Steve Temple Tom Anderson unfortunately your argument is flawed at its base, My private business is in my private building that I open to the public for purposes of commerce (just like the muslim or jewish butcher), I refuse service to those imdo not want to do business with, they are free to go and do business with my competitors. If I were a government institution or an institution funded by the government you MIGHT have a point, but I am not. If I choose to not support, promote, or associate with a person or persons it is my right...
Steve Temple Also the government should not be in the business of limiting the individual, it also should not be in the business of promoting the aberrant or deviant behavior of individuals, it should be neutral and let the people and free enterprise work it out.about an hour ago ·
My reply:
Steve Temple. You have not demonstrated any flaw. Please consider any two business entities. Each owns its own property and can, in principle, determine use and disposal of said property. If one of the businesses wishes to make use of the other business' property, such as access rights, then it must agree to the terms offered. It does not have a right to use the other business' property. That is the capitalist model in which property rights, as individual rights, are respected and protected.
Now the public road is owned by those who paid for it, i.e. the taxpayers, and the government, at various levels, exists as the agent of the owners, i.e. the taxpaying public. Taxpayers then have a right to determine the conditions under which they make said public property available for use to anyone wishing to make use of it.
Any business accessing the public infrastructure must conform in its behavior to those rules--laws--the public (through government) has determined for its use and disposal. Just as Jim Crow laws required such business to segregate by race, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as well as the US Supreme Court, has determined that invidious discrimination in "public accommodations" is illegal; and, of course, it is also immoral since it is irrational for business to so discriminate.
If the road were purely privately owned, and did not form any link to public roadways or other publicly-owned infrastructure, then, by these lights, it would be legally free to discriminate invidiously. Frankly, it is difficult to see how any such private roads, which I advocate, could escape the requirements of either a public body, or the terms of some large corporation that would undoubtedly behave in a rational manner and similarly require any use (linkage, or access) of (or to) its property to be in accord with the principle of non-invidious discrimination.
As to your other objection, taxpayers are not "limiting" the individual except in the sense that non-owners, or partial-owners, cannot take it upon themselves to determine the policies of a public entity. We have corporate procedures that must be followed in any legal entity that is owned by more than one person. I am a stockholder of Walmart, but I certainly have no right to tell Walmart executives how to run the business in any way, shape or form. I may be able to influence Walmart's policies, IF I owned a significant percentage of the stock, but I would only have influence. My voice alone would not determine anything unless I owned 100% of the stock.
If the taxpayers, through their agency, the government, choose to enforce non-invidious discrimination, then they have that perfect right, within the limits defined by the US Constitution, as interpreted by the US Supreme Court.
Bottom line: If you wish to discriminate against people invidiously, then you have the perfect right to do so in your private home (even though the road on which you live may be public, a private home is not a business, nor is it catering to the general public, and it is therefore not offering an invitation to enter the premises). But your business is not your private home. By its nature, it is open to the public and the only way the public can reach your business is through some use of the public infrastructure. If you don't want to accept the taxpayer-defined rules of access, then don't open for business. You do not have any right to make use of another person's property without his consent, and that includes the taxpayers of this nation.
PsychMstr
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