"Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!" wrote in message
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From:
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 08:45:57 GMT

That someone would refuse tol hire or serve someone soley on the basis of
skin color is a ridiculous notion and only idiots would behave that way.

And idiots do behave that way, even with the current laws.

That being said, your friend's position is correct. Forcing people to
hire
and/or serve those they choose not to doesn't make them love them any more
or remove the bigotry. Capitalism, however is color blind and it was
evident that capitalism was moving towards breaking down racist barriers
when the government stepped in.

Just as it was in South Africa, another capitalist country.

Did the world not apply pressure and cause change?

(Oh, wait.
That wasn't a market correction.) So a business stops serving 12% of
the potential market (in the case of blacks nationwide, or less locally
where I am). Your position is the other 88% would rush to their aid,
stop buying from the store (or whatever business), and that business
would fail.

Is it your position that no white South Africans were for giving black
South Africans their full human rights, and that doing so exposed them to
horror and brutality from the white government?


That night work if only one business did it. I personally think in some
locations a whole bunch would.

Certainly there was ample reason for the Federal government to act on
behalf
of making sure all people who wanted to could vote and that all the rights

Why wouldn't that market (of potential voters) have followed your same
rationale as your business model?

With South Africa there was pressure from within and without. Like most
real life situations there were some people on both sides who were less than
heroic.


guaranteed under the Consitiution were being granted to all persons.
There
is however no civil right to shop or trespass on the private property of
those who would refuse to grant someone access to do business. The
concept
of public place first had to be corrupted to mean any place open to the
public, instead of places supported by public tax money.

There is no civil right to own a business either.

I disagree. If there is one right it is the right to property and a
business is property.

But I see in your
mind that he who as the gold, makes the rules.

NO, in my mind the rules are to make sure that no matter how much gold or
how little one has, the same rules apply.

And it doesn't matter
that certain classes of people have always been and are to this day
(although to a lesser extent, thanks to laws) excluded from
participating.

See above.

Here's a secret: I don't believe the liberals get it either. They're
just a step closer than the conservatives, or apparently, the
libertarians. But you can't package a program or a set of laws and say
the job's done, either.

Not so long as there is freedom, there will always be people who choose to
believe nonsense. That a man's character is determined by skin color rather
than the content of his character, is one such nonsensical belief.

A restaruant, a movie theatre, or any business thatis owned by a private
person or persons, is not a public place, it is private property and
people
have the right to be assholes and refuse to take the money of patrons who
are not wanted for whatever reason.

They should also, therefore, have the right to do whatever else they
like.

Only so long as they don't violate the rights of others.

Prostitution with minors, sexual harrassment (she could work
elsewhere, after all), drugs, serving alcohol regardless of age, cock
fights... There are a whole host of laws that should be stricken, yes?

You listed some that should and some that shouldn't. Are you not able to
focus on which is which?

And those damned Hollywood liberals keep bringing up child labor laws
and sweat shops.

The laws that once passed caused families to either starve or become welfare
dependent?
While I abhor the idea that a child should need to work to keep his family
from starving, it is still better than using force to take money from other
s who earned it and give it to those who didn't.

Not the Republicans, not the libertarians, but those
damned Hollywood liberals.

I know that this idea is one that is going to be ridiculed and called
racist, but if private property has any menaing then this is part of the
meaning. I would never support any business that had such a policy, and
I'm
sure there are plenty of other people with the same view. When any
business
with a racist policy started losing business or saw other businesses
gaining
on them as competitors because of their racism, I think things would have
changed on their own without government intervention and weakening of the
meaning of private property.

Well, both racist and ignorant. You forgot ignorant.

I believe it is the responsibility of the majority to insure the rights
of the minority, whether in race, religion, gender, sexual orientation,
or whatever. It's easy for you to think like you do as a member of the
majority. We don't have to think about our skin color, ever, unless we
happen to take a wrong turn and find ourselves in a 'minority
neighborhood.' Did you hear the majority over the past few weeks? "They
aren't calling it Christmas. It's the 'holidays' now. That ****es me
off!" That was all over the opinion pages and the radio. This is a fine
thing to get mad about if you happen to be a Christian. Personally, I
prefer holidays. But it's an illustration how majorities can act if
left unchecked.

I think there is a line between true private property (your home) and
private property that is open to the public (businesses, aprtments or
other rental properties, and so on). Think what you'd like at home. If
you don't want to serve minorities at a restaurant or a business, then
you have every right not to open a restaurant or business, or to own a
rental property.

Then you have effectivel abolished private property and at the every least
entered onto a slipery slope where all property is subject to theft by
government.

Your civil liberties are intact. You appear to believe
that private property takes priority over a minority's right to life,
liberty and a pursuit happiness.

It is the fundamental right. Without it all no other rights are fully
possible.
There is no civil right to buy a hamburger or go to a movie theatre. There
is a right to legally buy a restaraunt or theatre and allow whom you would
like to buy a ticket.

Here's a letter to the opinion page of my local paper. It appeared on
Christmas Day. I believe it illustrates your position very well:

"A permanent gap"

"What will it take to acknowledge that there will always be a gap
between rich and poor? The poor and the minorities will always be
behind in the race for the good life, but they are much better off than
any of the poor and minorities in other countries."

"These people will be well taken care of because the producers will
lift them along as we go. It's that simple."

In other words, put up and shut up because it could be worse for you.
You minorities will never be producers, or be accepted as equals, or
have the good life that we do, because that's just the way it is. And I
live in the north, where we are all 'enlightened,' just like I presume
you do.

While I appreciate the honesty of your answer, the depth of the
ignorance of you, and people who think like you do, literally astounds
me.

Likewise I'm sure. You are eager it seems to rob from the rich and give to
the poor in spite of the history of how badly such plans have worked in the
past. One trillion dollars for the Great Society programs with the same
percentage of the population still in poverty and worse the destruction of
the nuclear black family.