Amidst all these indignant Christians in Indiana and elsewhere insisting that it is their right to be uncharitable snots to people who don’t obey their orders about who to love, there are some good stories, too. The Oakland A’s baseball team is having an LGBT Night.
That’s not the good part, although it is mighty decent of them.
A bunch of Oakland A’s fair-weather fans are upset about that, and are trying to sell off their tickets for that night.
That’s definitely not the good part, either.
Here’s the good part.
Eireann Dolan likes baseball. Her boyfriend is a pitcher for the Oakland A’s. Eireann made an offer and wrote a letter.
So, A’s fans; if attending a baseball game on LGBT Pride Night makes you at all uncomfortable, it is probably a good idea to sell your tickets. And I have the perfect buyer. ME!If you’d like to sell your tickets to June 17th’s LGBT Pride Night game, I will buy them from you at face value. As many as I can. No judgments. No questions asked.
From there, I will donate any tickets I purchase to the Bay Area Youth Center’s Our Space community for LGBTQ youth.
Damn. That isn’t a small tear trickling down my face, it’s just that my cynicism is melting a little bit.
I look at whiny homophobes. I look at Eireann Dolan. I look at self-righteous Christians. I look at Eireann Dolan. I’m thinking what we need is for the homophobic Christians to look at Eireann Dolan, too, and feel a little shame.
Great story, thanks!
Shame?! They’re feeling smug moral superiority.
#2: Thanks for re-icing my cynicism!
That is the most awesome thing I’ve read today!
I wouldn’t hold my breath, Dr. Myers.
Eireann made my day. A supply of swill is headed her way.
I almost get the feeling that some folks, allegedly Xian, simply have to have somebody around to feel superior to, and since the civil rights movement made it more difficult to complain about blacks and Hispanics, they are left with undocumented immigrants and GLBT. They just can’t give up their hate, as then they have no inferiors….
They’re being chased back under the fucking rocks they came from (sorry rock dwelling creatures) They are MORE than welcome to their smug satisfaction as long as its AWAY FROM THE REST OF US
You want some liquid nitrogen to re-ice your cynicism to an absolute stand-still?
The grifters from Memories Pizza have accrued $211,000 so far on their GoFundMe page.
Bigotry pays.
throwaway
Must you really? I was trying to feel happy for a little bit, here.
That GoFundMe is an atrocity. We know that. (I know that.) Let’s be happy here for a moment.
PZ, can you give us a link? You usually reference the quoted article.
Not sure where PZ read it, but here’s two sources:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/oakland-as-pitcher-and-girlfriend-make-the-save-after-backlash-to-teams-lgbt-pride-event/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2015/04/01/girlfriend-of-oakland-as-pitcher-puts-her-money-where-her-mouth-is-about-teams-lgbt-pride-night/
This should be the original source: http://thankyoubasedball.com/2015/03/27/oakland-athletics-pride-night-2015/
Also, though tat Bolling’s comic is perfect: http://boingboing.net/2015/04/01/tom-the-dancing-bug-lo-in-th.html
Oops. Fixed. Sometimes when I make a typo, wordpress kindly cleans up my mistake by eradicating the naughty html.
Sorry rq, guess what they say is true. Misery loves company and that news made me miserable. Had to share it somewhere.
The funny thing is the homophobes should (but often don’t) realize that there are gays and lesbians at any large gathering of people. The only difference is now they’d know we were there and could be in their comfort zone of denial.
As they were known in the long ago, far away galaxy of Beserkeley: Fukkin’ A’s, yeah!
Well, they have to protest that game. Otherwise the EPA might infect them with the gay Latino agenda!
(Myers): “Christians … insisting that it is their right to be uncharitable snots to people who don’t obey their orders about who to love …”
That’s an uncharitable framing of the issue. I was raised in no church and I’m no more a Christian than I am a Hindu or Zoroastrian, so I won’t presume to speak for them, but as a classical liberal, I support freedom of association and freedom of contract. I don’t see Christians ordering people “who (sic) to love”.
Freedom of association no more implies invoking State violence to force people into contracts with people who do not appeal to them than it implies invoking State violence to force people into bed with partners who do not appeal to them. A right is a promise of State non-intervention (mostly). By analogy: A right to free speech is a promise by the State not to shut you up. There is no implied promise that the State will compel anyone to listen. Similarly, a right to freedom of association and freedom of contract is a promise by the State not to interfere with contracts between consenting adults. There is no implied promise by the State to force anyone to hire straights or gays or Christians or Jews or Muslims or people of recent African descent or European descent.
btw, I agree, the kind lady’s offer to buy and donate tickets is inspiring. It will, however, reduce the cost of ticket-holders of their discrimination.
Like a religion, my A’s fandom was passed down from my father. And as a born A’s fan, I can find no fault in PZed’s description of their typical supporter. I wish I understood the social dynamic, but it has always seemed that A’s fans were more loutish and less loyal when compared to the haram team across the bay’s fans. Of course, even knowing this, it is not enough to get me to reconsider my faith. ;^)
I only wish i could be at the game on LBGT night. It would make a pleasant change from the usual fans that show up.
Less than 20 comments in and we have a “classical liberal” opposing all anti-discrimination laws based on a “if the people doing it don’t call themselves the government it’s not bad” principle…
Malcom Kirkpatrick @ 18
You’re not paying enough attention then. Refusing to associate with and/or provide services for gay people is telling those people that the ability to move freely through society is contingent upon being straight.
The bigots’ GoFundMe campaign is, indeed, sickening but Eireann has her own GoFundMe campaign(Filling the Stands on Pride Night) where she has raised over $27,000 as of now. She and her boyfriend will match donations up to $3,000 and anything over$6,000 will be donated to Our Space, AIDS Project East Bay, and Frameline.
http://www.gofundme.com/qeuuz4
Go kick in a few buck if you can.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @18:
You’re not looking very hard.
The principle is non-violence. Well, minimal violence.
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” –Mao.
For any locality __A__ the term “the government of A” denotes the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in hat locality (definition, after Weber). A law is a threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV (imprison) someone, under some specified circumstances. Between “proscribed” and “compulsory” there’s room for “we don’t recommend it but we won’t stop you, “we don’t care one way or another”, and “We think it’s a good idea but we won’t make you”. A society is free in direct proportion to the amount of space between “proscribed” and “compulsory”.
Ever hear of Civil Rights Act, or other rights being enforced in commerce? Must be a stupid liberturd with your ignorance, arrogance, and sloganeering.
Yep liberturd fuckwitted idjit, somebody to be laughed at, and then ignored for gross ignorance and arrogance.
YOU don’t make decisions. Other folks wiser than you can tell you what to do. Don’t like it, move to the middle of nowhere, and don’t interact with rational folks.
(Seven, #22): “ Refusing to associate with and/or provide services for gay people is telling those people that the ability to move freely through society is contingent upon being straight.”
No more than preferring Asian women or Black men for sex partners is “telling” other people “that the ability to move freely through society is contingent upon being …” Asian and female or Black and male.
Oh my stars, we have a libertarian reciting the magic totem words from the script. STFU.
Sloganeering fuckwittery from a stupid liberturd. Dismissed as irrelevant, already refuted, and non-workable, like all the liberturd “philosophy”.
You can’t show 30 continuous years in the last century in a first world country using your political; slogans. That should tell you something, but you are too stupid to see facts.
(Malcolm): “… a right to freedom of association and freedom of contract is a promise by the State not to interfere with contracts between consenting adults. There is no implied promise by the State to force anyone to hire straights or gays or Christians or Jews or Muslims or people of recent African descent or European descent.”
(Nerd, 26): “Ever hear of Civil Rights Act, or other rights being enforced in commerce? Must be a stupid liberturd with your ignorance, arrogance, and sloganeering.”
Yes, of course I’ve heard of the Civil Rights Act. I’ve also heard of minimum wage laws. I see both as violations of the freedom of association and freedom of contract. In the rights of freedom of contract and freedom of association there is no implied promise of State intervention. A right, as I understand the term, is a promise of non-intervention. A right to free speech is a promise by the State not to shut you up.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Doing this
<blockquote>paste copied text here</blockquote>
Results in this
It makes comments with quotes easier to read.
Content is your responsibility.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @ comment 25:
Freedom for whom to do what?
Your assholish implication about HIV is also unwelcome here, and you can go fuck yourself with your voluntaryist libterturdian bullshit.
btw, I’m neither a libertarian nor a Libertarian. I part company with my libertarian friends on environmental issues and national defense.
“Okay everyone, we’ve got the freedom to withhold business from anyone we want! I’m sure this won’t affect despised, marginalized groups whatsoever! If they don’t like it they can fuck off or something.”
thanks we really appreciate that libertarianism.
(Shala, 33): “Your assholish implication about HIV is also unwelcome here …”
No surprise. People normally claim benign intentions when they promote legislation and don’t like to be reminded that the method they advocate (organized violence) can impose enormous costs. Prison is a significant HIV risk factor.
You are a weaselly little shit. No surprise there.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick, Libertarian Party Clown.
Act One: “Anti-discrimination laws aren’t a thing and segregation is fine by me!”
(Shala): “You are a weaselly little shit;”. How so “weaselly”? I have been as direct as possible. Seems to me everyone here understood what I wrote, or they wouldn’t take such vehement objection.
It’s perfectly clear you are bigoted shitweasel, who thinks post facto discrimination is fine. You never picture your sorry stupid ass on the receiving end of such bigotry though. You should. It is called empathy, an useful emotion liberturds lack. Which is why they are stupid and uncaring about others.
Malcolm sez:
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/other/correctional.html
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/basics/
Percent of United States population total with HIV/AIDS: 1.2 million cases out of 311.7 million people => 0.38%
Percent of prison population with HIV/AIDS: 1.4%
Four times more likely isn’t anything to sneeze at, but it also doesn’t make prison synonymous with HIV/AIDS, you fucking sleazy asshat.
Go fuck yourself, you dishonest fucking shitweasel.
Things Malcolm Kirkpatrick think shouldn’t be allowed:
Prison
Regulating businesses
Preventing discrimination
Basically, government and laws shouldn’t exist, business should be allowed to turn us into slaves as they so please, all hail the Free Market, kneel before its Invisible Hand!
(40)
A. “Post facto”
Huh?
B. Review the style of expression of participants in this discussion. Got a mirror?
(42)
That’s a wild misrepresentation of the classical liberal position. See (e.g.) Friedman, __Capitalism and Freedom__, Sowell, __Knowledge and Decisions__, Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty__.
Relating specifically to discrimination, see Williams, __The State Against Blacks__.
That’s an accurate representation of your position as you are presenting it yourself. What a fucking cop out of a reply.
Also noted: you skipped over my comment illustrating the complete idiocy, wrong headedness, and fucking offensiveness of your “prison = AIDS” bullshit.
Fuck off already, you dishonest little shit.
This is only true under absolutely absurd definitions of “minimal” and “violence.” Totalitarian fundamentalist capitalism — what calls itself “Libertarianism” and “classical liberalism” — depends on the unlimited and omnipresent threat of violence exercised by the state (or de facto state) on behalf of the beneficiaries of the only collective social endeavor which is worshipped, any challenge to which is blasphemy: private property. Not property in any of its varied, socially-mediated forms, but any of a few odd, special-pleading-filled essentialist versions that insist that having the state act as an army of thugs for a few robber barons is the absolute height of freedom (as long as the state doesn’t call those robber barons, well, barons — unless their contracts with their peons entitle them to that).
That’s “minimal violence.”
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
yo
dipshit
you learned blockquote
learn to address people by name
The bottom line of such discussions of libertarianism seems to be whether or not people have the right to starve each other to death. Whether diminishing the chance of someone surviving counts as violence.
I like thinking in terms of small towns. It wouldn’t take many business refusing to sell to me to make my life very difficult or impossible in such confined places. A common libertarian reply to this problem is simply “move elsewhere!” But, then, I’d need to be able to do business to relocate.
A possible solution is having the state sell goods directly to consumers, so they wouldn’t be deprived of anything important whenever business-owners decide to invoke their right to discriminate. Or their right to starve others. But I doubt any libertarian would subscribe to this kind of Bolivarian solution.
On a different note, I, in general, agree with M can help you with that.
You need to threaten others with violence in order to keep any possession you aren’t sitting on right now. You can’t have the cake and eat it. Either you ditch private property with the state, or some state-like entity whose sole purpose is to promote violence will emerge.
(46):
Absurd. Capitalism (the system of title and contract law) is not “totalitarian”. The whole point of free markets is that no central authority dictates individual choices or overall outcomes.
(46):
@Malcolm Kirkpatrick 18
It’s an accurate framing of the issue. That’s how social shaming works. If the actions of society harm or impoverish another through irrational beliefs we get to point that out. Those are the actual results of their actions.
@25
.And social shaming is part of how we shape that government. We don’t feel like letting religious morality or your contractual morality become the government. When people using contracts harm others through the group actions derived from irrational beliefs and all you have is a case of bruised feels mockery is a perfectly acceptable response.
@28
Now that is just cowardly and insulting. If you do not have a real-world, useful social tool with examples that can be applied towards creating social change in this situation you are changing the subject from things that matter very much to people. You deserve the insults if your morality lets you make such statements.
@31
Your rights end where ours begin. Societies are able to determine the context within which contracts are made as we learn more about how dumb monkeys act in groups. I reject your whole approach for deciding how to feel about this situation.
@36
And rehabilitation in properly designed prisons requires a significant social investment. Certainly I have never seen a country successfully treat incarceration in prisons as rehabilitation instead of punishment that was not also a country with heavy social investment through government. So not only are you grossly insulting on a human level, your own example likely will make you look dumb. Unless you know of a country that does not fit that pattern.
@39
It’s because you are saying insulting things and appear to have no empathy or understanding of human nature with respect to social change. Your very first post was insulting, useless, and only served to draw attention from important issues for pathetic reasons. Make your points in a way that actually offers something to solve someone’s problems and you might have a chance. If all you are going to do is ignore a social problem that effects real people here over a characterization you are literally a tone troll.
Trolls get yelled at. Tough shit.
@44
How about no? If you think your behavior in here is going to encourage someone to read something you are not only insulting and ignorant, you are dumb as a rock. People are not going to do your work for you in any argument, let alone after you insult them.
How central does it have to be to count? With the threat of violence to back up property claims and contracts negotiated under the less-than-favorable terms made available by disparities in access to resources, it’s quite possible (and even favorable for one party) to establish totalitarian “company town” mini-states. And it’s all perfectly legal and market-friendly — everyone agreed to the contract!
Thanks, all, for all the coarse interaction. You’all discredit your voice and demonstrate where the intolerance lies. I’ll step aside and let (42) and (46) argue, since their interpretations of my words diverge 180 degrees (“prison shouldn’t exist” versus “totalitarian”). Was I the only one to notice?
G’night, all you social justice warriors.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @ 49
By “whole point”, do you mean the intended goal or actual outcome? Because if the former, the strong tendency towards monopolies suggests it’s not very good, and if it’s the latter, you’re clearly not paying attention.
troll
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @ 49:
Until a monopoly is formed, as will happen without government intervention in the form of anti-trust laws. Then, you have a central authority – but one with the goal of profit as opposed to human rights or even law and order, and with no effective checks and balances.
To put it another way: do you believe a monopoly is more profitable than a highly competitive market?
If so, in what way does the free market not encourage monopolies?
If not, why do companies seek to increase their market share?
Do you support monopolies?
Does the policy you advocate tend to lead to their creation?
not snoof.
malcolm, the cowardly flunker
bad refreshing, sorry
Re:Malcolm Kirkpatrick
The more I hear that phrase the more I like the term given how the context plays out.
Too bad he flounced. Property is theft, and even Nozick admitted it. If you are a propertarian you are a fucking filthy statist, and once we’ve established that we’re just down to haggling over the price.
You like property more than justice? So what. I like justice more. To get around this disagreement that would otherwise be solved with clubs we invented society. I’ll give away my right to the whole world outside your body in exchange for some redistribution. Deal?
This is why, whenever I see the words “classical liberal”, I know it’s safe to substitute “privileged arsehole” without any dianger of distorting the meaning. All the “classical liberals” I meet are quite happy to see groups disadvantaged by bigotry remain disadvantaged, people forced to work like slaves just to stay alive, and the concentration of wealth and power we have seen over the last 40 years to continue unabated.
Oh, did the empathy impaired arsehole who thinks that only the liberties of the hateful should be protected, leave already? Good.
It’s good to know there are decent human beings out there like Eireann and her boyfriend :)
People like Malcolm Kirkpatrick, I don’t mind laws that inhibit their ‘freedom of association’ and ‘freedom of contract’ at all.
Also, I’m quite happy to be a social justice warrior. A comparatively poor one, but still, if that’s the best Malcolm can do to insult the likes of me, well… I’ll take it.
I think there’s a distinction to be drawn between restaurants, hotels, and car dealerships on the one hand, and photographers, florists and cake bakers on the other. If you hire a baker to decorate a wedding cake, or a photographer to take pictures of it, the service you’re hiring them for is to make you look good. It isn’t just the cake; it’s that the cake contributes to saying that this is a wonderful occasion that deserves to look good.
That’s not just providing a service; that’s providing artistic speech. And I think there are First Amendment problems with compelling an artist to say things the artist finds objectionable.
That issue is not present with serving someone food or selling them a car. So I’m fine with saying that restaurants and grocery stores can’t discriminate; there’s no artistic speech involved, it’s just providing a service. I’m less comfortable requiring what amounts to compelled speech endorsing something. Especially when there are a zillion other florists and bakers who will be happy to take money from gay couples even if this one won’t.
What is it about analogies that if you’re a bigot, you have to be terrible at them?
eeyore, #62
Which other groups would you be willing to make this exact statement for?
Let’s start with black people:
So I’m fine with saying that restaurants and grocery stores can’t discriminate; there’s no artistic speech involved, it’s just providing a service. I’m less comfortable requiring what amounts to compelled speech endorsing something. Especially when there are a zillion other florists and bakers who will be happy to take money from black people even if this one won’t.
That sound like the recipe for a nice, pleasant and peaceful society to you?
I should clarify: My post #63 was meant about people like Malcolm Kirkpatrick. It wasn’t directed at you, eeyore.
BULLSHIT. Either you serve the PUBLIC or you are a bigot. End of story. Why you won’t see that says something about your willingness to be or condone bigotry.
eeyore @ 62 – that was some impressive bending to twist yourself into that pretzel just to justify homophobia and discrimination.
If a person’s religious beliefs are so rigid that they would discriminate against an entire group of people in the running of a business, they should avail themselves of the freedom not to run a business.
Private thoughts cannot be regulated by the government, regardless of whether they are explicitly religious or not. But when thought becomes action, as it does when you refuse to serve an entire group of people due to their membership in said group, you become a bigot and are committing a crime. A public business cannot discriminate against entire groups of people, specifically against groups recognized as protected classes of people.
There’s no ambiguity here, except SCOTUS opened the fucking door to it by interpreting federal law incorrectly in the Hobby Lobby decision (the original federal law they cited was not intended to apply to businesses, but they applied it that way anyway, opening the spigot for homophobes and misogynists like the assholes who own Hobby Lobby to try to use these laws to provide themselves legal protection to discriminate).
Portrait of an idiotic gibbertarian bullshitter
First to note again: Malcolm never did address the facts I brought up regarding how his offensive and ridiculous characterization of imprisonment as “forcible injection with HIV” is completely absurd. Slimy little fuckwit.
No, capitalism is not just Freedom all the way down. The businesses involved in the Free Market of Freedom are authorities. Property rights are instated by authorities, which was the entire point, which you intentionally misunderstood. Hell, even businesses themselves probably could not exist without some central authority. You imagine the free market as just “freedom freedom freedom” and you cheer it all day long. But you are myopic and don’t realize (or dishonestly don’t want to admit) that even your dream situation where there government is wittled down to next to nothing, you are either dreaming of complete anarchy with no real market being possible, or dreaming of a corporatocracy.
Suddenly the histrionics of “the definition of rule of law is the threat that you will be brutalized and infected with HIV!!!!” when the law in question is the right to own shit. A government dictating the rules of property, about types of property from thimbles to acres of land, and saying who owns what and what constitutes ownership and preventing people from unjustly taking property that isn’t theirs is pretty fucking omnipresent.
It’s like you are being stupid deliberately.
Am I seeing what I am actually seeing here? Is this essentially saying that laws regarding private property are perfectly fine, compared to those other Evil Laws, because it is Natural? I think that is the basics of this, once you wittle down all the gibbertarian bafflegab.
When all else fails, tone troll.
First, I will note that if your position isn’t that “prison shouldn’t exist”, that makes your whole bit of “prison = HIV infection” even more hideous and bizarre.
Second, I will note that you are an idiot, because the specific phrase was “totalitarian fundamentalist capitalism”. It was a description of your bizarre form of capitalism, an adjective. It was not the assertion that you are after what is normally considered “totalitarian”. You might as well be claiming that someone was accusing you, in the same phrase, of being a fundamentalist Christian.
Who woulda thunk that the libertarian was opposed to social justice. Who. Woulda. Thunk.
eeyore:
It beggars belief to imagine that floral arrangements or cake decorations for a gay wedding are suddenly “artistic speech” about gay weddings. Yes, there is artistry involved. That doesn’t mean that the people providing art for a gay wedding are suddenly forced into saying something about gay weddings. Or if they were, it would be in the same fashion that people catering the wedding or providing any service for the wedding at all are forced into saying something about gay weddings.
It is a really fucking strained argument. And, like most of these arguments, displays more concern for the bigots than the people being discriminated against.
Are you hinting that good conservative Christians should feel shame? That’s a violation of their RELIGIOUS FREEDOM!!! Expecting them to take what they dish out is a HUGE burden on their deeply-held beliefs.
Was it those Indiana christians or the canadian on the next post that stuck that “There really is a God” advertisement right up there at the top left? And what’s this about BBC newsreaders trying to block the faith, I thought they just read the news?
Saad, nerd, drst and anteprepro, you’re making the mirror-image error that libertarians make. Libertarians say that the sensibilities of business owners are 100% determinative of the issue. You say that the sensibilities of business owners are 0% determinative of the issue. In reality, the world is far more nuanced than that, which is why neither the extreme left nor the extreme right get 100% of what they want.
If I’m a baker, and someone comes in to my shop asking for a cake with a message I find distasteful, it doesn’t matter what that message is; by decorating that cake, I’m conveying a message I find distasteful. That is completely different than serving someone a hamburger. Writing the words “Congratulations Jack and Fred” involves me in promoting something in a way that selling them tuxedos doesn’t. And like it or not, there is a social benefit in not requiring people to utter words they find distasteful. And if the shoe were on the other foot — if some racist wanted a baker to decorate a cake with a noose on it — you’d have no trouble seeing that. And one of the core First Amendment principles is that the government doesn’t get to decide which viewpoints are favored and which are disfavored.
Simply calling people bigots who recognize that other people have rights too does nothing to advance your argument. If you’re fine with compelling people to say things they don’t like as a condition of being in business, fine. We just disagree.
And I think there are First Amendment problems with compelling an artist to say things the artist finds objectionable.
You could say exactly the same thing about a chef — isn’t he/’she an “artist” too?
And no, he isn’t being “compelled” to do anything; he/she’s engaged in a business, which means he needs to do certain things to get paid. It’s not a “First Amendment issue” unless we’re talking about what he/she is choosing to do on his/her own steam on his/her own time.
And in all this feigned concern about the religious beliefs of businessfolk, there’s a question that’s being left out: what about the religious beliefs of their paying customers? Don’t they have religious freedom too?
eeyore, #72
Can you please address the example I gave in post #64 about black people? Please address that and you’ll see why you’re wrong. If that’s not enough, do one for people with Down syndrome too.
Wait. You think that’s an example of “the shoe being on the other foot?” No. Denying a cake to someone for being heterosexual would be the shoe being on the other foot. And I’d condemn that wholeheartedly too.
The noose would be an expression of hate, murder and racism.
“Congratulations Mike and John” is an expression of love and celebration. Just like “Congratulations Mike and Amy” would be.
It can’t be any clearer.
Why are you attempting to argue for such an indefensible position?
Just because you claim to find something distasteful doesn’t mean it’s not discrimination. What will you say if someone starts to find autism distasteful? Is that fine too?
If I’m a baker, and someone comes in to my shop asking for a cake with a message I find distasteful, it doesn’t matter what that message is; by decorating that cake, I’m conveying a message I find distasteful.
Tough shit. If you’re a baker and you offer to do wedding cakes, then you’re compelled by the demands of your job to say what your paying customers pay you to say, at least within the bounds of normal wedding-cake protocol. (So “Contrats to Jake and Fred” is within bounds, but “Kill all the Joos” is not.) You don’t get to refuse to serve gay couples, for the same reason you don’t get to refuse to serve black or interracial couples.
And if the shoe were on the other foot — if some racist wanted a baker to decorate a cake with a noose on it — you’d have no trouble seeing that.
Not the same thing. A noose on a cake is totally outside the bounds of normal wedding- or birthday-cake design — it’s an offensive message that is not part of the normal job of a baker, while “Congrats to [name] and [name]” is a standard feature of wedding-cakes. Therefore you can refuse to put racist or offensive messages on cakes, but you still can’t refuse to provide a service to one group of people that you would provide to another. There’s no moral inconsistency or double standard here.
And besides, if you’re in the business of making wedding-cakes, then your freedom of expression is constrained by the rules and traditions of that business; just as my freedom of expression, as a technical writer, is constrained by the contractual obligations my employer’s client have imposed on my employer.
This whole RFRA scam isn’t really about “freedom of expression” and you damn well know it if you’re paying any attention. It’s about religious bigots crying about “freedom” to ignore the rights of people they don’t like. It’s about using bogus First Amendment arguments to get themselves above the law.
eeyore:
BOTH SIDES.
The sensibilities of the business owner don’t matter if those are sensibilities are just an excuse to discriminate. If those sensibilities are just poorly disguised bigotry FUCK THEM. The world is more nuanced than that? Yeah, because the world isn’t fair. That’s no excuse to not try to be fair, you fucking asshat.
THE PERSON YOU MAKE THE CAKE FOR IS NOT A MESSAGE.
If it is then EVERYTHING is a message and it applies to ALL people who want to discriminate.
Oh. Okay. You just don’t know what wedding cakes look like. Is that the problem we are having here?
https://www.google.com/search?q=Wedding+cakes&rlz=1C1GGGE_enUS633US633&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=9qYeVYyiPMjmsATHioG4DA&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=923
But that wouldn’t explain why you also included floral arrangements and photography of a cake as “speech” as well….
There are no words involved. Are you deliberately being dishonest?
So if we expect a baker to make a normal wedding cake for a gay wedding, we are also advocating for the forcible creation of cakes displaying a fucking lynching.
You really do your nuance well.
I will say this one time as simply as I can: a baker could object to the demands made of them regarding the specific design of the cake. A baker should not be able to object to ANY cake proposed to them by a person on the basis of objecting to their religion, race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
It’s the difference between a Christian baker refusing to make a cake that says “God Is Dead” and a Christian baker refusing to make a wedding cake of any kind for an atheist couple. One is actual objection to the message, the other is just discrimination.
Fucking Nuance.
Portrait of an idiotic gibbertarian bullshitter…
Yeah, funny how libertarians go so far out of their way, so routinely, to support actions that DIMINISH people’s freedoms. The right of people to refuse to respect anyone else’s rights is always more important to them than people’s actual rights.
There is no nuance to discrimination and bigotry. Either you have a PUBLIC facility, which means you take the business of all those who enter and wish to purchase your goods, while maintain reasonable behavior, or you keep private, off the public radar, and just do favors for friends. The law is very specific that way, and may have a narrow window of behavior that allows the proprietor to ban folks for bad behavior, like bouncing checks, or causing fights.
You don’t like somebody for their color or sexual preference? That the problem of the proprietor, which they must ignore or they shouldn’t be in business. They can’t just pick and choose customers.
Anybody who supports bigotry in any fashion is also likely a bigot. It’s the old, either you are part of the solution, or you are part of the problem. You are part of the problem. Get it?
eeyore:
If you sell someone a cake for a graduation with “Congrats Billy” written on it, it doesn’t mean you give a fuck about Billy at all. If you simply made a cake with no linguistic message for the same people in the same circumstances, you still would not have to give a fuck about Billy, and you would still be involving yourself in their celebration. In writing down such words (which are not magical), you’re not, in fact, making any judgment about whether Billy did well enough in school to graduate or whether he did so well that he ought to be congratulated for his accomplishments. Teachers and school administrators assess such things as Billy’s eligibility for graduation (as legislators make laws about marriage eligibility), while you’re making a fucking cake. Billy’s parents/guardians are the ones who want to say this message, they are the ones who are “saying” it to him, they are the ones paying for such a message, and you the cake decorator are being payed to put a corresponding design on a cake which may or may not have any such meaning to you.
Your job as an artist is to assemble formal elements. If the end result of this process doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to anyone else (or if it means nothing at all to you), that doesn’t matter. The people pay you for formatting the cake in a way they wanted, and you move on to the next customers who will do the same. (Maybe you will also ironically hang a sign on the wall which says “The customer is always right,” but this is not necessary.)
You could make generic cake decorations instead of custom ones that have a linguistic meaning. People buy those too. If you draw a flower on the cake and your customers think it is a star, they do not ask about your mental states to determine whether that is actually the design they wanted on their cake. In fact it does look like a star to them — maybe that is satisfactory despite your intentions, or maybe they actually wanted a flower and think your drawing is not good enough for that purpose. Either way, that is not up to you. There is nothing special about artists which makes them able to intend things or perceive things on behalf of other people. That is not what artists do.
Who else expects Malcolm Kirkpatrick to have complained elsewhere about boycotts targeting discriminatory businesses? For all their bluster about the “free marketplace of ideas” Malcolm’s side seems rather opposed to the concept as put in practice. Almost as if their definition of “freedom” is “freedom from consequences.”
Demeisin @81: that’s not the whole of their definition of “freedom,” but it is a large part of it.
Raging Bee @82:
Indeed. Freedom to oppress, freedom to exploit, plunder, and otherwise mistreat anybody deemed “lesser” than them. And, above all, freedom to avoid any of the negative consequences of these actions while reaping all the unjust rewards.
Anyone worried about the purity of their art — in whatever medium — would be perfectly justified in creating whatever they are inspired to create and then offering it for sale, without any obligation to take specific requests from the public. What these particular bakers, florists, etc. are doing, though, is something else. They’re offering not a product but a service — designing and assembling a product based on the customer’s specifications (or, in the “writing on a cake” case, applying a customer-specified message to an already-existing product). When you’re offering a service like that for sale, there are still some legitimate restrictions you can place — no threats, no profanity or obscenity (if you have a problem with some language), no defamatory language. But when you’re offering a service to the public which involves reproducing a client’s message, you’re offering a service to the public, not producing religious art to your own ineffable inner standards.
Funny how gay people marrying is a “message” but straight people marrying is just a normal wholesome event.
And not just any message. I bet it’s a … *gasp* … POLITICAL message!
@ eeyore 72
I deleted the first part of my comment because this was much more important. You can’t get your issue respected unless you can respect the moral priorities around here in a social exchange.
Do you have a problem with calling them bigots?
Because based on my reading of this bit, your only problem is that PZ and the rest of us are neglecting to add information beyond the fact that they are being bigots with respect to people with different sexual orientation. It’s an irrational dislike at the least, I think disgust fits better because of the homophobia underlying the bigotry.
If that reading is true, you have no idea what is going on here. This is not merely an argument arena for comments on this issue. This is an arena where people are trying to change society by socially shaming people displaying homophobic bigotry. The people here care more about that than arguments about the right to practice homophobic bigotry. If you cannot reflect that understanding you will not get any respect.
It is simply a fact that bleating the shop owners intent along with the observation of their bigotry is absolutely unnecessary and there is no good reason for us to do it beyond the fact that it will make you feel better. I do not find that a convincing reason to do anything.
Nowhere are business owners being told that they cannot say things. They can express their homophobia for as long as they are willing to stand the social criticism. That you think we want to force other people to say things when you are trying to pressure people to give the shop owners intent with our perspective suggests projection.
We do not just disagree, we have goals in a social conflict we are unwilling to ignore.
Should I be able to demand that a kosher deli make me a ham sandwich? And if they won’t, isn’t that anti-Gentile discrimination? That’s not a service they provide. Why shouldn’t a baker be able to decide that gay weddings aren’t a service they provide? The discrimination isn’t based on the sexual identity of the person ordering the cake; it’s based on the purpose for which the cake is to be used. That same baker would probably be more than happy to decorate a birthday cake for a homosexual, so it’s the wedding that’s at issue, not the sexual orientation of the customer.
The real problem here is that y’all want the government deciding that some viewpoints are superior to others, and under the First Amendment, it cannot do that. Nor do you want it to, since it’s only a matter of time until your viewpoint would be on the losing side on some issue or other. So Brony, I’m fine with shaming homophobic bigots. I’m fine with people showing up at their door to picket, and leaving nasty reviews on Yelp, and otherwise trying to get them to change their behavior. What I’m not fine with is the government deciding that a particular viewpoint — egalitarianism — is superior to other viewpoints. I have the same opinion of homophobic bigots as everyone else here; I just think it’s dangerous to give government that kind of power, because the pendulum swings, and eventually you will be on the losing side of it.
I suspect that these days, social media is a far more potent weapon against bigots than laws anyway. We’re really quibbling over methodology and not over what is the desired result.
Nerd, you have the quote wrong. It’s actually: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate. But no, a business is not required to take all comers. It is currently legal for me to refuse to serve you if I don’t like your astrological sign, or the bumper sticker on your car, or the model of the car you drive, for any other reason that’s not specifically listed in the anti-discrimination laws. I once had someone refuse to hire me because of my astrological sign; even if I could have sued, why would I want to work for someone that crazy anyway?
eeyore @ 87, the fact that you’re even beginning to compare to the existence of LGBT people wanting cakes to racist messages and slavery is very telling about how much of an asshole you are. Here’s the bottom line: Your left vs. right fencesitting bullshit doesn’t work because those on “the left” are the ones who are morally correct, and the only ones who are being provided a service as opposed to being provided a message in your slimy examples.
And yeah social media is such a great tool to combat shitheads that they’d never raise over 100k on social fundraisers to support bigotry…
Libertarianism is always funny in the sense that it’s also a pseudo-religion. Libertarians believe in “natural rights” which aren’t granted by the government, but that we inherently have. So, how the fuck would anyone know of these natural rights, and why would anyone respect them? The Free Market/God grants them. In reality, only your government can grant you rights. What libertarians believe in are magical soul fairies that grant people rights that somehow something something and everyone respects private property.
Libertarianism represents the freedom for our betters to stomp our faces into the ground for the rest of eternity.
What a confused, dishonest wanker. The government doesn’t have to “decide” fairness, justice, etc., are better than bigotry, injustice, etc. In fact those just are better, and we separately make the kinds of governments for ourselves that we think we want, which may or may not result in better outcomes. People generally do want fair and just societies and have ideas about what that entails, so their government’s job is to secure such things for their society. That is what we make governments for: to do certain kinds of tasks which people think will benefit the society in some way.
This is really silly:
1. The service a kosher deli provides is food. The service they provide is not “Food and menu items that are not on the menu.” Failing to provide food that is not on the menu, regardless of the tastes or religious belief of the customer, is not social discrimination. It is running a restaurant that has a menu that does not include certain food items, but that does include others.
The kosher deli will serve anything on its menu to any patron. They do not condition the purchase of a pastrami sandwich on the nature of the company in which the patron will eat or share the sandwich.
2. The service and product a bakery provides is cake. When they refuse to provide that product and service because of the nature of the company in which the customer will enjoy and share the cake, that is social discrimination.
This is so ridiculous it’s a category error. There are reasonable arguments to put forward testing the line between acceptable and unacceptable government compulsion in business practices. This is not one of them. Please think about your analogies more carefully.
But, but, the pendulum swings both ways! One day it’s gay people asking to be treated equally, the next day it’s firing squads for Christians! There surely isn’t a logical fallacy that represents this entirely that Libertarians explicitly say they don’t believe in or anything…
eeyore,
Yet another bullshit analogy. Here we go again:
First, a kosher deli doesn’t sell ham to anyone (straight or gay). It does serve any of its menu items to gay people though. What a terrible analogy.
Second:
What purpose? The purpose of wedding guests eating it?
And denying a wedding cake to a couple because both of them are women instead of one man and one woman is very, very clearly discrimination based on sexual orientation.
I see you’re still ducking my black people example in post #64. I know why. Because it’s consistent with your anti-gay message but you don’t want to admit it, because you think racism is bad but anti-gay bigotry is okay.
Absolute horseshit. Fuck off if you’re just going to strawman. Here is the entirety of my argument in one sentence:
It should be illegal for a business that is open to the public (i.e. not some private organization) to discriminate against their customers based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.
That is it. Apparently you’re against that, which simply makes you a bigot. I don’t understand what you’re not getting about this.
Why aren’t you saying this about race? How come your problem goes away when government enforces that you can’t refuse cake to someone for being Mexican?
You’re a homophobic bigot. Quit pretending like you’re not. It’s crystal fucking clear.
What injustices have befallen white people since the government made it illegal to turn down black customers?
Fucking dishonest idiot says:
Kosher delis don’t serve kosher food to non-Jewish people now? Or is the analogy dishonest bullshit?
Inquiring minds.
The fucking wedding cake is the service they provide. Gay weddings do not require fucking different gay wedding cakes. Gay wedding cakes are not a different service from straight wedding cakes. The service is the fucking same, only the client differs. Jesus fucking Christ, you dishonest little pissant.
You are fine with segregation, and will call it a simple difference of opinion, and just businesses exercising professional judgment.
That is your position.
Fuck off.
I can understand why so few “true Libertarians” come here to post arguments and disagree with PZ’s post and the majority of others here. They are a bunch of knuckle heads. The last foolishness is a great example.
If I go to a kosher deli and ask for something that is not kosher and they do not serve it to me that is discrimination just like if I went to a Chinese restaurant and asked for a bean and cheese burrito would be just fine and they should serve me otherwise it would be discrimination.
Sure that makes sense!
uncle frogy
I also love how the “artistic speech” defense was apparently a bait and switch for eeyore. They originally said that people just providing food catering a gay wedding would not have this key defense, while the baker has this defense because FREEZE PEACH. And then, suddenly, the argument becomes that the baker shouldn’t be expected to provide some mysterious Gay Wedding Cake product/service in the same way kosher delis shouldn’t be expected to serve ham. An argument that could be used in the same way (i.e. ineptly and illogically) to argue on behalf of bigoted food catering companies who decide they don’t offer the service of “gay catering”. Oh how the story changes but the ending stays the same. Curious.
eeyore wrote:
Not everyone lives in a major city, eeyore. There may only be one florist or one baker in the entire town (or nearby towns). Should they be forced to drive halfway across a state just to find someone who will serve them (assuming they have a vehicle and it is capable of such a trip), or should these whiny little assholes who started a public business just be forced to serve the public?
the other thing about this idea that is going around on concerning the right to discriminate by businesses and those that are advocating it is that they seem to have a misunderstanding of business. Business is about making money by offering a service or product to the public for money. They want to mandate that it should be OK to practice discrimination and still make a profit. I may be wrong but it does appear that well established business interests are not advocating for this new “right” and on the other hand are voicing their opposition to it very publicly. They seem to be saying do not include us in the support of these ideas we are more than willing to serve anyone and if I /we do not offer to serve all comers someone else will because it is about the money.
uncle frogy
Malcolm Kirkpatrick:
Thank you so much for openly opposing equality for LGBT people, women, hispanics, blacks, asians, people with disabilities, non-christians, and all the other groups covered under anti-discrimination laws. It’s always nice to know who the fuckwits are who think capitalism is more important than treating people fairly (corporations are notorious for not treating members of marginalized groups with anything approaching fairness, which is why the Civil Rights Act is necessary).
Rock on with your unthinking, uncritical privilege. Ayn Rand would be proud of you, you apathetic pissant.
****
eeyore @87:
The “purpose of the cake” is to be consumed. The sexuality of the people consuming the cake should be irrelevant.
How much thought did you give before you hit “post comment”? I ask because this is just ridiculous. Those same cake makers are perfectly happy to bake a cake for a mixed-sex wedding. The fact that they don’t want to do the same for a same-sex wedding is due to their homophobia. They think that baking a cake for a gay couple is somehow endorsement of homosexuality and because homosexuality is “wrong/immoral/sinful” they can’t do anything that could be seen as endorsing gay people. So yes, the sexual orientation of the customer is at the center of the issue.
Do you think wedding cake makers, or photographers, or florists should be able to refuse to perform their services-services which they claim are open to the public-for black people? For seniors? For women? If you do think they should have that right, at least you’re being consistent with your support for discrimination. If you don’t think they should have that right, why is the situation different if the customer is a lesbian or bisexual man?
Why is it ok in your eyes for a business owner to discriminate against people based on their sexuality (or gender identity), but not to discriminate against people based on other immutable traits? Why is some discrimination permissible to you and other forms not? How did you draw the dividing line?
Please explain you support homophobia.
As I said, it seems worse than that in a way, but I guess it’s not totally clear how to interpret this. Some options:
(1) a government ought to do something other than benefit the society which made it. Eeyore is “not fine” with it doing the thing it does (as it’s normally understood), but presumably thinks it should do something else which would somehow be “fine” for Eeyore despite it being non-beneficial to the society.
(2) Eeyore not only doesn’t want himself/herself to participate in the democratic process of collectively deciding what is better than what, but Eeyore also doesn’t want anyone else involved in that activity either (since it would still amount to “government” even without his/her individual participation). We should not think about such things or act on our thoughts as a society by making governments which do things, and that is what would be a better state of affairs in Eeyore’s view. But somehow incoherent internet comments (written by Eeyore) about politics and ethics are still okay.
(3) This interpretation is not literal: Eeyore doesn’t have anything coherent to say about this, but he or she doesn’t like the way things are heading, so some bullshit complaint is made about it. What he or she actually isn’t “fine” with is having a correct and well-supported view, if it differs Eeyore’s which is the wrong view and which Eeyore has no intention of correcting. But of course this won’t be expressed that way.
I had no idea that there was this vast conspiracy out there! I can’t order a ham sandwich at the sushi place, or the bakery, or the kabob place or, … well honestly at most of the places I eat. There ought to be a law!
Sheesh, that comment is simply so amazingly bad it took my breath away.
OTOH, it reminded me how fun it was to hang out in the kosher deli at university and watch people try to order cheeseburgers.
dõki @48:
You’d also need sufficient amounts of money to move. But libertarians aren’t terribly concerned with examining how their philosophy would play out in the real world.
eeyore:
Am I correct in recalling that you’re an older gay male who doesn’t reside in USAmerica?
To add to what Josh said @ 90, the kosher deli can refuse service to an individual who is demanding something that is not on the menu, or is rude, or says anti-Semitic things to the owner, or comes in not wearing pants. Because these are individual decisions.
The kosher deli cannot refuse to sell me a bagel because I’m not Jewish.
There is no “both sides” here. Some reasons to refuse service in a public business are legitimate reasons, some are not. If your reason is a blanket problem with an entire group of people, it’s discrimination. End of story.
Should I be able to demand that a kosher deli make me a ham sandwich?
Jesus fucking Christ, do you really think you’re fooling anyone here with that bogus analogy? A kosher deli would not have ham to serve to ANYONE, just like a coal mine wouldn’t be able to pull F-16s out of the ground. That’s not an example of “discrimination.” Not even close.
The real problem here is that y’all want the government deciding that some viewpoints are superior to others…
Are you really that stupid, or do you know you’re lying about what we’ve been saying here? This isn’t about “viewpoints,” it’s about ACTIONS that have effects on other people.
I suspect that these days, social media is a far more potent weapon against bigots than laws anyway.
If that’s how things look to you, that’s probably because your only connection to the real world is through social media.
I once had someone refuse to hire me because of my astrological sign; even if I could have sued, why would I want to work for someone that crazy anyway?
What if the rent was past due and you had no other offers? That’s how things are for a LOT of people, and the fact that you miss this point shows how despicably lacking in common sense you glibertarians really are. (Care to tell us how social media would help people in such situations?)
#87 eeyore, fellow quadruped
Well, this is analogous to my marching into Christian Baker’s Bakery and demanding a gay cake. Is there such a delicacy? Maybe there are even bi cakes? Well, I’ve heard of pancakes, but I bet they aren’t the same thing.
I’m picturing America as this wondrous place where bakers actually perform weddings. But I guess that would be possible in Las Vegas.
In this case, maybe I should have to sign a contract stating I don’t plan any sinful activity before acquiring a product from Christian Baker’s store. Who knows if I’m going to sacrifice that perfectly christian cake for the devil?
As my mind reading skills are obviously as sharp as yours, I’d be glad that I pass reasonably well before doing business with Christian Baker.
When you begin distrusting the power for change of social media as well, you’ll find the nirvana of cynicism I call ‘home’.
Once I considered cutting relations with homophobic people, but then I realized this would mean basically everyone I know. I’d be happy if my biggest problem were silly people who believe in astrology.
(Also, mind your use of crazy as an insult. No need to further stereotype metal illness.)
***
#91 shala
The Republic of Gaylead.
Asinine hyperbole from somebody evading know the difference between being able to order from the menu, or somebody being deliberately offensive by ordering a ham sammich at a kosher deli. You don’t have a logical argument, just the emotional argument you don’t want anybody to tell you what to do. Typical of liberturd, and bigot logic.
Tony, I’m an older gay male who resides in Florida, probably not that far from you. Having experienced plenty of anti-gay discrimination in an era in which it was far more prevalent and far more blatant than it is now, I’m not even going to dignify accusations that I myself am an anti-gay bigot with a response. Nor am I a libertarian, as should be obvious from my having stated that I’m fine generally with anti-discrimination laws; I just don’t think it’s outrageous to carve out an exception for businesses whose business at least borders on artistic expression.
All that said, I have learned over the years that a principled concern with the process is far more important than the fact that we like gay people and don’t like bigots, and that’s what most of the arguments here boil down to: We like gay people, we don’t like bigots, so the bigots should lose. That’s fine so long as you can guarantee that the bigots don’t someday hold political power, because having lived through an era in which they did, I can tell you that that will be when you really, really want government neutrality. And the best way to guarantee government neutrality then is by pushing for it when you yourself have political power.
This has nothing to do with some libertarian notion of natural rights. It’s pure political pragmatism, with a dash of live and let live thrown in. A wedding cake is not a necessity in the same sense that a job or a place to live is a necessity. Rather than give our adversaries ammunition to claim that we’re the intolerant ones, why not just walk across the street to another bakery? Even in small towns, this particular type of bigotry is on the way out.
I think doki might win the Pitch Perfect Reply award.
Way to address the criticisms, eeyore. Great work. You are truly the only intelligent person here, the sole person in the room graced with Nuance.
@108 eeyore: “I have learned over the years that a principled concern with the process is far more important than the fact that we like gay people and don’t like bigots, and that’s what most of the arguments here boil down to: We like gay people, we don’t like bigots, so the bigots should lose. That’s fine so long as you can guarantee that the bigots don’t someday hold political power”
You have to have ignored all the clear posts about what discrimination is and why not serving something that is not on the menu is not discrimination to be able to say this.
You are wrong, it’s easy to demonstrate why and you’re simply not listening.
People aren’t advocating for serving the LGBT community because they like them (even if they do which I hope/expect most here do, it’s irrelevant). They’re against discriminating against groups of people based on characteristics of the group as opposed to discriminating against individuals for their individual behavior.
I don’t even know how to say it cause it’s been said in so many posts above and can only be said so many ways. You’ve bought the discriminatory talking points without even examining why they fall apart and you’re just regurgitating them.
eeyore,
Where are you holding the next protest for restaurants’ right to refuse service to black children?
eeyore,
Nice. Then Mexicans must not need them either.
Racist and homophobic! My!
eeyore,
Do you really live in Florida?
I think you’re either the most dishonest person in the world or the most clueless.
You should be able to demand that a kosher deli make you a KOSHER sandwich and serve you regardless of your race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
Bakers do not provide weddings, gay or straight.
Bakers BAKE CAKES.
What the customer chooses to do with the cake once it is paid for is none of the bakers’ business.
#102 Tony!
Agreed. “Lack of money means you have no freedom” is a whole new chapter in the book of practical problems of libertarianism.
eeyore @ 108:
Ok, speaking, as you are, as “an older gay male who resides in Florida”, would you agree that that type of bigotry just up and died out on its own?
Or would you say that that type of bigotry dying off has been because it was targeted, exhaustively and unrelentingly, by them silly ol’ Social Justice Warriors who understand that “live and let live” only works if both sides agree* to “let live”?
What would you say, eeyore, did it just fade away on its own?
Or did it need maybe just the tiniest push?
*(Just to forestall a possible objection, being forced by public consensus to shut up about not wanting to “let live” is not the same as agreeing to “let live”. Not by a longshot. In fact, that’s kind of the distinction I’m making here – it’s why things like wedding cake messages are important.)
@eeyore #108
I know some gay people I wholeheartedly dislike. I even know a bigot I do like. My personal preferences have nothing to do with how a society should function.
This particular case is about religious people refusing to serve homosexual people. However in its core it is not about religion or sexual orientation. It is about treating everybody equally. Equal rights, equal duties, equal opportunities, equal responsibilities, equal freedom.
Hahahahaha,
But the bigots do hold political power, they always have! I can’t even imagine how many decades or centuries it will be until they don’t. In the US it won’t even start until 2050, and who knows if demographics will even matter then against the backdrop 40 more years of wealth consolidation and climate change. E.g., white supremacy has been profitable now for over 400 years and you think the market is going to solve that? When?
http://dorolfe.tumblr.com/post/113434258720/racism-waning
eeyore @108:
Thanks for clarifying that (and apologies for misremembering).
Here’s another question: are you aware of the psychological phenomenon of internalized homophobia?
Gay people can indeed hold homophobic beliefs.
eeyore @108:
If you truly believe this then further conversation may be pointless, as you’re not reading for comprehension.
Like the bulk of history,
Right, this is based on the premise that a discriminatory view is a minority view. Lol. Hey, what do you do when no stores will sell you food, and no one will sell you dirt to farm on? Oh that’s right, ho-hum, starve. (Well hopefully not before you manage to outrun the discrimination. How’s that working out?)
…that’s what most of the arguments here boil down to: We like gay people, we don’t like bigots, so the bigots should lose.
That’s a flat-out lie, and anyone who’s read the comments can see this. Seriously, the comments are still up for all to see, and we can easily verify that you are misrepresenting what we’ve said.
A wedding cake is not a necessity in the same sense that a job or a place to live is a necessity.
I’m willing to bet the Jim Crow folks said that about EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT OR SERVICE that black people wanted but the whites were unwilling to provide. Riding on a bus wasn’t a necessity, voting wasn’t a necessity, going to the same schools white kids went to wasn’t a necessity, not like a job or a place to live, right?
And the distinction isn’t even meaningful here — these bigots want to exclude gay people from ALL aspects of normal life in their communities, not just wedding-cakes. Including jobs and places to live. Do you really think the people who support RFRA only care about wedding-cakes?
You’re being pretty fucking dishonest when you say, on the one hand, that it’s SO DREADFULLY IMPORTANT for bakers to be able to choose who they bake wedding-cakes for, and then, on the other hand, that’s it’s just a wedding-cake, no big deal at all, what’s everyone getting so upset about?
Sorry for double-posting, but…
eeyore @ 108:
I kinda have to ask, do you equate being gay and being a bigot?
No, wait, wrong question – since you clearly equate being gay and being a bigot, do you feel public shaming of gay people to be equivalent of public shaming of bigots (which you say you support)?
(If you are going to claim you don’t equate bigotry with being gay, than you can’t make the claim that making legal distinctions between them is purely a matter of personal preference.)
But, again, that only works if you feel that being gay and being a bigot are equally worthwhile positions. If you feel one is actually superior to the other (hint: doing ‘gay stuff’ doesn’t impinge on anyone else’s rights, doing ‘bigoted stuff’ does, kinda by definition), than there’s a justification for believing that a government that at least aspires to equal rights might have a position one way or the other.
And also, to echo my above post, how did we get from an era in which bigots held obvious, well-supported political power to an era in which they at least have to fan-dance their bigotry? By “live and let live”? Or by fighting bigotry, even in small instances? Is the fact the the current generation of young people are, by and large, at least accepting of gay relationships just some sort of odd coincidence?
To put it another way: at what percentage of rights that straight couples have should gay couples be satisfied? 50%? 90%? 99%? How much less legitimate are gay couples than other couples? If your answer is “just as legitimate”, than why the difference in privileges?
…I’m not even going to dignify accusations that I myself am an anti-gay bigot with a response.
You pretty much bring such accusations on yourself when you tie yourself in knots trying to justify laws that enable anti-gay bigotry. (Just like nearly all the other libertarians you say you’re not in league with.)
Saad @114:
One of the many faces of homophobia in Florida: Florida aims once again to restrict gay adoption.
No word yet on when lawmakers will seek to restrict black or hispanic citizens from adopting. Apparently this discrimination is aimed only at gay citizens of the state. But I guess adoption agencies, like wedding cake makers, florists, and photographers, should have the right to discriminate against people based on their sexuality, at least in eeyore’s eyes.
****
Eeyore’s comments are a perfect illustration (an anecdotal one though) of the pervasiveness of homophobia in society. It’s disheartening that even a gay man thinks a commercial business ostensibly open to the public should have the right to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation.
No word yet on what other forms of discrimination he supports or why discrimination based on sexual orientation is A-OK.
Oh, hell, if the person for whom you make the cake is a “message”, then the person for whom you refuse to make a cake is a “message”.
Where do the queers go to refuse to allow bakers to communicate their “message” of het supremacy?
Still legal to fire people for being gay here in north Florida.
We’ve come a way, but why not stop and rest for a while, is that it? Let the bigots catch their breath — we’ve achieved live and let live status because no one’s been bashed or bullied to suicide for a little while. Pretty disgusting, y’all.
WE DID IT EVERYBODY!!! HOMOPHOBIA IS OVER!!! JUST LIKE RACISM!!! WOOOOOO!!!
“I have learned over the years that a principled concern with the process is far more important…
You think we should support a “process” without asking ourselves where it goes or what results it will achieve? Shouldn’t we have some sort of OBJECTIVE in mind that the “process” is expected to accomplish? Why else would we have a “process” at all, if not to achieve some objective? Like, oh, I dunno, a just society where everyone is treated with equal fairness?
And what “process” are you even talking about anyway? You say you’re so concerned about “the process” but you don’t even specify what it is? You’re starting to sound like Gollum talking about “The Preciouss.”
I guess that’s just privilege though — getting fired for being gay isn’t so bad when you’re rich or connected enough that you’re not going to go hungry or homeless. Live and let live! Scoff.
Of course there are bigots who hold public office, in Florida and elsewhere. I wouldn’t claim otherwise.
But that’s not the same thing as holding political power. Did you see how long it took — about 3 days — for Mike Pence and the Indiana legislature to back down under pressure? And if you can’t get an anti-gay religious freedom act signed by the governor of Arkansas, then where can you get it signed? Sure, there are Florida pols who want to ban gay adoption; I’ll eat my proverbial hat if it actually makes it through the legislature, and even if it does make it through the legislature, the courts will throw it out. Go on web sites devoted to opposing gay marriage; what you’ll find is bigots crying because they’ve lost the culture war and they know it.
We’re about two months away from the Supreme Court ordering gay marriage in all 50 states. We can afford to be magnanimous, especially since it has the added benefit of making us look magananimous and is good PR. This is not a fight we need to wage.
Nondiscrimination in public accommodations is not a fight we need to wage?
We don’t need to fight against bigotry enforced by law because bigots don’t have political power and there is no real bigotry anymore. Okay. Got it.
This is just fucking rich:
The bigots DO hold political power. Almost overwhelmingly. The shape and contours of their bigotry have changed over time, but they still hold the power. Hence the need for a Feminist Movement-one that includes trans women. And the Black Lives Matter movement. Hence the continued need for a Gay Rights movement. The people in power are almost overwhelmingly privileged, cisgender, heterosexual, christian, white men. They maintain their power by discriminating and oppressing marginalized groups. Pointing to a black president, or lesbian mayor, or the Civil Rights Act does not change the fact that politics in the U.S. is riddled with bigotry.
This country would look a helluva lot different and the quality of life of the citizens of this country would be far, far greater if the vast majority of power were not concentrated in the hands of bigots.
eeyore, you’ve ignored my multiple requests to address my post #64.
Making it legal to refuse customers for being black is consistent with everything you’ve said about keeping it legal to refuse gay customers.
Clarify your position. Because as it stands, you’re also saying bakeries should be allowed to turn away customers for being black.
eeyore:
It is still legal in 29 states in the United States to discriminate against someone based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Why is that? People with bigoted opinions of LGBT people hold the power. They are the ones who can make the necessary changes happen.
Marriage equality is NOT the only battle being waged. Nor is it the most important battle.
Also, while this discussion is largely centered around LGBT rights, the rights of other marginalized groups are still being denied across the country. Or did you not realize that sexist and misogynistic politicians have been very successful in reducing the number of abortion centers in the country?
Perhaps you were unaware of the existence of systemic racism? That shit affects black people, asians, hispanics, and all other people of color. The people in power are the ones who can make the changes necessary to improve the lives of these racial minorities. They not only don’t do that, they actively fight against it. These are the people in power.
My god you must live in a fucking hole in the ground to not be aware of how much power in the U.S. is concentrated in the hands of people who hold bigoted views and craft legislation around those views.
Fuck. You’re not even ready for a 101 level discussion on the subject of social justice in general, let alone LGBT rights (or the rights of racial minorities or women’s rights) .
Ms. Dolan’s gesture is heartwarming indeed. But I must also second the sentiments of @15 qwerty: every night is LGBT night. It shows how far we have to travel until LGBT isn’t any more necessary a modifier than tall or short or blonde or freckled. And it would be jarringly awkward if the A’s held an African-American Night or Jewish Night. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if the very same cohort raised a stink about it and threatened a boycott.
eeyore, have you ever heard the saying/song-lyric “One punch don’t make no fight”? Do NOT insult our intelligence by telling us that two governors’ (partial) backtracking on one kind of law means the end of CENTURIES of bigotry and oppression. And do NOT insult our intelligence by telling us that this one small victory means that bigots have no power — the bigots who wrote and pushed these bills are STILL IN OFFICE.
How stupid do you have to be, to think your comments are at all convincing?
My god you must live in a fucking hole in the ground to not be aware of how much power in the U.S. is concentrated in the hands of people who hold bigoted views and craft legislation around those views.
Sounds like a libertarian to me, no matter how vehemently he says he isn’t.
No clue what the hell you’re talking about with “the process” or what any of this has to do with anything people have said.
So you’re not a libertarian or a bigot so much as a very confused anti-realist. (Maybe all of the above.) That’s not much of an improvement. Let’s outline this:
1) You’re afraid of making judgments about what should or shouldn’t happen, because…
2) We (or someone else) could make the wrong judgments.
3) So, you paradoxically make a judgment that we should refrain from making them.
4) Let’s call this “neutrality,” no matter how it effects actual people, instead of recognizing it simply as support for the status quo, which is not always a good or bad or neutral thing.
5) Let’s also say this is better (or even “the best way”), while claiming at the same that you are not in the business of making claims like that.
Never mind the logical problems. What’s more important is that reality doesn’t actually work this way, even if you wanted it to and could coherently describe whatever the fuck you’re trying to say. If we failed to make laws against discrimination while our views have sufficient public support, that doesn’t mean bigots would fail to make laws enshrining their bigotry when they have the support to do so. That is indeed what they are doing now. And they don’t give a fuck about what’s right or wrong or legal or illegal, because by hypothesis they would be making new laws (not consistent whatever there had been) which aren’t right.
I think part of eeyore’s problem is viewing homophobia in the United States over his lifetime. Looking back at the last 50-75 years for instance, gay people have made great strides. There’s no denying that. But there is still much to do. Gay people are still discriminated against in public office, in the job market, in the entertainment industry, in public life. Gay people are still disparaged, our relationships demeaned, or lives treated as if they don’t matter. We’re still often the subject of jokes that punch down. People still think of us as a collection of stereotypes rather than real people. In *all* areas of society, there is still much to do in the fight for equality for gay people.
And all of that is just the battle for Gay Rights.
There are a whole bunch of other oppressed groups who also are waging their own battles.
Eeyore there’s no other way to put this: you. are. wrong. About pretty much everything you’ve said. You really need to reexamine your opinions and beliefs to ensure they line up with the reality around you. Seek out facts and evidence. Ensure your views are backed by evidence. Work to ensure your arguments are logically sound.
As it stands, the opinions you’ve expressed in this thread are not backed by evidence. Your arguments are more full of holes than swiss cheese.
Moreover, everything you’re saying is in support of the status quo. A status quo that has an overall negative effect on the lives of millions of people. Please stop doing that.
Look at the number of states controlled by the Rethug party, along with US congress and senate. Lots and lots of bigots there, with barely disguised bigotry itching to rewrite the laws requiring tolerance.
Liberturds like to pretend they are egalitarians, and if everybody just pretended everybody was equal, nobody would complain. They want the latter.
Real equality comes not with equal opportunity, but with equal results. Can you say with hard and conclusive evidence (cite your source if you do so) that all facets of society have equal results? If not, then we should keep working on it, by paying attention to those who try to hide their bigotry behind a façade are unmasked and shamed. That is how eventually, equal results will be obtained. Even then, bigots should still be exposed as they will try to bring back discrimination. They can’t feel good about themselves unless they can feel superior for *irrelevant reasons*.
So you’re not a libertarian or a bigot so much as a very confused anti-realist.
There’s a difference?
It’s true that they do all fall under the heading of “confused/ignorant/dishonest/bullshitting fuckwit,” but there is more specific terminology in some cases.
Something else…
Eeyore,
Do you acknowledge the existence of systemic bigotry?
It is sad and discouraging that so many people don’t even recognize their homophobic views for what they are. Of course they are against discrimination but denying gay people the right to marry is not discrimination, or refusing to sell them a fucking cake is not discrimination, or beating them up with baseball bats is not discrimination… The same counts for transphobic, racist, sexist and other distorted views. It is virtually impossible to argue with people so blind.
Will you listen to yourselves? We are 98% in agreement, but from the overheated rhetoric you’d think I’d advocated gas chambers for gay people. Anti-gay bigotry is bad: No dispute. In general, it should be illegal for businesses to refuse to serve gays: No dispute. Is it reasonable to carve out a small exception for a tiny number of businesses with special circumstances? I think there’s an argument to be made for that position, so all of a sudden I may as well be Anita Bryant. Please, develop a sense of proportion.
And part of it is that Tony’s right. I remember when being gay could get you sent to prison or a mental hospital. I remember when being openly gay rendered you virtually unemployable except at the most menial of jobs. I myself lost a couple of jobs for being gay. I remember when the police would viciously and relentlessly harass gay people and gay businesses, and when the courts near uniformly held that gays had no constitutional rights at all. So it’s really hard for me to hyperventilate because somebody has to walk across the street to a different bakery to get a wedding cake. In the scheme of things, that’s so small potatoes I hardly wonder why bother; we can pick our battles and there are far worthier battles to be picked. And in ten years it will largely be a non-issue anyway.
Of course things aren’t perfect, but they’re a hell of a lot better than they used to be and they’re moving in the right direction. Somebody, anybody, tell me what was the last actual major accomplishment of the anti-gay right? I’m not talking about politicians trash talking gays to impress their base; I’m talking about an actual, solid legislative or judicial accomplishment that actually made life harder for gays and lesbians? I’m betting you have to go back ten years, though I’m willing to be proven wrong if someone has a more recent example. Even the Indiana law doesn’t really count because it withered and died under a tsunami of criticism.
At this point, I don’t see that I have anything new to say that I haven’t already said, so unless someone makes a new point I’m bowing out. And no, Saad, I’m not responding to your post because its based on a dishonest premise. I think you know that.
Anti-black bigotry is bad: No dispute. In general, it should be illegal for businesses to refuse to serve black people: No dispute. Is it reasonable to carve out a small exception for a tiny number of businesses with special circumstances? I think there’s an argument to be made for that position.
Gee whiz. I go off for a bit to write a response to eeyore, and I come back and find it obsolete. An older gay Floridian? I did not know.. and as an older gay Californian, I am astonished.
eeyore said:
But government does that all the time! In fact, the current contention is over the government deciding that the religious viewpoint of certain business people is so superior, that the business should be able to retain one of the limited number of business licenses in the community while denying service to customers whose viewpoint on their choice of life-partner conflicts with the religion of the business owner.
You do understand, of course [How can you not, as an older gay Floridian??!!], that the government has sided with the religious point of view on this issue for many centuries now. And you did hear that Senator Tom Cotton (who also wrote the infamous letter to Iran) recently said that gay people should just be happy that the government doesn’t hang them like they do in Iran [no, it does not look to be an April Fool joke, though it’s difficult to tell]. And while you are right that there is no legal protection against astrological bigotry, I don’t recall hearing of a sitting US senator warning that extermination is an option that is definitely on the table to deal with those who have the wrong birth sign.
You try to draw lines, saying that decorating a cake or arranging flowers is much more “artistic” than fitting a tuxedo, so we should give it a pass. Really? How about matching gowns? A “Congratulations” message on a cake for a same-sex marriage is forcing an artist to betray their own beliefs? Is that also true for the type-setter or keyboard operator who types up the wedding announcement for the newspaper? Where do we draw the line here, if not at the point of using a business license to attempt to establish such selfish, privileged bigotry as what gay people (and everyone else) must henceforth expect to see in the public markets of American society?
It is painful to watch, eeyore, as you try to justify this kind of public expression of hatred [even more so, now knowing that you lived through, as I did, an era when it was much worse].
Do you really want to live in a society where the government continues its sick historic practice of promoting and protecting the victimization of minorities in the name of ancient and deadly religious bigotries (formerly using gibbets and jails, now using the laws governing behavior of publicly-licensed businesses in the public market)? A large number of Americans are beginning to understand how much that has cost us as a society, and we are having none of it. Government taking sides is at the heart of the issue. If, in light of the way gays have been treated in the past by both religion and government, gays don’t, at long, long last, deserve some protected status, then I don’t understand who does nor why. And that religion would be the excuse by which right-wing theocrats want to allow homophobes to evade the protections that are beginning to be put into place is an especially disgusting kick in the teeth.
eeyore, #149
I remember when being black rendered you virtually unemployable except at the most menial of jobs. I myself lost a couple of jobs for being black. I remember when the police would viciously and relentlessly harass black people and black businesses, and when the courts near uniformly held that black people had no constitutional rights at all. So it’s really hard for me to hyperventilate because a black person has to walk across the street to a different bakery to get a wedding cake. In the scheme of things, that’s so small potatoes I hardly wonder why bother; we can pick our battles and there are far worthier battles to be picked. And in ten years it will largely be a non-issue anyway.
Wait.
Is the premise “dishonest” because black people cannot choose to be not-black
but gay people can choose to act not-gay?
NO! Only bigots try to do that. What the fuck is YOUR excuse?
Nothing but drivel after that.
You want agreement? Admit you are wrong, and shut the fuck up.
eeyore:
No, but you are making excuses for those who would. And did. And do.
I think it is worth the battle to oppose state governors and legislatures who would make new government approved laws defining religious sensibilities as more important and more deserving of protection than equal treatment in the public market of those their religion considers to be undeserving of consideration as fellow human beings. Your opinion differs. You and I learned far different lessons from our lived experiences of a homophobic society that perceived itself to be “normal”.
Indiana last week doesn’t count because people raised hell? So nobody should raise hell? Wonderful logic there. When I came out to my Dad 40 years ago, he was quite accepting for the times, but asked “Why do you have to talk about it.” I told him the history of the pink triangle. Silence is death.
eeyore
Why should there be “special circumstances?” The only reason a bakery should not sell a cake to someone is if the customer cannot or will not pay. As Saad keeps pointing out, your arguments can easily be rewritten to allow discrimination against blacks. Besides, bakeries are not refusing to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples because artistic something or other is being compromised. The bakers are refusing to bake cakes because god thinks what gays do in bed is icky.
eeyore,
Like Muslim women being stoned for adultery!
Here’s a happy thought to chew on. For a certain governor and the state legislature of a state that rhymes with Indiana, their protective wingnut echo chamber was momentarily pierced by reality so they could see that other people don’t see the world the same way as they do.
From what I have read about the man, I think that Pence may have been genuinely surprised at the blow back. I think he’s a real believer and not simply a pandering con artist like a certain Senator whose name rhymes with Cruz.
Here’s hoping just one of them learned they don’t live in a vacuum.
TheCount, No. 158, you’re exactly right. What Indiana proved is just how impotent the anti-gay right is. They can fulminate and blow steam and make noise, and they can even get a state legislature to unthinkingly pass a bill as a knee jerk reaction, but just as soon as they actually had to defend their turf, they weren’t able to. Don’t underestimate the anti-gay right, but don’t overestimate it either. Every objective metric is that gay people are winning. One good kick, and their entire edifice crumbles.
Chigau, no, that’s not why the premise is dishonest, and please try to be honest in your characterization of my position. The premise is dishonest because it assumes an all-or-nothing false alternative in which the only two choices are that all discrimination is permitted or no discrimination is permitted. It ignores the reality that different rules apply to different groups and different situations. Should it be legal to discriminate against a flat earther? Depends. If she’s applying for a job as a food server, probably not. If she wants a job as a geography teacher, definitely yes. What about pedophiles? Well, that too depends on what job they’re applying for. Kindergarten teacher, please do discriminate; third-shift janitor, no. You can’t just say “discrimination bad”; life is more complex than that.
eeyore
Don’t accuse me of dishonesty.
Aloha, everyone. A friend just called and needs help with a feral pig, so I have time for one response. I would like to respond to more but this must do…
(68):
Once again: …
1. For every locality __A__ the phrase “the government of A” refers to the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition, after Weber).
2. A law is a threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV someone, under some specified circumstances. For example: a law against rape is a threat to make life miserable for rapists (i.e., apprehend, subdue, imprison).
3. Individual B has a right to engage in activity __X__ in locality __A__ if the government of A has promised not to interfere with A when A attempts to engage in activity X, and further has promised to make life miserable for individuals C, D, etc. if they interfere with B when B attempts to engage in X. For example, a right to free speech s a prmise by the State ot to shut you up, and to make life miserable for people who try to shut you up.
4. Individual B has title to resource __Y__ in locality A if the government of A grants to B a right to control Y which (right) includes the power to transfer control to individuals C, D, etc. on terms mutually agreeable to B, C, D (i.e., to sell the resource).
5. A legal environment is market-oriented in proportion to the volume or resources which move according to the system of title and contract law.
Non of this implies that laws against littering, reckless driving, rape, or pollution of aquifers are “Evil”.
After the fall of the Soviet State the British poet and historian of that State wrote that the est had, as yet, incompletely learned two important lessons: (a) the limits to the amount of good that could be accomplished through organized vilence (the State) and the stultifying effects of bureaucracy, public and private.
So, in response to”Is this essentially saying that laws regarding private property are perfectly fine, compared to those other Evil Laws, because it is Natural? I think that is the basics of this, once you wittle down all the gibbertarian bafflegab.”
No, that’s not what I’m saying. No human law is “natural”. Laws are obviously man-made. Which laws have beneficial effects an which do not is an empirical question.
Again, I’m neither a libertarian nor a Libertarian. I part company with my libertarian friends over environmental protection and national defense. If you want to argue with a strawman, you don’t need me.
It’s like you are being stupid deliberately.
Fuckwittery the first time, doesn’t improve with sloganeering repetition. YOUR PHILOSOPHY IS UNWORKABLE DRIVE. You have something cogent to say when you acknowledge you ARE WRONG. Until then, you are dismissed as an abject idjit.
It’s cute how the libertarians think they’re the rational ones, when it’s blatantly obvious to an outside observer that their entire philosophy is more like a religion than a coherent explanation of reality. Just look at the extent libertarians must stretch logic to make any and all human interaction fit into a “free market” framework.
“a law against rape is a threat to make life miserable for rapists”
Everything exists in a vacuum!!!
Many libertarians like Malcolm Kirkpatrick don’t hide their disdain for anyone who isn’t rich and then get amazed that the people reading their rants aren’t impressed by their ideology.
Al Dente #165, minor correction:
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @161
I’ve got bad news for you, Malcolm ol’ buddy, but your rhetoric is right out of Libertarianism 101. If you’re not a libertarian then you fake being one so well as to be completely indistinguishable from the genuine article. What’s that old expression about if it walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck…?
libertarians and Libertarians all make me think of the B-ark.
eeyore @149,
First you wrote:
Immediately followed by:
If the rest of the world agreed with you and decided “why bother” then how would it ever become a non-issue? Whether in 10 years or 1000? By magic?
Injustices big and small are turned into non-issues if and only if action is taken. Saying “why bother” won’t accomplish anything.
We should bother trying to right every injustice because it’s the right thing to do and to do otherwise would be to give in to the forces of oppression and victimization. We should bother because it’s been an issue too long already and 10 years more is too much longer. We should bother because largely a non-issue is not as good as totally and completely a non-issue. We should bother because none of us should be forced to walk across the street on account of bigotry and discrimination.
Just our two cents FWIW.
eeyore @ 159:
And, of course, that just happened on it’s own. Not because people protested injustice. Gotcha.
Again, what percentage of straight people’s rights do you believe gay people should have? 90%? 99%?
How much less legitimate are gay people than straight people?
Are you equating flat-earth belief or pedophilia with being gay?
Oh, dumb question, you are. So: why are you doing so?
Obviously, your analogy is silly, in both cases:
If a flat-earther keeps their personal beliefs out of their teaching curriculum, they can do their job just fine. It’s only if they let their belief hurt other people (by teaching them blatantly wrong things) should they get in trouble. That’s not discrimination, that’s holding people accountable for doing something wrong. Unless being gay is wrong, the analogy fails. Is being gay wrong?
Do I really have to comment on your equating homosexuality with pedophilia?
Demeisen @ 163:
What I like about (what I have encountered of) Libertarian thought is that they often come across like classic Marxists, in one specific way: their solution is completely inevitable, requires no coercion of anyone at all, and never comes about on its own without massive effort and total ideological isolation from the rest of the world.
How anyone manages that level of doublethink is beyond me.
Anri @ 171:
I’m convinced it must be a feature of how brains store and retrieve information, combined with a possibly subconscious (in some cases, entirely conscious in others,) desire for an individual to defend major parts of their own identity without regard to fact or internal consistency. So, on the one hand, when they’re puffing their ideology it becomes this inevitable law of nature — the most obvious solution — but, when questioned on why it hasn’t happened in real life yet, imperfect recall and psychological defense mechanisms kick in and they conveniently forget that part.
This is tautologically true only because “the government of A” actively eliminates all other even larger dealers of interpersonal violence in that locality, which would exist unfettered and unrestrained if “the government of A” did not exist.
eeyore,
Seriously. What is it about analogies that you bigots are fucking terrible at them?
Flat-earther’s flat-earthness can negatively impact xer geography teaching.
Pedophile’s record of violating children can negatively impact xer being around kids.
Gay people’s buying a cake can negatively impact………. oh shit, dumb bigot can’t AN4L0GY!!1
So now that that’s taken care of, go address my post #64 about black people, you bigoted ass.
But Saad, if eeyore addresses that, then his entire argument will be shown to be completely stupid! And he doesn’t want to feel stupid, and doesn’t want to acknowledge that he’s a homophobic gay man, so therefore he *can’t* address your post. It’s impossible!
@Amphiox #173:
It also demonstrates capital-L Libertarians’ simplistic and highly dissonant views on “violence.” They claim that violence is always bad, except they’re big fans of violence when it comes to defending themselves and their property, real or imagined. Even accepting the ridiculous premise that taxation automatically equals violence, Libertarians fail to make the case for why extreme violence — including injury and death — should be allowed for this particular “good thing,” but lesser violence — taxation and the like — isn’t allowable for other societal goods. Goods which, by the way, allow these objectors to remain more secure in their persons and possessions than they otherwise might.
Libertarians are like evangelical Christians: they both seem to think the rest of us have never heard of their bullshit before.
“Gosh, I’ve heard such arguments before!” (bats eyelashes) “Tell me more about how government is violence…”
Screechymonkey @177:
Very much so, even down to the “X is bad unless I’m the one doing it” bit.
Besides never hearing their arguments, each liberturd thinks they have One True Version™, which sounds identical to versions everybody else presents to those of use here. (Just like the Marxists back during the radicalization of campuses during the ‘Nam war. They all sounded the same, but argued amongst themselves as to who was the One True Marxist™) And none of them, like the liberturds, could/can provide historical evidence to show their ideas work.
What is it with glibertarians and pomposity?
WIth regards to discrimination based on astrological sign or height or blood type for that matter, it should be illegal as well. For now though, discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation are much bigger problems.
Chigau, why shouldn’t I accuse you of being dishonest? You insinuated that I’m homophobic.
Saad, since you obviously don’t understand how analogies work I’m not sure it’s worth bothering to explain it, but I’ll try: I did not say that gays are like either flat earthers or pedophiles, and that was not the point of the analogy. Rather, I was explaining that there are different kinds of discrimination and you can’t just lump all discrimination under one category. In other words, not all discrimination is created equal, and giving examples of different groups that are discriminated against doesn’t mean those groups have anything in common except that they sometimes suffer discrimination. For some of them the discrimination may be justified, for others not.
But there’s really no reason for you to understand any of that, because it would interfere with your argument by innuendo, intimidation, and insinuation. It would never occur to you that reasonable people might reach different conclusions on something. No, anyone who doesn’t see it your way must be a bigot, or dishonest, or self loathing, or privileged, or some combination. No, there’s no way a reasonable person could ever see it any differently than you do.
So fuck yourself. I’m calling it a night.
eeyore
How does your being a homophobe make me dishonest?
Eeyore, YOU are the one who does not understand analogies.
A flat-earther trying to be a geography teacher is unable to adequately perform that job.
A pedophile is a strong potential danger to children and this prevents them from being able to perform that job.
NOTHING about being gay prevents a gay person from adequately being able to buy a cake. Having a customer who is gay does not, in any way, shape, or form, prevent a cake maker from making a cake.
If a flat earther was fully qualified to teach geography, with all the necessary degrees and licenses, and taught in accordance to the curriculum, he or she could believe in private that the earth was icosahedral, and it wouldn’t matter one bit. He or she would be 100% entitled to teach geography, and should not be discriminated against.
(Grade school level geography uses flat protection maps anyways)
This thread: Voltaire’s Prayer, Libertarian-Adjacent Bigotry Apologetics Edition.
The pedophile analogy is worthless as well as dishonest. It pushes emotional buttons in the most egregiously dishonest manner in a way that distorts the truth, the exact opposite of what a good analogy should do.
There could be tens of thousands, if not millions, of pedophiles, *right now*, in positions that give them contact with children, who are 100% safe to be around children, and against whom it would be utterly wrong to discriminate against, because these people, regardless of any private sexual attraction to children, do not act on the, because they are moral humans who choose not to be child abusers, and are capable of self control. We would mostly never even know they are pedophiles, because they never act in a way that would identify them as such in public.
The people who ARE restricted from access to children, who are “discriminated” against, are the people have been caught abusing children. It is child abuse, the action that harms others, not pedophilia, the private state of being that cannot harm anyone unless acted upon, that warrants the “discrimination”.
Also note, though it might be pedantic: pedophile does not mean child molester or child rapist. It means attracted to children, and many pedophiles do not act on that attraction and seek help for it (whereas many child molesters and rapists are not necessarily pedophiles either). The verdict should still probably be that they generally aren’t suited for a job that involves them being unsupervised with children unless safeguards are in place. But the danger of having a known pedophile is much less than having a known child molester. And probably only slightly higher danger than just having an average male that you know nothing about.
Amphiox somehow beat me to the same somewhat tangential point. I think that is pretty funny myself.
discrimination is bad and there should not any discrimination, but we should allow just a little because ??
it is religious? because it will make some people unhappy not to be allowed to discriminate? because it will go away by itself? because discrimination is almost gone and a little won’t hurt very many people?
I have read all of this thread and I still do not understand the argument coming from people who say that freedom and liberty are important as is fair treatment and that the law is violent.
It is my opinion that the Hobby Lobby decision was as wrong as the Dread Scot decision and of the same caliber and will be reversed in time.
uncle frogy
Demeisen #176
Good point. One of those scales-from-your-eyes good points that make me wonder how the hell I could have not seen it in that light before. Thank you.
eeyore, if you’re going to use metaphors please try to find some that actually work. This means they need to have valid parallels in all the right places – end-rhymes on their own just don’t cut it (especially when you need to shoehorn in even the end-rhymes by adding nonsense syllables on the end of all your words-o).
eeyore, if you want to choose your battles, you do that. That’s ok.
Don’t chastise people who want to fight battles you consider too small. If you want equality then every inch matters. Anti-gay bigots are aware of that and that’s why they fight for every cake and flower arrangement.
But look,
What’s the justification for discrimation against people that are gay?!
eeyore,
Um, I just literally demonstrated how your analogies were false. Go read my post again, you homophobic racist* piece of shit.
Show me how discriminating against gay people is like your pedophile/flat-earth scenario and NOT like my black people scenario.
Do it.
*The racist label will be removed once you address the black people scenario and show it to be different from the gay people one.
It appears that a little bit of discrimination is not so bad – not as bad as, say, a little bit of theft, a little bit of rape, or a little bit of murder, especially if the culprit is religious and the victim is gay.
Fucking hell, who sincerely thinks shit like that?
Somebody who wants to be able to discriminate against others for *reasons* to feel superior to somebody.
#149 eeyore
Russia, India, Nigeria. Credit should be given to the religious right: their strategy is not hindered by provincial thinking.
You haven’t heard of Brazil yet because the new conservative superbloc in congress is too busy expanding mass incarceration public policies and antagonizing the president to go further than blocking every non-discrimination initiative. But they still have years ahead of them, give them a little time to get started.
Even in the good ole US of A, you should consider how much bigotry remains in the statutes despite Supreme Court decisions, and how the tide can change if one of the liberal justices gets replaced by a new Scalia.
eeyore @181,
You wrote:
If we look at the examples that you chose to use and see what those particular examples have in common then the implications of your analogy seem very problematic indeed. They certainly have more in common than just the fact that they are all sometimes discriminated against that’s for sure.
Here is what it seems you are saying:
(1) A little discrimination against flat-earthers is a justified because allowing them to teach science would be harmful or potentially harmful (to the students)
(2) A little discrimination against pedophiles is justified because allowing them access to children would be harmful or potentially harmful (to the children)
Is that more or less what you meant? Would you agree that in both of these examples (that you chose) the salient features they have in common are: (a) in both cases you are saying that a little discrimination is justified and (b) in both cases the rationale is that disallowing said discrimination would be harmful or potentially harmful? Would you agree that those are the salient things that both of your examples have in common? If not would you please clarify what are the common features that you intended to reference and why you picked these two particular examples (above all others) to illustrate said common features?
Given (1) and (2) above the most reasonable inference seems to be that you are suggesting that:
(3) A little discrimination against those who are LGBTTQIA is (just like the two examples you chose) also justified because (just like the two examples you chose) disallowing said discrimination would be harmful (to the business owners who will not be allowed to discriminate).
You seem to be saying this is not what you really meant which is good but you don’t seem to understand that this is exactly what you appear to be arguing based on the examples you chose. Perhaps you can clarify your point and your reasoning and specifically explain how your choice of flat-earthers and pedophiles (as opposed to any other two examples that you could have chosen) supports that point and that reasoning?
eeyore @ 181:
Of course there is. It’s called being wrong. Reasonable people sometimes are wrong. Intelligent reasonable people are very good at trying to defend wrong positions. That’s one of the reasons we have the kinds of conversations we are having now, here on this blog – to convince reasonable, intelligent, wrong people to stop being wrong.
eeyore
Level of self-awareness: zero.
Also, very funny to note, libertarianism has gotten such a bad name that even our two residential libertarians vehemently refuse the label (for anyone still not convinced of eeyore’s libertarianism, he is also a second amendment absolutionist).
Also, eeyoren you confuse ‘neutralism’ with upholding the status quo.
(176)
1. There is nothing tautological about the observation that “government” names the largest dealer in interpersonal violence, anymore than the observation that the Malay word for “forest” is “hutan”,
2. The organizations that we call “governments” usually eliminate smaller competitors, not larger competitors.
3. “They (Libertarians) claim that violence is always bad.” No. Not in my experience or in literature. I expect that most libertarians would like to see less frequent recourse to violence and threats of violence by governments and more frequent recourse to free exchange as an organizing principle, but I don’t know of any self-described libertarians or classical liberals who assert that a zero-violence society is desirable, much less possible.
4. “Libertarians fail to make the case for why extreme violence — including injury and death — should be allowed for this particular “good thing,” but lesser violence — taxation and the like — isn’t allowable for other societal goods.”
Can you provide a cite for this expression of the libertarian position? Who disputes the benefit of State-enforced rules of the road (e.g., drive on the right-hand side)? You may be correct that some libertarians take this position, but I expect few do. Not that I would know, since I’m neither a Libertarian nor a libertarian and I don’t try to stay current with libertarian thinking.
Again (50)
This is my basic text:..
Eduardo Zambrano
“Formal Models of Authority: Introduction and Political Economy Applications”
__Rationality and Society__, May 1999
There’s a lot of room in “economize on communication, contracting, and coercion costs” for differences over matters of empirical fact. For an everyday example: What level of traffic at an intersection justifies the difference in cost between a stop sign and a stop light?
Yawn, more unevidenced lies and bullshit sloganeering from the liberturd, Nothing we haven’t heard already, liberturds being present almost continuously since early 2012. And the all say the same well refuted slogans over and over. Their liberty is more important to them than the common good. Which makes them selfish, unempathetic assholes without redeeming features. Add to that they can’t show one first world country using their fuckwittery for thirty years in the last century, it is philosophy well refuted by history, economics, and politics. Like communism, it doesn’t work.
Minimum wage laws are indeed a massive violation of the freedom to be Working Poor. Let alone the freedom to be forced to hog 2 or 3 jobs that other people would need – and still be poor.
It is indeed quite atrocious.
That’s because Jack and Fred aren’t two congratulations. Commas are important, people!
How convenient.
How breathtakingly convenient.
Malcolm has been flouting this copy pasta for nearly a decade.
Here’s 2007, eg.
Authority is socially constructed is not a shocking insight to anyone here. (If that even is your point under all this sounds-just-like-a-libertarian bullshit.)
Ug, lol. Flogging, that is. I blame my phone.
Drolfe #204
Ah, yes, my mistake. The liberturds have been here since 2008 (6 months prior to Obama’s election), not 2012. And the same slogans are seen. Not an evolving philosophy apparently. Stuck in the dark ages with warlords…..
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @161:
I know you’re using the Libertarian Dictionary, but here in the real world, the way you’re using those words is not at all how they are typically used. Arresting is not kidnapping. Subduing is not assault and I don’t know what they fuck you’re talking about with forcibly infecting people with HIV. You’re supremely disconnected from reality. Probably drank too much Liber-Kool-Aid.
And no, I don’t give a fuck that you don’t wear the Libertarian label when you come in here spouting the *exact* same talking points many self-identified libertarians use.
Any chance you’re going to take you and your inherently selfish ideology and wander the fuck off?
****
Anri @170:
Personally, I’m not fine with any gay person being treated as less legitimate than heterosexual people. Clearly eeyore-he who is fine with some discrimination against gay people-thinks otherwise.
Yes, my mind is still fucking flabbergasted that a gay man is fine with anti-gay discrimination of any sort. No matter how minor.
****
eeyore @181:
What else would you call someone who is fine with anti-gay discrimination? Homophobia doesn’t only mean “someone who is scared of gay people” you know.
You don’t seem to understand the difference between the types of groups who are protected under federal and state civil rights laws and pedophiles or flat-earthers. The groups protected are ones who have been historically discriminated and oppressed in the U.S. It is illegal to discriminate against people based on:
Religion
Sex
Age
Nationality
Marital Status
Race
Ethnicity
Religion
(those are off the top of my head; the list isn’t meant to be comprehensive)
For some reason you don’t think sexual orientation should be added to the list of categories protected under federal and state civil rights laws (I don’t even want to know your thoughts on whether gender identity should be included in civil rights laws).
My question is WHY?
And Saad’s question sure as fuck is relevant. It strips away everything and gets to the core of the issue: LGBT people-citizens of the United States of America-have been historically discriminated and oppressed in this country, in ways similar to other groups afforded state and federal protection under anti-discrimination laws. Unfortunately, we do not have that protection in the majority of states in this country. We should. But because we don’t, we can be discriminated against by, for instance, the owners of an Indiana pizzeria who don’t want to make a pizza for a gay couple, or a florist who refuses to serve a gay couple, or a cake baker who refuses to make a cake for a same-sex couple. They get to do this because again, in 29 states in this country, LGBT people are not protected under anti-discrimination laws.
The point of Saad’s question is to get you to explain why you think it is not ok for a business owner who operates a commercial business to discriminate against someone based on race or religion, but it is ok for them to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
That you can’t understand the point of the question is something you really ought to think about. Why do you treat the discrimination faced by LGBT people differently than you do discrimination against people based on race or religion? Why is the latter wrong, but the former acceptable?
African-Americans and Muslims have long been discriminated against in the United States. People who belong to either group (or both) have been treated as second-class citizens for much of the US’s history, up to and including today.
So have LGBT people!
LGBT people *should* be protected under federal and state civil rights laws, but again, you don’t seem to agree with that.
So I ask again WHY?!
I don’t know what the fuck definition of reasonable you’re using, but it’s nothing like I’ve encountered before.
And this:
Here in the United States, thanks to anti-LGBT bigots, we-this includes you-do not enjoy the same rights as heterosexual, cisgender people. *That* is thanks to bigots. In 29 states in this country, a bisexual man can be fired for their sexual orientation, a lesbian can be denied housing, and a trans man can be denied the right to pee in a men’s restroom.
That’s discrimination. And it’s motherfucking W-R-O-N-G. It should not be tolerated. It should not be accepted.
The Right could stop advocating continued discrimination against LGBT people tomorrow, and we’d still not have the same rights as heterosexual, cisgender people do. They could stop trying to advance legislation that would harm us, and we’d still have a fuckton of problems. They don’t actually have to do a whole helluva lot, but fight to keep the status quo as is. But if they did stop fighting against us, social justice advocates might actually succeed in the fight against anti-LGBT discrimination and bigotry.
By Odin, this reminds me of Tom Cotton’s insipid Dear Muslima-like comments a few days ago. Oh yeah, gay people should be happy because we’re not being stoned. Yes, we should all just be happy because the level of homophobia we experience isn’t as bad as the bigotry in other countries. As if that makes the anti-LGBT bigotry in the U.S. perfectly fine. Now here you are trying to imply that anti-LGBT bigotry in the U.S. isn’t all that bad since (in your eyes) the Right hasn’t accomplished much recently.
Sooooo, what? Does that make the anti-LGBT bigotry that exists in the United States ok in your eyes, since it’s not as bad as it could be?
No one is asking you to stand up and fight any battle that you don’t choose. But you have a lot of fucking audacity to chide people who pick battles that you, personally, do not.
I need a fucking drink bc I thought responding to your ridiculous bullshit would have calmed me down, but it’s had the opposite effect.
****
I don’t know why, but eeyore’s support of anti-gay bigotry has really, Really, REALLY been weighing on my mind the last few days. It’s largely been a case of rage, bc it’s like a Black person being fine with Jim Crow laws. Or a woman being fine with sex based discrimination. I know internalized homophobia is a very real phenomenon, but by god, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a blatant example in my life. Eeyore might be fine being treated as a second-class citizen, but millions of other USAmericans are not (nor are our many, many cisgender and heterosexual allies).
I SURE AS FUCK AM NOT!
(99)
Hardly.
Here’s Wikipedia, on Plessy v. Ferguson:
The government forced corporations to discriminate.
G’night, all. I need sleep before an early start, cooking tomorrow for the community Easter pot-luck brunch. Wild sow on the menu (161). Does a BBQ pork restaurant discriminate against Jews and Muslims?
Well at the risk of getting in trouble I think I understand what we seem to have here and why it is so maddening. It seems that we have a real educated red neck here that some might even call a educated honky. It was that last parting shoot that showed the manure on the boots.
well played boy!
uncle frogy
So, so stupid to think the state is separate from us. The state is us. Why don’t people that sound just like libertarians get that?
Louisiana laws didn’t come from God or “Nature”. They came from Americans, overwhelmingly from white, male, white supremacist Americans.
(Next comment from this dude will deny the social contract like many libertarians. Still waiting on some non-aggression defense for disallowing civil rights laws, but allowing property.)
This is stupid. Does the restaurant still give them food and drink in exchange for money?
Nope, no more than a kosher/halal deli discriminates against gentiles. Your money still can buy their products. You are one stupid, ignorant, arrogant and sloganeering fuckwit.
So our spouting-the-libertarian-ideology-doesn’t-make-me-a-libertarian libertarian has to go back to 1896 to find an example to bolster his libertarian ideology.
The question is: can a Muslim or a Jew buy a steak in a BBQ pork restaurant? If not, then there’s your analogy to the bakery situation.
And with that last sentence Malcolm Kirkpatrick has proved once and for all he is a complete idiot who doesn’t understand even the most basic terms he is trying to debate. Voltaire’s prayer at work.
Malcolm, #208
There it is again. Bigots failing miserably at analogies. I wonder if someone has done a study on this.
But I can’t resist.
Malcolm, your pork restaurant analogy is a totally new level of wrong.
The pork restaurant does not discriminate against Jews and Muslims. If a Jew or Muslim asked them for pork, they’d sell it to them.
You’re a fool.
Saad
Maybe the inability to think analogically contributes to bigotry.
Two quick comments, then back into the kitchen:…
1.
(me, 208): “Does a BBQ pork restaurant discriminate against Jews and Muslims?”
(209, 2210, 211,213, 214, 215, 216, 217): …
I remember a news account from some years ago: someone sued a bar that had a jcountry and western theme (music) for racial discrimination on the grounds that the music selection was a ploy to reduce patronage by African-Americans.
Expanding the BBQ analogy: … Suppose we legalize prostitution. Would your preferred legal environment require heterosexual prostitutes to have sex with same-sex customers? Would it require homosexual prostitutes to have sex with opposite-sex partners?
(207): “I don’t know why, but eeyore’s support of anti-gay bigotry has really, Really, REALLY been weighing on my mind the last few days. It’s largely been a case of rage, bc it’s like a Black person being fine with Jim Crow laws.”
There’s a big difference between “tolerance” and “support”. Leaving people alone to discriminate is NOT the same as supporting State-mandated segregation. Off the top of my head, I can name two black economists who oppose anti-discrimination laws: Walter Williams (see __The State Against Blacks__) and Thomas Sowell. Williams calls himself a libertarian. I expect Sowell would call himself a classical liberal. Neither supports Jim Crow.
I remember a news account from some years ago: the Mexican air force was chasing flying fire balls, which some officials believed came from outer space. I don’t have links to that either. Maybe there’s more to the story than I remember, or maybe it was just part of some weird dream of mine. Who knows. The only thing I can be sure is that I wouldn’t dare using it as an argument.
Malcolm, #218
The BBQ analogy wasn’t an analogy. It was simply false.
I think we might agree on one thing though: I disagree with the idea behind that lawsuit against the bar. Playing solely country music in your bar is not discrimination against black people. You’re not refusing to serve a black person. Some black people may not like visiting that bar much. Totally a different thing.
Another analogy fail. That’s your worst one yet, because it shows a completely disregard for people’s personal autonomy. You’re disgusting.
Wanting sex from a specific person is not the same as wanting a cake from a vendor who sells that same cake to everyone in the general public. My preferred legal requirement would be all about consent. Sexual intercourse and selling cake are not analogous. One is about a person’s own body, the other is about a product they make out of flour. But it’s pretty revealing that you’d think of people as products to be sold.
Our I’m-not-a-libertarian-I-only-play-one-on-the-internet libertarian continues to show hir complete inability to use analogies.
In countries where prostitution is legal, like Germany and the Netherlands, a prostitute can refuse to perform certain sexual activities for a reason which will warm your libertarian heart. Sexual practices are agreed upon by all parties before any money changes hands and any sexual practices are performed. Essentially an oral contract is agreed upon.
Irrelevant bulshit from a professional liar and bullshitter. Dismissed as fuckwittery,.
Only in the weak minds of professional liars and bullshitters such as yourself. You haven’t presented a cogent argument because you can’t. You are too stupid to understand what is happening, and your idiotology prevents you from a valid analysis.
*points at fuckwits post*
Bwahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha
chigau, #217
That’s probably it.
X : people : : myself : people
X = women, gay people, etc.
Malcolm, #218
Since we’re on analogies, how’s this:
There’s a big difference between “tolerance” and “support”. Leaving people alone to murder is NOT the same as supporting State-mandated murder.
In the real world, tolerating discrimination is the same as supporting discrimination. That’s the practical result of it upon the discriminated. Also, are the people being discriminated against supposed to give a flying fuck that you’re not supporting the discrimination, just tolerating it. Piss of with that privileged, libertarian nonsense.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick #208:
I don’t know. Is this hypothetical restaurant refusing to serve Jews and Muslims who are asking to be served food which is on the menu? If so; yes. If not; no.
Now I know why I was so disgusted by Malcolm Kirkpatrick pork comment. While we are talking about discrimination of human beings, he thinks this is analogous to discrimination of meat products. And then he does it again by comparing these inanimate things with sex workers, who are also actual human beings.
Please stop Malcolm, we don’t need to be reminded anymore why libertarianism is a morally bankrupt position.
@Nerd of Redhead #196 – I’m not sure about that. Some people defending this position do not feel the need to discriminate against homosexuals themselves, but they seem to be cool with others doing it. They just don’t see the harm, or they think that fighting discrimination is a greater harm.
A quote from the Civil Rights marches through the ‘Nam War protests, “Either you are part of the solution, or you are part of the problem”. Those allowing others to discriminate for whatever reason shows you are part of the problem.
@Nerd of Redhead #227 – You probably meant they are part of the problem.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @# 208:
This is a good point, given that there were no private sector discriminatory practices prior to this, nor any afterwards, nor any in other parts of the country, or in any other industry.
O WAIT
Yeah, sorry. The Redhead interrupts many a train of thought on weekends….
(220):
The issue is where are the boundaries of “personal” and “public” and what are the costs and benefits of drawing the (legal) line in different places.
(227)
Is there any room for conscientious objectors in the culture war, for live and let live??
(212)
State-mandated racial and gender discrimination continue into the present. Minority set-asides for Federal contracting and race-weighted admission to State universities, for example.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @231
At least you’re starting to give post numbers but it would be a nice gesture if you gave names as well. I realize that libertarians, being anti-social, don’t like to do politeness, but try it just for once.
But libertarians don’t do “live and let live.” You do “I’ve got mine, fuck you.”
Leveling the playing field, being something that helps people who aren’t you, is anathema. Yet another example of “I’ve got mine, fuck you.” And you libertarians wonder why you’re despised by people who give a damn about our society.
Only in your delusiona idiotological mind. Nobody elses. We see through your stupidity.
Either you are for non-discrimination, or you are a bigot. Your own words say you are a bigot. Don’t like being called a bigot? SHUT THE FUCK UP.
I see Malcolm is back sloganeering for this loser idiotology. We don’t have to refute Malcolm’s iditology, his preaching is sufficient to show everybody the moral backruptcy of his preaching.
*points at Malcolm’s posts*
Bwahahahahahahhaha
N
Malcolm Kirkpatrick #231:
If you are offering goods or services for sale to the public, you should not be able to discriminate on grounds of sexuality, gender, religion… the usual list, when choosing who you will or will not serve. This does not mean that you condone the use to which the thing you are selling will be put; it merely ensures that all members of society are treated equally.
Please note: you are under no obligation to do any of the above. If you feel that a whole bunch of people do not deserve equal treatment, you are perfectly free to close your business and go work for a wage somewhere.
Yeah, you could ‘not take a stance,’ by not taking a stance. Refuse to serve everyone, or refuse to serve no one. But if you refuse to serve people on the discriminatory grounds under discussion, you are not remaining neutral, or ‘conscientiously objecting,’ you are taking a side.
When we finally achieve the Utopia in which systemic discrimination against minorites not only doesn’t take place, but is unimaginable, and if such weightings are still in effect, you will have a point. Until then, kindly fuck off.
I forget where I read it but the most coercive thing in Western culture is not government but jobs. People are told when to wake up, what to dress, where to be at specific times on specific days of the week, etc. by their employer. Government couldn’t care less if I wear jeans and a t-shirt at 8 AM Wednesday mornings. My employer forbids me to do so. Government couldn’t care less if I take a nap after lunch on Tuesdays. My employer will punish me if I do so. Government couldn’t care less if I work two jobs. My employer demands I get their permission to do so.
And since I have to be at my desk at 6:30 tomorrow morning I’m going to bed now so I can get some sleep before I go to the job.
Eeyore and Malcolm Kirkpatrick are in good company. They are just as bad at making analogies as Rick Santorum:
Daz @234:
All of that is quite sensible to the two of us (and, most likely, the vast majority of commenters in this thread), but you’re talking to someone who espouses many of the same beliefs as Libertarians; in this case, opposition to anti-discrimination laws.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick is perfectly fine with people being discriminated against (@ comment #31):
Indeed, xe even *wants* marginalized people to be discriminated against. And xe wonders why people used coarse language against hir earlier.
Al Dente 235
Indeed, and libertarians want to increase the coercive power of employers by doing away with things like minimum wage laws and unions.
Malcolm, #231
No, there isn’t. The boundary regarding people’s bodies couldn’t possibly be any clearer.
But again, I’m not surprised you think a person’s genitals may need to be public property.
Malcolm, either you believe we live in a post-racist and post-sexist society in which the playing field is level, or you don’t believe this and don’t give a fuck that people start 10 miles behind the starting line of the marathon that is life. So either you are a delusional idiot or you really think ‘I ‘ve got mine, fuck you’. Either way, don’t be surprised if people find you a disgusting piece of shit.
“Yes, of course I’ve heard of the Civil Rights Act. I’ve also heard of minimum wage laws. I see both as violations of the freedom of association and freedom of contract.
Yet another libertarian claiming to support liberty, but mindlessly opposing any and all meaningful attempts to uphold or protect people’s liberties. This is just more proof that libertarianism isn’t just wrong about this or that particular thing, it’s fraudulent to its very core.
2. A law is a threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV someone, under some specified circumstances.
…not to mention totally divorced from reality and dealing entirely in stupid word-games and smoke-and-mirrors abstractions.
(Irony impaired, 232):
Hahahahaha (gasp) hahahaha. I’m the only one in this discussion who uses his name.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick #242:
There are many reasons for anonymity online. Do not even imply that people who choose it should not do so.
And yeah, most people around here make an effort to use name (or ‘nym,’ if you prefer the term) and number when replying to a comment. It lets the person you’re replying to, if they’re skimming the thread in a hurry, say, that a comment is being addressed to them. Think of it as the online equivalent of looking at the person you’re speaking to: you know—basic politeness.
Oh, and Daz, should you be wondering, is my real offline nickname. My full name, a google search assures me, is unique. Using it would give me precisely zero anonymity. How many Malcolm Kirkpatricks are there in the world; and how much anonymity does that ambiguity give you? Think, before sneering.
Malcolm, #242
Hi.
But of course a bigot like you would assume if it ain’t James or Tom, it must not be a real name.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Wow, that misses the point so much I’m seriously considering if you are indeed the dumbest idiot to wander in here for a very long time.
Malcolm, after your last bit of nonsense you might as well just fade back into the distance.
Al Dente: I suspect that’s pretty much what Malcolm was doing with that last bit of point-missing that zenlike just pointed out.
(232): “ I realize that libertarians, being anti-social, don’t like to do politeness, but try it just for once.”
(243): “basic politeness …
You mean, like:…
(26): “Must be a stupid liberturd with your ignorance, arrogance, and sloganeering.
(27): “Yep liberturd fuckwitted idjit,/i>
(29): “ libertarian reciting the magic totem words from the script. STFU.
(30): “Sloganeering fuckwittery from a stupid liberturd. …lie all the liberturd “philosophy”… you are too stupid to see facts.
(33): “Your assholish implication …you can go fuck yourself with your voluntaryist libterturdian bullshit.
(37): You are a weaselly little shit. No surprise there.”
(40): “It’s perfectly clear you are bigoted shitweasel,…. You never picture your sorry stupid ass on the receiving end of such bigotry though. You should. It is called empathy, an useful emotion liberturds lack. Which is why they are stupid and uncaring about others.”
You were saying?
More?
(45): “Go fuck yourself, you dishonest fucking shitweasel.”
(47): “dipshit”
etc.
In composing the above, I was reminded of a few decent arguments which I did not address.
Just one:
(Saad, 239):
That’s exactly backwards. You own your body (if you don’t, who does?). Your labor is yours to sell. What you do with your body is your business. What two or more consenting adults do with, by, for, or to each other in the privacy of their home, office, bakery, factory, or the great outdoors is their business, so long as no non-consenting third party is harmed.
The limits on the definition of “harm” determine (in part) the limits on State violence. Refusing to work for someone is not “harm”. If it is, I harmed seven billion people yesterday. Baking a cake is work.
Isn’t that sweet. The libertarian is tone-trolling us.
Yep, your liberturd slogans are morally backwards, indefensible bullshit, and utterly and totally ignorant of economics, politics, and history. Your idiotology has been continuously dismissed here for 7 years. Because you can’t back it up with anything other than previously refuted slogans….Boring and stupid, if you think we are listening to you. We aren’t. We’re LAUGHING AT YOU.
*points at Malcolm’s posts*
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha
A bakery is a public business. Refusing to sell someone a cake, something that does not directly deal with bodily autonomy (unlike sex work), because of something like race (I note you STILL haven’t dealt with how race is different) or gender or sexual orientation is harmful. If someone lives in a small town and cannot afford to relocate, and nearly all the businesses in that small town refuse them service, that person can be immensely harmed.
But you don’t give a shit. You are an appalling human being.
Malcolm, #248
That’s exactly what I was saying, shithead. A person’s bodily autonomy and specifically sexual intercourse is off-limits. If prostitution were legal, exceptions would have to be made to anti-discrimination laws so that a person can refuse to have sex with someone (for any damn reason: race, religion, gender, etc) without being subject to a discrimination lawsuit. But that’s a separate topic.
Back to your anti-gay bigotry:
Correct. You can refuse to work at a bakery. You can refuse to be in the business of selling cakes to the public. But when you serve a black customer, a woman, a Mexican teenager and a gay man but REFUSE to serve a straight white man when his turn comes, you are discriminating in a business that is open to the public.
You’re about as shitty at debating as you are at morality.
One problem may be the libertarian view of harm. If I buy every well of a village and refuse to sell them water until they die of thirst, I’d probably not have done any harm from a libertarian pov. Pumping water is work.
Someone just recommended civility. See how long that lasted? If you’all had a real argument, you wouldn’t try to shut down the discussion with crude ad hominem.
__Simple Rules for a Complex World__: Freedom of association and freedom of contract.
Making life miserable for businesses which discriminate is counter-productive. As Milton Friedman observed, the best protection a good worker has is a competitive market for his skills. Similarly, it’s better to have ten anti-gay bakeries in town than one. One of them will crack, and win the business of customers rejected elsewhere.
(249): “Isn’t that sweet. The libertarian is tone-trolling us.”
1. I’m neither a libertarian nor a Libertarian.
2. “Tone trolling”? I’m calling you people liars. The calls for civility are lies.
(253): “One problem may be the libertarian view of harm. If I buy every well of a village and refuse to sell them water until they die of thirst, I’d probably not have done any harm from a libertarian pov. Pumping water is work.”
Here’s a real argument, without vulgarity or ad hominem.
The free marketeer’s answer is that in the real world attempts to corner the market usually fail. People can move away from the company town, etc. Monopoly can be a problem, but the invocation of State power as a defense of some public interest often winds up enhancing the power of the already powerful (see “regulatory capture”).
Malcolm Kirkpatrick:
If you espouse pretty much every single libertarian talking point and bit of ideology, you are effectively a libertarian. Saying you aren’t is like someone objecting to being called christian when they believe in and follow the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ and espouse nearly every bit of major christian dogma. It makes you look like either an idiot, willfully ignorant, a liar, or someone who doesn’t want to admit what they are.
Also, for your edification.
Ad hominem: You are an asshole, so your arguments are wrong.
Not ad hominem: You are an asshole, and your arguments are wrong.
Not ad hominem: Your arguments are terrible, and make you an asshole.*
.
.
.
.
* This is where you are.
Can people really move away? What if they are otherwise impoverished and have little in marketable job skills? Real world attempts to corner the market succeeded spectacularly for centuries if not millenia. Kingdoms, fiefdoms, serfdoms, empires….
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
You can copy/paste the comment so you can copy/paste the ‘nym.
To not do so at this point is just proving that you’re an asshole.
You have no moral argument, as it is based on liberturd philosophy, which doesn’t work in real life, and is morally bankrupt since it doesn’t give a shit about anybody other than you, or anything other than your property. That you spew such nonsense makes you a flaming egotistical, ignorant, and egotistical fuckwit. I insulted you. I trashed your idiotology, and then you for expressing a trashed idiotology.
You only get that stopped when you either go off your slogans/script, or shut the fuck up.
*points at Malcolms fuckwitted posts*
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha
Remember, nobody is forcing you to post again. You do with the knowledge you will be LAUGHED AT.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @255
When every single one of your arguments, other than the tone trolling, is straight out of the Libertarian Handbook then it’s quite reasonable to call you a libertarian. You may have convinced yourself you’re not a libertarian but lying to yourselves is a libertarian trait. As I said before: If it walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Malcolm, I will stop calling you a liberturd when you depart from the liberturd script. We’ve seen it here for seven years. You are on the liberturd script, and can’t depart from it. Nobody is believing your words about anything–with good reason. Which, considering everything, it might be good for you to move on.
Rowan vet-tech @258
Moving away or getting a new job or otherwise disentangling oneself from unpleasant or untenable situations are typical libertarian rebuttals to real-life arguments which show libertarian positions to be unworkable. Malcolm didn’t reply to my argument @235 that jobs are more coercive than governments but if xe had then quite likely xe would have said that I should quit my job and find work elsewhere.
Malcolm,
You ignorant fuck.
The U.S. had a free market when black people were rampantly and openly being discriminated against.
It took regulation to make it illegal and to curb/eliminate it.
You didn’t even know that? How come you’re so ignorant?
And Malcolm, good job supporting discrimination in general by saying the victims of discrimination should have the burden of having to move (move where? how? why?) to some magical place where it’s guaranteed there’s no discrimination.
You racist, homophobic, sexist piece of libertarian shit.
Malcolm, something called evidence from the “separate but equal” era. Prove to us with evidence (not your words) it was equal in all aspects.
Nerd, #266
If those black people had just moved to all those magical towns without racism (using the ample amounts of money and resources that they had in that era thanks to Malcolm’s Libertarian deity, the Free Market), they could have avoided all that hassle.
If you’all had a real argument, you wouldn’t try to shut down the discussion with crude ad hominem.
I, for one, have made plenty of substantive arguments, and you’ve consistently ignored every one of them. You’ve also ignored everyone else’s substantive arguments. Pretending all you’ve heard here is insults, is just another standard act of cowardice and irresponsibility we’ve come to expect from libertarians when their bogus arguments are exposed.
The free marketeer’s answer is that in the real world attempts to corner the market usually fail. People can move away from the company town, etc.
The free marketeer’s answer has been flatly disproven by actual historical experience, both in the USA and elsewhere on Earth. That’s about as much of a response as this sort of libertarian crap-artistry deserves.
Some did.
IIRC the government bombed the town
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @255:
You have whined about tone.
Here you are @52:
Whining about coarseness is tone-trolling. A great many of the commenters around here value the substance of a comment over its tone. That doesn’t mean that tone is unimportant, but it is not the only-nor the most important-thing about a comment. Given that you’re spouting libertarian talking points, and that libertarian philosophy promotes apathy and selfishness, you’ve earned the coarseness. Want people to be less uncivil towards you? Use a bit of critical thinking to examine the libertarian beliefs you hold. Do so with an eye towards determining whether those beliefs are reasonable or not. Look at the implications of those beliefs. Especially look at how libertarian philosophy would play out in the real world, and pay close attention to how marginalized groups would be fucked over if such a thing happened.
Also, *what* calls for civility?
Also, also…as others have mentioned, you’re parroting the same exact talking points used by libertarians who have with their presence over the years. IMO, you’re walking like a duck, quacking like a duck, whining like a duck, so calling you a duck is reasonable. Based on your comments in this thread, as well as the apathy and disdain you show toward marginalized people, you are the epitome of a libertarian. It doesn’t fucking matter that you don’t call yourself one when the views you’ve expressed in this thread are indistinguishable from libertarianism.
Saad @264:
See, that’s a bad thing. It doesn’t matter if the lives of black USAmericans were improved by those regulations. What matters is that companies were forced-FORCED-to stop discriminating against them. You really need to stop worrying about people. Corporations matter. Not people.
How’d I do channeling our resident non-libertarian who spouts the same talking points as libertarians?
@256 MK
You see, what I personally find unpersuasive about this kind of argument is that I’m currently living in a place I’d rather not be, but relocating has proven way too challenging so far. For a start, if I’m going to move somewhere, I think it stands to reason that I’m not interested in going to a place that is worse. And most of the world strikes me as pretty bleak (especially if I can be discriminated against with no consequence, but I digress).
Last year I thought I had an opportunity to relocate to somewhere better. To do this, I needed (1) a visa; (2) a job, or at least, a placement over there; (3) money to pay for the trip. (I actually spent a few months getting rid of my things because I felt it would be easier if I took with me little more than I could fit in a backpack. I’m a very silly person.) In the end all the plans fell apart due to lack of money and withdrawal of support from the other side, but at least I’ve found a few colleagues with similar stories to commiserate.
Anyway, I believe a anarcho-capitalist restructuring of society could help me point (1), the visa, but otherwise relocation still looks like a pretty unrealistic solution for common people’s problems.
dõki @273:
I’m sorry your plans didn’t work out. Hopefully your situation improves as soon as possible so that you can relocate.
“You load sixteen tons, what do you get.
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go.
I owe my soul to the company store.”
.
Well, you could just move.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
You quote Friedman. You use the exact ass-backwards definitions of words as libertarians. You use the exact same arguments.
Citation seriously fucking needed.
This is in cotradication with history.
<blockquoteMonopoly can be a problem, but the invocation of State power as a defense of some public interest often winds up enhancing the power of the already powerful (see “regulatory capture”).</blockquote
Citation needed, even most hardcore right wing economic scientists agree that monopolies are bad, and can form in the marketplace. You are not even on the fringe here, you are so far over it you don't see the real world anymore.
Malcolm,
you don't know anything about economics,
you don't know anything about history,
you don't know anything about political science,
you are an ignoramus who wallows in your own privilige and don't give a fuck that other people besides you get screwed over.
Maybe we need to believe Malcolm Kirkpatrick when he states he is not a libertarian, his views seem to be even more extreme than the ‘mainstream’ libertarian thought.
Is Randist a good label?
I liked anti-realist. If there were anything to it other than the utopian ideal that exists solely within their own head maybe we could discuss the overwhelming success of not-libertarian philosophy in the real world; you know, those points in history when bigotry just evaporated away when the governments sat on their hands long enough and monopolies withered and died due to mass exodus? Good times, good times.
But painfully strained analogies and tone-trolling work, too, I guess.
“I’m not a Libertarian, I just like parroting their talking points and cannot argue without regurgitating those talking points as if they were established facts”
zenlike: the only proper label I can think for Malcolm is “incompetent, amoral, bigoted idiot”. Randist would be damn close.
anteprepro: Malcolm seems to be avoiding the “libertarian” label like the plague, possibly because he’s ashamed of it. Perhaps, if he’s that much closer to admitting how shameful libertarianism really is, we can take that as a good sign.
Malcolm’s asinine points that I am sure have already been addressed but I will try to take a shot at:
Gangs are now governments. Armies are now governments. Businesses are now governments.
And many governments are not governments. Until you also go down the Libertarian Word Redefinition rabbit hole further to redefine violence. And interpersonal. And locality. (By definition, municipal governments are often not governments, because state and federal governments can “deal” more “violence”).
I REFUTED THIS OFFENSIVE BULLSHIT ALREADY, YOU AMORAL PIG IGNORANT FUCK.
A law against rape is also a deterrence against rape, a statement that rape is bad, and an attempt to prevent rapists from raping again.
Also noted: “life miserable for the rapist” with no concern for the misery inflicted upon the actual rape victim.
You are a fucking horrible human being.
So again:
Premise 1: imprisonment is violently subduing someone and forcibly injecting people with HIV.
Premise 2: I’m not saying imprisonment and laws are bad at all, what are you talking about?
When someone told you to get yourself a moral compass, you misunderstood and settled for a protractor, didn’t you?
So essentially I was right in my first remark: You would label gangs, armies, and businesses as “governments”. Except when it is inconvenient for you, obviously.
You are only partially right. But you are mostly bullshiting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle
Libertarians generally only accept violence/coercion/aggression/blamblescamblen if it is done as a response in kind. Otherwise, yes, it is generally considered Bad.
Anarcho-capitalists for one. And it is a reductio ad absurdum of the ridiculous short-sighted policies that other ones advocate.
And yet, despite these facts, you have designated yourself Expert on Libertarianism, and see yourself fit to lecture us on the subject at length.
What a brilliant fucking case of Dunning Kruger you are.
276, 277, 278, 279 280, 281:… Let’s get the personal stuff out of the way and get back o he substance of our argument, okay? You people do not understand plain English and I’m the idiot? I wrote at least twice in this thread that I part company with libertarians on national defense and environmental protection (i.e., population control, migratory species, zoning and land-use, etc.) . If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, i’s probably a duck. It’s good to wait for three pieces of evidence a least. In this conversation, you people derive the “libertarian” conclusion on based on ONE piece of evidence, my support for freedom of contract.
An empirical argument : the cost barriers to movement. Consider waves of immigration. Irish to the US in the md 1800s, Chinese to the US in the mid to late 1800s, Italians to he US I the late 1800s and early 1900s, Mexican and meso-Americans to the US (1950s an ongoing), North Africans and Turks to Western Europe today. Do you really contend that these people were wealthy in their land of origin? That’s intuitively unlikely (why would comfortable person move?) and counterfactual. Consider the Great Migration of rural Southern blacks into the North in the late 1800s, following the mechanization of agriculture and repression by State-level Jim Crow laws. Consider the flight of Okies from the dust bowl to California. These people were poor. A good source for material on much of this is Sowell’s __Ethnic America__. For a fictional treatment of the Okie migration, see Steinbeck’s _The Grapes of Wrath__ (yes, it reflects Progressive-era racism but it’s not about race). These people were poor and they moved. Yang Jisheng (__Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962__) attributed the massive death in China’s famine, in part, to the imposition by the government to restrictions on the movement of people.
(264)Malcolm,
Because it’s false, on two counts. State governments enforced segregation (Jim Crow). Competition between businesses penalizes irrelevant discrimination with lost talent (if the discrimination is in employment) and lost customers (if the discrimination in is sales). Please read Walter Williams, __The State Against Blacks__ and Thomas Sowell, __Markets and Minorities__.
But I suppose most Irish, Italians, Mexicans, Chinese, etc… never left their home countries, right? Transporting this situation to the hypothetical village with the water well monopoly, this would mean that some inhabitants would manage to escape, but many would still die of thirst. Relocation is indeed possible to some, but it’s not always feasible. On the other hand, a statist solution like lifting my property right unless I agree to keep selling water to everyone would solve the problem without any deaths.
Malcolm sez:
1. You have not displayed the honesty nor the competence for us to take you simply at your word in regards to your politics.
2. I wouldn’t start debating about who among us can’t understand what is written here, if I were in your shoes. (Here’s a hint: If multiple people are misunderstanding you in the same way, maybe the communication issue isn’t on their end)
And that is minor at best. Especially since consistently libertarians disagree with their own principles when it comes to “national defense”.
We base on the fact that you constantly regurgitate libertarian jargon and arguments. And cite libertarian sources. And talk about What Libertarians Really Say and shit like that. Incessantly.
Gibbering idiot sputters forth:
You are a fucking idiot. There was more discrimination that just Jim Crow laws. There is discrimination even today. There was discrimination in regions without Jim Crow laws. Good fucking lord.
And yet they survive. We know this empirically. It is likely because they are rewarded by increased support by fellow bigots. Regardless, your common sense declaration of how reality ought to work is not consistent with how reality actually does. But that’s just par for the fucking course, ain’t it?
So Malcolm Kirkpatrick, you’ve got nothing then. Except pointing to two books written by hardcore libertarians. Your lack of self-awareness is astonishing.
Also, am I correct in assuming you are then also against all forms of immigration control? You know, for consistency’s sake?
Really this whole “the free market will weed out discrimination!” bullshit makes it even more obvious than usual that libertarians view the free market like Christians view God. It is an all powerful and mystical force that silently hands out justice and ensures that the world is all fair and functioning. It is an invisible entity that gives them an excuse to prop up their Just World Fallacy of choice, be it heaping praise on the successful, or blaming the victims.
anteprepro,
Thing is, for libertarians like Malcolm, any violence, any discrimination, any suppression of minorities is wrong when it is done by a government. When done by private persons or institutions, it is magically ok, because ‘magic’.
Libertarians would like it better if undemocratically elected companies run our lives instead of a democratically elected government. But don’t dare call them authoritarian thugs, because they are for “Freedom!” Except that there policies will lead to that situation.
I was just going to say that anteprepro, yeah it is magical thinking and just world fallacy all in one big stinking package.
Malcolm, I am going to repeat my question: do you believe we live in a post-racist and post-sexist society in which the playing field is level?
Malcolm, until you shut the fuck up (you are proven liar and bullshitter, whose words are not to be trusted) and point the evidence to back your fuckwitted, stupid, inane, asinine, and liberturd slogans, you have nothing to say that will be listened to. You trashed any trust you might have had with unworkable, unevidenced bullshit.
zenlike: I’ve also noticed that Malcolm and other libertarians, even if they accept that the businesses did something wrong, it is never actually The Free Market’s fault. No, somehow, the government caused it! Even if that makes no sense, they will strain to blame it on some kind of government restriction, regulation, or interference. Or like Malcolm, try to cherry pick examples of Government Behaving Badly from history to absolve businesses from all comparable freely performed wrong-doings throughout history.
Basically Free Market is God, Government is Satan. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense to attribute a good thing to the Free Market, or a bad thing to the Government, they will do it anyway, because that is how they want things organized.
The Free Market helped your sister recover from that auto accident. The government caused that auto accident. Why did the all powerful Free Market let the accident happen? The Market works in mysterious ways.
(288)
1. My argument consisted of more than “pointing to two books”. I mentioned several mass migrations f poor people to disprove by counter-example the statist contention that poverty presents an insurmountable barrier to movement.
2. Walter Williams self-identifies as a libertarian. I don’t know his position on immigration or abortion. I do not know that Sowell identifies as a libertarian. I would call him a free marketer (libertarians are normally free-marketeers, but the converse does not hold). Sowell argues against open borders.
3. You are incorrect. Value is determined by supply and demand. A world in which human life is precious is a world in which human life is scarce. I favor strict limits on immigration (the usual libertarian position is the opposite). I do not take the libertarian position on abortion.
In this conversation, you people derive the “libertarian” conclusion on based on ONE piece of evidence, my support for freedom of contract.
No, we derive that conclusion from your consistent use of the same libertarian talking-points we’ve been hearing since (in my case at least) 1978, despite their being repeatedly debunked.
Competition between businesses penalizes irrelevant discrimination with lost talent (if the discrimination is in employment) and lost customers (if the discrimination in is sales).
No, it does not. Historical experience proves this time and again. Plenty of businesses got by just fine all over America for generations without having to change their racist policies one bit. Like every other libertarian I’ve heard from, you keep on repeating slogans/assertions like this as articles of religious faith, with absolutely no attempt to fact-check or verify them, willfully blind to the fact that the real world simply doesn’t work like your simple little beliefs say it does. You literally do not know what you’re talking about, and you’re too stupid and closed-minded to even understand how you might be wrong.
This penalty is indirect, inconsistent, unreliable and, time and again, observed to be ineffective.
Government enforcement of protections against discrimination may not be perfect, but where observed in reality, has been the far more effective of the two.
A more vivid demonstration of the poster’s blind privilege would be hard to make up!
Malcolm, not links, Dismissed as unevidenced fuckwittery. Your problem is that your word isn’t evidence. It is preuppositional propaganda.
Malcolm the amoral idiot
Huh. “Statist”. Hmmm.
You sure aren’t libertarian at all.
You are a fucking monster.
…the statist contention that poverty presents an insurmountable barrier to movement.
Which state makes that contention? And how does refuting it validate anything you’ve said?
(286)
Or, I’m trying to speak plain English to parrots who only learned to swear.
Oh Malcolm. You really do think you are competent. Tragic.
Shoppers will freely choose to buy safer cars, if they can afford them, made available by brilliant innovators of course. That is just what the market wanted to happen all along. But it was too stupid to know that in the first place.
When it’s not Satan’s fault, true believers will tell you it’s a great gift of God that we can learn such valuable lessons about his deepest desires, as long as we regularly sacrifice enough people to him. And it’s not just a small price to pay for something in return that’s supposedly better: there’s a superstition that alienating ourselves from “him” and “his will” in any way must be met with punishment.
Malcolm:
How many of those migrants died on the voyage? How many died of starvation, disease, or exposure once they arrived? How many were exploited once they arrived? How many arrived via indentured servitude? How many were effectively enslaved to an individual who paid their way over? How many worked terrible and poorly paid jobs just to be able to barely get enough to eat?
Did you think they just hopped onto a boat and tralala’d their way to the ‘Land of Plenty’? Your naivete is astounding.
For example:
Monetary value must be regarded as the only kind. This is what the market knows, and it knows all, so you should not contradict the market. If you did, that would presumably make you less “free” … somehow. Instead, you must respond robotically (but freely!) with shit like that.
#294 Malcolm Kirkpatrick
¬¬ Okay, so now the hypothetical inhabitants of the waterless village will all die because there’s a Malcolm-shaped wall around them.
It’s truly bizarre that your solution to the problem relies on the non-existence of a barrier that you want to make bigger.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick @283
So you have a couple of minor quibbles with some other libertarians. You don’t disagree with mainstream libertarianism in regards to free markets and other economic ideology. Your unthinking hatred of governments and society is a standard libertarian motif. Your acceptance of discrimination and bigotry is common among libertarians. In short, we derive the conclusion that you’re a died-in-the-wool, mainstream, common or garden libertarian because you make the same claims and arguments as pretty much every other libertarian who’s ever come here.
anteprepro @302
Xe does suffer from delusions of adequacy.
@Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Congratulations, you demonstrated that poor people moving away is not literally impossible. This completely papers over any risks and consequences of the relocation itself; I notice you completely leave the little details of the transitions themselves out. For example, the Okies often found life little better after the trip due to the conditions of corporate-owned farms, unfamiliar crops, and the attacks of groups of vigilantes on their roadside camps. Funny how miracle solutions tend to come with their own sets of problems, even if we accepted running away as such.
Remember, kids: when faced with bullies, just change schools! Because to do anything about the bullies is violence.
You heard it here, folks! Racism didn’t exist until it was etched into law. Nobody actually laughed at Jim Crow’s routine, government just put a gun to their heads and said “laugh, motherfucker.”
And that’s what happened, corporations just went under left and right. Truly revealing times. Business certainly never would have suffered in the long run by doing business with those people because, as history informs us, nobody could have possibly become a millionaire without aggressively marketing to blacks with their substantial concentrated wealth, and no white person ever would have refused to do business with them after such a grand display of tolerance.
But I do love it when talent is regarded as some intrinsic property of predetermined visionaries and geniuses; no barriers to the education that would nurture philosophies; no social conditions that would grease the wheels for less talented people; no gatekeepers to ensure that only certain subsets of the population could seize on specific niches. Because, according to history, there can never be any barriers to anything anywhere ever without governments to erect them. Bless your heart!
PZ’s smears against Ayaan Hirsi Ali have alienated Atheism Ireland. Read more about this here:
http://www.michaelnugent.com/2015/04/07/atheist-ireland-dissociates-from-pz-myers/
OH NOES! Nugent is having a tizzy again! OH WOE IS US!
Not impossible, but a tad unparsimonious, I would say.
Also, if your intent is to communicate an idea to parrots, and you chose to do so by speaking plain English, then the failure is still yours.
Being dissociated by any entity associated with Michael Nugent should be considered, by any decent human being, to be a badge of honor.
Funny how a pacifist showing thatd an avowed warmonger isn’t good for the movement is considered bad….
Are warmongers your heroes realityhurts? If so, I don’t want to associate with you or those you think are great….
You aren’t part of my movement.
This from somebody so stupid they can only PARROT (squawk) liberturdian slogans. They can’t think with evidence for themselves. Just repeat the slogans…..*squawk*
Malcolm,
Even if the asshole bakery owner says they’ll pay for the gay couple to move, it’s still wrong.
That you’re actually defending that as a solution makes you a homophobe. That you’re defending it as a solution to discrimination in general makes you, among other things, a racist too. Instead of the government telling privileged racist white fucks to stop discriminating, you’d say the black people should move. Fuck you and your libertarian gibberish.
I’m actually beginning to enjoy seeing you be a racism and homophobia defender. You’re literally defending the bigots at this point. Keep it up,
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
So the more people there are, the less value a human life has according to you. And you are surprised people find you a morally reprehensible shitstain?
So your whole shtick that people can always move if they don’t like it somewhere because a monopoly has formed was one big lie? Why am I surprised that you are also a dishonest shitstain?
And by that you mean you don’t believe in bodily autonomy of human beings.
Fuck of, you immoral shitstain.
At this point, I don’t know if Malcolm is totally morally bankrupt or just a troll. I mean, we are talking here about someone who doesn’t believe in bodily autonomy (his comments regarding sex workers and abortion), who thinks democratically chosen government shouldn’t regulate anything, except of course restrict the movement of human beings, and thinks corporations should have unlimited freedom to fuck over workers, minorities, and everybody else out of some holy belief in freedom of contract.
It is a long time I have been so sickened by a commenter over here. I mean, we are talking Vox Day levels of lack of empathy for human beings.
“They can’t think with evidence for themselves. Just repeat the slogans…..*squawk*”
Says the guy who NEVER EVER uses slogans instead of critical thinking. FLOOSH.
This from somebody who hasn’t been here for a while, and it shows with abject stupidity. Keep it up loser. You, like Malcolm, do not resound well for your warmongering cause.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick #284:
You appear to be under the impression that only those who are being discriminated against are able to do the jobs in question.
Back in the real world, the talent-pool for most jobs far outstrips the number of jobs available. Result: discriminatory hiring practices do not harm the employer, because even when those being discriminated against are ruled out, there is still a large body of equally talented people available.
Your vaunted ‘let the market decide’ solution to discrimination will, and can, only work if for some reason the majority of the best people for any particular job happen to be members of groups who are usually discriminated against. And what’s more, this is childishly bloody obvious.
You know ‘realityhurts’, reality might hurt less if you weren’t such an asshole. Stop hiding from reality, actually think about things and it will stop hurting so much.
Yeah, I’m really starting to wonder at this point if this is even for real. I don’t even…
@ 294 Malcolm
You are aware that there is a whole world of humans outside of America, right? Does this supply and demand model happen to take into account the fact that we are connected with them?! I guess we’ve sussed out the real arbiters of human value here: lines drawn in the sand.
If you build a cereal box fort around yourself, you could become the most precious creature in the universe! Let me know how it goes.
This thread can only handle so much idiocy at a time, so I’m afraid Nugent’s carrier pigeons will have to wait their turn, although we do share their concern in what will become of his blog activity if all of his snipes at PZ Myers aren’t sufficiently advertised.