those laws were the method used on the minority, not the cause.

I don't know why you are referring to government as if it were something separate from the people.

Well, most directly, the bill mentioned in the original post.

...you'll have to elaborate. What do you mean by that being the level of government?

 

[Ziggurat]

"It can't happen here."

You know, I recently found out something very interesting about this phrase. It's the title of a Sinclair Lewis book about the rise of an American dictator, something I was vaguely familiar with in the back of my mind. But I only recently found out about one of the central plot points of the book: the conspiracy to take over the US is led by Rotarians. Yep: Rotarians were the threat we needed to guard against, lest we become fascists.

 

[Tricky]

Where is this Libertopia where free markets end discrimination? If this theory is correct, it should exist somewhere, being the superior system, right? Some tiny country, perhaps, that I'm unaware of? Somebody enlighten me, because the only place I see anything approaching a totally free market is Somalia.

 

[Ziggurat]

Where is this Libertopia where free markets end discrimination?

This is a strawman. I explicitly stated that free markets do NOT prevent discrimination.

If you want to discuss what I said, then actually read what I said.

Somebody enlighten me, because the only place I see anything approaching a totally free market is Somalia.

Somalia is not a free market. It is anarchy mixed with local despotism. Property rights are not respected, contracts are not enforced. Without that, you don't have a market. So give it a rest already, that's the most tiresome "refutation" of free markets around.

 

[turingtest]

Slaves in the pre-Civil War south would have told you that their slavery was forced on them by their owners.


Laws that came from will of the majority in those areas. Those laws were the method used on the minority, not the cause.

I don't know why you are referring to government as if it were something separate from the people.



...you'll have to elaborate. What do you mean by that being the level of government?

Hell, he's referring to the discrimination as if it were something separate from the people, and something that can be only stopped when it's "severely punished" by something as equally separate- the "totally free market." This is all getting a little theological, I think; all three things (free market, government, and discrimination) are of and from the people, and government seems to me just as proper a way to address the problem, on that ground, as a totally free market construct.

And I have to ask- if someone is against the idea of a law (civil rights laws) that disallows discrimination, because it's an improper intrusion of government into a totally free market , shouldn't they be as equally against an equally improper intrusion, at the same level of government, by a law that allows discrimination? If the objection is that the only proper law in regard to civil rights is free market law, then I don't see how one governmental intrusion in that regard is better than the other.

 

[Ziggurat]

Hell, he's referring to the discrimination as if it were something separate from the people, and something that can be only stopped when it's "severely punished" by something as equally separate- the "totally free market." This is all getting a little theological, I think; all three things (free market, government, and discrimination) are of and from the people, and government seems to me just as proper a way to address the problem, on that ground, as a totally free market construct.

Sure: if the vast majority of people are racist, then neither free markets nor government will stop discrimination, and it will be common. If the vast majority of people are not racist, then discrimination will be rare regardless of how you choose to address it.

And I have to ask- if someone is against the idea of a law (civil rights laws) that disallows discrimination, because it's an improper intrusion of government into a totally free market , shouldn't they be as equally against an equally improper intrusion, at the same level of government, by a law that allows discrimination?

Well, no. A law that allows discrimination is not an intrusion. It places no obligations on private actors in the market. If you want to intrude upon the market, then you need to either prohibit or require something.

 

[turingtest]

Sure: if the vast majority of people are racist, then neither free markets nor government will stop discrimination, and it will be common. If the vast majority of people are not racist, then discrimination will be rare regardless of how you choose to address it.

But civil rights are, almost by definition, not a "majority rules" matter. If your free market law even just enables discrimination, by not addressing it, then it's certainly worse than a government law that forbids it even when it can't completely stop it. I agree that neither system can eliminate what is, after all, a personal (and, I hope you agree, wrong) inclination; the point is that government law can stop the personal wrong from becoming an institutional wrong, while the free market law can, by your own admission, as well enable it as stop it.

Well, no. A law that allows discrimination is not an intrusion. It places no obligations on private actors in the market. If you want to intrude upon the market, then you need to either prohibit or require something.

As above- if you frame a law such that it even only enables some of those private actors to discriminate against others, then it's an intrusion. If free market principles demand a completely level playing field, then discrimination shouldn't be addressed at all either way by law; all you're really saying is "it's ok for government to have a say in this matter as long as what it says disallows its own principle and allows mine."

And the whole argument that "some actors in the free market will punish others in the market for acting wrongly" places the burden in the wrong place, in my view; it places the burden for correcting the wrong on those who suffer by it (or even just suffer it to continue when not directly affected) rather than on those who commit it. I'm not one to believe in the idea of a totally objective (as in "god-given") morality; but this takes the subjectivity of morals to a wholly different (and somewhat self-serving) level.

My wife is eyeballing this laptop I'm typing on (well, it is hers), and since mine has a virus, I doubt I'll get back here before tomorrow morning. I do want to say, though, before I go, that I appreciate the reasonable level you've brought to this conversation; I hope I've upheld the same level. It just seems appropriate to me to point out a reasonable airing of views in a time when that's so hard to come by.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"It can't happen here."

(Again.)

I guess it's an expression of a perceived position of superiority. "I can discriminate against you because I'm better than you." The definition of "better" is probably most entertaining and/or disconnected from reality.

 

[Tricky]

Somalia is not a free market. It is anarchy mixed with local despotism. Property rights are not respected, contracts are not enforced. Without that, you don't have a market. So give it a rest already, that's the most tiresome "refutation" of free markets around.

Enforcement of contracts? By whom? A massive legal system? A massive police presence? Rules about what contracts can say and can't say? Your idea of a "free market" may differ widely from what someone else thinks, and if that happens, who decides what's right?

That's why the "free market" is not a term that can be easily defined. Nobody wants a totally "free" market. They all want some restrictions, arbitration and enforcement. They just want it at different levels.

 

[Ziggurat]

Enforcement of contracts? By whom?

Government, of course. We're not talking about anarchy here, and I made that clear long ago.

Rules about what contracts can say and can't say?

That's not part of contract enforcement, nor is it relevant here.

Your idea of a "free market" may differ widely from what someone else thinks, and if that happens, who decides what's right?

It really doesn't matter who is "right" in this sense, the relevant question is what did the speaker mean. And I did not mean it the way you seam to imply I meant it. Our history on this board is long enough for you to know that. If you want to use a different definition, you can do so, but it's dishonest to do so without noting that difference, and it wouldn't serve any purpose in this discussion anyways.

 

[Ziggurat]

But civil rights are, almost by definition, not a "majority rules" matter.

In practice the majority must believe that protecting minority rights is important or it simply does not happen, regardless of what's on the books.

If your free market law even just enables discrimination, by not addressing it, then it's certainly worse than a government law that forbids it even when it can't completely stop it.

I don't agree that this is a certainty. As I said, there are ways that government actions enable discrimination even without meaning to. And government intervention doesn't come for free either. Like everything, there's going to be a diminishing marginal return on additional government efforts to stop discrimination. At a certain point reducing discrimination further stops being cost effective (and I'm not just talking dollar costs either, there are other costs as well), so it's not axiomatic that the solution with the least discrimination is the best either.

As above- if you frame a law such that it even only enables some of those private actors to discriminate against others, then it's an intrusion.

An intrusion is a limitation on freedom. That means prohibiting or compelling something. If you refrain from stopping someone, that does not count as intruding on their actions. And that is all "enabling" means here, government is not providing resources to help people discriminate.

If free market principles demand a completely level playing field

They do not. At least, not in this sense.

And the whole argument that "some actors in the free market will punish others in the market for acting wrongly" places the burden in the wrong place, in my view; it places the burden for correcting the wrong on those who suffer by it (or even just suffer it to continue when not directly affected) rather than on those who commit it. I'm not one to believe in the idea of a totally objective (as in "god-given") morality; but this takes the subjectivity of morals to a wholly different (and somewhat self-serving) level.

This isn't about subjectivity of morality, it's about the role of government. You can believe in absolute morals, or even God-given moral commandments, and still believe that government should not be enforcing all of those morals. In fact, unless you're a totalitarian, then you basically have to concede that there are moral values that the government cannot enforce (unless you don't believe in morality at all). So the disagreement is simply a matter of degrees anyways: which morals are both important enough and sufficiently amenable to government action to justify government enforcement?

I've been partly playing devil's advocate here, in the sense that I'm actually comfortable with some basic anti-discrimination laws. But I think it's possible to go too far. The government should only try to stop the more egregious examples. Stuff like that gay couple who sued a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for them shouldn't have happened. On a personal level I disagree with the baker's decision, but I don't believe that his discrimination was sufficiently important to warrant government intervention, and I think a free market remedy was readily available in that case.

My wife is eyeballing this laptop I'm typing on (well, it is hers), and since mine has a virus, I doubt I'll get back here before tomorrow morning. I do want to say, though, before I go, that I appreciate the reasonable level you've brought to this conversation; I hope I've upheld the same level. It just seems appropriate to me to point out a reasonable airing of views in a time when that's so hard to come by.

Yes, you have been a gentleman about our disagreement.

 

[lobosrul]

In practice the majority must believe that protecting minority rights is important or it simply does not happen, regardless of what's on the books.

The majority of Americans as a whole came to believe that protecting minority rights is important. That is why anti-discrimination laws were passed at the federal level. The majority of people in certain areas of the country did not share that view. That is why their local governments passed pro-discrimination laws, in certain cases. In other cases they took it upon themselves to do it when legally allowed to.

You either believe businesses should have the unlimited right to refuse service or products to anyone for any reason, or you believe that right is not unlimited if and when it harms members of society. You've shown no evidence at all in post after post that the free market takes care of discrimination if just left to its own devices. Might it sometimes, eventually? Sure. I don't see how you can possibly argue that if just left to their own devices the southern US would have ended discrimination against blacks any sooner than being forced to by the government.

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't see how you can possibly argue that if just left to their own devices the southern US would have ended discrimination against blacks any sooner than being forced to by the government.

I never argued that it would have. In fact, I've been rather explicit about the point that southern government discrimination was ended only because of federal government intervention, and this was wholly justified. My position has always been more nuanced than your response indicates, and I can't really engage with you if you only attack what amounts to a straw man.

 

[lobosrul]

I never argued that it would have. In fact, I've been rather explicit about the point that southern government discrimination was ended only because of federal government intervention, and this was wholly justified. My position has always been more nuanced than your response indicates, and I can't really engage with you if you only attack what amounts to a straw man.

I never said you were against sub-federal government's ability to discriminate being taken away. Not all states or localities had requirements that discrimination be mandatory for private businesses, yet it still took place. Also, Jim Crow laws only codified what had been going on for centuries in the USA (and the colonies beforehand).

If I understand it correctly your argument is that: government should not allow or prohibit discrimination by private business, instead the free market will solve the problem because businesses with non-discriminatory policies will win out. Except, we have too many other interference's in the free market, so its not free enough anyways. Am I wrong?

I would also add that the USA during the 19th and early 20th centuries had one of the least regulated free markets in the history of the industrialized world, yet there was plenty of discrimination going on against people based on their color, nationality and religion, before Jim Crow laws became commonplace.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

I suppose this is a semantic issue, but I don't consider allowing slavery (which obviously infringes upon the rights of the slave) to be compatible with free markets. If the slave is not free to sell his own labor as he wishes (and he's not, or else he wouldn't be a slave), then he is excluded from the market.

<snip>

It seems like, by the same token, laws which restrict illegal immigrants would also be incompatible with a free market.

Why are conservative politicians so reluctant to support illegal immigrants? Aren't they the ones who claim to carry the banner of the free market, unlike those Commie progressives and liberals?

 

[Regnad Kcin]

I think it's the usual progressives' desire to have more govt control of citizens.

Were I hearing voices in my head I should seek medical advice, but maybe that's just me.