There was a fascinating and sad and scary NYT story about xenophobia in South Africa, where mobs are beating, killing, robbing and forcing into exile immigrant workers:

This nation of about 48 million people is home to an estimated five million immigrants, most of them from neighboring countries with poverty rates even worse than that in South Africa, where about one in four people are jobless. Destitute foreigners are usually willing to work for lower wages, and poor people from here often begrudge the hardscrabble earnings of poor people from somewhere else.

These are horrifying times for immigrants, with photographic images seared in their minds of foreigners being burned alive by elated crowds. Attacks have taken place in Alexandra, Reiger Park, Diepsloot, Primrose and a dozen other places in and around Johannesburg. Estimates of the numbers of immigrants chased from their homes range from 13,000 to 20,000.

I don't suppose this happens in the U.S. or in most of Europe or Japan or Australia or New Zealand, simply because most people in wealthy countries, even those who feel threatened by immigration, are not as poor as these South African mobsters likely are. As such, immigration here is not pushing people over the edge and causing them to lose all feeling for the immigrants as fellow humans.

What Americans are accused of is hating immigrants or opposing immigration because they are racists or in some way prejudiced against Mexicans and other migrant workers. I think the xenophobia we hear of in America -- though don't really see, because we have nothing like what is going on in South Africa -- is mostly an expression of people who feel threatened by immigrants competing for limited resources with them. But as it plays out, it does have a racist overtone.

The racism angle is ignored in South Africa (by us), because the immigrants and the mobs are both black people. But the fact that native South Africans, Zulus and whatnot, are targetting immigrants specifically on the basis of their country of origin and therefore their differing ethnicity, makes it as much a question of racism in South Africa as it is here. And because this racism-xenophobia in South Africa is resulting in widespread violence, it is a far more serious problem there than it ever has been in the United States.*

* Perhaps some of the anti-Chinese actions of 100+ years ago are of this same vein. However, I don't know of any mob violence in the U.S. that reached the levels I am reading about in the New York Times.

We now know the difference between "spiritual adviser" and "spiritual guide," thanks to Senator John McCain.

Or do we? From today's NY Times:

Some have compared Mr. Hagee’s remarks with those of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., the former pastor of the Democratic presidential front-runner, Senator Barack Obama. But Mr. McCain said his relationship with Mr. Hagee was different.

“I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright’s extreme views,” Mr. McCain said in his statement. “But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual adviser, and I did not attend his church for 20 years.”

Mr. McCain has been courting Christian conservatives after attacking them eight years ago as “agents of intolerance.” At a speech last year before Mr. Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, he thanked Mr. Hagee for his “spiritual guidance to politicians like me” and said, “It’s hard to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan.”

JC, respect is as respect does. There is no prima facie evidence that a CO pharmacist who refuses a contraceptive prescription has any respect for any point of view on the subject but his or her own. Praying for the eternal soul of the trollope is not what most laypeople would mean by respect.

(2) For a guy who lauds the civility of Obama and hammers the Republicans and Rove for their incivility, it's instructive to see the very real limitations of your respect for people whose positions differ from yours.

Respect is a two way street. As far as I can tell, you see it as Rock Creek Parkway during the rush hour.

I've spent more than a few threads here defending the sincerity and integrity of Right to Lifers, and I'll continue to do so, but that doesn't mean that as a matter of public policy I want them to have a veto power over the availability of prescriptions. I've said that as long as they're willing to give their customers a reasonable alternative means of supply, I'm fine with their personal refusal, but that doesn't seem to be enough from your point of view. But perhaps you're willing to elaborate on what you'd recommend to your CO friends beyond a big mouth of mum.

This is a serious topic, JC, and the moral seriousness is not all on the side of the CO. And in a secular society, public policy decisions have to be weighted towards secular concerns, among them the primacy of a doctor's prescription over the private concerns of a publicly licensed pharmacist, especially one practicing in a non-sectarian pharmacy.

I'll ignore the condescension in this post that deigns to remind me this is a "serious" topic. For the record, I have not taken a position on this in our exchange, and yet you've obviously assmed I have one - which, in all honesty, I do not. More interesting to me, again, is the limitations of your civility: if someone disagrees with you on a fundamental issue, you'll continue to assume they view as "trollopes" people who find themselves in difficult pregnancies. You'll continue to diminish their perspective with scare quotes. You'll continue to assume someone cannot respect another view even as they passionately disagree with it. Well, of course, all that is nonsense, even though the nonsense may comfort your intolerance.

I know no pharmacist of the type we're describing, but I would not insult them by assuming that in conscientiously determining that they cannot dispense these few medications they fail to "respect" the customers who visit their pharmacies. I would not insult them by calling them "Christian" (your sarcastic emphasis), any more than I would countenance referring to Wilberforce or King as "Christian" b/c of their firm convictions about the consequences of Christian faith. Granted, these people may be wrong; but, as I said before, for a guy browbeating us all about Obama's moral superiority in the face of unjust critique, I find it more than telling that you yourself engage unapologetically in critique sewn from the same cloth. Next time, spare us all the moralizing.

Sorry, JC, but this is more than a bit disingenuous. You seem far more interested in berating my "condescension" than you are in actually engaging the topic at hand. I feel like I'm trying to grab hold of an eel.

Before you even jumped into this, I said I was willing to accommodate licensed CO pharmacists, as long as they meet their customers halfway and provide them with a reasonably accessible alternative source for their prescription. You dismissed this compromise with a figurative wave of the hand. And now you say that you haven't "taken a position" on the question.

You keep saying that I have "no idea" of the "level of respect" the CO pharmacists have for people they refuse to serve, but that my own disrespect for the pharmacists in question is evident.

Thank you in turn for reading my mind.

I agree completely that I can't look into the minds of the hypothetical pharmacists in question, and measure their "level of respect," especially (as I'm sure you'll point out) I haven't met any of them in person. But I've never said that I could.

What I have said is that "respect is as respect does." And by that I mean this: The level of internal respect that a CO pharmacist may have for the people he or she refuses to serve is irrelevant. If I'm a customer looking to fill a prescription, I'm not looking for any abstract "respect." I'm just looking to fill my prescription and get on with my life. Whether or not the CO pharmacist "respects" me in his or her heart, or sees me as a tool of the Devil, is utterly immaterial to me at that point.

And the reason I reiterated the point about moral seriousness being a "two way street" was not out of "condescension." It's because at the point that the customer hands the prescription to the pharmacist, the power is strictly in the hands of that pharmacist. And until that licensed pharmacist either fills that prescription or offers a reasonably accesssible alternative source for the medication, the effective message that the pharmacist is giving that patient is that he has no obligation whatever to that customer.

Note here that I'm not trying to measure that pharmacist's level of internal respect. I don't know that, and neither do you. I'll let the pharmacist speak to that.

But what can be measured is the consequences of that pharmacist's refusal to fulfill his or her professional duty as a licensed pharmacist. The pharmacist has left the customer high and dry, with no alternative. And by that standard---which is the only standard I'm talking about---there is no evidence of any respect for the moral seriousness of the customer's POV. The customer is left with no alternative other than good fortune, which may or may not be there in the form of another known source of supply for his or her prescription.

Rilke famously wrote that "there is no such thing as love, only evidence of it." This is the standard I'm applying here. As someone who has valued your longstanding contributions to BTF, both in agreement and disagreement, I wish you'd give me the respect of engaging this point.

re 5701 and South Africa. In my observation, people will find some reason to hate those not like themselves. We should definitely address racism, sexism (and other isms in our society) but I don't see a need to beat ourselves up for being "evil". We're just doing what people do. That doesn't excuse it and, like I say, we should do all we can to fight it, but it isn't as if White Americans cornered the market on some new phenomenon of racism.

Nolan in 10

the effective message that the pharmacist is giving that patient is that he has no obligation whatever to that customer.

The only obligation is to provide any service honestly and to observe any contracts between customer and server. Other than that, you're right, they have no obligaton to one another.

re 5701 and South Africa. In my observation, people will find some reason to hate those not like themselves. We should definitely address racism, sexism (and other isms in our society) but I don't see a need to beat ourselves up for being "evil". We're just doing what people do. That doesn't excuse it and, like I say, we should do all we can to fight it, but it isn't as if White Americans cornered the market on some new phenomenon of racism.

I guess I see a difference between "beating ourselves up" and "recognizing in order to improve". Amongst the foes of this sort of behavior there seems to be no difference, which in my mind is really not any help at all to anyone.

I guess I see a difference between "beating ourselves up" and "recognizing in order to improve".

In action, there probably isn't any. But in the dialog, there is often, I think. Recognizing in order to improve is important. But if we truly did, we wouldn't be shocked when previously oppressed people exhibit the same ism that kept them down. If we really recognized, we'd know that it is behavior that is possible in all people and that the cause isn't just some bad people.

Whereas JC counters, "Let the trollope hitchhike 200 miles to get her morning after pill. She should have thought of that before she started trolloping."


Except of course I said no such thing, right? It's neat when you can impute things to people they didn't say.

OMG! TEH IRONY!

The only obligation is to provide any service honestly and to observe any contracts between customer and server. Other than that, you're right, they have no obligaton to one another.

That's correct, if you operate from a premise that a licensing agency shouldn't be allowed to impose certain obligations on licensed pharmacists. Such as the obligation to fill a doctor's prescription in good faith, which seems like a pretty low standard of requirement.

I operate from the premise that licensing agencies have every right and duty to impose such an obligation on those who would seek to be licensed. If you don't, then fine, but in that case it simply comes down to who wins the battle of public opinion, which will eventually decide what those standards will or won't be.

Back for a moment to the case that DMN mentioned in #5670:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—A professional photographer who refused to take pictures of a gay couple's commitment ceremony because of her religious beliefs violated New Mexico discrimination law, a human rights panel ruled

True, this initially seems like a libertarian's nightmare. And a nightmare for anyone who believes in artistic expression. Eugene Volokh comments:

Photography is an art, and Huguenin is an artist. It may not be high art, but it embodies a wide range of artistic choices (especially since she says she takes a "photojournalist" approach, rather than just doing normal staged photos). And though she sells the art to its subjects, that is of course part of a long and continuing tradition in the arts, including painting and sculpture, as well as photography. Certainly many of the works protected by the First Amendment (books, newspapers, movies, and the like) were created for money and distributed for money.

Yet the New Mexico government is now telling Huguenin that she must create art works that she does not choose to create.

There's a certain point there, but it may be beside the main point. Is a photograph of a family event (wedding, bar mitzvah, civil-union ceremony, graduation, whatever) a commissioned artwork, or a basic business service? Nobody is coming into an art gallery and closing down a show because Huguenin doesn't have any pictures of gay people on display. The closer analogy might to be: "what if Huguenin, in business as a for-hire photographer, told organizers of a Navajo family reunion she didn't do pictures of Indians?" That might indeed be a civil-rights problem.

What Americans are accused of is hating immigrants or opposing immigration because they are racists or in some way prejudiced against Mexicans and other migrant workers. I think the xenophobia we hear of in America ---- is mostly an expression of people who feel threatened by immigrants competing for limited resources with them. But as it plays out, it does have a racist overtone.

This could be different from other parts of the country, but where I live, in the North East, the opposition to Latin American immigration comes from white "middle class" folk, who are most certainly not being economically threatened by all the Mexican landscapers they are up in arms about, however, they don't like that the landscapers congregate on street corners looking for work, live 12 to a house, and GASP, speak a language other than english amongst themselves. The anti-immigrants up in the North East are MUCH less concerned about Asian Immigration (Which objectively seems to be providing much more in the way of economic competition wrt anti-immigrants)...

Which is a long winded way of saying that here, in the North East, most anti-immigrant sentiment definitely appears to be racist in nature.

There was a show in which James Franciscus played a blind guy and I remember that he could tell the bills apart.

there's a little old store in Gold Hill, NC (it's right on Hwy 52, just past Beatties Ford Rd, just before the turnoff for Dan Nicholas Park) called "The Blind Merchant" and he reportedly could tell bills apart.

Which is a long winded way of saying that here, in the North East, most anti-immigrant sentiment definitely appears to be racist in nature.

Yes, it couldn't possibly be that people believe illegal immigration is corrosive to the rule of law. They must be racists!

There's a certain point there, but it may be beside the main point. Is a photograph of a family event (wedding, bar mitzvah, civil-union ceremony, graduation, whatever) a commissioned artwork, or a basic business service? Nobody is coming into an art gallery and closing down a show because Huguenin doesn't have any pictures of gay people on display. The closer analogy might to be: "what if Huguenin, in business as a for-hire photographer, told organizers of a Navajo family reunion she didn't do pictures of Indians?" That might indeed be a civil-rights problem.

This is the basic problem with letting government (or society) decide these things. At the end of the day, you'll have to tell someone how to live. By "protecting" the civil rights of a minority, you have to impose actions on a person that they may find abhorent. By leaving it up to the "will of the people" you open up all manner of action so long as it is deemed acceptable or desirable by society. I absolutely think the rights of minorities should be protected in a public arena, but if you extend the public arena into any business, you extend society into personal decisions.

I just can't believe anyone would consider not being able to hire a photographer to be a violation of a civil right. Not being able to vote or ride on public transportation is a violation of a civil right. If this photographer doesn't want your business, go find someone else. If anything, it provides an opening for someone to open a more inclusive business. Isn't the argument of diversity that that would be a stronger business?

This could be different from other parts of the country, but where I live, in the North East, the opposition to Latin American immigration comes from white "middle class" folk, who are most certainly not being economically threatened by all the Mexican landscapers

Not that I have a comprehensive view of all things Texan, but my sense is that it is indeed very different here (specifically Dallas/Ft Worth). For one thing, "immigrant" has a different value here: huge numbers of Anglos and Latinos both have moved to Texas in recent decades, and large Anglo and Latino communities are very long-established here (the Latino presence much older, and of course to think of "Mexican immigrants" to what was once part of Mexico is a little different than to think of Mexican immigrants to New England). Finally, because of all the influx of people, we've had a permanently-growing local economy for the last 20 years or so; jobs are plentiful and nobody feels economically threatened. The result as far as I experience it is a relative absence of xenophobia. In fact, that's one thing to like about Bush 43: he's really from Texas (though a youthful immigrant here himself), he is no xenophobe, and he worked very constructively on the 2007 attempt at immigration reform (along with McCain – another border-state non-xenophobe).

Not being able to vote or ride on public transportation is a violation of a civil right

Sure. How about not being able to rent an apartment? Or eat at a diner? Where do you draw the "civil rights" line?

I wish this thread would die, if only so it would drop off the sidebar. I imagine that's been said a bunch, but I ain't scrolling through 58 pages of posts to count.

I draw at telling a private business owner how they have to run their business.

Where do you draw the line at telling private citizens what beliefs they can hold?

I wish this thread would die, if only so it would drop off the sidebar. I imagine that's been said a bunch, but I ain't scrolling through 58 pages of posts to count.

Yes, but is having this thread on the side bar a violation of your rights?

I draw at telling a private business owner how they have to run their business

And that's fine with me, but note that it means that you can't tell a diner owner what color of people s/he has to serve or not serve. That's a valid principle in the abstract, but in practice, getting service from private-business owners has been a key part of civil rights activism in this country. Anyway, "beliefs," to my way of thinking, in a secular society, are private things. You can be morally revulsed by the gay (or immigrant, or interracial) couple who come into the diner for coffee, you can wash your hands ten times after serving them that coffee, but if you want to do business in public, you have to serve them the coffee the same as a couple you privately approve of.

reasonable involves giving up on the first absolute principle that no business owner should ever have to adhere to a standard they don't agree with.

I think you are mischaracterizing even the most aggressive libertarians on BBTF. For example, I think DMN and Szym and I would all agree that all business owners should have to adhere to the standard of "not hitting their customers over the head and stealing their wallets" whether or not it jives with their own personal code.

With the exception of true anarchists, the first principle is more accurately stated as "no person should ever have to adhere to a standard they don't agree with unless there is a necessary and compelling reason to restrict their freedom."

Just like reasonable from my perspective involves giving up on the standard of absolute equality of access.

Similarly, this is a misstatement of your own position. You don't believe in absolute equality of access. You believe in a relative equality of access with a different line drawn as to what is reasonable. You do not advocate that all business owners be required to accommodate seven hundred pound customers by providing steel-reinforced seating, customers in iron lungs with exceptionally wide doorways, customers with severe and deadly peanut allergies by providing peanut-free zones that are sealed from the rest of the premises.

This is a big part of the problem. You start by not properly defining your position or your opposing position. Once you recognize that both of us are engaged not in seeking an ideal, but in defining where the "reasonable" place is to draw the line, it becomes a very different argument, and it becomes harder for either side to demonize the other. It isn't that libertarians are without sympathy and that liberals are more decent human beings, or that libertarians respect freedom and that liberals don't.

There are two ways in which everyone who is advocating opposite positions are divided in principle. The first is fundamental. Should the restriction of individual rights for the public good be limited to what is necessary, or what is reasonable? The second is hashing out what circumstances represent "necessary" or "reasonable."

The first question isn't particularly valuable once you realize that it's a point of disagreement. Agreement or compromise is impossible on this point. Instead, productive discussion involves each side accepting to assume the other side's position on this question, and justifying a policy decision within that framework.

It's why the libertarians should be raising points that support the position that a given policy is not reasonable, as opposed to not necessary. Similarly, the other side should be raising points that support the position that a given policy is necessary, and not merely reasonable. It's hard to do. Our natural state is to assume that once our own principles are satisfied, it is merely the other side's inability to follow the logic or conscious choice to reject it... "no reasonable person could disagree."

I don't think that all claims made by all handicapped people ever are right and reasonable. But I do think that the principle of equal access is a reasonable one.

Within certain limits. Even the most ardent disabled-rights advocate can recognize extreme situations that would not justify the cost of supplying such access.

So, I asked this earlier, but do you have to also be nice to them? Okay, I have to serve them, but can I make jokes at their expense? Be otherwise an a$$hole?

I get that it was a big part of the civil rights movement and I wouldn't frequent a place that refused to serve blacks, gays, women, whatever, but I'm not comfortable telling people (like the photographer above) that they can have whatever belief they like, but they can't put those beliefs into practice. It's like saying, you can believe in God, but you can't go to church. If the state gets to dictate to you how you live your life, it gives them all sorts of power that I'm not comfortable with.

FWIW, I don't think it is a crystal clear line. The state obviously has an interest in controlling behavior that directly harms another person. What that includes is the debate I suppose. I could see a person making an argument that a diner is more public than a photographer.

Imagine a vegan photographer is asked to photograph a ceremony that includes a pig roast - could the photographer refuse?

Sure. How about not being able to rent an apartment? Or eat at a diner? Where do you draw the "civil rights" line?

The line should be drawn based on whether the thing is funded by gunpoint or by choice. I have a choice in providing or not providing money to any particular pharmacist or wedding photographer. I do not have a similar choice when it comes to a government service, I pay at gunpoint.

A party that can compel me into an arrangement has a responsibility to provide service. A party that doesn't, shouldn't.

I think you are mischaracterizing even the most aggressive libertarians on BBTF. For example, I think DMN and Szym and I would all agree that all business owners should have to adhere to the standard of "not hitting their customers over the head and stealing their wallets" whether or not it jives with their own personal code.

Agreed. Hitting customers over the head and stealing their wallets should not be allowed unless the customer freely entered into a contract in which such tasks were performed.

You can be morally revulsed by the gay (or immigrant, or interracial) couple who come into the diner for coffee, you can wash your hands ten times after serving them that coffee, but if you want to do business in public, you have to serve them the coffee the same as a couple you privately approve of.

Things are only worth what one is willing to exchange for them and if the diner owner isn't willing to exchange coffee and the effort to get the coffee for $1, by forcing him to exchange and serve the coffee for $1, you're stealing from him.

Most diner-owners, freely offered the choice, won't have a policy. But if enough do? I'll open my own diner and have the busiest damn diner in town.

Hitting customers over the head and stealing their wallets should not be allowed unless the customer freely entered into a contract in which such tasks were performed.

Such as a variable rate mortgage?

I think crosby's post above is excellent.

What that includes is the debate I suppose. I could see a person making an argument that a diner is more public than a photographer.

Imagine a vegan photographer is asked to photograph a ceremony that includes a pig roast - could the photographer refuse?

Exactly, now we're getting somewhere. There's some continuum of behavior here, and it isn't absolutely or immediately obvious where the line is drawn. I'm actually not sure about the New Mexico case; turned different ways to the light, it looks different. And a lot does depend on what's said. If you say "we don't serve your kind," that's not so good. If you pass homophobic remarks but provide the service, I would not say there should be any legal recourse for the offended person; the offender just loses their business. Unlike other putative subscribers to the liberal playbook, I am not fond of speech codes :)

by forcing him to exchange and serve the coffee for $1

So coffee shops that refuse to serve interracial couples are OK? I'm just checking where you stand here, Dan. Your logic is iron-clad, I can't argue you out of it.

Edit: we may have gone through this way upthread in the "segregation would have faded away because of market forces" subsection, in which case forgive me for bringing it up again :)

Exactly, now we're getting somewhere. There's some continuum of behavior here, and it isn't absolutely or immediately obvious where the line is drawn. I'm actually not sure about the New Mexico case; turned different ways to the light, it looks different. And a lot does depend on what's said. If you say "we don't serve your kind," that's not so good. If you pass homophobic remarks but provide the service, I would not say there should be any legal recourse for the offended person; the offender just loses their business. Unlike other putative subscribers to the liberal playbook, I am not fond of speech codes :)

Of course it is a continuum, but we're all going to see that continuum differently and it makes it impossible to set a standard. I'd rather set a standard and let us all adjust to it as needed. Let it be up to the consumer who to hire and the business owner who to do business with - a mutual decision.

If you pass homophobic remarks but provide the service, I would not say there should be any legal recourse for the offended person; the offender just loses their business.

Why should a consumer be allowed to not do business with someone just because they don't like them if a business person has to do business with those they don't like?

So coffee shops that refuse to serve interracial couples are OK?

No. They are flawed in a moral sense and also in a pragmatic sense. Not supporting government prohibition of a behavior is not remotely similar to endorsing that behavior.

This is perhaps the most frustrating "anti-libertarian" strawman out there. If I don't support the government forcing people to act in a certain way, I must not have any regard for the moral decency of that action. It isn't arguing in good faith.

This sort of post is why the discussion often degenerates into name-calling. I'm not picking on you specifically, and I apologize if it comes off that way. I'm guilty of it myself and actively working to do it less often, so I'm particularly sensitive to it.

No. They are flawed in a moral sense and also in a pragmatic sense. Not supporting government prohibition of a behavior is not remotely similar to endorsing that behavior.

This is perhaps the most frustrating "anti-libertarian" strawman out there. If I don't support the government forcing people to act in a certain way, I must not have any regard for the moral decency of that action. It isn't arguing in good faith.


I agree with this. It's also why I think boycotts and sit-ins are excellent and a true display of "public" opinion. If a couple of folks convince a judge to make a ruling, that is hardly a display of public outrage. Having a morally flawed business picketed by citizens is much better, IMO.

So coffee shops that refuse to serve interracial couples are OK? I'm just checking where you stand here, Dan. Your logic is iron-clad, I can't argue you out of it.

Sadly, yes, from the standpoint of government involvement. That's the hardest part about being a libertarian, at least to me - when the situations come up and I see the need to defend those with black marks on their soul.

But I believe that rights only have meaning when you defend them for the people that "least" deserve them. Law-abiding citizens don't need the 8th amendment to protect them the same way a vicious murderer does. Polite moderates don't need their right to free speech actively invoked the way a disgusting hatemonger does. And people who run their establishments in moral manners don't generally have to worry about their rights to run their private business being violated.

We have to defend the rights of the murderers, the hatemongers, and the racists, not because we agree with their behavior, but because only by defending those rights can those rights also be protected for the law-abiding citizen, the moderate, and the responsible business owner.

Without those rights, those barriers collapse, the only protection that the vegan photographer posed above has from being compelled into labor is whether or not there's a group well-funded enough to convince government to force him/her.

The trans-fat issue clearly demonstrates that these worries are not ill-founded. When a freedom becomes a permeable wall, it just takes a well-funded group and a compliant government to take those liberties away.

*Hundreds of posts ago, DMN claimed that the only thing causing hunger in Africa is lack of free markets. Henceforth, he became Free Market Jesus. I don't think the other libertarians here (as JPWF pointed out in 5646) share his messianic vision.

Unless you think there's something wrong with Africans as people, I don't see how you can possibly dispute the argument; it's not even a controversial one. What on earth do you think explains African poverty, if not lack of property rights and free markets?

And I've maintained all along that I think there are "reasonable" standards that we can agree on. But reasonable involves giving up on the first absolute principle that no business owner should ever have to adhere to a standard they don't agree with.

Of course I can't stop you from thinking my positions are unreasonable. But an argument that goes, "Reasonable people can agree as long as we define people who disagree as unreasonable" doesn't really advance a discussion very far; it's pretty much a tautology.

You really express a pathological disdain for those you perceive to be living off of your hard work.* You've done that ever since I've been here at BTF. In this thread you've directed your scorn at blind, wheelchair-bound slave drivers forcing you to build ramps and rebuild vending machines. I find you to be a reasonable person when you aren't ridiculing people for their daring to ask for help with their misfortune.

As I pointed out to JC, they're not "asking." They're demanding. They're forcing. There's an infinite difference between the two.

You want to abandon everyone who has any need of assistance to the random whims of kind strangers, rather than imposing a burden on the more fortunate. Fortunately for the rest of us, society does impose costs on those who benefit most from its existence.

The underlying premise there is obviously the standard liberal belief, and obviously 100% wrong. It's the least fortunate who benefit the most from its existence, not the most fortunate.

Having a ramp so that someone doesn't need to be carry you up stairs is actually independence. Having your employer provide you with a magnification device for your computer screen so that you can write software and thus earn a living is independence.

No, it's dependence. Dependence on the person building the ramp or providing you with the magnification device. And since we're discussing situations when the person doesn't want to build the ramp or provide you with the device, it's also dependence on the government to force them to do that.

The goal is to erase the disability as the limiting thing in a person's life, so that their fortune is not dependent on the state of their bodies. Having a working elevator in your company's building so that you can get to your office is not "being dependent" on the government to provide for you.

It is being dependent on the government if you're actually depending on the government to provide you with that elevator. (I mean, now you're forcing me to be tautological.) You're, as liberals are wont to do, looking at the situation only ex post, and not ex ante. Yes, once the ramp is built you can get up it without depending on further assistance, but you need to depend on assistance to get the ramp built.

Incidentally, and along those lines, the National Federation for the Blind opposed the money lawsuit, because in their view (no pun intended) it sends the message to the rest of the public that blind people aren't competent and can't cope on their own, which may make life harder for blind people. As in, "I can't hire this guy; he can't do things on his own and needs lots of special accommodations." (There's empirical evidence that -- contrary to the simplistic predictions of ADA proponents -- the ADA has decreased employment amongst the disabled.)

It's being dependent on society to provide conditions within which you can compete with others to succeed,

"Society" -- an abstraction, not a physical thing -- isn't doing anything. The government is forcing the building owner to build the ramp or elevator or whatever.

but we're all dependent on some framework to provide these conditions for us (see Princeton comments below). If it was anyone else, I'd say "you can't possibly be this self-righteous"...

Do you not even notice the difference between someone voluntarily creating "conditions" and the government forcing people to do it?

Re: Princeton- all kidding aside, anyone who has attended an Ivy League school has been served very well by this existing system, and probably would not have had the opportunity to do so without some assistance along the way.

To the extent that it's "probably" true at all, it still misses the point: voluntary assistance. If Szym loans me $500,000 so I can go to Princeton, I have a "debt" to him, which I then have to pay back. If he gives it to me as a gift, I have no debt to him, but he did contribute to my success. Neither of those create a debt to you, though. You like this sort of vague talk, where you can just create a cloud of fog and then pluck obligations out of it without regard for what went into the cloud in the first place.

Yes, it couldn't possibly be that people believe illegal immigration is corrosive to the rule of law. They must be racists!

Some people do believe that, and up in the North East at least, most do not join, or if they do, do not stay long with anti-immigrant groups since they quickly realize that such groups are motivated by racism.

Why should a consumer be allowed to not do business with someone just because they don't like them if a business person has to do business with those they don't like?

But conversely, bunyon, what's wrong with "your money's good here?" That seems like a minimally-invasive way of regulating a free market.

Not supporting government prohibition of a behavior is not remotely similar to endorsing that behavior

Fair enough, Crosby. This was an extremely-well-lit blind alley upthread, and doesn't need further exploration. (And I do not feel picked on or name-called in any way whatsoever, no worries there.)

What on earth do you think explains African poverty, if not lack of property rights and free markets?


George Bush!

What on earth do you think explains African poverty, if not lack of property rights and free markets?

Racism, duh.

Dan, #5733 is very well-put, thanks. Again, I lean toward the ACLU wing much more than the speech-code wing of liberalism, and I sympathize with many of your points. Yes, the hatemonger must retain the right to assemble peaceably and spout hate – or else I've lost mine to march against George W Bush's war.

I guess where I am the liberal and you the libertarian, though, is that I see the marketplace with its many vitally necessary exchanges as being much more subject to regulation than speech is. Rod Parsley, Jeremiah Wright, they have a near-absolute right to say vile things (as do Danish cartoonists and Ahmadinejad). But when one takes that into the mall and says "no Muslims need apply to work, or get their photo taken at, this studio," it's the thin end of a wedge that can serve to exploit people materially as well as insult them as humans – to deny them their economic rights as free people, which is how all segregation, apartheid, and ghettoization works.

I wish this thread would die, if only so it would drop off the sidebar. I imagine that's been said a bunch, but I ain't scrolling through 58 pages of posts to count.

I've read most of it, don't remember seeing anyone wish for it to die...if anything it's been the opposite, to the point where I feel a tinge on guilt for making a non-substantive post that's only serving to push us closer to the record. So one quick substantive comment.

I draw at telling a private business owner how they have to run their business.

That sounds soooooo sexy until you realize that they're running their business by not hiring/serving people based on the color of their skin, nationality, gender, hint of a lisp in their voice that makes the homophobic employer think the person's gay. So again, instead of tyranny of the majority, you've got tyranny of the property owners. Sweet, sign me up. Because we all know it takes a really advanced understanding of one's own long-term self-interest to start a business. And long-term, business owners will recognize that they're at a competitive disadvantage if they're not serving Bosnians, so it's OK not to in the short term.

Crosby, very nice post and I don't think we're very far away. My post wasn't directed at the more moderate libertarians here.

I think you are mischaracterizing even the most aggressive libertarians on BBTF.

I wasn't trying to characterize your view. I was characterizing one person's view specifically. Does anyone remember who equated building a ramp with slavery? Everyone else to the left of that position I think fits in with the following, which I think was the thrust of my post:

There are two ways in which everyone who is advocating opposite positions are divided in principle. The first is fundamental. Should the restriction of individual rights for the public good be limited to what is necessary, or what is reasonable? The second is hashing out what circumstances represent "necessary" or "reasonable."

I agree absolutely. But claiming that printing money that blind people can recognize is encouraging them to be dependent on the government, and characterizing any disabled person who has the audacity to demand (not come groveling and begging) access as wanting to enslave the business owner is patently absurd and misleading.

I don't think that all claims made by all handicapped people ever are right and reasonable. But I do think that the principle of equal access is a reasonable one.

Within certain limits. Even the most ardent disabled-rights advocate can recognize extreme situations that would not justify the cost of supplying such access.

Isn't that would I said? Look, I take my sister all over NYC when she comes to visit, and at least 70% of the businesses there are inaccessible (depending on the neighborhood- midtown isn't much of a problem but the East Village- where it's way more interesting- can be tough). I understand that in a lot of situations, it's just not possible to modify the structure without incurring an absurdly high cost. Most of the time it goes by without incident, because she's light and if it's only 5 or 6 stairs, and she rally wants to go into the place, I can get her in and we make due. A lot of these places are old, and it's completely understandable. A little effort goes a long way too. But when the attitude of the business is that she has no right to expect access to the store, when, when they basically tell us they don't want her in there b/c her legs don't work, then we have a problem, and it's great to have ADA on our side to be able to say we have a right to expect access. It functions as a legitimation tool- "this is the law, we are not second-class citizens."

Again, to draw a line under it, we can usually get by w/out incident. There's a lot of places she just can't go, and a lot of places where it's difficult for her to go but very nice people go out of their way to help her access. But if they're doing new construction, and it's up to ADA code, she won't have to rely on the random kindness of strangers to get into a restaurant. It's great when it's there, but when it's not, it sucks, and it can produce a crisis where there should be none. And when people go out of their way to make her not feel like a burden, they're always well-compensated for it because we can afford it, and we're hoping that the next person who comes along will get similar service, and maybe not be able to tip as well for it.

When there is mutual recognition of the validity of the other party's situation, you can compromise. If not, it comes down to force, and the business owner can force their views on the potential patron if the government isn't there to push back. This goes back to my more property=more rights issue with a pure free market system. As the distribution of wealth is necessarily unequal in this system, it will always grant more rights to property holders.

Some people do believe that, and up in the North East at least, most do not join, or if they do, do not stay long with anti-immigrant groups since they quickly realize that such groups are motivated by racism.

I live in the North East and know many, many people who are strongly against illegal immigration. I don't know a single person who's in an "anti-immigrant group". Honestly, I've never even heard of such a thing in my geographic area. I'm sure people exist who oppose illegal immigration out of xenophobia or anti-latino racism, but I really don't know what you're talking about here. I've heard of the Minutemen group, but my understanding was that they were located in the Southwest.

Why should a consumer be allowed to not do business with someone just because they don't like them if a business person has to do business with those they don't like?

But conversely, bunyon, what's wrong with "your money's good here?" That seems like a minimally-invasive way of regulating a free market.

Not supporting government prohibition of a behavior is not remotely similar to endorsing that behavior

These go together. I, like you, can't really imagine a guy running a coffee shop refusing to sell a cup of joe to whomever. I definitely would be a "your money's good here" kind of guy (meaning I'd sell to all the pinko commie liberals - :)

But my deciding to be that open and inclusive guy is a personal decision, not one forced on me. With that, I'm off to lunch. Maybe you'll all pass Katrina while I'm out.

I don't see how you can possibly dispute the argument; it's not even a controversial one. What on earth do you think explains African poverty, if not lack of property rights and free markets?

I don't know, the complete economic and societal disruption caused by the slave trade and later colonization?

Oddly enough, to be fair to DMN, that's what caused the complete fracturing of property rights and free markets on the first place...

Agreed. Hitting customers over the head and stealing their wallets should not be allowed unless the customer freely entered into a contract in which such tasks were performed.

Oh no, that's next door. It's being-hit-on-the-head lessons in here.

I wasn't trying to characterize your view. I was characterizing one person's view specifically. Does anyone remember who equated building a ramp with slavery?

Technically, I supported that logic as well. If anything, my definition of slavery is even more inclusive than DMN's.

I wouldn't use "equated" because it reads like the slave trade and the most insignificant tax represent the same intensity of moral evil, and nobody has taken that position. Saying that a pebble and a mountain are both composed of rock doesn't make them the same size.

What on earth do you think explains African poverty, if not lack of property rights and free markets?

When you define your terms, we can start talking about this. The imposition of contractual definitions of private property "legitimately" robbed Africa of a lot of its natural resources.

The underlying premise there is obviously the standard liberal belief, and obviously 100% wrong. It's the least fortunate who benefit the most from its existence, not the most fortunate.

I know you've convinced yourself of this, but spend a week being "less fortunate" and tell me how much it's benefiting you. Spend a week without the use of your eyes, or a week working for minimum wage with a 40 minute commute each way to work and come back and give us a report on how well the less fortunate live.

I wouldn't use "equated" because it reads like the slave trade and the most insignificant tax represent the same intensity of moral evil, and nobody has taken that position.

This is, if I'm reading you right, the brilliant argument that lets you claim slavery is giving 1/4 of your labor to the government in the form of taxes, but working for someone who only allows you to keep 1/4 of the value you produce isn't slavery simply because of some contract that you "agreed" to...if taxes are slavery, so is "free" market capitalism...

The contract if not some Galactacus-type "Ultimate Nullifier" that means we stop asking questions about the morality of the arrangement. Unless of course you're a lawyer who needs a good story to sleep at night...

In a stunning bit of great news for lovers of freedom and liberty, a three judge panel in a Texas Appeals Court unanimously ruled that the bull-dyke CPS fascists in Texas overstepped their bounds when they seized those hundreds of FLDS children on the basis of that phony phone call!

It is a great day for American families all across the land. I hope those stinking rotten government bureaucrats have to pay a steep price for the crap they tried to pull.

Before you even jumped into this, I said I was willing to accommodate licensed CO pharmacists, as long as they meet their customers halfway and provide them with a reasonably accessible alternative source for their prescription. You dismissed this compromise with a figurative wave of the hand.

I don't quite get what the "compromise" is or how you're meeting them "halfway." I don't want to sell contraception. You want me to sell it to you. I'm forced to sell it to you. Where exactly is the compromise?

And then you manage to say that JC is unfair for saying that you don't respect the pharmacists because he can't read your mind at the same time you say that you don't judge respect by internal factors but by external ones. If "respect is as respect does," then you don't respect them. Neither in word -- by assuming that they won't sell contraception because they think women are "trollopes" -- nor in deed.

You're very like your new hero Mr. Obama; Obama always talks about respecting those on the opposite side of the aisle, about bipartisanship. But by that he doesn't mean that he cares what they think; he means that he wants them to feel that he cares what they think, so that they won't feel so bad when he ignores what they think and does what he would have done anyway.

In a stunning bit of great news for lovers of freedom and liberty

I don't think it's a good or bad day for lovers of freedom and liberty

On the one hand I think there needs to be quite a bit more to go on before the Government seizes children from their parents.

On the otherhand, the FLDS most certainly do not believe in freedom and liberty...

We now know the difference between "spiritual adviser" and "spiritual guide," thanks to Senator John McCain.

Context, Andy, context. Consider each context in which the actual words were spoken by McCain.

Hagee is not to McCain as Wright is to Obama, no matter how desperate you are to pretend otherwise.

(Not that I think McCain comes off looking great with the Hagee thing, but nobody with a clue honestly thinks the two situations are the same.)

As I pointed out to JC, they're not "asking." They're demanding. They're forcing. There's an infinite difference between the two.

Because lord knows, when someone down on their luck or with a disability and not working or supporting the free market asks a libertarian for help, they just leap right up with a smile on their face and a song in their heart.

I get that it was a big part of the civil rights movement and I wouldn't frequent a place that refused to serve blacks, gays, women, whatever, but I'm not comfortable telling people (like the photographer above) that they can have whatever belief they like, but they can't put those beliefs into practice. It's like saying, you can believe in God, but you can't go to church. If the state gets to dictate to you how you live your life, it gives them all sorts of power that I'm not comfortable with.

FWIW, I don't think it is a crystal clear line. The state obviously has an interest in controlling behavior that directly harms another person. What that includes is the debate I suppose. I could see a person making an argument that a diner is more public than a photographer.

Imagine a vegan photographer is asked to photograph a ceremony that includes a pig roast - could the photographer refuse?

You're right that it's often not a "crystal clear line," at least not to the vast majority of people. But I think that when you look at the consequences of specific discriminatory acts, the line usually becomes easier to see. And society, by its laws, will (or should) reflect those differing consequences.

To take two crude examples, the harm to a black person forced to drive an extra hour on the highway just to find a place to eat or relieve himself is one thing. This situation was commonplace in the Jim Crow (pre-1964) era. The harm done to a gay person to have his wedding ceremony photographed by any given photographer is another altogether, especially in a town with many other available choices.

I should specify that here I'm talking about material harm, not the psychological variety. I can't presume to measure the latter.

In both cases, you have the opposing right of the private business operator. But beyond that, the two cases diverge pretty quickly, even though the underlying (competing) principles remain identical. This is why when they held hearings on the civil rights act, they rightly didn't limit their witnesses to philosophers and legal scholars. The congressmen rightly wanted to know the practical effects of this particular form of private discrimination before passing the bill. Laws have to reflect conditions beyond the hothouse of the theoretical marketplace.

And conditions can change. Though for many reasons I wouldn't favor a repeal of the 1964 CRA, the practical effect of such a repeal today would be infinitesimal compared to what it would have been had it never been enacted in the first place. Sometimes you simply need a law to goose societal standards up to a certain level, and it's mildly ironic that the only reason that we have a lesser "need" for laws like this today is because we had the sense to enact them back when they were really "needed" in the first place. It would be nice if this point were a bit more widely acknowledged by 21st century libertarians.

We now know the difference between "spiritual adviser" and "spiritual guide," thanks to Senator John McCain.

Context, Andy, context. Consider each context in which the actual words were spoken by McCain.

I guess you were running out of ink when you omitted the remarks I was referring to, but fortunately I have a good supply of cartridges, so here they are again:

Some have compared Mr. Hagee’s remarks with those of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., the former pastor of the Democratic presidential front-runner, Senator Barack Obama. But Mr. McCain said his relationship with Mr. Hagee was different.

“I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright’s extreme views,” Mr. McCain said in his statement. “But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual adviser, and I did not attend his church for 20 years.”

Mr. McCain has been courting Christian conservatives after attacking them eight years ago as “agents of intolerance.” At a speech last year before Mr. Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, he thanked Mr. Hagee for his “spiritual guidance to politicians like me” and said, “It’s hard to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan.”

Yes, I can see the distinction. Obama was thanking Rev. Wright for being his "spiritual advisor" in matters that even his detractors agree did not extend to Wright's extreme political views.

Whereas McCain's "spiritual guidance" remark was in the "context" of begging Rev. Hagee specifically for his political support, at a time when two seconds worth of googling could have told him what this "spiritual" guide's political views were.

And here's a hint: Those views weren't very pretty.

I'm glad to see that McCain has now figured it all out, and I'm more than willing to extend to him the same sort of pass that I'd extend to my own favorite candidate. But I'll leave it to you and your brothers to spin that contextual "distinction" you're talking about in McCain's favor.

nobody with a clue honestly thinks the two situations are the same

I think it's a kind of sauce-for-the-goose issue. Wright says some goofy or hateful thing, and Obama rightly gets ripped for it, talks thoughtfully about it, gets ripped some more. McCain says that the goofy Hagee offers spiritual guidance and that the hateful Parsley is a "moral compass" and ... and we're just supposed to think that (a) McCain is so full of it that we're not supposed to believe what he said, which is part of his maverick charm; (b) insulation from hateful religious associates applies to WASP politicians but not to the call-and-response crowd; or (c) what Hagee and Parsley said isn't nearly as bad as "God Damn America" for slavery, Jim Crow, etc. Or all of the above. I agree with the point someone expressed above: where these people go to church is of minor concern to me. But if one of them presses the issue of guilt-by-association, they gotta expect to be pressed back.

A three judge panel in a Texas Appeals Court unanimously ruled that the bull-dyke CPS fascists in Texas...

Regardless of what happened in Texas, Joey, I've known more than a few bull dykes, and none of them would be seen dead with any fascists. Although watching them beat the hell out of you if you used that comparison to their face might be fun.

Also, thank god those men are now free to screw 14-year-olds, I guess, is that what you are cheering about? If the call was phony, I hadn't heard that.

Although watching them beat the hell out of you if you used that comparison to their face might be fun.

They'd better bring their guns to pull that off. It would be even easier for me than it would be to scramble your fukkin' brains.

#5756: First time I ever put any BTF poster on ignore.

On the one hand I think there needs to be quite a bit more to go on before the Government seizes children from their parents.

On the otherhand, the FLDS most certainly do not believe in freedom and liberty...

Pretty much where I sit, too. I think the government overreacted, but I hold absolutely no brief for what Brother Jeffs, et. al., have done.

-- MWE

I guess you were running out of ink when you omitted the remarks I was referring to, but fortunately I have a good supply of cartridges, so here they are again:

Thanks. Now that you've wasted the ink, I'll provide the same response:

Context, Andy, context. Consider each context in which the actual words were spoken by McCain.

Whereas McCain's "spiritual guidance" remark was in the "context" of begging Rev. Hagee specifically for his political support, at a time when two seconds worth of googling could have told him what this "spiritual" guide's political views were.

Now you're starting to get it. In one setting when McCain used the language, he was kissing up to someone in order to get votes (which I find annoying, but whatever). In another setting when McCain used the language, he was referring to the lack of a 20-year relationship. The fact that similar language was used in both settings is meaningless, since communication involves more than mere words; context is important (among other things).

I'm glad to see that McCain has now figured it all out, and I'm more than willing to extend to him the same sort of pass that I'd extend to my own favorite candidate.

But McCain doesn't need a "pass," since the two situations are completely different.

But I'll leave it to you and your brothers to spin that contextual "distinction" you're talking about in McCain's favor.

Oh, please. I carry no water for McCain. One of you and me is voting for one of the two candidates at issue here, and it ain't me.

This is, if I'm reading you right, the brilliant argument that lets you claim slavery is giving 1/4 of your labor to the government in the form of taxes, but working for someone who only allows you to keep 1/4 of the value you produce isn't slavery simply because of some contract that you "agreed" to...if taxes are slavery, so is "free" market capitalism...

Your quotation marks are on the wrong words.

You don't "give" your labor to the government. They take it with or without your consent.

Similarly, the employer doesn't "allow you to keep a portion of the value you produce," he offers certain compensation for certain labor, and you choose either to accept that offer or seek a better one. If he grossly underestimates the value of your labor, others will bid more aggressively for your services, and he'll be without employees.

The contract if not some Galactacus-type "Ultimate Nullifier" that means we stop asking questions about the morality of the arrangement. Unless of course you're a lawyer who needs a good story to sleep at night...

I am a lawyer, and as I've said before in this thread, we already acknowledge restrictions on the legitimacy of a contract. That you want more than I'm willing to pay doesn't mean that a contract between us is not legitimate. It may very well be that I'm a nasty, immoral person to value my profit margin more highly than your unfortunate situation, but that in itself doesn't mean that I forced you to agree.

There is an argument that individuals have a moral obligation to provide assistance to those less fortunate than themselves, and if they fail to live up to that obligation, society cannot survive. We may disagree on the degree or type of assistance, or how disadvantaged the person must be, but I support that position in a general sense. The place where we differ is in defining the circumstances where it becomes appropriate for society to compel individuals to provide that assistance. It is still compulsion. Being forced to labor for another without consent is still slavery.

If I could cure cancer by stealing a penny from your pocket, almost everyone would consider the theft justified. It would still be theft. The taking itself would still be morally wrong, despite the net positive result. That it is a small taking doesn't mean it isn't a taking. That it provides a great boon to others doesn't mean it isn't a taking. It doesn't mean that you consented either.

They'd better bring their guns to pull that off. It would be even easier for me than it would be to scramble your fukkin' brains.

Hee! Here is where I'm thinking that mother's basement stereotype might be appropriate. You obviously don't know much about actual bull dykes. Thanks for the threat, though, that was pretty hilarious. You want to scramble my brains? That barely makes any sense.

What on earth do you think explains African poverty, if not lack of property rights and free markets?

When you define your terms, we can start talking about this. The imposition of contractual definitions of private property "legitimately" robbed Africa of a lot of its natural resources.

Even if you don't agree with my terms or think that they're not derived properly, you know how I define them, so you don't need me to do so again. As for your second claim, not only is it garbage, but it's also irrelevant. "Natural resources" are not what make a country wealthy, as Africa continues to demonstrate on a daily basis. Nor is a history of colonialism what makes a country poor. Check Korea for a nice counterexample. (South, not North, although the South-North comparison helps make my point quite nicely.)

The underlying premise there is obviously the standard liberal belief, and obviously 100% wrong. It's the least fortunate who benefit the most from its existence, not the most fortunate.

I know you've convinced yourself of this, but spend a week being "less fortunate" and tell me how much it's benefiting you. Spend a week without the use of your eyes, or a week working for minimum wage with a 40 minute commute each way to work and come back and give us a report on how well the less fortunate live.

I didn't say that the less fortunate live well. I said that they benefit from society more than the more fortunate do.

To take that famous liberal trope of Somalia: obviously the more fortunate and less fortunate would both prefer the U.S. to Somalia -- but in relative terms, the blind would suffer far more from being there than the able would. The poor would suffer far more from being there than the rich would. A "fortunate" person in Somalia can still live reasonably well, while it really sucks to be poor/disabled. Because if the worst thing you can think of is commuting for 40 minutes for minimum wage (I wish I commuted for 40 minutes, btw), then Somalia is going to be a hell of a surprise.

I wouldn't use "equated" because it reads like the slave trade and the most insignificant tax represent the same intensity of moral evil, and nobody has taken that position.

This is, if I'm reading you right, the brilliant argument that lets you claim slavery is giving 1/4 of your labor to the government in the form of taxes, but working for someone who only allows you to keep 1/4 of the value you produce isn't slavery simply because of some contract that you "agreed" to...if taxes are slavery, so is "free" market capitalism...

Because you agreed -- not "agreed" -- to it, it by definition is not slavery. He's not "allowing" you to keep 1/4th of anything; he's trading you an amount of money for an amount of your labor. The government, on the other hand, isn't trading you anything. It's simply taking from you at gunpoint. Maybe it will give something back to you; maybe that something will even be something you want. Maybe not. But either way, it isn't voluntary.

Because lord knows, when someone down on their luck or with a disability and not working or supporting the free market asks a libertarian for help, they just leap right up with a smile on their face and a song in their heart.

Now you're just being a schmuck. Libertarians are no less generous than you are. (Indeed, Arthur Brooks has found that small government types are significantly more generous than big government supporters.) I give plenty to charity, in money and time. (And that doesn't even count my charitable attempts to teach philosophy and economics to the left-wing cheering section at BTF.)

... or not providing money to any particular pharmacist or wedding photographer

I am not far off on this, as I have posted - but the above implies an efficient market. What if every photographer refuses to photograph the gay wedding? What if no contraceptives are available?

Can the government intervene to correct market inefficiencies? Or is this against libertarian ideals as well?

Note that I am not implying that New Mexico is correct in forcing the photographer to take pictures...

I think it's a kind of sauce-for-the-goose issue. Wright says some goofy or hateful thing, and Obama rightly gets ripped for it, talks thoughtfully about it, gets ripped some more. McCain says that the goofy Hagee offers spiritual guidance and that the hateful Parsley is a "moral compass" and ... and we're just supposed to think that (a) McCain is so full of it that we're not supposed to believe what he said, which is part of his maverick charm; (b) insulation from hateful religious associates applies to WASP politicians but not to the call-and-response crowd; or (c) what Hagee and Parsley said isn't nearly as bad as "God Damn America" for slavery, Jim Crow, etc. Or all of the above. I agree with the point someone expressed above: where these people go to church is of minor concern to me. But if one of them presses the issue of guilt-by-association, they gotta expect to be pressed back.

And in this case the only candidate doing any guilt-by-association pressing is John McCain.
I wonder how many minutes Steffi and Gibby will devote to the Hagee "issue" in the next ABC-sponsored "debate," and how many cluck-clucks Charles Kluckhammer will kluck in his next column.

---------------------

Context, Andy, context. Consider each context in which the actual words were spoken by McCain.

Whereas McCain's "spiritual guidance" remark was in the "context" of begging Rev. Hagee specifically for his political support, at a time when two seconds worth of googling could have told him what this "spiritual" guide's political views were.

Now you're starting to get it. In one setting when McCain used the language, he was kissing up to someone in order to get votes (which I find annoying, but whatever).

I can't possibly improve on that last sentence of yours, Ray, and I won't try. That was a 10 on the Primey scale. I can only wonder what doesn't annoy you, or what prompts you to go beyond mere annoyance.

Sorry, JC, but this is more than a bit disingenuous. You seem far more interested in berating my "condescension" than you are in actually engaging the topic at hand. I feel like I'm trying to grab hold of an eel.

Uh, ########? The topic was your casual dismissal of a view you oppose and your disrespectful characterization of people who hold that view. And I don't have to read your mind when you place "Christian" in scare quotes and pretend they regard people as trollopes and otherwise insult them. Why can't you just acknowledge that you engaged in the same kind of smearing of others' views you've shown the nasty Republicans to favor?

As to the particular issue, as I said, I'm not sure what I think. I can see both sides to this, even the one that may conclude eventually Christians (or similarly disposed folk) of this kind may not be able to be pharmacists.

regard people as trollopes

Please, everyone, can we spell "trollop" correctly? I'm getting this image of someone walking into a pharmacy and being treated like a Victorian novelist.

Also, thank god those men are now free to screw 14-year-olds, I guess, is that what you are cheering about? If the call was phony, I hadn't heard that.

You hadn't? News travels slowly through an ideological cocoon, I guess. Google "Rozita Swinton." A woman with a pattern of making these sorts of hoax calls to implicate religious groups in child abuse. (And an Obama supporter/delegate.)

As for "free to screw 14-year olds," that isn't even an uncharitable reading of the ruling; it's just making-stuff-up. There's precious little evidence that this actually ever happened at the Yearning for Zion ranch, but in any case, all that happened here is that the court ruled that the state can't seize hundreds of children from scores of families because someone with the same religion as those people might have done something wrong. The law requires evidence of imminent harm. But that's not what happened here. In fact, the court found that child services admitted that their rationale for removing most of the children was that child services didn't like their religious views.

I'm getting this image of someone walking into a pharmacy and being treated like a Victorian novelist.

Although, if that's the standard pharmacists want to adhere to, I'm cool with that.

I think it's a kind of sauce-for-the-goose issue. Wright says some goofy or hateful thing, and Obama rightly gets ripped for it, talks thoughtfully about it, gets ripped some more.

Now ask yourself why something Wright said was an issue for Obama.

As for the "talks thoughtfully about it" bit, he threw much of the Philly speech out the window when he denounced Wright.

McCain says that the goofy Hagee offers spiritual guidance and that the hateful Parsley is a "moral compass" and ... and we're just supposed to think that (a) McCain is so full of it that we're not supposed to believe what he said, which is part of his maverick charm; (b) insulation from hateful religious associates applies to WASP politicians but not to the call-and-response crowd; or (c) what Hagee and Parsley said isn't nearly as bad as "God Damn America" for slavery, Jim Crow, etc. Or all of the above.

Try (d) there was no 20 year relationship with Hagee or Parsley.

I agree with the point someone expressed above: where these people go to church is of minor concern to me. But if one of them presses the issue of guilt-by-association, they gotta expect to be pressed back.

This isn't "pressing" back. This dishonest criticism (the dishonest part being pretending the 20 year relationship isn't the difference) is a gnat that McCain is trying to brush away.

Because lord knows, when someone down on their luck or with a disability and not working or supporting the free market asks a libertarian for help, they just leap right up with a smile on their face and a song in their heart.

Kindness is what you do yourself, not what you force others to do at the barrel of a gun.

Thinking about the pharmacist still. Andy seems perturbed that this pharmacist might be the only one available. In that case, could the pharmacist simply go out of business? If, when told that he/she must sell the day after pill or lose his/her license, that pharmacist said, "Okay, I'm no longer a pharmacist. Shut the doors," would that be okay? Isn't the net result the same for the trollope who needs a pill?

there was no 20 year relationship with Hagee or Parsley

Oh for crying out loud. I don't have a 20-year relationship with David Nieporent, either, but if I describe him casually as my moral compass, I will have to take the downside with the upside.

the trollope who needs a pill?

The Trollope who needs a Pill
Was once as healthy as we.
When they said, "Some day you may feel quite ill,"
He replied, "Fish-fiddle-dee-dee!
"For I know the Chemist in Quangle Lane,
"And I know if ever I feel a pain
"He will minister to me."

Oh for crying out loud. I don't have a 20-year relationship with David Nieporent, either, but if I describe him casually as my moral compass, I will have to take the downside with the upside.

Wait, what downside?

the above implies an efficient market. What if every photographer refuses to photograph the gay wedding? What if no contraceptives are available?

I believe libertarians would see it as "minor injustice" (someone didn't get what they wanted for reasons we, as observers, may not like) instead of "major injustice" (someone was compelled to do work s/he did not wish to do).

It's funny. On the one hand, there's this view that if enough of the people want something (say, for a small group of people not to privately discriminate against a particular group), then the will of the majority should be heeded and the small group should be compelled. On the other hand, if a majority of the people want something else (for a small group of people not to get what they see as "special privileges"), then the will of the majority is labeled 'group-ist' and ought to be ignored for the purposes of fairness.

I dunno. It seems to me that the libertarian position is more logically consistent on this point. (I.e., the ends never justify the means. Even if we have an unjust result, we cannot take unjust means to correct it. The alternative puts us in the position of having to choose which unjust means are worth which unjust ends, and which ones are not, and the means for determining the answer to that is inherently unfair -- either the majority imposes its will on a minority or a minority enforces its will on a majority, but either way involves compulsion).

And yet, if we adopt this libertarian position, it seems entirely possible that "unjust" results will occur that, barring real consensus, we cannot eliminate. (Except that the liberarian would ask what makes the results "unjust?" Must we all live the same life, have the same successes? Insert libertarian analogy to l'Engle's Camazotz here). It's difficult to trust to "society" to fix what we feel to be unjust -- of course, we can always give away our own wealth/time to try to fix the unjustices we see, and then we haven't been compelled by the government but by our own convictions...

What am I misunderstanding? (Plenty, I'm sure).

(Again I find it funny that Quakerism -- which tends to be fairly to the left politically -- and libertarianism -- which apparently tends to lie to the right -- both share a dislike of majority rule. I need to remember to see how some Quakers respond to this next time I visit the East Coast).

As for the "talks thoughtfully about it" bit, he threw much of the Philly speech out the window when he denounced Wright.

No, he didn't, but having it explained to you before didn't help. This is how you view it.

Wait, what downside?

That's funny, because I was typing "Wait, what upside?"

When the Fred Schwarz Thread began:

The phrase "Bittergate" had just been coined, and the Pennsylvania Primary was still eleven days in the future.

John Archibald Wheeler was still alive.

I had a different handle.

Gas was $3.69 a gallon.

The Yankees were half a game out of first place.

There were only 43 states in the Union.

Human beings lived in caves and made clothing from woven reeds.

And yet, if we adopt this libertarian position, it seems entirely possible that "unjust" results will occur that, barring real consensus, we cannot eliminate.

I think you sum it up pretty well. Only I'd add that majority rulz won't (and hasn't) eliminated all unjust results, either. Also, I don't believe any libertarian ever suggested liberty would prevent unjust actions. It seems a pretty high standard and a standard to which no other political philosophy is held.

Thinking about the pharmacist still. Andy seems perturbed that this pharmacist might be the only one available. In that case, could the pharmacist simply go out of business? If, when told that he/she must sell the day after pill or lose his/her license, that pharmacist said, "Okay, I'm no longer a pharmacist. Shut the doors," would that be okay? Isn't the net result the same for the trollope who needs a pill?

For the trollope perhaps.* But at least liberals will get to feel good about themselves. Sure, they wound up putting a guy out of business, deprived a community of its only pharmacy, and the trollope is still knocked up. The important thing is they meant well.


*I don't think I'll ever be able to properly spell the word again. Trollope is much more fun.

I give plenty to charity, in money and time.

I wasn't talking about the Cato Institute. The National Association of Landlords or whatever doesn't count either.

If you are giving to charities that help out people who can't work or need public assistance, I apologize.

I am a lawyer, and as I've said before in this thread, we already acknowledge restrictions on the legitimacy of a contract. That you want more than I'm willing to pay doesn't mean that a contract between us is not legitimate.

But the circumstances that I "freely" entered into the contract under, as the assumption is one of freedom, are certainly worth considering. People "freely" surrender all sorts of things all of the time because they are in a state of compromised autonomy. Again, the slip between moral and contractual reasoning makes it problematic- the way that "free" is defined matters. Were you coerced by an external force to enter into the relationship? Do you "freely" give your taxes to the government? If you opted not to, what would the consequences be? The fact that I would starve if I don't agree to surrender a significant portion of my labor to you compels me to labor. Society is arranged in such a way that our autonomy is always compromised. It makes no sense to speak of freedom as absolute.

without consent is still slavery.

You can't ignore the circumstances that brought about that consent. You consent to pay taxes when you open a business. If you don't want to, you're free not to open the business. No one has dealt with the Native American question- this was the ultimate swindle, and the legitimacy of anyone's claim to land (and thus the profit that they made on that land, t/f, their property) comes from the legitimacy of that original contract, and the freedom of both parties involved. I'm saying those conditions are important and just can't be washed away...

FMJ, you really are that thick:
Because you agreed -- not "agreed" -- to it, it by definition is not slavery. He's not "allowing" you to keep 1/4th of anything; he's trading you an amount of money for an amount of your lab

By definition still being the problem. As long as we accept your made-up definitions, it's all cool. You can always point to the dictionary again...

(I wish I commuted for 40 minutes, btw)

Dude, STFU. Smallest violin. Seriously. You can afford a place closer to your job, and don't pretend you can't. You think the person working at Duane Reade on Fulton Street can afford to live in the Financial District?

I said that they benefit from society more than the more fortunate do.
Society is what has allowed the fortunate to be where they are- infrastructure, communication, ect, ect. All the things that existed when they were born into this world that allowed someone with their particular skills and gifts to succeed. This is just where we differ- I don't think my success (meager as it is at this point) is completely my own doing the way you do.

(And that doesn't even count my charitable attempts to teach philosophy and economics to the left-wing cheering section at BTF.)

Fantastic job so far FMJ. You've reminded me to never regret my decision to ditch law school in favor of an education that teaches you how to do more than con people out of their money and then call it "fair."

Dan,
Kindness is what you do yourself, not what you force others to do at the barrel of a gun.

Until you've been forced to do anything at the barrel of a gun, chill out on the rhetoric. You'd ####### #### yourself at the barrel of a gun...and don't give me this "figurative" ########. Y'all have been going off on the materiality of your labor and how you're entitled to it and the government steals it from you at makes you slave for them. Another terrible day in America for white guys with money and an education...

If you are giving to charities that help out people who can't work or need public assistance, I apologize.

I think he does work with the illiterate.

The fact that I would starve if I don't agree to surrender a significant portion of my labor to you compels me to labor. Society is arranged in such a way that our autonomy is always compromised. It makes no sense to speak of freedom as absolute.

This is BS of the highest order. Yes, it's true that one must survive. But we all operate under that circumstance. The fact that I'll die if I don't eat compels me to find food. But that isn't someone else compelling me, that is the simple fact of life. Dressing it up as if society created the rules of biology and then waxing philosophic about it is idiocy.

What would happen if I don't pay my taxes? Well, I'd be arrested. If I resisted arrest an officer of the law would remove his weapon and compel me to surrender. I could continue resisting and die or go with them to jail. You argue that if I pay taxes under this system that "I'm agreeing to pay taxes" and yet you think that someone who goes to work for someone else so as to earn money for food has been compelled somehow. You're logic is absurd.

They'd better bring their guns to pull that off. It would be even easier for me than it would be to scramble your fukkin' brains.

Confirming my longstanding suspicion that Joey B is, in fact, twelve.

Society is arranged in such a way that our autonomy is always compromised. It makes no sense to speak of freedom as absolute.

dp, much of the way you approach this discussion, and some of your turns of phrase, lead me to think that like zenbitz, you're to some degree or another a (crypto?) Marxist; is that a fair assumption?

Again, this isn't really a gotcha question, I was just thinking that this thread looked a lot like what I would have expected of an extended argument between a Libertarian and a Marxist.

I think he does work with the illiterate.

Well played, sir.

I've been reading a lot about the Farm Bill lately, and i think that may be one issue where every single poster on this thread may be in agreement. Has there ever been a piece of legislation so hated by thoughtful people on both sides that met so little opposition in congress? Can someone point me to a thoughtful argument in favor of it? I haven't seen one.

Confirming my longstanding suspicion that Joey B is, in fact, twelve.

If so, he'll probably be a socialist by the time he's 18.
Probably because some chick he's hot for is one...

If he's already 18+, sadly he'll probably always be what he is now, whatever that is.

bunyon - what does it matter whom or what compells you, as long as you are compelled? You are compelled to eat lest you die; you are compelled to pay your taxes lest you be imprisoned.

f_dp's point was not the converse of "taxes are theft and wages aren't" is that they are both (slightly different) forms of coercion.

Furthermore, unless you are an anarchist - not all taxes are involuntary and therefore theft - I have yet to see a libertarian argue that people shouldn't pay taxes for police and fire services. So really all you are arguing is that you disagree with the magnitude and use of your taxes. Like everyone else.

Until you've been forced to do anything at the barrel of a gun, chill out on the rhetoric. You'd ####### #### yourself at the barrel of a gun...and don't give me this "figurative" ########.

It's not figurative, it's literal. The power of the government to seize my things is done with the force of their superior arms.

If you are giving to charities that help out people who can't work or need public assistance, I apologize.

My AGI has never been above 40K and I've never donated less than 10% of my income in a year since I was 16. I've volunteered a ton of time and food to the Maryland Food Bank over the years and I spent practically every Friday night while I was in college playing piano for the seniors at the nursing home where my grandmother was living because of Alzheimer's. I can't count how many hours of free tutoring I gave out to kids.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of being told how selfish I am, simply because I value the freedoms of a lot of people here a lot more than they value mine. And as long as we're playing stereotypes, I saw a lot of nice liberal kids from Goucher or Towson from white, upper-class families try to volunteer and 9 times out of 10, you'd never see them a second time because helping those less fortunate than you isn't about spreading awareness and simply caring, it's work. Helping people is peeling potatoes and stacking cans and helping people learn, not giving other people's stuff away, listening to a Live Aid concert, or having an Obamagasm.