Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site teldata.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!teltone!teldata!tac From: tac@teldata.UUCP () Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: 1986 SUPREME COURT RULING - (nf) Message-ID: <427@teldata.UUCP> Date: Wed, 11-Jul-84 12:40:27 EDT Article-I.D.: teldata.427 Posted: Wed Jul 11 12:40:27 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 12-Jul-84 05:23:45 EDT References: <162@sb6.UUCP>, <10100053@ea.UUCP> Organization: Teltone Corp., Kirkland, WA Lines: 69 , (sop to the blank line eaters--consider it a religious sacrifice) For those who missed it, the example mentioned had to do with an ethnic restaurant in a neighborhood where no one liked that kind of food. >> 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? >> >> >End of civics lesson. >> >> Beginning of Q&A session. >> >> > Now correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure someone will), but aren't you proposing that we subsidize all restaurants? If we all have to eat at some of them some of the time, we are forced to subsidize each and every one. What you are telling me is that if there is an eatery in my neighborhood where the food is always burned, then served cold in puddles of grease, where the food is always rotten before it is cooked (and after), where there are always cigarette butts in the food because that is where the cook flicks them and the ashes, that I should be forced to go eat there because it would be bad for the community to close it down. Now admittedly the health department would have closed down the above example for the rotten food and detritus in it, but would have done nothing about the burned, cold, greasy food. Maybe if you get your way I'll open a health food restaurant which only serves raw wheat in 1 oz. servings at $5000.00 each. I could make a living off of all of the people that you force in to my business. Sounds distinctly like socialism to me: all restaurants are equal, and equally deserving of an income. The free enterprise system is dedicated to and founded on the precept that if you provide a good product people will provide you with a good income. When you go mucking around with it it no longer works correctly. I seldom eat at restaurants in my neighborhood (there aren't very many there), but I go to where ever the GOOD restaurants are. If the Vietnamese restaurant in the example you gave was GOOD, people would come from quite a ways to eat there despite any prejudice from the neighbors. Ostracism is one of the few ways we have to force unsavory individuals to behave in a socially acceptable manner. [Neglecting the violent approach, which I favor not.] Now if I have misread you and you were spouting sarcasm, I apologize. I heartily believe that if I own a business that purports to have the ten best minds in the world to solve your problems with, and if they all happen to be handicapped (disadvantaged?) black females, there should be no reason for me to hire a required percentage of orientals or chicanos. Wouldn't it be a nice world if we could all just be folks without prejudices? We might even be free then! From the Civics Lectern of Tom Condon {...!uw-beaver!teltone!teldata!tac} An Ostracism A Day Keeps The *ssh*l*s Away. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are those of everyone who matters, but not necessarily anyone you know, and most certainly not my employers!