Well, like somebody said before... ....we've kinda already done this thing before... ...two or three times at least..... ...just in the last 60-100 years. Was a time in this country, once, where it seemed like a pretty good idea... ...(looka)like keeping to like would be what's best for eveybody... ...if people don't want to deal with you they don't have to or shouldn't be forced to... ...white folks over here, black folks over there... ...but you know, I gotta say this... ...and I know it's gonna sound reverse-racist when I say it... ...but the very same people who thought that this was a good idea were the ones who hated it when it seemed to work almost exactly NOT how they planned. If you check the history of a lot of the Southern states for the 30 or 40 years after the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, this whole "separate-but-equal" theory got a chance to play itself out to see if money and morality were mutally exclusive. Not the only one, but perhaps the most famous example of this was what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the early 1920's I think. Segregation in Oklahoma essentially created two Tulsa's―one for the white people and one for the black people. The black folk called their part of Tulsa (a suburb called Greenwood) "the Black Wall Street". The Black folks couldn't spend the money they earned as second-class citizens working for white people in white stores or businesses, so they built their own and did business with each other. Seems like a good thing, I guess. Show people through the power of a common dollar that it would be in everybody's best interests to get along and work with each other. It's what makes America AMERICA, after all. Rising tides lifting (instead of swamping) all boats or some such... Long story short ― didn't last long. Seems somebody got the very original idea to trump up a crime and blame a black man for it (who God only knows how―beat the rap―guy might have been an ancestor of O.J. Simpson or something...gotta check that out...). This sent the honorable and decent white folk into a tizzy (not the black man being innocent, but the white lady charging a crime against a black man). Used it as a smokescreen to tear up the wealthy black side of Tulsa for days. Not even the National Guard could (or would) do much to stop it. Even allowing for the times, that's kind of a bad thing. And I suppose as recurring themes in riots go, there's this unspoken rule that the only things that are allowed to get torn up is black folks' stuff. Balkanizing the United States has been tried and suggested and has failed for the most part. It's been going on since the birth of the nation (the first one...and, well, the movie version, too). Race has always been a fairly simple way to divide people. We all tend to care more about what something looks like than what it actually is...and to be perfectly honest, in the right light...I have to admit that my skin's just about dark enough to not look exactly like a human being sometimes... Just don't see any good coming from a business telling some of its gay greenback holders that "we don't want to do business with you". Could set off a whole 'nother Civil War. Lot of folks have been clamoring for a rematch. And here all this time, I thought Kansas fought with the Yankees. Freaking free liberal public school education....
What about clubs who don't let in fat chicks or dudes that aren't bringing girls? Sexual and bloater discrimination right there.
As a general matter, I'm averse to forcing anyone to do something they don't want to do. It makes me uncomfortable. But some people (Bloomberg) get off on forcibly bending others to their will. If someone doesn't want to serve gays, there are ways to change that behavior short of putting a gun to their head. Shunning, shaming, ridicule, boycott, persuasion through reason or appeals to a higher power. Any parent knows beating a sense of right and wrong into a child only gets you so far. Internalization is the key. We can dispense with the indignant "how dare you" replies, I'm aware this is a minority viewpoint. And just to add, segregation was a policy imposed by governments.
Uhm, you know.... ...minority opinion or not.... ...your point is valid. Take it from a minority. But, see, to me that's the thing―sentiment works its way into our goverment just like any other human emotion does. We like to think that we're all being completely rational about things that have made their way into law, but that's just not human nature. No sane human being is completely rational. We all seek to supplement our baser instincts with a facade of civility, decorum and intellectual discourse. And then when that doesn't work, a few people gotta get killed. Then maybe we get to the shaming and ridiculing part. Internalization (or separation or secession) won't do a whole lot to preserve the union, in my opinion. I don't know if you underestimate the sentiment of reclusiveness and selfishness and even pettiness that runs through this particular discourse for the country. I don't like to think that the "United" in United States of America is just a non-sequitur. But we have seen this dynamic before (whatever the outer trappings). We all have a pretty good idea where it will go if we pretend that, somehow, these things will work themselves out. It's not about changing peoples' minds to me. No way that happens absent the mind (or minds) directly involved. I don't think it's about somebody being right and sombody being wrong, and tacitly creating and encouraging an unnecessary violent eruption that employing such poles in the conversation invariably causes. Maybe it's just me. I've been wrong before about a lot of stuff.
Would you be OK with businesses refusing service to black people? Would you use the same logic to defend that stance?
He's already stated that he is. His faith in "the market" is so strong that it is totally devoid of common sense. Somebody already posed the question what if the gas stations in a small town in Mississippi decided to stop servicing black people. The next town is many miles away and also doesn't serve blacks. Does this just mean "tough ****" for the African Americans because they were born a different color?
Gotcha. Didn't feel like sifting through 5 pages of responses to see if someone already posed the question.
Being fat is, in the exception of genetic issues, a born condition. We're talking about discriminating against people based upon who they innately are. So yes, discriminating against men would be wrong. However, considering world history, that's the most implausible hypothetical you could've come up with.
Happens all the time. Men can't go in clubs without girls, same with fat chicks or old geezers. Most of those Brazilian wax places will refuse to give men a back, sack and crack wax which is just genitalia discrimination. If they even serve men. Fat is genetic in very rare cases. Most of it is greed. If it wasn't greed, gastric bypass wouldn't work. So I agree with you there.
I don't think his faith lacks common sense so much as it is misinformed. From an economic perspective, he isn't taking into account all the relevant factors. He doesn't consider the utility value that people place on upholding one's religious values, maintaining a racial hierarchy, love of personal freedom, and whatever other reason people can come up with to exclude other groups of people. In certain places/at certain times in the nation these factors would outweigh a price premium (for consumers) or a decrease in revenues (for business owners), which is why we had, for example, prolonged segregation of minorities from certain white businesses in the past. Thus, situations like this can't really be judged as a market failure, unless the refusal to deal with certain groups of people causes systemic inefficiencies. You make the hypothetical sound like a rhetorical question (ie the answer should be no), but it is more nuanced than that. What if white businesses said "Sure, we'll sell gas to black people, but at twice the price that white people pay?" Should we then institute price controls if the practical effect is the same? What if an eccentric black billionaire buys all the gas stations in the area and refuses to sell to anybody except black people? At the end of the day, forcing businesses to not discriminate is a line in the sand judgment as far as how much economic freedom we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of higher principles, a line which I happen to mostly agree with. However, others could disagree without necessarily being bigoted, though obviously these things are hard to parse out.
Why Christians in this country think they have the right to discriminate is beyond me. Can we just ban Christianity from the U.S alread? Maybe ban republicans and Harley bikes while we at it too.
So you think that gays have it better in the Muslim world? Or are you suggesting to ban Islam from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, etc.?
