U.S. Politics - Indiana is super awesome

[Seli]

@DanteGabriel

Look, thats a nice private opinion (which I share) but that does not matter fuck. You have to put it in an consistant legal text which is in line with the constitution. Thats the big issue.

There are easy roads, which clearly work:

1. You have to sell no mattter what they want on their cake.

2. The baker gets the last word.

...

You miss the important bit. The baker is not allowed to discriminate in their refusal to do some specific work. There will always be nuance and what exactly constitutes discrimination is a matter for the courts and lawmakers to decide.

[Biglose]

You miss the important bit. The baker is not allowed to discriminate in their refusal to do some specific work. There will always be nuance and what exactly constitutes discrimination is a matter for the courts and lawmakers to decide.

No, I am not. The point is, that in a court of law you have to prove wrongdoing not the other way around.

So if somebodey says I don't do unicorn cakes, you have to prove he or she did it for (lets do clichee) the little girls birthday.

The issue I am talking about is, that if you try to bypass this problem by ordering that any baker has to do every design you open up a lot of issues. And you can't really restrict it, because you would need to argue why you draw the line here and not there...

[Swordfish]

Okay... how would you feel about a bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for an interracial wedding? Because don't kid yourself, there are plenty of people still out there who think that shouldn't be allowed.

I'd feel like it was morally repugnant, and i would refuse to patronize that store. just like in the case of these other bakeries. There are two of them in Oregon, and i would never go to either one of them (although I believe at least one is now closed)

[SkynJay]

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but if a baker does not want to make a cake for an interracial wedding that should be their right. It is their business.

We went over this. And the threads move at incredible rates so I don't blame you if you missed the question. What businesses are you willing to extend this to? Specifically asked were things like the only open private emergency care provider in town, the only grocery store in walking distance, the only hotel with a vacancy.

You are ok with every one of these turning people away?

[Seli]

No, I am not. The point is, that in a court of law you have to prove wrongdoing not the other way around.

So if somebodey says I don't do unicorn cakes, you have to prove he or she did it for (lets do clichee) the little girls birthday.

The issue I am talking about is, that if you try to bypass this problem by ordering that any baker has to do every design you open up a lot of issues. And you can't really restrict it, because you would need to argue why you draw the line here and not there...

Of course you can restrict it, because we can and do argue if the line is crossed and have a specific system that is dedicated to it, the aforementioned courts.

And if, as with the cake stories and the photographer, the business is stupid enough to make it clear they are refusing service due to the (protected) status of the prospective client they have it coming. And if a business is large enough to create a clear pattern, they have it coming.

[Ramsay Gimp]

We went over this. And the threads move at incredible rates so I don't blame you if you missed the question. What businesses are you willing to extend this to? Specifically asked were things like the only open private emergency care provider in town, the only grocery store in walking distance, the only hotel with a vacancy.

You are ok with every one of these turning people away?

There are all sorts of assumptions and holes in these hypotheticals

[Summah]

Ramsay, so you're ok with bringing back the necessity for the Green Book?

[The guy from the Vale]

There are all sorts of assumptions and holes in these hypotheticals

All sorts of hypotheticals apply in real-world examples. The first one is particularly problematic... and used to be how things happened. Billie Holiday's father died because no hospital in Austin was willing to accept a black man.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Ramsay, what about something like a gas station?

[Ramsay Gimp]

Ramsay, what about something like a gas station?

If he wants to be a racist cunt and turn away minorities, that's his loss. Another gas station could open down the road and rake in all the business that he rejects

But he should not be forced to serve anyone

[Larry of the Lawn]

All business depend on the public and on tax payers to some degree. A gas station exists because of publicly funded roads, oil subsidies, zoning permits that are usually limited in number. The ones that are open late typically receive extra police attention to prevent late night robberies. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

I'm sure you would have an issue with a fire department refusing to help a black homeowner. But even businesses exist on a spectrum of public support. Where do you draw the line?

I am sympathetic to the free speech argument that Ormond put forth, but I have a difficult time accepting that the market will correct for bad behavior when history says otherwise, and especially when most businesses benefit from a level of public support and funding.

[The guy from the Vale]

If he wants to be a racist cunt and turn away minorities, that's his loss. Another gas station could open down the road and rake in all the business that he rejects

But he should not be forced to serve anyone

Not if most members of that community are racist cunts too and will only frequent the gas station that doesn't serve anyone but white people.

Look, all of these things happened. Claiming that the market would correct itself ignores that societal pressure is a thing, and that a majority of racist fucks, in such cases, can make life hell for minorities.

[Ramsay Gimp]

They benefit from it because they are forced to pay for it. I don't buy the argument that businesses are indebted to the state or "society", since the benefits they receive already come at the (not insignificant) cost of taxation. Where do the funds for roads, police, etc come from?

[Ormond]

I said the cake decoration thing is borderline for me in terms of "free speech." I would draw the line in favor of the freedom of the cake decorator, but I would not be outraged if the courts decided the line was on the other side of that particular action.

But you really do have to draw a line in this somewhere. Otherwise you end up with Ramsay's libertarian utopia where any business owner has the right to refuse even essential services to people with no other alternative, or you end up with a world where any business owner is required to completely follow any request by a customer that's even remotely related to their business. I don't want to live in EITHER of those two worlds.

[Swordfish]

I said the cake decoration thing is borderline for me in terms of "free speech." I would draw the line in favor of the freedom of the cake decorator, but I would not be outraged if the courts decided the line was on the other side of that particular action.

But you really do have to draw a line in this somewhere. Otherwise you end up with Ramsay's libertarian utopia where any business owner has the right to refuse even essential services to people with no other alternative, or you end up with a world where any business owner is required to completely follow any request by a customer that's even remotely related to their business. I don't want to live in EITHER of those two worlds.

I'm with you on this one.

Thank you for verbalizing it more clearly than I was able to.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Not if most members of that community are racist cunts too and will only frequent the gas station that doesn't serve anyone but white people.

Look, all of these things happened. Claiming that the market would correct itself ignores that societal pressure is a thing, and that a majority of racist fucks, in such cases, can make life hell for minorities.

This goes both ways. The vast majority of societal pressure TODAY is against bigotry and pro-lgbt. The Indiana backlash being just one example

You really think the USA is currently filled with so many hateful racists that they would refuse to go to a gas station that even SERVED minorities? I encourage you to get out more, in that case...

[Larry of the Lawn]

They benefit from it because they are forced to pay for it. I don't buy the argument that businesses are indebted to the state or "society", since the benefits they receive already come at the (not insignificant) cost of taxation. Where do the funds for roads, police, etc come from?

From everyone, including the customers you want them to be able to turn away. And the idea that a place can just open down the street to compete doesn't always work- there is usually a limited amount of commercially zoned property in a given area. Shit in the town I grew up, one guy owned every single piece of property that the 5 gas stations and two shopping centers were on.

[The guy from the Vale]

Yes, today there is also pressure against racist and anti-gay bigots. It's been a long way until we've even come to that point. I'd hate for all that hard-fought progress to evaporate.

I don't live in the US, so I can't comment on the state of race relations.

Apparently, however, there are still states in the US (Indiana, Arkansas) where such anti-lgbt gas stations would have majority support. Pence was elected in Indiana, after all.

[Larry of the Lawn]

This goes both ways. The vast majority of societal pressure TODAY is against bigotry and pro-lgbt. The Indiana backlash being just one example

You really think the USA is currently filled with so many hateful racists that they would refuse to go to a gas station that even SERVED minorities? I encourage you to get out more, in that case...

Sorry for double post.

And yet look at how much money poured into the pizza place's gofundme.

What about businesses that accept SBA loans? My point is that there is a spectrum as far as public funding that includes every service and business from a fire department, to a hospital, to a gas station, to an independent contrator, to an artist. Like Ormond said, the line needs to go somewhere. Where does it go?

[Biglose]

This goes both ways. The vast majority of societal pressure TODAY is against bigotry and pro-lgbt. The Indiana backlash being just one example

You really think the USA is currently filled with so many hateful racists that they would refuse to go to a gas station that even SERVED minorities? I encourage you to get out more, in that case...

What you say works with interactions with two people in an empty space. Are a bunch of people stranded on an Island. And yes, this way of thinking has its applications. And it should be followed if possible to ensure that personal freedom is protected. But to apply it where you can't apply it does excactly the opposite. It infringes personal freedom for it allows a single person or a group of people to run roughshot over an other group or even the rest.

Why should I for example be forced to pay for the police if I have a big family and a lot of strong and able hands but don't own that much? (It can even be a big farm and some buissnesses up to several millions owned by a family(clan) of maybe around 20. (Like me, my wife, my father, my mother, my sister, her husband (+mother,father and brother), my brother, his fiance and in total 8 children)

Why should I pay for the protection of somebody elses property? What do I care if the racist gasstation gets burned to the ground?

What you describe is actually nothing short of Mad Max. The way you get around it is, that you still want people to pay for stuff you think of as important. Guess what, thats not libertarian, everybody kind of wants other people to pay for stuff he or she think is important and skimm on stuff he or she does not find important.