"I need food, I have money. You have food that you sell for money."

"Sorry, you're in a wheelchair, I don't want mess up my floors, go #### yourself."

You forgot the other part of that analogy.

"I need to keep my floors nice, otherwise the establishment starts to look shabby and I lose business."

but that income inequality requires a government that actively protects income inequality. A government that has no authority to grant lucrative favors and kickbacks to the rich and influential can't be bought.

So income inequality can only arise if the Government cheats by favoring one group over the other? Without Govt kickbacks or subsidies one business would do no better than another?

Wait, I thought they EARNED the kickbacks by being smart enough to be rich. Now I'm really confused.

You darn well know that none of the libertarians here ever said any such thing.

You darn well know that none of the libertarians here ever said any such thing.

It was a joke, Dan.

"I need food, I have money. You have food that you sell for money."

"Sorry, you're in a wheelchair, I don't want mess up my floors, go #### yourself."

You leave out the rest of this incident, where the guy in the wheelchair calls up his local paper and television station, and the restaurant owner is blasted with negative publicity. Where people who aren't disabled stand outside in protest of the owner's policies, and people stop going there. Where the guy next door builds a ramp and the community rewards him by choosing his place.

It happens. It may happen more slowly, or less universally, but it will happen over time. It will also happen more often when people don't say "if it was important enough, the government would be compelling me to do it." If the government tells a businessman that he needs to do X and Y to accomodate handicapped people, he probably won't be thinking about how it would be nice it would be to do Z. Especially if X or Y is nonsensical for his particular industry (like the joke about braille on drive through banks).

I guess that WRT to civil rights laws, the idea that integration would have happened due to market forces alone shows a remarkable lack of knowledge of both history and the realities of southern racial mores. And the more this gets denied, particularly by people who never experienced these mores in all their splendor, the more this ignorance is demonstrated.

The problem is that the "history" you're talking about is intertwined with government intervention. Those "mores" were enforced by the government, either directly (prosecuting those who violated them) or indirectly (refusing to provide equal protection to those who did so, thus allowing mob violence against them). And they needed to be, because there were people who violated those mores.

You find me more than a few dozen examples of that outside a few liberal enclaves like Chapel Hill or Charlottesville, or a handful of chain outlets in big cities like Atlanta. Find me any examples in several entire states, like Mississippi or Alabama. They didn't exist. And only the unrelenting pressure of "not good for business" demonstrations, backed by the imminent threat of federal legislation, caused most of these exceptions to be there in the first place.

And that's where your argument falls apart. You're arguing against a strawman -- the notion that if the South continued exactly the way it had, it would have eventually integrated. It might have, but that isn't the libertarian claim. The libertarian claim is that if all Jim Crow laws were abolished, and racial violence was prosecuted, that segregation would have fallen.

Oh, I know very well what the libertarians were saying about that, David. I was hearing them say things like that before you were born. And it's every bit as much of a fantasy as any other "alternative" scenario to the actual Civil Rights Act.

To begin with, are you talking ONLY about violence against black customers who entered the relative handful of integrated restaurants, or are you also referring to what would have been a hundred times more prevalent---the sort of violence that took place against blacks who tried to get served at segregated restaurants? Under your philosophy, I don't see how any of the latter type of violence would have been actionable under anything other than local assault laws. But of course as those of us who were around know full well, those assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases---and in fact were often used to prosecute the victims of violence, rather than their attackers.

So right there you've only addressed a tiny part of the problem, which in reality wouldn't have been much of a problem at all, since 99.999% of the voluntarily integrated places were in liberal enclaves such as Chapel Hill, or in a few chain locations in big cities like Atlanta, with a Mayor who, unlike most southern officials, was scared to death of negative publicity. The threat of violence to those establishments was nearly nonexistent.

But beyond that, once you wandered but a few miles outside those safe enclaves, you're talking about businessmen who would have had to have a near suicide complex to voluntarily integrate their establishments. Needless to say, you could count them on the fingers of Captain Hook's left hand. Even granting some token number, you would have immediately been faced with the problem of local (white) official resistance to enforcing the attacks that surely would have come, most likely in the form of a midnight torch to the restaurant itself. At some point the lopsided social forces would have sent all such prospective heroes into northern exile.

Which would have brought the whole thing back to square one. The bottom line is that it's a swell theory, but little more. The federal law was an absolute necessity, the sine qua non for setting the whole machinery in motion.

Once that law was in place, and enforced, then and only then could the market begin to work its more natural course. It was only at that point that the Bear Bryants (with an assist from the Sam Cunninghams) could finally begin to work their wonders on the the evolutionary process. This is History 101.

I'm not suggesting that there won't be a single person that falls through the cracks, but I am suggesting that the number of such people will be very small.

The idea that local response is better in some respects is quite legit, and is a point that small government advocates often make effectively, as you do here.

But again, I am not convinced that lowering taxes would result in more charitable impulses spreading through society and charitable organizations mushrooming at the local level. Communities do respond short-term to disasters where there are clear victims. as with the fires here in SD, but even then their resources are limited, and long-term help for more problematic types of folks--like the mentally disabled, for example--is a different matter.

But since in the long run it's better to have the public on your side, I can't see the particular advantage to continually expressing contempt for public opinion. You can think that the public is crazy, and sometimes you may be right, but you still have to respect the people making the crazy argument, unless they descend into personal attacks or blatant misrepresentation of your position.

It's important to have the public on your side because with numbers comes might and might makes right. Got it.

And what's the flip side of that? Abolishing representative government? Giving libertarians veto power over any laws that they deem oppressive? Or maybe giving them individual veto stamps to exempt themselves from any such laws?

"I need food, I have money. You have food that you sell for money."

"Sorry, you're in a wheelchair, I don't want mess up my floors, go #### yourself."

I can think of two possible explanations:
1) The store owner is just a schmuck.
2) The store owner is actually worried about his floors, and the amount the shopper is intending to spend isn't worth the damage he's going to cause.

In the first case, as unlikely as it is, why would you want to give him your business? In the second case, it seems rather cruel and irrational to force a business owner to incur a loss. After all, if the conversation went, "I need food, I don't have money," nobody would expect the business owner to lose money by giving the guy food.


How many liberals here really believe the notion that need creates obligation? How many homeless people have you walked by on the street and ignored? How many have you taken home with you and given a place to stay? How many liberals really believe that need creates obligation in other people, not in themselves?

As far as society being a four-letter word, I'd say quite the opposite. I have much more faith in society than you appear to have. Communities will respond to help many of those in need. Communities, by nature of being local efforts, are better at responding.

Well, here's a pretty good example of how much charity (or "the market") did in the good old days of unregulated capitalism, which seems to be some sort of Golden Age in the minds of many libertarians. If only life were that simple.

How many homeless people have you walked by on the street and ignored?

Not many. I usually at least say hello if they make eye contact, and often give them a coin or two if they ask politely and I have it. Having talked to them and to social workers, many say it's important to SOME of the homeless that people make eye contact and say hi instead of treating them like lepers.

How many have you taken home with you and given a place to stay?

I have paid the rent or part of it for poor friends and former students when they were stuck, particularly since they had kids. Not often--but I have done it in serious crunches when I was convinced they did not have other options and were trying. I have not regretted it--no one tried to screw me.

How many liberals really believe that need creates obligation in other people, not in themselves?

I am not sure what you mean by this, other than just trying to ask an inflammatory rhetorical question based on your incessant promotion of your ideology. I think everyboody should try to help, like Dan said. In some cases, the govt is the best way to do it. In others, it is not.

of course as those of us who were around know full well, those assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases---and in fact were often used to prosecute the victims of violence, rather than their attackers.

You're making David's point for him. If the government didn't endorse the violence by selectively prosecuting, it wouldn't have been contributing to the problem.

As usual, you're looking only at the positive things a government can do to solve a problem, as opposed to the negative things a government did do to create and exacerbate the problem. Civil rights laws may very well have been unnecessary if the government wasn't a willing participant in denying civil rights.

I am not convinced that lowering taxes would result in more charitable impulses spreading through society and charitable organizations mushrooming at the local level. Communities do respond short-term to disasters where there are clear victims. as with the fires here in SD, but even then their resources are limited, and long-term help for more problematic types of folks--like the mentally disabled, for example--is a different matter.


It's not merely the lowering of taxes, but a fundamental shift in philosophy. Right now, people fall through the cracks in part because the expectation is that the government will provide a safety net. Communities don't take on responsibility for those in need because they're conditioned to think that it has become the responsibility of the government. People don't help themselves as effectively because they rely on the government to protect them.

This isn't a knock on those people, mind you. My job is to help people that almost all rely on public assistance. I see the underbelly of a system that deincentifies working. Not because people are lazy, but because working ends up costing their family. When someone says "I don't want to be on public assistance, but as soon as I get a job, they'll cut me off and I won't be able to pay my rent and feed my family," it's hard for me to criticize them.

You leave out the rest of this incident, where the guy in the wheelchair calls up his local paper and television station, and the restaurant owner is blasted with negative publicity. Where people who aren't disabled stand outside in protest of the owner's policies, and people stop going there. Where the guy next door builds a ramp and the community rewards him by choosing his place.

Speaking from personal experience, it doesn't always go down like that. We've written a lot of letters to business owners, to school boards, ect, and having ADA law to back us up is a big step toward getting legitimacy. But again, this is based on letting the market work things out, which is a mistake on several levels. Assuming a newspaper will run a story is a mistake- they don't always care b/c sometimes there's no hook, IOW, the story isn't marketable. Maybe the disabled person in question isn't a sympathetic figure. Maybe the public just doesn't care enough to get mobilized. Maybe the disabled person doesn't want to become a public spectacle every time they want to go out to eat, or maybe they don't have the verbal skill required to write a convincing letter. The former has happened in my family on several occasions- as much as we want to make access easier for the next person who comes along, it can be exhausting enough dealing with a disability, without fighting a battle every time a you want to use the bathroom at a restaurant you're patronizing. ADA law is pretty shoddy in this respect as there's no active enforcement of it, which requires grass roots policing by the disabled population. The disabled person in my family has been lucky to have an educated and passionate group of people around her from a young age to help fight for her rights, but we've seen many others get trampled on b/c they don't have such resources available. Again, my point is that left to its own devices, the market has been slow to prioritize access for the disabled. The only real progress was accomplished by changing construction codes, which are a form of government regulation that I assume runs counter to the libertarian philosophy of self-determination.

Also, I wasn't being political by mentioning Iraq/Afghanistan war vets- denying service to the disabled now has an anti-military undertone to it (maybe it did after Vietnam too, but there wasn't the same public sensibility to disabled rights back then), which can do nothing but help the larger population.

Even a well-intentioned business owner may make mistakes in setting up what they perceive to be disabled access. Most often it's a makeshift ramp that's too steep or unstable and doesn't comply with regulation- a ramp that's too steep is the equivalent of not having one. This is why regulation has been helpful- by forcing the business owner not to be the judge of what counts as accessible, they remove the errors the owner would make in attempting to address the problem. Many obstacles disabled people face can't be anticipated by those without the disability.

Well, here's a pretty good example of how much charity (or "the market") did in the good old days of unregulated capitalism, which seems to be some sort of Golden Age in the minds of many libertarians. If only life were that simple.


Why can't this problem be solved with the court system? It's illegal to negligently injure another person, and it's also something that creates civil liability.

It seems highly unlikely that it's cheaper to let people lose arms and legs than it is to make reasonably safe workplace environments. Perhaps that wasn't always so, but echnology has progressed pretty significantly in the area of safety in the past 100 years or so.

I can think of two possible explanations:
1) The store owner is just a schmuck.
2) The store owner is actually worried about his floors, and the amount the shopper is intending to spend isn't worth the damage he's going to cause.

It doesn't happen with floors, but it does happen with ramps all the time- "I don't want to mess up the aesthetics of my storefront, or don't want to incur the loss, that would be involved with building a ramp." And it's obvious where you stand on this, which is the point I'm driving at- I think that the society within which the store owner sets up shop has the right to tell the business owner as a condition of doing business in that society they must provide access for the disabled. If this involves extra-wide stalls in bathrooms, ramps, ect, that is the cost of doing business in a society that values its disabled population. It isn't a choice, it's an obligation, and if you don't like it, then you are free to find a society that allows you to not do so. This is the heart of the matter- no one opens a business in isolation, without involving others, without building on things already built and provided by the labor of others. This mythological condition of absolute freedom and self-dependence exists only as a game of language. Which is why it makes sense that you would be so good at defending it to its untenable extremes...

of course as those of us who were around know full well, those assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases---and in fact were often used to prosecute the victims of violence, rather than their attackers.

You're making David's point for him. If the government didn't endorse the violence by selectively prosecuting, it wouldn't have been contributing to the problem.

As usual, you're looking only at the positive things a government can do to solve a problem, as opposed to the negative things a government did do to create and exacerbate the problem. Civil rights laws may very well have been unnecessary if the government wasn't a willing participant in denying civil rights.

c-bird, I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but all of what you're saying covers about 1% of what the problem was. The "government" was nothing more than a reflection of the mores of the South at that time. Trying to separate the two would have been about as possible as separating one half of a man's body from the other half.

It wasn't the "government" alone that was the problem. The "government" was merely a symbol of the problem. The "problem" was the ideology of a master race, and the damage caused by such an entrenched ideology were not going to be mended by voluntary actions on the part of a tiny handful of white business owners with martyrdom on their minds. It took force---naked federal force---to change the behavior. The minds came later---and if in some cases the minds didn't follow, then that's God's Gift to the Republican Party, but you can't win em all.

Why can't this problem be solved with the court system? It's illegal to negligently injure another person, and it's also something that creates civil liability.

Ah, but isn't the libertarian response to workplace accidents to say, "Signer of the contract, beware," for the most part? "Should have done your due diligence before signing the contract," and all that? Isn't that the logical extension of the Pinto discussion a thousand or so posts ago?

I think you did imply it, by saying this:


If people here are so consumed with envy that others have more money, have the courage of your convictions and say so, rather than hiding behind cowardly hedges about inherited wealth.

So you think my above quote implies that I believe that:

rich people are better and smarter than poor people, and also better than someone who does what I do and makes the money I make

You fail at understanding implications. Rich people are not "better than" poor people, although they may be smarter than them on the whole, due to greater educational opportunities.

I'll be interested to see if Furtado sees this as a post that requires a "civility reminder."

Not as much fun when other people make up lies and put them in your mouth, is it?

Well, here's a pretty good example of how much charity (or "the market") did in the good old days of unregulated capitalism, which seems to be some sort of Golden Age in the minds of many libertarians. If only life were that simple.

Why can't this problem be solved with the court system? It's illegal to negligently injure another person, and it's also something that creates civil liability.

It seems highly unlikely that it's cheaper to let people lose arms and legs than it is to make reasonably safe workplace environments. Perhaps that wasn't always so, but echnology has progressed pretty significantly in the area of safety in the past 100 years or so.

Sure it has, but the same government minimalists who were minimizing the problems symbolized on that book jacket are still around today trying to keep as many cases of workplace-related injuries as they can out of the court system. The mentality of total laisser faire changes only in the details, and only when it's forced to. If we'd listened to the libertarians of the early 20th century, we'd still be seeing one-armed and one-legged people on our streets every day. Hell, you could see them in southern mill towns until not that long ago.

Also, I wasn't being political by mentioning Iraq/Afghanistan war vets- denying service to the disabled now has an anti-military undertone to it, which can do nothing but help the larger population.

Please explain what you mean by this.

Assuming a newspaper will run a story is a mistake- they don't always care b/c sometimes there's no hook, IOW, the story isn't marketable. Maybe the disabled person in question isn't a sympathetic figure. Maybe the public just doesn't care enough to get mobilized. Maybe the disabled person doesn't want to become a public spectacle every time they want to go out to eat, or maybe they don't have the verbal skill required to write a convincing letter. The former has happened in my family on several occasions- as much as we want to make access easier for the next person who comes along, it can be exhausting enough dealing with a disability, without fighting a battle every time a you want to use the bathroom at a restaurant you're patronizing.

My stepfather was disabled for the final few years of his life from a stroke, and I'm sympathetic to the difficulties of being in places that weren't so accomodating. That said, we chose this movie theater or this restaurant over an alternate choice because it was better for him. That's the market working.

I live on the third floor of a building without an elevator. A person in a wheelchair couldn't live in my apartment, so they'd have fewer rent-stabilized options available to them, and ultimately, a higher rent. Is that unfair? Is it more fair to require the landlord to spend money installing an elevator and raise everyone's rent? Then I have to move out and my apartment will be even more expensive for the next tenant (20% vacancy increase).

There's a cost involved, and it isn't always so simple as just the price of the renovation itself.

Wow, lots of action and I thought this thread was dying.

I didn't mean to imply that CEOs don't work hard.
I do think that:

You're probably going to be more successful being born into an intact, upper middle class family as opposed to a broken, impoverished home.

This is sort of the critical point. Even deleteing "uppper middle" with just anything above the underclass.

Others have been more eloquent than I on defending the welfare state - or rather the CONCEPT of a welfare state but I will try to make an analogy to baseball. There is alot of luck in baseball - and alot of luck in life. I think everyone agrees that one can end up on the short end through little fault of their own. Most of us (all us?) have some social network to fall back on should we lose our job, house, mouse hand, whatever. But not everyone does. I think it's the duty of society to provide enough for everyone to bring them to at least "replacement level".

Dan (CrosbyBird also) makes a good argument that the Government is the wrong tool for this job. Hey, no one like the government! But I don't see this being "covered" by people in general, and I don't see them picking up the slack.

What about history? Is the overall trend of "government interference" increasing or decreasing in the world over the last say, 1000 years? (Invention of "true" feudalism, 1066). Has the plight of the downtrodden gotten worse or better?

I'm not saying there shouldn't be a government but that income inequality requires a government that actively protects income inequality

.

And I am saying that an income inequality will tend to increase itself without interference (taxation).

Ah, but isn't the libertarian response to workplace accidents to say, "Signer of the contract, beware," for the most part? "Should have done your due diligence before signing the contract," and all that? Isn't that the logical extension of the Pinto discussion a thousand or so posts ago?


For the most part means not some of times. Like when the bargain would be unconscionable (waive your right of suit for my negligence). Like when a party engages in fraud, or denies the other party vital information for a true meeting of the minds (particularly if that party, by nature of the relationship, is advantaged).

As for the Pinto situation, there already is a pretty strong remedy in products liability, so it's a bit better than "buyer beware." A person doesn't need to prove that the company intended to have their lamp blow up, or even that they were negligent in the lamp's design. That's a huge benefit to the consumer.

There are certain areas of the law regarding workplace accidents that provide incredible protection to the worker. In NY, a construction worker who is injured by falling from height or by a falling object usually doesn't have a very difficult burden in court. Unless he's completely at fault in some willful fashion, his own contributions to his injuries are generally ignored as a legal matter.

the same government minimalists who were minimizing the problems symbolized on that book jacket are still around today trying to keep as many cases of workplace-related injuries as they can out of the court system

I can't speak as to the philosophy of other people, but I find that shocking and anti-libertarian as a philosophy. Causing injury to a person through negligent action or inaction is a violation of their rights that appropriately is addressed by the government through the court system.

Please explain what you mean by this.

There has been increased attention to issues facing the disabled population b/c of all the people injured in the war. The disabled population has grown, and those added have been disproportionately in their 20s. People are more likely to assume a young person who is disabled was injured in the war, and as such associate the disability with patriotism. Along the same lines, advances in prosthetics since the start of the war have been pretty significant (this happened after WWI in Germany too, FWIW- having a prosthetic limb was wed to a militarized masculinity).

Crosby:
That said, we chose this movie theater or this restaurant over an alternate choice because it was better for him. That's the market working.

No it's not. It's the market working when the other theater opts to renovate b/c it's losing business. What you're describing is a situation where the disabled do not have equal access. It is the equivalent of saying that as long as one restaurant serves Latinos, it's OK that all the others don't.

I live on the third floor of a building without an elevator. A person in a wheelchair couldn't live in my apartment, so they'd have fewer rent-stabilized options available to them, and ultimately, a higher rent. Is that unfair?

Yes. Housing is a tough question. It does limit the amount of options available to those in wheelchairs. I don't know how the regulation deals with multistory housing at present. My sister lives in a newer apartment complex, but IIRC the buildings are only 3 stories. A certain percentage of the ground floor apartments are designed for disabled access- lower counters, stoves, sinks, ect, but I'm not sure if this a regulation and/or these apts rent for more money. In her apartment hunt she limited herself to places like this knowing it would cost more, but she's fortunate enough to be able to absorb the extra cost.

There are guidelines for how colleges deal with disabled housing, and it has to do with the number of units provided- a minimum have to be reserved and specially designed for the disabled. This is all spelled out in ADA code though, and an embarrassing number of colleges don't comply with it. Sadly, a lot of people just avoid those schools rather than fighting with them to make the required renovations. So you have a sort of de facto separate but "equal"...

Is it more fair to require the landlord to spend money installing an elevator and raise everyone's rent?

Depends. I assume WRT housing the law grandfathers certain buildings the way it does with businesses.

Then I have to move out and my apartment will be even more expensive for the next tenant (20% vacancy increase).

This is a tough question. The solution is to try to regulate going forward so that there is an adequate amount of housing available to the disabled. It doesn't have to be an equal amount, but having a minimum percentage designed to provide disabled access seems sensible, and priority for renting those apartments should be given to the disabled. Incidentally, at NYS parks, there are disabled access campsites that sit empty in the event that a disabled person needs to rent them. If this is built in as a cost of operation, it should be tolerable to ensure that our society provides a standard of living to a disadvantaged population.

At what point are we going to stop pretending libertarianism is philosophically tenable? There's a reason for its enormous popular rejection: it's poppycock. This conversation has kind of slid into the view that libertarianism alone embraces liberty as a good; that's manifestly false. The alternatives are not libertarianism or the welfare state.

There has been increased attention to issues facing the disabled population b/c of all the people injured in the war. The disabled population has grown, and those added have been disproportionately in their 20s. People are more likely to assume a young person who is disabled was injured in the war, and as such associate the disability with patriotism. Along the same lines, advances in prosthetics since the start of the war have been pretty significant (this happened after WWI in Germany too, FWIW- having a prosthetic limb was wed to a militarized masculinity).

I see. I misunderstood your post. I took it to mean that you thought anti-military sentiment was helpful to the larger population. (Which is dubious to say the least, which is why I asked for clarification.) Thanks.

To begin with, are you talking ONLY about violence against black customers who entered the relative handful of integrated restaurants,

That, and violence against the integrated establishments and their owners. And their other patrons.

or are you also referring to what would have been a hundred times more prevalent---the sort of violence that took place against blacks who tried to get served at segregated restaurants? Under your philosophy, I don't see how any of the latter type of violence would have been actionable under anything other than local assault laws. But of course as those of us who were around know full well, those assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases---and in fact were often used to prosecute the victims of violence, rather than their attackers.

Of course the assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases. What does that have to do with anything? We're not talking about leaving the legal regime the way things were; we're talking about a different legal regime, in which racial violence was prosecuted (*). There's no reason why it's a "fantasy," from the perspective of early 1964, to enact and enforce laws against racial violence, but not a "fantasy" to enact and enforce laws against private racial discrimination.)

((*) Blacks who tried to get served at segregated restaurants and who got assaulted would be prosecuted for trespassing and their attackers would be prosecuted for assault.)

You keep doing this dishonest thing, no matter how many times I point out that it's dishonest, of pretending that all that changes is that the CRA isn't passed. That's not all that changes in the proposed scenario. Again, I'm proposing vigorous government action -- federal if necessary -- to stop racial violence. I'm proposing that black voting rights are protected, by the federal government. That racial discrimination as far as jury duty be abolished, by the federal government if necessary. I'm proposing that all government-mandated discrimination be abolished, enforced by the federal government if necessary. I'm proposing that all governmental discrimination be abolished, enforced by the federal government if necessary. I'm not a paleolib who thinks there's no role for the federal government. Just no role for the federal or state governments in infringing on individuals' rights.

It's the market working when the other theater opts to renovate b/c it's losing business. What you're describing is a situation where the disabled do not have equal access. It is the equivalent of saying that as long as one restaurant serves Latinos, it's OK that all the others don't.

That's not similar at all. If it were more expensive to serve Latinos than non-Latinos, then that would be apt. A better analogy is a restaurant that won't serve people who pay with Discover cards.

That, of course, you see all the time, and is no problem.

It doesn't happen with floors, but it does happen with ramps all the time- "I don't want to mess up the aesthetics of my storefront, or don't want to incur the loss, that would be involved with building a ramp." And it's obvious where you stand on this, which is the point I'm driving at- I think that the society within which the store owner sets up shop has the right to tell the business owner as a condition of doing business in that society they must provide access for the disabled. If this involves extra-wide stalls in bathrooms, ramps, ect, that is the cost of doing business in a society that values its disabled population. It isn't a choice, it's an obligation, and if you don't like it, then you are free to find a society that allows you to not do so. This is the heart of the matter- no one opens a business in isolation, without involving others, without building on things already built and provided by the labor of others. This mythological condition of absolute freedom and self-dependence exists only as a game of language. Which is why it makes sense that you would be so good at defending it to its untenable extremes...

Say, rather, this 'society' exists only as a game of language, and it certainly has no "rights." I don't "set up shop" in "society." I set it up in my building, either the one I own or the one I lease from its owner. I don't ask for your permission to do business, and it's not your prerogative to give me that permission. (And by "your," I mean individually or collectively.)

That's not similar at all. If it were more expensive to serve Latinos than non-Latinos, then that would be apt. A better analogy is a restaurant that won't serve people who pay with Discover cards.

Except people can choose not to pay with Discover cards. My sister can't choose not to have to go up a ramp to enter a restaurant.

We're already requiring businesses accommodate the disabled. You think that's a bad thing, I think it's a sign of significant progress.

What about history? Is the overall trend of "government interference" increasing or decreasing in the world over the last say, 1000 years? (Invention of "true" feudalism, 1066). Has the plight of the downtrodden gotten worse or better?


I don't see how you couldn't say decreasing. Freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly, etc. were unheard of in medieval society. The government could take anything from anyone with no reason other than whim, so long as that person didn't have enough influence to stop it. What limited law existed didn't protect the weaker from the stronger, but maintained the stranglehold the strong had over the weak.

A thousand years ago, the very concept that the government couldn't do something was practically unheard of.

I think the lowest members of society are far better off in 2008 than they were in 1066, but a lot more than government involvement contributes to that.

I set it up in my building, either the one I own or the one I lease from its owner. I don't ask for your permission to do business, and it's not your prerogative to give me that permission.

Which is all well and good as long as you don't start doing business that requires the currency we as a society have decided is going to count as legal tender. And as long as you don't need to hire people to work in your business who need to travel on roads and buy food with currency that has value beyond the confines of your business. All of these things draw on things that were established far in advance of your free contract with the land owner. Your contract with that person to buy/lease the property has to derive authority from somewhere, and it derives authority from the accrued labor of those who came before you. There is no island upon which you are an absolute sovereign- no matter how hard you will it, it won't exist. It is as much a creation myth as Adam and Eve in the garden. If you're going to accept Nieporent dollars, you might have a case, but good luck getting people to work for those, and good luck getting Staples to accept them as payment when you try to buy paper to print more Nieporent dollars on. ...

It's the market working when the other theater opts to renovate b/c it's losing business. What you're describing is a situation where the disabled do not have equal access. It is the equivalent of saying that as long as one restaurant serves Latinos, it's OK that all the others don't.

That's not similar at all. If it were more expensive to serve Latinos than non-Latinos, then that would be apt. A better analogy is a restaurant that won't serve people who pay with Discover cards.

Exactly. Part of the impoverishment of the public debate in the U.S. over "discrimination" is that everything gets treated as though it were analogous to racial discrimination, no matter how inapt the analogy. Racial discrimination is almost always morally wrong, even when it should be legal, because race is almost always an irrelevant characteristic. For sex and religion, that's often the case, but not always. But disability is often quite relevant. People with disabilities are often not asking for equal treatment, but for special treatment. They disguise it in the language of non-discrimination, but of course, "Spend tens of thousands of dollars to retrofit your restaurant for me" is not non-discrimination; it's special treatment. Nobody else gets to demand that the restaurant owner spend tens of thousands of dollars on them.

I think Health Care is a fundamental right. You should not be entitled to better health care because you are a better person, work hard, have better genes, own property, better self control - anything.

You should just be able to walk in and get treated.

Of course, this costs money. So does national defense, police force, fire dept., court system, etc. - all things that protect all citizens equally (in theory, not in Alabama ca. 1919)

Even the hard core libertarians are not anarchists - so we are just arguing about the etc., and to me etc. includes education and health care. Probably basic shelter, food and clothing too. Tack on electricity, plumbing, garbage disposal and hot water.

The last batch - I guess you can argue most people (IN THE US) have so "the system works".

There are some fairness issues here (what libertarians call theft) Why should childless people pay for other kids to go to school? For the healthy to pay for the sick? The thin to pay for the fat?

Well, whatever. Living well is it's own reward, right?

Which is all well and good as long as you don't start doing business that requires the currency we as a society have decided is going to count as legal tender.

"We" as a "society" didn't do anything of the kind. The government did it, and decided to monopolize the creation of legal tender. We certainly don't need to depend on that; there's no reason that private entities can't issue currency.

You fail at understanding implications. Rich people are not "better than" poor people, although they may be smarter than them on the whole, due to greater educational opportunities.

I don't see it that way, particularly given the little qualifier at the end. "Smart" and "educated" are not synonyms.

Not as much fun when other people make up lies and put them in your mouth, is it?

I said IF that is what you believe and gave you the chance to correct the suggestion. My wording was loaded, true--as was your original post, which suggested that people such as myself hold certain beliefs due to wealth envy.

Edwards endorsed Obama, in case anyone is interested.

or are you also referring to what would have been a hundred times more prevalent---the sort of violence that took place against blacks who tried to get served at segregated restaurants? Under your philosophy, I don't see how any of the latter type of violence would have been actionable under anything other than local assault laws. But of course as those of us who were around know full well, those assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases---and in fact were often used to prosecute the victims of violence, rather than their attackers.

Of course the assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases. What does that have to do with anything? We're not talking about leaving the legal regime the way things were; we're talking about a different legal regime, in which racial violence was prosecuted (*). There's no reason why it's a "fantasy," from the perspective of early 1964, to enact and enforce laws against racial violence, but not a "fantasy" to enact and enforce laws against private racial discrimination.)

I call it a fantasy because it was just that, except in the minds of a handful of segregationists who were offering this as some sort of a "compromise." Beyond that tiny handful there was no support at all for creating a federal police force to handle this sort of thing.

(And don't even begin to pretend that state or local governments would have been willing to do the job. That's not even fantasy; that's Timothy Leary.)

((*) Blacks who tried to get served at segregated restaurants and who got assaulted would be prosecuted for trespassing and their attackers would be prosecuted for assault.)

Which is what I would have thought you meant, since that was the inevitable corollary to the sort of similar proposals I was hearing from your 1963-64 counterparts back at Duke, among them the basketball player Jack Marin.

Which on the one hand would have inevitably supplanted local police with federal police in cases involving white violence against blacks; and on the other hand would have given federal blessing to mass arrests of blacks who merely wished to be served at restaurants.

Yeah, that would have gone over real big in the rest of the country, not to mention the wonders it would have done to what the rest of the world thought of us. But of course since that would have been the mere whimperings of a deranged "public opinion," you could have brushed it off.

I do have to admit that it's hard not to laugh when I write all this down on virtual paper. But at least I know I'm not responding to a pod person, cause only the real David would ever offer such a "solution" without his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.

You keep doing this dishonest thing, no matter how many times I point out that it's dishonest, of pretending that all that changes is that the CRA isn't passed. That's not all that changes in the proposed scenario. Again, I'm proposing vigorous government action -- federal if necessary -- to stop racial violence. I'm proposing that black voting rights are protected, by the federal government. That racial discrimination as far as jury duty be abolished, by the federal government if necessary. I'm proposing that all government-mandated discrimination be abolished, enforced by the federal government if necessary. I'm proposing that all governmental discrimination be abolished, enforced by the federal government if necessary. I'm not a paleolib who thinks there's no role for the federal government. Just no role for the federal or state governments in infringing on individuals' rights.

David, kindly lay off this "dishonest" BS. First, I've several times specifically referred to the public accommodations law. And I've never once accused you of not favoring voting rights enforcement, equal selection for jury duty, etc., etc., etc. I know exactly the kind of distinctions between public and private discrimination you've been making all these years. I know you're not a paleolib. And you know that I've never said you were, or implied it in any way.

You're an honorable libertarian with a typical libertarian's disregard for the social consequences of your philosophy when extended to its apparent logical conclusion, as in the example under discussion here. That's bad enough. I'm not making it personal.

It doesn't make you evil, and it doesn't make you a racist. It only makes me glad that you're not making the laws.

Which is all well and good as long as you don't start doing business that requires the currency we as a society have decided is going to count as legal tender. And as long as you don't need to hire people to work in your business who need to travel on roads and buy food with currency that has value beyond the confines of your business. All of these things draw on things that were established far in advance of your free contract with the land owner. Your contract with that person to buy/lease the property has to derive authority from somewhere, and it derives authority from the accrued labor of those who came before you. There is no island upon which you are an absolute sovereign- no matter how hard you will it, it won't exist. It is as much a creation myth as Adam and Eve in the garden. If you're going to accept Nieporent dollars, you might have a case, but good luck getting people to work for those, and good luck getting Staples to accept them as payment when you try to buy paper to print more Nieporent dollars on. ...

Thank you very much. Next time someone claims here that libertarians are being paranoid about the wish of progressives to instill an oppressive government that relishes punitive actions on those that displease it, I'll cut and paste this rant.

Edwards endorsed Obama, in case anyone is interested.

I know I couldn't wait to find out :-)

I know I couldn't wait to find out :-)

Yes, sir--I thought "I'll bet Ray has really been concerned about this" as I posted. Obama will have to distance himself from Edwards' hair stylist and just use barber shops.

"Spend tens of thousands of dollars to retrofit your restaurant for me" is not non-discrimination; it's special treatment. Nobody else gets to demand that the restaurant owner spend tens of thousands of dollars on them.

The language of "for me" is condescending, dismissive and above all dishonest. But I'd expect nothing else from you at this point. Let me explain- it isn't "for me" it's "for us"- often the one person who speaks up gets marginalized as the only one who will benefit from the accommodation, but what that ignores is the large body of people who don't speak up, who quietly accept their treatment as subequal because people have told them that to expect equal treatment is self-centered. It's traumatic Speaking from experience, it is never "for me"- it's so the next person who patronizes this establishment will be able to use the bathroom without creating a scene. It is about making it so that people who have disabilities can be full participants in society, even if that involves going out to for dinner and a movie. And we, as in, the elected government, has decided that if building a ####### ramp is too much to ask of your business, then you're free to do it elsewhere. This is is what you can't wrap your brain around- no one has forced you to open the business. No one forces you to invite people into your business. No one forces you to do anything. You volunteer to do these things knowing that they will implicate you in a society that imposes things on you- it imposes language, it imposes concepts (including freedom), and it imposes regulations that structure who you can and can't ban from entering. You are free to contest these things, but your assertion of a natural right is baseless. It requires you to participate in a socially constructed language system in order to articulate that right. None of these things exist until they are invented.

When you've made enough money, buy an island, name it Nieporentopia and you can beat off to that naked picture of Ayn Rand without anyone bothering you. But as long as you're here, don't cry about having to build extra-wide bathrooms for people without the use of their legs. Be thankful you can use yours, build the bathroom, and keep making money. If you're as good at it as you pretend to be, you'll hardly notice it's missing.

The language of "for me" is condescending, dismissive and above all dishonest. But I'd expect nothing else from you at this point. Let me explain- it isn't "for me" it's "for us"- often the one person who speaks up gets marginalized as the only one who will benefit from the accommodation, but what that ignores is the large body of people who don't speak up, who quietly accept their treatment as subequal because people have told them that to expect equal treatment is self-centered. It's traumatic Speaking from experience, it is never "for me"- it's so the next person who patronizes this establishment will be able to use the bathroom without creating a scene. It is about making it so that people who have disabilities can be full participants in society, even if that involves going out to for dinner and a movie. And we, as in, the elected government, has decided that if building a ####### ramp is too much to ask of your business, then you're free to do it elsewhere. This is is what you can't wrap your brain around- no one has forced you to open the business. No one forces you to invite people into your business. No one forces you to do anything. You volunteer to do these things knowing that they will implicate you in a society that imposes things on you- it imposes language, it imposes concepts (including freedom), and it imposes regulations that structure who you can and can't ban from entering. You are free to contest these things, but your assertion of a natural right is baseless. It requires you to participate in a socially constructed language system in order to articulate that right. None of these things exist until they are invented.

When you've made enough money, buy an island, name it Nieporentopia and you can beat off to that naked picture of Ayn Rand without anyone bothering you. But as long as you're here, don't cry about having to build extra-wide bathrooms for people without the use of their legs. Be thankful you can use yours, build the bathroom, and keep making money. If you're as good at it as you pretend to be, you'll hardly notice it's missing.

Make that two posts to save...

If you're going to accept Nieporent dollars, you might have a case, but good luck getting people to work for those, and good luck getting Staples to accept them as payment when you try to buy paper to print more Nieporent dollars on. ...

If Paul became president by some strange turn of events, he should pick dp for Fed Chairman. Nothing would end the dollar as a fiat currency quicker than the government deciding certain people that displease it can't use dollars as legal tender.

to instill an oppressive government that relishes punitive actions on those that displease it

Where was the "relishing punitive action" part?

When you have a substantive response to either post, let me know.

But I should've listened to RR a while ago and not engaged with ideologues.

MSSH, I think you've missed my point, which is simply that if you're using a currency, if you're using roads, labor, ect, then you're part of a society larger than yourself and as such agree have no legitimate claim to self-reliance. You have to recognize that your autonomy is the result of a project carried out prior to your interjection into this world, and as such is subject to pre-given restrictions. You're welcome to contest these, but you can't claim they shouldn't exist because you have obtained all that you own through your own labor or the autonomously given labor of others. As I said a while back, this assumes that everyone enters the society as fully-formed, reasoning, rational and autonomous subjects. Which is, again, a creation myth.

The language of "for me" is condescending, dismissive and above all dishonest. But I'd expect nothing else from you at this point. Let me explain- it isn't "for me" it's "for us"- often the one person who speaks up gets marginalized as the only one who will benefit from the accommodation, but what that ignores is the large body of people who don't speak up, who quietly accept their treatment as subequal because people have told them that to expect equal treatment is self-centered.

1a. Making accommodations under the ADA for someone may or may not benefit more than one person, but there's nothing in the law which requires that there be a critical mass of disabled people before accommodations are required. If there's one wheelchair-bound person in a town of 10,000 people, the store is still required to make accommodations for him.

1b. Your comments appear to be geared towards such situations as building ramps, which in theory could benefit multiple people down the road. But the ADA requires special treatment for individual one-time situations, too, such as providing an interpreter for a deaf patron, or giving special . That isn't "for us," but for that one person.

2. There already is equal treatment; everyone faces the same stairs at the entranceway. What the ADA requires is special treatment, having the building redesigned for the disabled person.

It's traumatic Speaking from experience, it is never "for me"- it's so the next person who patronizes this establishment will be able to use the bathroom without creating a scene. It is about making it so that people who have disabilities can be full participants in society, even if that involves going out to for dinner and a movie. And we, as in, the elected government, has decided that if building a ####### ramp is too much to ask of your business, then you're free to do it elsewhere.

Yes, and the elected government once decided that if black people didn't feel like working in the cotton fields, they were free to be whipped.

Hey, this is a great definition of free! It allows you to use free to mean exactly the opposite of free! What a great innovation on your part. Let's try some more: "The elected government of Texas decided that if sleeping with someone of the opposite sex was too much to ask of a gay person, then he was free to engage in sodomy elsewhere." Here's one that was just in the news: "The elected government of Virginia decided that if marrying a black man was too much trouble for Mildred Loving, then she was free to marry Richard Loving elsewhere."

This is fun! I like this definition of "free!"

This is is what you can't wrap your brain around- no one has forced you to open the business. No one forces you to invite people into your business. No one forces you to do anything.

Wrong. The government forces me to either build a ramp, or pay lots of money to an ambulance chaser and then build a ramp, or shut down. It gives me no other choices.

On the other hand, really nobody forces you to patronize the establishment. You just want to.

You volunteer to do these things

I thought your abuse of "free" was impressive, but that doesn't even hold a candle to this use of "volunteer." Let's try a few others: Japanese Americans "volunteered" to be interned during WWII. JFK "volunteered" to help Lee Harvey Oswald practice his marksmanship.

knowing that they will implicate you in a society that imposes things on you- it imposes language, it imposes concepts (including freedom), and it imposes regulations that structure who you can and can't ban from entering. You are free to contest these things, but your assertion of a natural right is baseless. It requires you to participate in a socially constructed language system in order to articulate that right. None of these things exist until they are invented.

I don't know what all those slaves were complaining about. They didn't have any natural right to be free. They were just participating in a socially constructed invention.

But I should've listened to RR a while ago and not engaged with ideologues.

That's right. Your notion that I exist to serve you isn't an ideology.

I call it a fantasy because it was just that, except in the minds of a handful of segregationists who were offering this as some sort of a "compromise." Beyond that tiny handful there was no support at all for creating a federal police force to handle this sort of thing.

There was "no support at all" for creating a federal police force to integrate schools, either. Somehow, though, it managed to happen. You're projecting from your own narrow experience.

With the final totals in West Virginia, Hillary has regained her lead in the popular vote:

Obama 16,680,827 47.6%
Pantsuit 16,710,298 47.7%

Time for Barry to quit?

Here is the RCP link with the various pop vote counts:

RCP POP VOTE

I assume Rich's interest in it revolves largely around a chance to make his "Barry Obama" joke again.

From RCP:

*(Senator Obama was not on the Michigan Ballot and thus received zero votes. Uncommitted was on the ballot and received 238,168 votes as compared to 328,309 for Senator Clinton.

This "Uncommitted" person might have something to offer. Kind of the Demos' Fred Thompson.

You know, Rich, I thought the media's parsing of the demographics was a little silly; I figured that Obama would naturally pick up all the Democratic votes once the general election came. But this embarrassingly-big WV defeat gives me serious pause. Hillary's campaign has been all but euthanized by the media, and yet WV voters still won't vote for Obama at all. He really may have trouble in November.

He really may have trouble in November.

This was covered in detail upthread. I expect the election to be close, but there are a lot of factors not yet in play.

Maureen Dowd seems to think Obama may have trouble in the fall:

Obama is acting the diffident debutante, pretending not to care that he was given a raspberry by a state he will need in the fall. He was dismissed not only by the voters Hillary usually gets, but was also edged out in blocs that usually prefer him — the under-30 set, college graduates and affluent voters.

Interviews with West Virginians leaving the polls showed some profound weaknesses that could haunt the Illinois senator in the fall. More than half said they would be dissatisfied if Obama was the nominee. Half believe he shares the views of the Rev. Wright, and more than half said he does not share their values. More than half also said that he is not honest and trustworthy. Just under half of the Clinton voters said they would not support Obama in the fall.

Obama may have started the primary season with an inspiring win in 94-percent-white Iowa, but he is winding it up with a resounding loss in 94-percent-white West Virginia.

Ray "The Non Sock-Puppet Concern Troll" at his best. ;-

Anyone have any thoughts on any of these?

1. In all seriousness, does Hillary have a snowball's chance in hell to snatch the nomination from Obama? I ask because while I can't think of a single person who thinks she has a chance (well, other than her and Bill, apparently), the fact remains that she has not dropped out.

2. Without debating the same old Reverend Wright issues that have been discussed here ad nauseum, how do people feel Wright will affect Obama in November?

3. What is the impact of Bob Barr's campaign on the general election?

Maureen Dowd seems to think

You can stop right there. Please.

1. In all seriousness, does Hillary have a snowball's chance in hell to snatch the nomination from Obama? I ask because while I can't think of a single person who thinks she has a chance, the fact remains that she has not dropped out.

I call it 5%--simply because I see the Clintons like I see the San Antonio Spurs. Never count them out.

Anyone have any thoughts on any of these?

1. In all seriousness, does Hillary have a snowball's chance in hell to snatch the nomination from Obama? I ask because while I can't think of a single person who thinks she has a chance (well, other than her and Bill, apparently), the fact remains that she has not dropped out.

Hillary cannot possibly win the nomination. Obama could lose it (though it would take something huge), in which case she'd back into the nomination, but she can't win it herself. The math is just too much against her.

2. Without debating the same Reverend Wright issues that have been discussed here ad nauseum, how do people feel Wright will affect Obama in November?

Not at all. It happened too early. It'll be old news by November. (Hell, it's old news now.) The shock value is gone, and Obama finally sufficiently distanced himself from Wright.

3. What is the impact of Bob Barr's campaign on the general election?

Barr hasn't even won the LP nomination yet, and there's no guarantee he will. LP voters are weird. (And for those of you who are libertarian but think the LP is kooky, I invite you to check out the Libertarian Reform Caucus, which I've been a member of for a few years.) Assuming Barr wins, he could cost McCain a few states -- NH being the most obvious, possibly also NM and CO. Since this is likely to be a close election like 2000 and 2004 -- though maybe not, given the WV result -- that could easily swing the election to Obama.

I call it 5%--simply because I see the Clintons like I see the San Antonio Spurs. Never count them out.

Seems about right, though probably even less. 1%, if that. As long as there are no Scandals for Obama in the next couple of weeks, I can't see her convincing the supers to switch to her, and already they've been shifting to him.

Maybe the more interesting question is how long she drags this out.

What is the impact of Bob Barr's campaign on the general election?

I think little. Barr still smells more of a right-wing GOPer than a libertarian and both parties still remember 2000. Nader and Barr will get about the same votes that Nader and Badnarik did in 2004 - they'll each get their 400,000 and get to lord it over Chuck Baldwin and whoever the Greens pick.

Seems about right, though probably even less. 1%, if that. As long as there are no Scandals for Obama in the next couple of weeks, I can't see her convincing the supers to switch to her, and already they've been shifting to him.

Yeah. Like I suggested, my # is not based on anything except, "Well, it's politics and it's The Clintons. They know more about that than I do."

Maybe the more interesting question is how long she drags this out.

The DNC bylaws meeting WRT MICH and FL is on 5/31. But I think she will go through all the primaries, which I believe end June 3.

Hillary cannot possibly win the nomination. Obama could lose it (though it would take something huge), in which case she'd back into the nomination, but she can't win it herself. The math is just too much against her.

So is that likely why she's still in - hoping for Obama to implode? Or does it have something to do with recovering some of the debt that she's incurred?

Half believe he shares the views of the Rev. Wright

Sigh.

Here is what I mean by Good Government:

-

Hold on, NFL. Spygate isn't over. Not if the "incensed" Pittsburgh Steelers fan in Congress has anything to do with it. Sen. Arlen Specter on Wednesday called for an independent investigation of the New England Patriots' taping of opposing coaches' signals, possibly similar to the high-profile Mitchell Report on performance enhancing drugs in baseball.

***

Wrong. The government forces me to either build a ramp, or pay lots of money to an ambulance chaser and then build a ramp, or shut down. It gives me no other choices.

You agreed to limit your absolute freedom when you opened a business. You can open your business elsewhere, in a place without such restrictions.

1b. Your comments appear to be geared towards such situations as building ramps, which in theory could benefit multiple people down the road. But the ADA requires special treatment for individual one-time situations, too, such as providing an interpreter for a deaf patron, or giving special . That isn't "for us," but for that one person.

No, it's a class of people, and a right of equal access is created for them. It may manifest in individual cases, but the law speaks to a class of people, not to one specific person, which was your claim- "build x for me, provide x for me." Your perception and framing are problematic b/c your treating a group as an individual.

If there's one wheelchair-bound person in a town of 10,000 people, the store is still required to make accommodations for him.

Same situation. One wheelchair-bound person that you know of. In the case of school renovations, we've pushed for them plenty of times- we've known people who have relocated out of the school district on the assumption that the school wouldn't renovate to accommodate them. To the district, those people were invisible and we were being selfish by asking for renovations. But after the renovations, disabled enrollment went up. There's a long history here of telling disabled people that they don't deserve equal access, and it has the net effect of making a whole class of people feel inadequate because it tells them that they're deficient, not society.

Is still don't see how you're forced to open a business. You're the same person who was arguing that free people offer to sell their labor to business owners. You're free not to have a business, or to locate it somewhere else. Your decision to have a business requires you to interact with other subjects.

I don't know what all those slaves were complaining about. They didn't have any natural right to be free. They were just participating in a socially constructed invention.

Yes they were. Slavery was/is a "socially constructed invention"- it was/is an institutional set of rules backed by force, maintained not entirely by that force but also by the internalization of ideology. It was underpinned by narratives that got their legitimacy from from the assertion that this organization came from a natural/God-given order. I don't see how you can argue with that. It is one that compromised their autonomy. But in order for their autonomy to be asserted, on a functional level, it had to be given voice within a linguistic framework. They were not classified as humans. It doesn't mean we can't develop standards by which to measure the validity of linguistic inventions, and that some standards can't be better than others.

It is interesting that you bring up the institutional slavery in a discussion about the treatment of the disabled- both had to mobilize equality narratives against imposed narratives of inferiority. This is why marginalized groups who have fought for inclusion have found Foucault so useful on a pragmatic level.

The state of nature in which you enjoy absolute freedom from any sort of constraint never existed.

That's right. Your notion that I exist to serve you isn't an ideology.

Your notion that you're better than everyone else is an ideology...and it's one you serve passionately...

Maybe the more interesting question is how long she drags this out.

The DNC bylaws meeting WRT MICH and FL is on 5/31. But I think she will go through all the primaries, which I believe end June 3.

When Ronald Reagan faced Gerry Ford in 1976, Reagan went all the way to the convention. Same thing when Teddy Kennedy faced Jimmy Carter in 1980. I think if Barack Obama gets 2,025 delegates before the Democratic convetnion, Hillary Clinton should quit and endorse Barack. But if he keeps getting walloped in the popular vote and never reaches 2,025, she should stick around and see what happens in Denver.

It's not merely the lowering of taxes, but a fundamental shift in philosophy. Right now, people fall through the cracks in part because the expectation is that the government will provide a safety net. Communities don't take on responsibility for those in need because they're conditioned to think that it has become the responsibility of the government. People don't help themselves as effectively because they rely on the government to protect them.

This isn't a knock on those people, mind you. My job is to help people that almost all rely on public assistance. I see the underbelly of a system that deincentifies working. Not because people are lazy, but because working ends up costing their family. When someone says "I don't want to be on public assistance, but as soon as I get a job, they'll cut me off and I won't be able to pay my rent and feed my family," it's hard for me to criticize them.

This is interesting, and the point in Para 1 of the post is another that small-govt advocates make effectively. I think in such cases it is important to distinguish among "less government" "no govt in this case" and "less federal government." In many cases, I think Liberals would support more local control of various types of aid programs.

As to the second point, I have seen this, too, but it also raises the questions of what kinds of jobs are available, why they are available, how regulation affects that availablity, etc, which is complex to say the least.

But if he keeps getting walloped in the popular vote, she should stick around and see what happens in Denver.

As you are a Republican, your holding this position is not a surprise. You might of course feel the same way if it were Romney and McCain slugging it out, but that is a hypothetical. After NC, it was almost certain that Obama and Clinton would split the six remaining primaries and that she would smoke him in WV and KY, and those events would not change "the math", which is why the SDs are drifting his way, why he barely campaigned in WV, and why some people are pressuring her to bail.

And while one cannot assume any causative relationship, Ford and Carter did both lose.

I myself am not as pissed off at HC as many Obamaniacs are, but there is an argument to be made that she is hurting the Democrats by her choices. But they are hers to make.

"You might of course feel the same way if it were Romney and McCain slugging it out, but that is a hypothetical."

Only if Romney were wearing his magic underwear would I feel the same.

Only if Romney were wearing his magic underwear.

You are confusing Romney with Hillary's husband.

Robin, are you unfamiliar with the magic underwear question? Here's a nice picture of the garments in question.

There was "no support at all" for creating a federal police force to integrate schools, either. Somehow, though, it managed to happen.

Yes it did. With a little help from the 101st Airborne.

You agreed to limit your absolute freedom when you opened a business.

No, I didn't. I think I'd remember if I had agreed to that. In fact, I made no agreements with anybody except my wife and my landlord, about anything. I explicitly reject these "limits on my freedom." You may impose them on me with guns, but I didn't agree at any point.

You can open your business elsewhere, in a place without such restrictions.

And blacks could have moved to Canada. I don't know why they were always whining about Jim Crow.

Same situation. One wheelchair-bound person that you know of. In the case of school renovations, we've pushed for them plenty of times- we've known people who have relocated out of the school district on the assumption that the school wouldn't renovate to accommodate them. To the district, those people were invisible and we were being selfish by asking for renovations.

Well, you may well have been, but schools -- assuming we're talking about public schools -- are an entirely different case. Government doesn't have rights, so no rights are being infringed by requiring schools to have ramps. As for selfish, it's not the ramps so much that represent selfishness, but the ridiculous expenditures that people demand to accommodate so-called learning and behavioral disabilities. I mean, I'm sorry if someone's kid has autism, but should that really entitle them to a $150,000+/year private education at taxpayer expense?

But after the renovations, disabled enrollment went up. There's a long history here of telling disabled people that they don't deserve equal access, and it has the net effect of making a whole class of people feel inadequate because it tells them that they're deficient, not society.

They already have equal access; what they don't have is the ability to take advantage of the equal access they have. But that's hardly the fault of "society" "telling them" anything; it's the fault of their own disability.

Is still don't see how you're forced to open a business.

I didn't say I was "forced to open a business." I already opened a business, a long time ago. What I'm now being forced to do is build a ramp or close the business.

You're the same person who was arguing that free people offer to sell their labor to business owners. You're free not to have a business,

Well, gee, thanks. So what you're saying is that if you forbid me from doing something, it isn't really a restriction on my freedom, because I still have the freedom not to do it! If you lock me in a room, I have the freedom to stay there. If you tell me I can't run my store anymore, I have the freedom not to run it. I think I see a problem with this logic.

or to locate it somewhere else. Your decision to have a business requires you to interact with other subjects.

It "requires" me to interact with people only to the extent I choose to interact with them; if I choose not to interact with them, I probably won't be successful. It doesn't require me to build ramps; the State does.

It is interesting that you bring up the institutional slavery in a discussion about the treatment of the disabled- both had to mobilize equality narratives against imposed narratives of inferiority. This is why marginalized groups who have fought for inclusion have found Foucault so useful on a pragmatic level.

Disabled people do not have "imposed narratives of inferiority." They are inferior -- not morally, but physically. They have disabilities. Restaurant owners aren't engaging in "narratives." They're trying to run a business and make a profit. They're not making statements about disabled people, any more than not serving kosher food means they're anti-semites. (Seriously, you don't really believe this stuff, do you?) To the extent that disabled people have adopted the "narrative" of blacks, it's false; blacks as a class don't lack ability, but the class of disabled people is defined by the lack of some ability.

Your notion that you're better than everyone else is an ideology...and it's one you serve passionately...

Completely backwards; I have no such notion, which is why I don't believe in forcibly imposing my views on others. Libertarianism is fundamentally a humble ideology, unlike liberalism, which believes it knows what's best for everyone.

Disabled people do not have "imposed narratives of inferiority." They are inferior -- not morally, but physically. They have disabilities.

That's a narrative.

Restaurant owners aren't engaging in "narratives." They're trying to run a business and make a profit. They're not making statements about disabled people, any more than not serving kosher food means they're anti-semites.

(Seriously, you don't really believe this stuff, do you?)

Wouldn't be saying it if I didn't. In a society, actions have consequences. What Spider-Man's uncle says about great power and everything...

To the extent that disabled people have adopted the "narrative" of blacks, it's false; blacks as a class don't lack ability, but the class of disabled people is defined by the lack of some ability.

The narrative that allowed the institution of slavery to persist was one that defined Africans as uncivilized others and thus not worthy of the same rights that Liberalism had extended to the rest of humankind. It was rooted as much in legitimate scientific discourse of the day as your narrative that justifies excluding people from your business based on their ability to walk upright. Your claim is that people with disabilities are physically differentiated in such a way that it makes them incapable of accessing the same things that other people do. This claim is no different than the claims mobilized against Africans to justify not including them in broader discourses about human rights in the 18th century. There's a narrative continuity to that you've decided to be blind to because it's convenient for you to naturalize your exclusion of the disabled.

Inferiority is a classification scheme- like normal and abnormal. Changing the classification scheme, mobilizing a narrative and corresponding regulation that emphasizes inclusion over exclusion, is all that it takes to address this, and viewed from this perspective doesn't naturalize the difference as you're trying to. The narrative used by disabled advocates groups is the same that other groups marginalized based on their identity have deployed since the 1960s.

Beyond that, not being in favor of equal access for the disabled is just being a dick.

Completely backwards; I have no such notion, which is why I don't believe in forcibly imposing my views on others. Libertarianism is fundamentally a humble ideology, unlike liberalism, which believes it knows what's best for everyone.

You're free to believe that dinosaurs roamed the earth only 1000 short years ago, just like you're free to believe that at some point there was a state of nature in which no one infringed upon anyone else, which was composed of freely thinking, fully formed autonomous subjects, all mutually consenting to interact with each other without conflict. But that never existed, so don't expect us to legislate based on your origin myth. If you're going to reason from a mythological standpoint, I think Rawls's veil of ignorance is a lot better, more complex and nuanced starting point.

And just clear one thing up for me, because I'm ignorant on the subject- at what point does one get left to their own devices to succeed or fail in your libertarian utopia? What's the age of consent? Does absolute freedom from the interference of others being at birth? Age 2? Is there a freedom not be breastfed, a freedom not to mow the lawn? Is there an obligation to take care of the children that one spawns, or does that also come from within? Or is everyone in Nieporentopia born a 23 year old law student?

That's a narrative.

No, it really isn't. It's just a plain ol' physical fact. Reality simply isn't socially constructed. Paraplegic people can't walk up stairs because they're disabled, not because of discourses or classification schemes.

Beyond that, not being in favor of equal access for the disabled is just being a dick.

Isn't this what it boils down to? Liberals think that non-liberals are mean?

No, it really isn't. It's just a plain ol' physical fact.

You said that they were physically inferior. That's a narrative. It depends on categories of physical inferiority and superiority. For a lawyer, you sure do suck at this...

Once built, stairs are physical structures. Until then, they're technical constructs that privilege certain types of mobility while restricting other types. Just like the bridges Robert Moses designed.

And where do you think these savings are? A secret magical sack? The money's out there, being loaned by banks for people to start businesses or get houses, cars, or additional education.

Or being bet by the billions on unleveraged derivatives.

How's that working out for us?

No, it really isn't. It's just a plain ol' physical fact. Reality simply isn't socially constructed. Paraplegic people can't walk up stairs because they're disabled, not because of discourses or classification schemes.

Yes, because the ability to walk up stairs is a credible evaluation of the quality of the human life.

I think if we assume the complete competence of a government that we disrespect and underfund to run an equitable 100% effective criminal justice system, and the complete confidence of people to need no guidance whatsoever in decision-making, libertarianism starts to make a ton of sense.

Call me when that happens and you have my vote.

Whenever I think Szymborski is completely full of ####, Andy and JC come along to make him sympathetic again.

I'll remember to bring that quote up again at the meet-up game, HCO.

Isn't this what it boils down to? Liberals think that non-liberals are mean?

Or, if we're talking about Libertarians, selfish.

WRT to civil rights laws, the idea that integration would have happened due to market forces alone shows a remarkable lack of knowledge of both history and the realities of southern racial mores

I believe unmentioned in the millions of posts upthread is the fact that market forces worked to promote segregation. Once you tell a group of people that they can only live in these few square blocks, and only shop here or there, and only work at certain jobs, you can exploit the hell out of them. Social mores probably trumped economic motives for segregation in Mississippi, but in Chicago, it was just as much economics at work.

Once built, stairs are physical structures. Until then, they're technical constructs that privilege certain types of mobility while restricting other types

Absolutely right. We design a physical/social world that fits the average bipedal 25-year-old, and then define "disability" as not being 25 and bipedal. For a thought-experiment, imagine buildings with no stairs at all, where you had to rappel six stories out your bedroom window to get to work in the morning. A bunch of people could do that, no problem. The rest of us would become "disabled." This is not about naïve social constructionism at all, it's about the social consequences of deliberate engineering. Wheelchair users do not have a natural right to climb Everest or swim the English Channel, but it's perfectly valid to say that they have a right to negotiate public social spaces.

or are you also referring to what would have been a hundred times more prevalent---the sort of violence that took place against blacks who tried to get served at segregated restaurants? Under your philosophy, I don't see how any of the latter type of violence would have been actionable under anything other than local assault laws. But of course as those of us who were around know full well, those assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases---and in fact were often used to prosecute the victims of violence, rather than their attackers.

Of course the assault laws were almost never enforced in those cases. What does that have to do with anything? We're not talking about leaving the legal regime the way things were; we're talking about a different legal regime, in which racial violence was prosecuted (*). There's no reason why it's a "fantasy," from the perspective of early 1964, to enact and enforce laws against racial violence, but not a "fantasy" to enact and enforce laws against private racial discrimination.)

I call it a fantasy because it was just that, except in the minds of a handful of segregationists who were offering this as some sort of a "compromise." Beyond that tiny handful there was no support at all for creating a federal police force to handle this sort of thing.

There was "no support at all" for creating a federal police force to integrate schools, either. Somehow, though, it managed to happen. You're projecting from your own narrow experience.

In one instance we're talking about a handful of cases, most notably Little Rock, Oxford, and Tuscaloosa, where state governments were in open defiance of court orders to desegregate public schools. You had two cases of open rioting (Little Rock, Oxford) and one case (Tuscaloosa) where the Governor literally stood in the schoolhouse door blocking the entrance of two black students. It involved the credibility of the U.S. government in enforcing the principle of the most important case (Brown) of the 20th century.

You didn't need to "create" any federal police force to enforce orders of that sort. All that was necessary was to federalize the state national guard, and (in Little Rock) supplement that with the 101st Airborne. Each of these three incidents dominated the news for periods ranging from a week to several weeks. They were classic constitutuional confrontations of state power vs. federal power, and the means of addressing them were already in place.

But now onto your libertarian fantasy, which as I said, I used to hear countless times from people like yourself 45 years ago.

This libertarian "compromise" consists of two parts: Arresting whites who commit violence against blacks entering restaurants that were voluntarily integrated; and arresting blacks for trespass if they refuse to leave privately owned segregated restaurants.

In the first case, there would be little need for any sort of force, because there would have been so few cases of voluntary integration. Outside of a tiny handful of liberal enclaves, the social mores (including impossible to prove threats of job loss, night visits, etc.) would have seen to that.

And in the second case, a