Freedom is the opposite of "free to discriminate"

[DaveinJapan]

That's not freedom. That's infringing on someone ELSES freedom.

Can I get a "fuck yeah!"?

Or at least a rec?

[stray cat]

1. So I can't even refuse to serve Rush Limbaugh?

[DaveinJapan]

2. lol

[Froward69]

10. If your sign read...

"NO Fat, Drunk, Stupid, shirtless shoeless homophobes served" then you could.
OR as I have seen
"This establishment reserves the right to refuse service to anyone."

As long as your refusal to serve is not based upon race or gender. it is a red hearing even bringing it up. As bringing it up as Rand Paul did. imply's you intend to discriminate based upon race or gender.

[secondwind]

3. KICKED

[LARED]

4. Actually I think you could not be more wrong

True freedom provides for you to discriminate.

[DaveinJapan]

6. I'm not wrong.

"true freedom" provides no such thing, unless you mean freedom for one.

"true freedom" means freedom for ALL, which means I can't infringe upon yours just as you can't infringe upon mine.

Freedom to discriminate is not freedom.

[LARED]

20. "true freedom" means freedom for ALL is quite the paradox

If I meet you at the public park and want to tell you all about how much Jesus loves you, and I tell you God compels me to tell everyone I meet, and you tell me shove off because you're Jewish, you are discriminating.

[lunatica]

22. No. You are imposing your freedom of religion on me

Thus imposing on my freedom from religion

[LARED]

26. Freedom from religion is simply you discriminating.

against my freedom to tell you about religion. A paradox if there ever was one.

[lunatica]

30. Nope. I'm not imposing my freedom from religion on you

As far as I'm concerned you're absolutely free to worship anything you want. I won't even try to explain my non-religion to you. And I'm certainly not going to try to convince you of it either.

It's not a paradox at all.

The issue of intolerance is a paradox. Being intolerant of intolerance can tie you in knots.

[LARED]

36. Ok, so if I have freedom, why do I not have the freedom to tell

you about my religion. If I held up a sign in a public park you are traveling through saying "Repent all sinner are hell bound. Jesus is the way" Am I still infringing on your freedom from religion?

Let me just ask another related question. I used a religious scenario because it's provocative. What you are really saying when you say you have "freedom from religion" is you have freedom from others viewpoints. Would you agree?

(Just to be clear the religion argument I am making is not my actual view)

[TampaAnimus2010]

42. This sounds like a textbook case of negative vs positive rights...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights

[The Magistrate]

31. Merely A Sophomore's Formula, Sir

It is not discrimination, as commonly understood in this context, to indicate to someone you do not want to listen to what they are saying.

It may be discrimination to ban aggressive Christian proselytizing in some venue, while allowing, say, Hare Krishna types to harass passers-by; it would not be discrimination to treat all aggressive proselytizers as persons breaching the peace, and subject to removal from the scene by the police, and the traditional 'thirty dollars or thirty days'....

[LARED]

34. Thanks, I am well aware it's not a sophistical argument

I'm just keeping it at the level of the OP.

[The Magistrate]

35. In The Words Of the Old Professor, Sir

"I want you to know, boys and girls, there are people in this world who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that."

[katzenjammers]

41. A comment that would be gleefully attributed by a certain faction, to Jesus of Nazareth.

And often, with minor variation, is.

[Renew Deal]

5. Shouldn't I be free to discriminate and be discriminated against in a free country?

Why do you want to infringe on my rights to be discriminated against. READ THE CONSTITUTION! :silly:

[Scuba]

8. No, you're missing the point....

...one group of people cannot be free if another has the right to discriminate against them. It's that simple.

[Renew Deal]

13. I know.

I was kidding.

[Scuba]

18. Whew. Thanks.

[katzenjammers]

33. What about the group of people who refuse to bathe? Shall they demand the freedom to sit

at the lunch counter and exude BO from every pore to the discomfort of others? (I'm very well aware that there isn't any Constitutional guarantee for any of us to not be annoyed)

:shrug:

sorry left out an important word :blush:

[Scuba]

37. I think this one falls where Rand Paul wanted...

...the 2nd Ammendment issue to bail him out. I can ask you to go home and bathe, after which you will be welcome in my restaurant, just like you can go lock your firearm in your vehicle.

Blacks, asians, hispanics, etc. cannot wash off their skin color, or otherwise leave it outside.

[CBR]

7. This is related to the Harm Principle... which I agree with so

I agree with you!

[LiberalLoner]

9. Yup. n/t

[nuxvomica]

11. "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

Yeah, I agree with you.

[pinboy3niner]

32. Exactly. I'm not free to INFRINGE on another's freedom

(Ed.: wrong word)

[iamjoy]

12. It's A Conundrum, Isn't It?

There is no such thing as freedom for all. One person's freedom is going to infringe on another's. Person A wants the right to smoke cigarettes wherever he wants. Person B wants to be able to breathe air that doesn't include cigarette smoke.

Person A wants to be able to observe her religion as she sees fit. Person B doesn't want to see or hear it.

Person A wants to exercise freedom of speech, including the use of profanity. Person B wants to be free from having to hear foul language, and certainly doesn't think the children should be subject to it.

All of our rights come at a cost, and that cost does take away from the "rights" of others. Paying taxes infringes on our right to spend the money we earned as we choose. However, those taxes are necessary if we are to maintain our other freedoms.

[starroute]

19. The things you list aren't all equivalent

I strongly disagree with your implication that these cases involve a trade-off between equally valid rights. In most of them, there's clearly a "right" on one side and not on the other.

The right to be free from harassment, for example, far outweighs the "right" to harass others. That is why both cigarette smoke and religious proselytizing can be excluded from public spaces. It's really no different from saying that the right to a clean city outweighs the "right" to throw trash in the streets.

On the other hand, freedom of speech protects both your right to stand up on a soapbox and declare your faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and your right to curse out the government within earshot of small children, because in these cases there's no deliberate harassment involved.

I think we all know the difference between harassment and free speech -- and it generally comes down to the ability to just walk on by without being affected. If you can't leave, like students at a graduation or passengers waiting in an airport, religious proselytizing is clearly harassment. Or if you can walk away, but not before being deeply shocked and shaken (as opposed to merely offended) -- as by anti-abortionists' photos of dismembered fetuses -- that's also evidence of an attempt to proselytize.

The exact definitions can get fuzzy -- religious fundamentalists clearly believe that prayers don't amount to proselytizing while teaching evolution does -- but I think the general principle is pretty universally accepted.

And what it comes down to is that rights are as near to absolute as we can make them, while "freedom" is not. The Bill of Rights guarantees specific freedoms -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so forth -- but there has never been a universal freedom to do anything you damn well please no matter whom it injures. And in the interests of creating a smoothly-running society that maximizes the rights of all, freedom really does have to be concentrated in carefully chosen areas.

In other words, there is no such thing as a freedom to discriminate when it comes to offering services to the public. And there are no subtle philosophical distinctions involved in saying so.

[katzenjammers]

27. Are you suggesting that one can't* refuse service to anyone for -any- reason?

I'm surmising you are from your last paragraph:

"...there is no such thing as a freedom to discriminate when it comes to offering services to the public. And there are no subtle philosophical distinctions involved in saying so."

* by "can't" I mean "should not be allowed to by law


and also, what exactly does discriminate mean in your example? Would an airline refusing to give
a 350 pound passenger a seat by an emergency exit qualify? I'm not disagreeing with you in principle, just wonder where the goal posts are (if there are any)

:-)

[starroute]

43. By discriminate, I guess I meant "refuse based on personal prejudice"

You can refuse to let little kids go on certain amusement park rides. You can eject patrons for being drunk and unruly. You can set up a "no shirt, no shoes, no service" rule -- or even a "suit and tie only" rule if you're running a highly formal restaurant.

But what you can't do is institute a "we don't want your kind round here" policy that lets you keep certain people out just because you don't like them.

It's the difference between objective and subjective. You can exclude people for objective reasons that an outside observer would agree had a specific purpose and were being applied uniformly across the board. You can't exclude them just because of your subjective feelings.

[iamjoy]

45. Devil's Advocate

I mean, this is kind of what Libertarians believe and I do see their point, I just disagree with it.

From the Fourteenth Amendment
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Notice it refers to actions by the states, not private businesses within the state. It refers to laws, but not a private enterprises policies. Taken literally, one could argue that there is nothing in the 14th amendment that would prevent a private business from having racist policies.

Me, I think we need to look at the spirit of the law, and not take it too literally. Libertarians and strict constructionists disagree.

Of course, there is nothing in the amendment that gives businesses the right to discriminate either, but that point isn't usually mentioned.

[slackmaster]

14. You get a Rec

:kick:

[athenasatanjesus]

15. There is no such thing as pure freedom.

Freedom is a balancing act.
If you make it illegal to murder now your stomping on the freedom of murderers on the other hand if a murderer murders you they stomped on your freedom to live.
It's the governments job to balance our freedoms.
I wish libertarians understood that.

[katzenjammers]

24. Have some libertarians proposed to legalize murder?

News to me...
shrug

[slackmaster]

25. No, only dueling

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210101630

[katzenjammers]

28. LOL! Okay, well, I can get on board with that.

:D

If the potential duelers both want to settle their disputes that way, I say let 'em go for it! (I'm not kidding)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

38. Sigh.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=8003776

[patrice]

16. Discrimination is the opposite of Freedom. It is Slavery to one's own Ignorance & Hatred, so it is

Slavery not only to those upon whom you enforce it, it is also Slavery for Bigots, because they are NOT FREE to be anything other than bigots, not free to be Free of the attitudes and prejudices of the group with whom they identify. In some ways, it could be said that they are even more deeply en-Slaved than those whom they seek to en-Slave with their prejudices.

[dkf]

17. One persons freedom tends to clash with other peoples freedoms.

That has always been the dilemma.

By physically restraining dangerous criminals I increase my freedom of movement. By limiting your ability to speed I am safer on the road. The more I have the law restrain what I find objectionable about you the more freedom I have to live a nice life.

[katzenjammers]

23. Indeed, and there are some who object to you impeding the efficient, speedy flow

of traffic.

:evilgrin:

Gotta feel for those poor oxen, somebody'll gore 'em no matter what. ;-)

[katzenjammers]

21. Discrimination isn't a bad thing in and of itself. We all do it (and would be automatons if we

didn't)...we just need to remember the distinction between discrimination, prejudice and bigotry.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. Freedom

"Freedom for the supporters of the government only, for the members of one party only - no matter how big its membership may be - is no freedom at all. Freedom is always for the man who thinks differently." Rosa Luxemburg

"All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow." H.L. Mencken

"Freedom is the right to one's dignity as a man." - Unknown

"I know of but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind." Antoine de Sainte Exupery

"Freedom cannot be granted. It must be taken." Max Sterner

"Freedom is the absolute right of all adult men and women to seek permission for their actions only from their own conscience and reason, and to be determined in their actions only by their own will, and consequently to be responsible only to themselves, and then to the society to which they belong, but only insofar as they have made a free decision to belong to it." Mikhail Bakunin

[Dr Morbius]

39. To put it in short, no one is "free" to do harm.

Freedom is not, and was never intended to be, a license to injure. Claims that one is entitled to be "free" to do as one pleases without consequence are a childish fantasy. Doing harm is in fact the very definition of abuse of freedom.

[katzenjammers]

40. I think you're mistaken. A 'free' person most definitely has the freedom to do harm.

Even instituting a policy of Prior Restraint cannot overcome it. Now that I think about it, every person in possession of his corporeal existance and/or his mind has the capability to do harm...and I sure can't think of any way to eliminate that potentiality...can you?

('his' means his or her, I don't like the common but sloppy usage of 'their')

[Dr Morbius]

46. Let me put it this way: doing harm, and then claiming one should be "free" to do it, is wrong.

No one has a "right" to inflict harm. True, if you want to inflict harm, it is likely no one will be able to stop you. But that's not freedom. That's crime. That's injustice. Not freedom.

[katzenjammers]

47. But what realistic definition of "freedom" would be even close, if it is not

'the unrestrained ability to do whatever one desires to do'?

I can't see how societal approval or legality (or the lack of it) can prevent someone from availing
themselves of the opportunity if they so choose. Punishment after the fact is irrelevant, isn't it?

[Dr Morbius]

48. So freedom includes the right to kill, rape, steal, whatever, as long as one doesn't get caught?

I cannot refute your definition of freedom, which looks remarkably like the one at dictionary.com. But to me, freedom does not include a right to inflict harm on another. Again, I cannot refute your version of freedom, so I will withdraw from the thread.

Apologies.

[katzenjammers]

49. I strive for precision as well as accuracy (I'm sure you know the difference)

I'm pretty sure I didn't imply that freedom implies any "rights"...to my admittedly imperfect mind, freedom is something you want to do, rights are those things you're permitted to do.

Does that sound reasonably close to the truth?

;-)

[RandomThoughts]

44. Actually pure freedom is anarchy.

If you are totaly free you can discriminate. That is how groups that push for much freedom often do not have concept of social laws to protect society by limiting some freedom.

There are some concepts of not having to follow laws, but only when in perfect love, because then you would not do anything like discriminate or hurt any other person. But some people think that concept means anarchy and doing what ever a person wants. So they use it as an excues to hurt people, and a backwards concept then what it really is about.