NO NO NO it does NOT mean anyone implicitly EVER supports discrimination because that is actually a self-destructive business practice. But I DO believe in allowing those who adopt self-destructive business practices to DESTROY THEMSELVES instead of allowing them to hide behind a law and keep us from knowing what kind of asshole is running that business. If that person doesn't voluntarily CHOOSE to serve anyone regardless of race, then it will be his own community and neighbors who will make sure he knows he won't stay in business at all. Suppose government forces the owner of the business in the first picture you posted to take down that sign and serve anyone -do you think that somehow cleanses this guy's racism and he is now someone deserving of your money just because government is forcing him to do something he would never do on his own? In reality government has just hidden the racism of this guy from you and because it is hidden, YOU are being tricked into helping provide him with a living when you never would have done it if you had just known. The use of government force cannot "cleanse" this guy's racism for me and I suspect would not for most people. But it sure can hide this racist from you and prevent you from making an INFORMED DECISION to refuse to patronize his business BECAUSE of his racism. I think I have the greater right to make that informed decision than government has to hide the fact this guy is a RACIST ASSHOLE.
The thing is, your assuming this hypothetical business owner values his racism over profit. That may be the case sometimes. But. I think more often than not, a business owner will be guided by profit and will understand the possible--and in most cases, probable--financial hit he'd take were he to ever hang that 'whites only' sign out front.
So there isn't a so-called free market incentive for a racist business owner to advertise that fact, either.
It's a weak criticism of the CRA, too.
I've seen the contention on here that the CRA has made racial problems worse than would be without it. It's an unprovable claim because it's a comparison to something that never happened. I pulled this example yesterday, so I'll do it again: it's like if i were to say "I'm happier in America than I would be in France"; the comparison is worthless because I've never been to France, so don't know for sure if i would indeed be less happy over there. It's possible, but not provable.
The argument that the CRA has slowed the progress of race relations is possible, just like the argument that it has sped the progress of race relations, but neither is provable.
Government is just one of many, many institutions OF society abut it is not society itself. That means an institution OF society cannot possibly impose a better result ON society than society itself can do.
huh?
Government is a product of society. Human beings can't live together without laws, thus government. Laws are a reflection of societal ethics. It's why there's laws against murder, and rape, and theft. And society is not static. Morals and ethics are changing all the time, and are rarely shared universally. But society by and large decided that racism was a wrong in which there should be laws to provide legal recourse to the victims.
Society in general made the determination--think the million man march, etc--and demanded government write laws to reflect that sea change in values regarding racism.
You've got it backwards. Government didn't impose its arbitrary value on society, society imposed its collective value on government by demanding laws that made the Jim Crow's impossible. People called the bullshit on 'separate but equal'. People were tired of seeing blacks get sprayed in the streets. People were tired of seeing whites who sat next to blacks get beat up. Societal values changed and demanded that government respond. Not everyone agreed with it, obviously, but that's the way a constitutional republic works. Not everybody can have what they want all the time. I think my kindergarten teacher told me that.
We ended up using government as the very means of preventing the far more meaningful and fundamental change in the morals and values of society when using the freedoms and rights of OTHERS would have provided an even better outcome and probably in less time instead of using laws that often ended up all too often harming the very people it was intended to better protect -and protecting and hiding the racists among us who should never be hidden and protected by government.
The Deep South had decades and decades to move away from institutionalized racism and discrimination. Yet, election cycle after election cycle, Jim Crow laws were upheld. Why is that? I think it's because racism doesn't drop out of the sky and into someone's head. It's a cyclical product of a social environment. I believe morals and ethics are shaped by that environment, and the environment is in turn shaped by those morals and ethics, and that it can take an external force to break that cycle.
And also, racists are still allow to be racists for the most part. There are still business owners who won't hire a black man, they'll never say it outright but they know they'll always find someone else for the job.
The CRA provides the legal avenue, but society still has the ability to ostracize racism. Government hasn't taken that ability away.
Which you believe would actually provide the better result will depend on your personal view of our species in the first place. If you realize that the vast majority of people are good, decent people just trying to raise their families and have no desire to harm others at all -you believe in the power of freedom. If you think people with freedom invariably choose to use their freedoms for evil, then you will believe an institution created by man is actually morally superior to its creator. But history has already repeatedly proven that is not only dead wrong, but the very institution those who do seek to do the greatest evil will use as the means for it.
And what about the people, like me, who believe that humans are neither good nor bad? We just... are. And freedom from what, of what, exactly? Laws I disagree with? That's not how social contract works. How is freedom defined here?
And the institutions that result from our social nature (collectivism) aren't inherently good or bad; they, too, just are, and can have the capacity to be both at the same time.
In short, what about the people who don't see the world as a false dichotomy?
- some of our members are, and most have been pretty civil - I do wish to concur with those who say in most cases a business, once it opens itself to the general public, cannot refuse to serve somebody because of race, gender or whatever. I will still defend the right of a property owner, so long as he conforms to the prevailing laws and does not infringe on the rights of others, to use his property as he chooses. Therefore, if he wants a private club or enterprise restricted to a certain membership, and not open to the general public, that should be his right. I have no doubt such situations are challenged in the courts on numerous occasions.
