NeoNotes — public accommodation law is wrong - updated
❝❝The Fourteenth guarantees equal protection from government, public accommodations are a whole another package.
According to FindLaw, “Federal and state laws prohibit discrimination against certain protected groups in businesses and places that are considered "public accommodations."” See, it's that "protected groups" that is the problem. You can't grant equal rights to all citizens and have "protected groups."
Beware the exceptions.
Yeah, I do.
I've said it before. “The simple answer is that moral responsibility is always a personal choice. You can't compel virtue or it ceases to be virtue.”
Assume I am a landlord. I don't want tenants who have committed violent criminal acts. If I am forced to overlook that because of their "race," I place my other tenants at risk and risk damage to my property. Effectively, the "protected group" is also protected from any criticism even if it is legitimate, or any reasonable expectation of civil behavior towards others.
Does every member of a "protected group" take advantage like this? No. Do some members of protected groups take advantage like this? Yes, enough to significantly raise costs to everyone else concerned. They believe themselves beyond the law and they exploit that.
When does the "protected group" no longer need protection? The Civil Rights Act passed fifty-three years ago. Is a century enough? Ten centuries?
The rule of law has to be uniform, there can be no justice otherwise.
Beware the exceptions.
ETA: No, I am not going to leave it there.
A racist business is not going to stay in business very long. Customers will find someone else.
With public accommodation law, some businesses will be forcibly prevented from taking reasonable precautions. I've seen urban stores that ban more than one teenager in the store at one time. That's a reasonable accommodation, at least until someone calls "racism." As long as there is a "protected group," someone will exploit it and everyone else will suffer.
That isn't what I said.
My point is that if you have a "protected group," some members of the "protected group" exploit that protection to shield themselves from the consequences of their own actions.
You can't have equal rights and "protected groups." They are the opposite thing, as American society has learned to it's sorrow.
I judge individuals by what they say and do, not by skin color. Freedom doesn't work without responsibility. Just as no one should be judged by skin color or ethnicity or religion, no one should get a free pass because of skin color or ethnicity or religion. It works both ways. It has to. That's why it's a right and not a privilege.
It's not a right unless the other guy has it too.
If you want to keep treating people as children because of their skin color, that's up to you.
Me, I'd rather be around adults who know they have to take responsibility for their own actions.
The entire "public accommodation" law is codswallop. It was codswallop when it was passed, and the longer we pretend that it's a Good Thing, the harder it will be to make things right.
Nobody should get special privileges or exemptions because of the law. It cuts both ways.
Except I am not using skin color, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or "race" to exclude anyone from anything.
I am using what individuals say and do.
At the same time (and pay attention to this because it's important), I do not believe that anyone should be shielded because of their "race," religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or skin color.
Freedom AND accepting responsibility for their words and deeds. In other words, acting like adults and not expecting Society to protect them from the Big, Bad, Boogeyman.
America is not as racist as it was in the 1960s and certainly not as racist as it was in the 1930s. The only people these days who perpetuate racism are the ones demand that people stay victims so they can be rescued.
Again, those laws are wrong.
They violate equality under the law.
"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."
If you use the law to shield one "protected group," all other groups pay higher economic and social costs. Some of the the "protected group" exploit their status to escape responsibility and the expectation of civil behavior towards others. This imposes further costs on everyone else.
Once the law is in place, those who benefit don't want it removed even as it isolates them more and more from the rest of society.
So ask yourself, do you want protected status or do you want equal rights? It's a direct tradeoff, you can't have both.
Why do you think I only wrote about "protected groups?"
Despite your constant prodding, I've limited my comments and not mentioned any specific group. I've seen the conflict between "protected groups" and who was more "victimized" and therefore deserves more "protection." Rank on the victimhood hierarchy is pretty much the defining issue of the Democrat party since the mid 1990s.
Public accommodation laws are not reasonable. To start with, such laws assume that the only possible way that "protected groups" can get a fair shake is if government protects them Forever and Ever Amen. The law treats the "protected groups" as children and that is how some of them act for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile the groups that aren't protected resent being forced to do things that they might have done on their own. After all, not all groups are protected.
You can't compel virtue or it ceases to be virtue.
And you still haven't addressed the desctructive behavior enabled by public accommodation law. If someone believes that they are beyond criticism, beyond the law, and beyond any obligation to be civilized, then what incentives do they have to behave?
Again, not every one. Probably not most. But some. And it's enough to screw up society for the rest of us.
No, I think anti-racial discrimination laws are a really bad idea. I think that by their very nature, they protect selected groups above all others. I think such laws enable victimhood even as they discourage responsibility.
Oh, and by the way, I'm not Christian.
Commerce is based on voluntary economic transactions between consenting adults.
If you take away the voluntary and the consenting, then you're destroying rights to "protect." What I choose to do is my right. Take away that choice and you are taking away rights.
Even if it's the wrong choice, it's my right.❞❞
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
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