ConHog
Rookie
- Jun 4, 2010
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- Banned
- #261
First time poster, but have followed this story from media reports and commented on it from the political message board I normally post to, Debate Politics, which is down for upgrades currently. My wife found this site, so I decided to post here for the time being.
I get what Paul is saying, but I think he's wrong on three levels, two ofwhich are clearly covered in the Constitution:
1) Most businesses, although privately owned, do cater to the public, i.e., restaurants, gas stations, movie theators, grocery stores, etc. So, while he's attempting to generalize the issue by stating "private businesses" and "private ownership", the reality is the only way a business is considered to be private and, thus, wouldn't cater to public clientle is if they were private organizations, i.e., social clubs and places of that nature. Besides, as another poster pointed out every business, be it a sole proprietorship, partnership, or limited liability or corporation, must apply for a business license which unless specified as a private entity must serve the public. That rather nullifies this argument of "selective patrons" in a nutshell. Still...
2) Paul's concept of "freedom of choice" wouldn't work in the public sectors because of the 14th Amendment which covers citizenship AND equality for all U.S. citizens, and is further supported by Art. 4, Sect 2, clause 1 of the Constitution:
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
So, if one person who happens to be white is allowed to enter a store and receive goods and services, the same privileges should be afforded to a person who is black, Hispanic, Jewish (although not a race, such people have been discriminated against), Asian, etc.
3) This entire argument is proving to set race relations backwards, not forward. Claiming "state's rights or state soveriegnty" is merely a mask to hide bigotry and racial bias and honestly has nothing to do with a businessman's right to cater to anyone he/she sees fit within their establishment.
Surely, if a business owner doesn't want to hire or provide services to someone it is clearly within their right not to do so. Most every business has rules for hiring practises and codes of conduct that govern everything from dress code to service policies. So, if the business owner didn't want to serve Mr. Smelling Guy (as a poster to this thread eluded to as a reason not to hire someone), he doesn't have to. But, the right thing to do is to inform the patron or job applicant that your business does have a dress code and kindly inform the individual he doesn't meet standards.
So, why was the Civil Rights Act passed? It's very simple...
To stop such lunicy as what we're discussing right now, speaking on issues of individual liberty of business owners w/o taking in the full context of what such liberty would mean to those individuals who would be so grossly and adversely affected by such prejudicual actions of denied services based not on the conduct of one's character but rather the color of their skin. Don't be fooled, folks. Where this discussion is concerned, standing behind "state's rights", "state soveriegnty" and "freedom of choice" is nothing more than a smoke screen to racial biasness whether the speaker states such outright or not.
blah blah blah
The government does not extend to you the privilege of eating in my restaurant , so therefor the government can not protect said privilege. Now government agencies, you bet they can regulate who those serve; but it is unconstitutional to tell someone who they must serve in their private business no matter the reason. I would LOVE to see a case make it to the SCOTUS.