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From: mwm@ea.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: 1986 SUPREME COURT RULING - (nf)
Message-ID: <10100053@ea.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Jul-84 17:29:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ea.10100053
Posted: Tue Jul  3 17:29:00 1984
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ea!mwm    Jul  3 16:29:00 1984

/***** ea:net.politics / rand-uni!edhall /  1:17 pm  Jun 29, 1984 */
>Really, now.  How do you justify placing restrictions on a government
>that you wouldn't place on a person?  And no value judgements on the
>relative worthiness of businesses vs. governments.

I don't justify such. The government ought to have to live under the same
set of rules as people/businesses, but you'll never get a government to
agree to that kind of restriction.  It doesn't really matter, as the only
thing that can place restrictions on a government is another government (or
maybe a large multi-national corporation).

>The answer is a simple one: like any other form of law, restrictions on
>business practices are (ostensibly) for the good of the community at
>large.  In the U.S., freedom is usually considered a large component of
>this public good.  But tradeoffs need to be made between the freedoms
>allowed people: the freedom to be secure in person and property must
>supercede any supposed freedom for assult or larceny.  And the freedom
>of being treated equally must supercede the freedom to discriminate
>against people on racial or sexual grounds.  However, the highest
>freedom is that of self-determination.  Outlawing discrimination in
>personal choice would go against this.  On the other hand, outlawing
>discrimination in commerce enhances self-determination.

You missed the point of my question, which wasn't hard considering how well
I (unintentionally) hid it. It boils down to: what is it about starting a
business that causes your freedom to be restricted?  Using my previous
example again, having a wide variety of restaurants should be good for a
community, and having one shut down because the community is prejudiced
against the owner is almost certainly bad for a community. Why shouldn't
the government take action to preserve the restaurant against prejudice, in
a manner similar to the one it's already taken against in a different case
of prejudice?

I think the answer may be in the word 'ostensibly.' A valid answer would be
that the current government-enforced solution is not really working for the
good of the community.

This now leaves two questions: 1) Is there some action other than something
like AA applied to people to save the restaurant; and 2) is there some
action other than the current set of laws that would better serve the
community in handling the problems associated with bigotry? (Shooting
the stupid sobs is probably a bit radical! :-)

>End of civics lesson.

Beginning of Q&A session.

	<mike